Episode 130

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Published on:

20th Feb 2025

Ep. 130: Kevin Stark, Former Navy SEAL & Marc Cabrera, Former Investment Banker

Topics:

  • How to Avoid Mid-Career Burnout
  • Confusing Activity with Productivity
  • Building Mental Resilience Through Endurance

...and so much more.

Top Takeaways

  • Write your own eulogy to reframe success. Professionals often hit a mid-career plateau where work feels less fulfilling. Kevin shares practical exercises to help reframe your purpose. One standout is the "Tombstone Exercise": write what you'd want on your tombstone or in your eulogy. This helps separate transactional accomplishments from transformational impacts. After all, most people want to be remembered as a good father, husband, mentor, or community leader—not just a top-performing MD.
  • Energy management beats time management. Time is finite, but energy can be optimized. Kevin, Marc, and Jordan agree that true productivity doesn’t come from packed calendars or inbox zero. It comes from understanding when and how your energy peaks and protecting it for the moments that matter most—like deep work sessions or family time. Try this: audit your schedule for the next week, identify your high-energy hours, and reserve them for your most important tasks.


  • The Dirt Bike Rule: How to navigate through life’s toughest ruts. When you hit a professional or personal rut, sometimes the best approach is to stay put. Marc uses a dirt bike analogy: on a rough trail, gripping the handlebars too tightly or forcing your way out often makes things worse. Stay loose, focus on the process, and ride it out. Moments like these build the patience, resilience, and perspective you need for long-term success.


Recommended Reads from This Episode

  • “Never Enough” by Mike Hayes: Reframes success as aligning your life with a deeper mission rather than endlessly chasing more.
  • “Happier” by Tal Ben-Shahar: Explains how balancing present enjoyment with future purpose leads to greater happiness.
  • “Deep Work” by Cal Newport: Teaches how to structure your time for focus, creativity, and high-impact work.
  • “The Psychology of Money” by Morgan Housel: Challenges the idea that wealth is about income, emphasizing control over time instead.
  • “The Comfort Crisis” by Michael Easter: Explores how embracing discomfort—rather than fighting it—can lead to growth.


About Kevin Stark

Kevin Stark is a former Navy SEAL with 20+ years of experience, including time as a BUD/S instructor. Now a leadership coach, speaker, and ultra-endurance athlete, Kevin brings the same grit and mental toughness from his military career into his coaching. His programs help people reconnect with their core values and find meaning in the work they do every day.


About Marc Cabrera

Marc Cabrera is a former investment banker with 25+ years of experience, including multiple PE exits and board positions. After a successful career on Wall Street, Marc stepped away from finance to focus on family, community, and personal growth. He now serves as a volunteer firefighter and uses his experience to mentor others. 

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About the Podcast

Investors & Operators
A Podcast by 51 Labs
The M&A market can be boring, but everyone has a story. The Investors & Operators podcast is about discovering the stories people were holding back, didn’t know how to tell, or forgot about. The goal is simple: fresh, authentic storytelling to bring people together in the M&A community.

With over 1M organic views and counting on LinkedIn, 51 Labs is disrupting the M&A market through the use of videography and content creation. In a market that longs for authenticity, 51 Labs helps strengthen your brand and tell your story. From concept to distribution, we strategize and produce thoughtful content to be used across a multitude of channels, to help you stand out in an otherwise traditionally boring market.

New episodes every other Thursday at 6:00am Eastern.

About your host

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Jordan Selleck

Founder. Recovering Investment Banker. 3x Entrepreneur. Philz Coffee Enthusiast.

Jordan Selleck is a recovering investment banker turned 3x entrepreneur. While teaching English in China, Jordan met an investment banker in a bar and before he knew it he’d spent six years in cross-border investment banking advising global corporates and private equity firms on M&A deals up to $250 million.

As much as Jordan loved investment banking, he always knew he was meant to do something more. In 2016, Jordan founded Debtmaven, a deal management platform for debt financing in the lower middle market. It was while he was marketing Debtmaven on LinkedIn that Jordan found his true passion: building meaningful relationships in the lower middle market.

Seeing over 50% of Debtmaven’s $450million+ in deals come from LinkedIn, he realized he’d found an untapped market and began his journey with LinkedIn consulting. Dozens of clients and a handful of extraordinarily talented employees later, 51 Labs is a thriving marketing agency for the lower middle market that produces captivating content and generates organic traffic across LinkedIn.

Jordan was born in San Diego, grew up in North Carolina and attended UNC-Chapel Hill. He has traveled to 32 countries, lived in China for 18 months, trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, is a fourth-generation private pilot, SCUBA dives, speaks Mandarin Chinese, and is a husband and father of 2.