MarKing is a Community Leader, Culture Creator, A Student of Human Behavior, Life Practitioner, Guardian of the Human Spirit, and an Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Development Coach.

MarKing has over 25+ years of experience in personal development and received training and coaching in emotional intelligence, and meditation through Dr. Joe Dispenza. His work is informed as an artist, creative and activist and is one of the Co-Founders and Former Artistic Director of Bindlestiff Studio.

His background provides a unique insight to the inner workings of creatives. He provides tools, a framework, and a practice as a foundation to build off of to help reprogram mindset and overcome any emotional or mental blocks.

His passions are helping to elevate communities, photography, playing disc golf and helping others find what truly makes their ‘Soul Smile’.

“True leadership is learning to lead yourself.”

But this is really what you want to know about me…

I KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE THAT CLOSE TO THE EDGE.

The voices in your head so loud it's deafening. The more I tried to make it stop, the louder it got. I know 'crazy.' I've felt where the edge of insanity really is and I was that close to losing it.

I've been through my share of shit—racism, bullying, heartbreak, trauma, a near-death motorcycle accident where I almost killed my best friend. Depression that made me question if any of this even mattered or if I even mattered.

So many times I thought to myself, "That's it! I'm fuqn DONE!!!" And deep down, suppressing what being 'done' was really suggesting. I just wanted to breathe freely again.

Then came the breaking point.

One day I found myself in Borders—a bookstore that doesn't even exist anymore—standing in the personal development section desperately looking for something…anything to help me escape what I was going through and feeling. In those moments I was so scared, paralyzed, and perpetually feeling stuck in my shit again.

A book grabbed my attention! I picked it up, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers because that title was exactly what I was experiencing in that very moment. I randomly flipped to a chapter about the monkey brain, the chatterbox.

And boom.

Someone put a label to exactly what I was experiencing. She talked about how she got to the other side of it all. And that's all I needed to hear. It gave me some level of grounding, footing…That meant I could overcome it too. That meant I could breathe again.

That was the foundation I needed to start climbing out of absolute shit show I was living. That was the start of my EQ journey…

THAT JOURNEY CONTINUES EVERY DAY

I'm still on it. Still evolving. I still have my ups and downs. I still make mistakes. But now I have the tools, the practice, the foundation to continue growing, expanding, and exploring the highest vibrations and expressions of who I am. I still experience life’s journey and I get to go through the feelings. But now I don’t have to hold them and allow myself to let go of the ones that no longer serve me.

I am no longer victim to my feelings. I am empowered by them.

Here's what you get to know now—no one has to live the rest of their life in a shit show.

Everyone deserves to explore the best versions of who they know they are. To re-ignite their passions, their purpose. To experience that liberation that frees us from the shackles of judgment—from others and, more importantly, from ourselves.

That's why I do this work.

Because to me, EQ isn't some woo woo, soft hippie dippie shit. It's about learning to lead yourself. It's about building a healthy relationship with Self so you can have healthier relationships with everything else—every person, place, and thing in your life.

When you develop your EQ practice, you stop being victim to your fears. You're no longer just reacting to everyone and everything. You take ownership, accountability. You take your power back. You empower yourself. You become a healthier person, a better friend, a better partner, a better leader.

AND FOR ME - IT GOES EVEN DEEPER THAN PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

In my bigger picture of why I do what I do—as part of my Mission—this is how I believe we can change the world.

We're facing three critical challenges right now:

First: The personal crisis. Too many people are drowning in toxic inner dialogue, depression, anxiety, fear. Living lives they don't want because they're too afraid to change. Its sad— and it's a withering of human potential.

Second: The leadership crisis. People who demonstrate use of narcissistic behaviors and patterns poison our humanity. We're surrounded by narcissistic, ego-driven leaders in our communities, organizations, workplaces, and politics. Leaders who manipulate to maintain power, often at the expense of others. It’s literally choking our own humanity with suppression, oppression, and authoritarianism. And it needs to change! But it’s almost impossible to get rid of the top, the powerful—they're too bought in and beholden to the system. They are more enamored with self-interest, self-preservation and power. To successfully change the top, we have to infiltrate every system from the ground up with a new kind of leadership rooted in compassion and understanding and expunge the behaviors and patterns of manipulation and control.

“Good leaders know how to lead. Great leaders know how to follow. Exceptional leaders know how to lead, follow, and will have mastery in their own emotional intelligence.”

Exceptional leaders will be our stewards and guides for our own humanity.

Third: The humanity crisis. We're entering an AI age where we risk losing the very essence of what makes us human. If we don't start flexing our emotional intelligence when interacting with AI—whether it’s as a developer or CEO of AI company to your everyday casual user and consumer of AI and everything in between—we will slowly fall victim to the manipulation and control of AI and robotics—from machines that cannot actually feel—our emotional intelligence is literally the last fiber holding us to our humanity.

That's why this work matters NOW.

When everyday people develop their EQ practice—flexing it daily in their homes, workplaces, communities—we create a grassroots revolution. We nurture and infiltrate new leadership rooted in love, compassion, understanding, empathy. Mindfulness, thoughtfulness, and heartfulness.

Leaders who operate from their highest expressions while thriving in their passions. This is the type of leadership we need, especially as we head into this rapidly changing era of AI and global governance.

When you fix your own inner world, you automatically become part of the solution for everything else.

You become the kind of leader the world desperately needs. The kind who's done their own inner work and can hold space for others to do theirs.