“We are all one question away from a different life, personally and professionally.”
Meet Marc Champagne – a best-selling author, podcast host, keynote speaker, and mental fitness strategist who helps corporate teams and individuals enhance their mental wellbeing.
Leveraging insights gained from hundreds of interviews and studying leading minds such as Kobe Bryant, Maya Angelou, Coco Chanel, and Stephen Hawking, Marc trains people to ask better questions so they can clear out mental clutter, release pent-up stress, expand their clarity, and rev up performance.
He is the author of the best-selling book Personal Socrates: Better Questions, Better Lives, host of the top-50 ranked podcast Behind The Human, and a sought-after speaker who provides mental fitness strategies to Fortune 500 companies such as Google Pixel, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, LinkedIn, and many more.
If you are ready to unlock more clarity in your life, we highly recommend picking up a copy of Marc’s beautifully designed book. For a sneak peek, here is Marc’s personal story as told in the introduction.
“I sat alone in silence. My eyes fixated on my laptop screen displaying the Apple metrics from KYO, the digital journaling app and mental fitness company I had cofounded three and a half years prior. It was the idea that made me leave a well-paying job, a comfortable environment, and a secure life. As I glanced over the screen, one number made me shake my head in wonder––86,997,014. The number of people we had reached in just under two years of being in the App Store. My next move was to hit the “delete app from App Store” button.
Despite all the hype in the media, collaborations with respected brands, and app features from Apple all around the world, KYO was failing. We needed more time and resources to develop a sustainable business model, and we no longer had either.
After hitting “delete” a flurry of questions passed through my mind like a rocket with no chance of returning to earth. How does this make sense? How could I fail at such a colossal level? What would people think? What judgments would people have? What would our investors and advisors say? As my chest tightened with anxiety, I remember feeling like a broken human that not only let himself down but also his family.
I had uprooted my wife and one-year-old son, Caleb, from the neighborhood, city, and home we loved in Montreal to move to Toronto, with the idea of being in Canada’s largest city to seize opportunity for the business while also being physically closer to my cofounder. Living in Toronto came with prospects, but it also came with a much higher cost of living. However, that was okay because we sold our condo in Montreal and would rent a home for a year until the business took off, then we could find the ideal neighborhood and home to raise our family.
At the time, the business plan and financials backed up the decision to relocate. I would have regretted not relocating and giving the idea all my energy and the best chance to succeed. Despite how the business turned out, taking that opportunity led to the most impactful self-development years of my life to date.
The worst part was the temporary destruction of my mind from deleting the app. I was not just deleting an app from the store: I was deleting my identity from the last three years, the motivation surrounding a new idea, and any hopes of helping millions of people–with one action from my finger on my touchpad. At least this is what I was hearing from my internal narrative.
I never felt more alone in my life than at that moment. The business had financially failed. My backup plan of returning to the industry I had left behind to pursue this app idea no longer felt aligned with what I wanted in my life. I was living in a house that I hated and could not even afford. Every morning, I physically felt sick and struggled to recognize the face I saw in the mirror. I was also terrified that my now three-year-old would pick up on the extreme stress in our household and be scarred later in life. The worst part: for the first time in my life, I had no plan forward because of crippling fear.
The Turning Point
In my darkest days, I turned to journaling, and the detail with which I interrogated myself led to a critical realization and the foundation for this book: at any point, we are one question away from a different life. It took time, but each day, I resorted back to my mental fitness—training for my mind to process emotion, be more clear, and live each day with intention.
The training came from all the practices, insights, and key learnings from years of soaking up knowledge from books, blogs, podcasts, and the reflective questions I had gathered from interviewing hundreds of brilliant humans over the years through multiple podcasts, including the show I still host today: Behind The Human.
I physically and mentally slowed down by harnessing the present moment to absorb and study exceptional people’s minds. I took their wisdom and flipped it into reflective questions allowing me to think about where and how I could apply that wisdom to my current situation. The questions were critical because without them the wisdom often only served as short bursts of inspiration versus the clarity and sustainable motivation I needed to reignite my mind. The journaling allowed me to go deeper through and apply what I was learning in real time.
Perhaps the most significant and most valuable shift showed up in the type of questions I was asking. I went from destructive and shaming questions like, “What would people think?” to curiosity-driven and empowering questions, like the prompts you are about to experience in the profiles to come, such as, “What would make today great?”
Each day provided micro-moments of reflection and clarity leading up to living with purpose and intention. Now was the time for radical honesty—no filters, just me, the page, and the biggest question of them all: What do I want for my life? This question changed everything for me. It brought back hope, excitement, and started the process of creating a plan. One question led to the next, and the next one after that, until the steps forward were clear and felt right: a process I now know as the Socratic method.
Spending time with powerful questions, like many historical figures before me, allowed me to learn from the past, build myself back up, and have a clear vision for where I was heading. Seeing the power of a single prompt, I knew I had to unlock this practice for more people, but from a different perspective, through the narrative of the questions shaping the lives of extraordinary humans. Stories that would be relatable and meet people specifically where they were in their journey. Without those few minutes of reflection each day and well-timed questions from people I could relate to, I would have easily slipped into a dark depression.
When we are clear and act with intention and purpose, we expand what is possible.”
Excerpted from “Personal Socrates: Better Questions, Better Life” (Baronfig Circus Books, 2021)
Let Marc help you find the question(s) that will unlock more clarity and intention in your life.
Catch the podcast and pick up a copy of his book today at behindthehuman.com.