Coach: Mark Porteous
Founder: Mark Porteous - Soul Connector
Focus: Soul Connector
Article is condensed & summarized version of interview
Introduction
My name is Mark Porteous, often known as the soul connector. That's a name given to me by my mentor, Allen Davidson. I help connect people to who they are at the soul level. I help to connect people to their soul purpose and their soul tribe; the people that are there to help spread their message out to the world (perfect customers, dream team, affiliate ambassadors).
First and foremost, I'm a husband of over 20 years and a father of teenage twins , my son Zen and my daughter Eden. My family is incredibly relevant to what I do because that’s the purpose of my work. It is not just about making an impact on the world, but how the work that I do can make me a better person. I'm sure you've heard that entrepreneurship is one of the best for personal growth and personal transformation. The other two for me are marriage and parenthood. Being able to bring those together into my business is my main focus now for 2025.
When people see me taking my family on business cruises or trips, they think of balance; but it’s really not as balanced as it looks. I don’t try to build a balanced life because I believe in an integrated one; where you learn to prioritize family, friends and self-care first. For instance, self-care is one of the first things that gets sacrificed on the path of entrepreneurship. As a beginner, prioritization is one of the biggest challenges. We usually think that doing, doing, doing, doing, and getting the next thing done will give us the room to take care of ourselves or spend time with the people we love. I have found that it works in reverse. When you build your business on a foundation of these types of boundaries, all of the rest will fall into place, and it will fall into place in a way that doesn’t leave you feeling burnt out.
Were You Always an Entrepreneur?
Well, when I was 11, my neighbor approached me and said, we’ve got seaweed in the pond; I’ll pay you $10 an hour to clean it. Minimum wage was $3.75. I said, “Where’s the rake?!” From there, I created business cards and flyers, and I started selling this service to my neighbors. I actually still have those business cards today.
Growing up, I was raised by a single mom, and we were poor. If I wanted new shoes or if I wanted a bike or anything extra, I had to come up with funds to do it. This taught me that I could create cash if I needed it. And when I look back on my life, I see myself trying to balance things I love with needing to make more money. For instance, I would work as a ski instructor, and then I would move into selling bulletin board stocks to stockbrokers. Then, I would have more money to spend on fun things.
Full circle, we now do a business workshop for folks in a similar position called the “Monetize Your Mission Map.” We look at past experiences, wisdom, knowledge, passion, and what people are willing to pay for, and we find out where those things intersect. When I look back, I realize that when I was able to integrate those things, I was able to find meaning in what I was doing, enjoy it, and generate enough wealth that would give me the real freedom I wanted; never feeling in bondage to my business or to a boss.
How Did You Integrate Your Life With Business?
Back in 1992, I was working for Greenpeace International. I was 22 years old, and my girlfriend at the time brought me to my first metaphysical bookstore. We walked in, and I read a bumper sticker quote that changed my life: “We are not human beings having spiritual experiences. We're spiritual beings having human experiences.”
When I read that, much of what I've been writing about clicked. I wanted to write a book called The Human Experience. I went home and told my dad, who'd written three books, that I wanted to write a book. I thought he was going to be so proud of me for following in his footsteps. And his first response was: “Don't expect to make any money writing a book. You need to have a business, not just a book.” Then I thought, “How can I make money so that I don't have to make money on the book?”
Fast-forward a few years, and I actually ended up selling souvenirs at amusement parks. I got the idea after seeing a friend make his first million from selling hair wraps to people at Disney parks. I started the business in Orlando selling souvenirs, tattoos, hair wraps, and more. I built this business up to about 100 employees and I had one manager in Ohio managing the hours for all of our staff, inventory, and everything else. That person has been managing my life ever since, and I ended up marrying her 3 years later in Florida.
After five years with that business, I realized I created this business just to create a business. I then sold the business and went into sales for Time Warner. At the time, I figured that having a job like this would give me the time to write my book. I could probably get it done in 2 years and then figure out what to do with the rest of my life and follow my father's advice. Well, two years turned into ten years. My wife was pregnant with twins, and I hadn’t added anything to the book.
To be honest, I had gotten very lazy, making lots of money in sales, getting sent to Jamaica, the Bahamas, or Bermuda. Every year, I’d go on these trips, sometimes known as the “Golden Handcuffs,” and realize that if I didn’t make a change, I would teach my children the deferred lifestyle of putting off purpose and passion for safety and security.
That created a pit in my stomach. I couldn’t let another decade pass without writing my book. When they were born, I had the book done. And by the time they were a year old, my wife helped me to self-publish on Amazon. She asked, “Now what? You've always wanted to write this book. What do you want to do with it?” That’s when she suggested life coaching.
I had never met anybody who was or had hired a life coach. I'd only seen them on TV, and I thought it was the new form of therapy. We researched online, and we found that in 2011, life coaches were making less than $20,000 a year. Now it's $30,000, a whopping huge increase over 10 years, and we thought that it wouldn't work.
My wife said that I was not an average sales rep, so I shouldn’t look at the average life coach's earnings. So we checked the top earners and saw Tony Robbins making eight figures. We saw seven-figure coaches, promising coaches that they can make six figures in their first year.
In the following five years, I also learned that using someone’s exact business approach doesn’t yield the same results.
My first coach asked about my niche, and when I answered that I was a spiritual coach, he laughed, saying, “You won't make money there. Pick from health, wealth, or love, then sneak in spirituality.” And I've learned people also invest in spirituality, meaningful experiences, and life-changing events. Now, it's not just about money but money and meaning. It took years to unlearn what I had learned, and I realized that the main thing that people invest in is authenticity.
Was There a Moment You Decided to Leave Your 9-5?
I hired a coach to get a 90-day coaching certification to see if this was what I wanted to do. Then, I hired another coach for a year-long program while still working my other job.
When I finished writing my book, I went to my coach/mentor, and I told her, “I’m going to quit my corporate job, I’m going to go out there, become a coach, and change the world!”
She looked at me in the eyes and said, ”Oh honey, you’re not ready for that yet. You still need that job. That job needs you, and your family needs that job.” I thought she was talking about scarcity. I almost broke down right there. I wanted this forever. “I have to keep this hourly sales job?”. Soon, I understood the fastest way to my goal was to see why I was exactly where I needed to be.
I had to learn marketing, understand coaching, and the whole idea of understanding what people want and where they are in the gap and how to understand all of those pieces. I spent a year on that, but I still had the golden handcuffs. After that year, I left. I hadn’t figured it all out yet, and I wasn’t making the income I needed.
Did You Have Coaching Mentors?
It wasn't until my first event in 2013 that I met who was eventually my mentor who called me “The soul connector.” We met at a 3-day live event called “Wealthy Visionary Conference," with Marcia Weider. I remember the warmth of the embrace of joining that community. At another event, I saw him again, learned even more about the industry, and eventually was taken under his wing.
I tried hiring him for JV launches. I was coming out of my corporate job and I had money saved up. I wanted to grow fast. And he said, “What results do you have? Where are your case studies?” and I said, “Case studies? I just got started.”
He told me, “Get your results first. Find people, help them, get case studies, and then I can help you find more people.”
That's one of the hesitations that a lot of coaches have: “How can I help people if I’m not worthy? How can I coach people when I’m still screwed up myself? I’m not perfect yet.”
The fact is that there is something that we’re really good at. I recommend to start by helping family or friends. If you guide a relative, that's your first case study. Then, you can say, “I did this for them, I can do it for you,” for your second. When you get your third case study, you can now understand and say “hey, this is who they were before, and not only did they lose weight, but now they’re playing in the park with their kids.” You can actually show the transformation. You can show they are having the life that they want to have. It’s not about weight. It’s about what they can get and who they can be on the other side.
That’s the first thing I learned: you have to start being the coach that you want to be before you figure out all the marketing, branding, and strategy. It's having the courage to go out there and start seeing how you can serve people first.
Some coaches just care about selling more coaching programs, and that taints it for everybody else. Authenticity matters, especially for those with imposter syndrome. By addressing our own doubts as a coach, we become better at helping others overcome theirs.
How Did You Build Your First Coaching Program?
Before I ever had a coaching program, I did a mastermind in 2011, which I still run now. That's what I love doing most and how I serve other coaches. I wasn't in a coaching program, but I found myself with other coaches. We created a peer group of 10, with no specific plan, just navigating the industry together. After a year, we shared what we learned from various gurus.
During that time, I learned what we needed and ended up offering my first mastermind program on content, messaging, marketing, and mindset. My first client joined while I ran the free one on the side, and she paid $350 monthly for weekly 1-on-1 coaching with me. Through that process, I learned a lot. She was coaching me, asking me about homework, notes, or assignments. I felt I wasn't good enough, but she saw potential in me. Like many mentors before, she held that light for me, trusting that my accountability, sales, and marketing skills aligned with her values. She was teaching me what I love about coaching. I spent more time with this client than any other client in the future.
My next client was the opposite. They would pay me, but they were very hard to work with because they didn't follow the guidance and suggestions that they themselves came up with. I quickly learned who was not a perfect customer. Then on the organic path, one of my other mentors, Jan Stringer, wrote a book called Attracting Perfect Customers, which is about the law of attraction in marketing. This led me to move from coaching to helping people build partnerships.
Now, I work with lots of coaches, and many of my clients are coaches. They hire me to help them build partnerships and find sponsors. That eventually lead to me creating a mastermind for transformational leaders called MetaMind.
Do You Prefer Group Coaching or Masterminds?
They're all kind of the same in the level of income and type of problems, but they're not usually competing for the same type of work. A group coaching program might incorporate mastermind elements like love seats, breakout groups, and peer support, but it's mainly focused on a shared process or outcome. If you're coaching, you teach a process where participants can join at any point, or focus on an outcome, like launching a website within 3 months.
The mastermind concept is about two or more people forming a creative, abundant force. Think and Grow Rich introduces this idea through the greediest men in America, who thought to collaborate to enrich themselves at other’s expense. We use “Metamind” because it’s about more than just the group; it’s about serving each other’s communities. There's still a guru model where you learn from the teacher while also becoming one.
What Are Your Offerings?
I left my corporate job in October 2012, and it took 5 years to figure out who I wanted to serve. Now, I teach people who the people are that they want to server, the main problem that they want to solve, and then figure out how to deliver that. That can be packaged as a Mastermind or a 3-day live in-person retreat. Mastermind. And the 3-day live in-person retreat.
The 3-day retreat is something that my wife and I get to do on stage together. It’s about connecting to who you are at the soul level so that you can step into a bigger version of yourself and have a greater mindset. Those days of the retreat are about connecting to your sole purpose, your customer journey, and knowing how to guide people through that journey.
Client attraction is such a huge part of it as well. Sometimes, that means attracting the wrong people, so you know what not to attract. I use the event as a way to draw people into our mastermind, “MetaMind.” We have about 33 people in there right now.
One of the people who joined in 2020 is now my business partner, David Rickland. He had created something called selfgrowth.com before Google in 1997. And then, together, we created a joint venture directory, which was a tool used to help deliver what I was doing in our Metamind. A SaaS offer that facilitated these connections.
After five years, it has become a community of its own; a joint venture community of coaches, authors, and speakers. We have in-person events and a mastermind for ongoing collaboration. It's a 3-part system where I support coaches through coaching, but I don't primarily promote myself as a coach.
Can You Give Us Advice on Partnerships & Networking?
As a joint venture strategist, partnerships are central. When I'm on calls, I'm always thinking, “Who can I connect you with?” It’s like the saying, “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Now I'm seeing nails everywhere! I love to talk about building partnerships because it's so much better than ads. After all, we can use referral partnerships so much more effectively than ads.
With ads, all the messaging must be spot-on; it's not ideal for beginners. There are different levels of a referral partner. Doing a full mailing list is a big commitment, but simple introductions can work just as well.
Having somebody who can introduce you to people is the most powerful way to grow your business. Many use health and wellness because there are so many health and wellness coaches. Whether you're a dietitian, physical therapist, or even a fashion designer - people who lose weight, need new clothes. Understanding what your ideal customer needs before and after interacting with you is crucial. This is known as the upstream and downstream of joint venture partnering; identifying who those people are.
There are all kinds of well-known people in this industry that I wouldn’t want to work with. You need to know your values and be able to be confident enough to stand in them when you’re looking for other people who serve your audience.
Another big part of joint ventures is leading by example, not “if you do something for me, then I'll do something for you.” I probably give 100 times more than I receive, but the returns are incredibly valuable. Sending an introduction is easy, and even if I send out 10 and get one in return, that one can be highly impactful. I'd choose one excellent introduction over 100 mediocre ones any day.
Understanding reciprocity is important. Most partners want visibility first. They want to get on stage to get publicity. Another thing to have in mind is revenue, created in different ways. If you're a YouTube specialist, you could offer a partner an audit, saying: “Let me check out your YouTube channel and help make it monetizable.” This can lead to referrals from your partner.
Focus on who you want to serve first. Aiming for a win-win-win scenario. Those are the partnerships you're looking for. How can you serve that partner? What can you offer, and what do you want in return? Maybe it's getting on their stage, an introduction, being on their podcast, or an interview. Knowing what you have to offer and knowing what you would like to have in return makes it easy to find great partners.
What Were Your Biggest Mistakes?
Believing that if I did the same thing as someone else, I would get the same results. That's the worst advice. There are many copycats out there. And it's about being in alignment with who you are and not outsourcing your intuition or inner guidance.
For a long time, that's what I did. In 2020, I had a 3-day mastermind retreat in Orlando with my soulful advisors, and I let them pick the dates. Since then, I realized I was outsourcing my intuition. Part of this is practicing intuition and trusting yourself. Your coach is great, but if your body is saying no, don't do it and trust your intuition no matter what.
Which Coaching Resources Helped You?
One of my greatest mentors is Michael Singer. He created the Temple of the Universe who wrote the books Surrender Experiment and The Untethered Soul. He sold his company for one billion dollars to WebMD after deciding that he would follow his intuition no matter how crazy or illogical it was.
He only does things that are in alignment with his intuition, making him both a great spiritual teacher and a financial teacher. The biggest thing I've been practicing is intuition. Ignoring it makes the voice quieter, but following it makes it louder, clearer, and easier to act on.
Where Can People Learn More?
