Compound Your Coping: Marcus Norman on Pain, Leadership and the Toolbox
Friends and followers, this episode was less about the plant and more about the person holding it.
Marcus Norman is a military veteran, an entrepreneur and the host of the Gentleman Style podcast. He co-owns a mental health practice with a team of nine-plus therapists and clinicians. He also runs a small portfolio of cannabis dispensary vending machines in Virginia. Two businesses, two fronts, as he put it: one for the mind, one for the body.
I wanted to talk to him about pressure. What we carry. What we reach for. And what that says about how we are living.
The ingrown toenail
I asked Marcus what adults are carrying that they do not know how to name. His answer was one word. Pain.
Then he told me a story I will not forget. Years of combat boots and rucksacks in the military. After he got out, he bumped his big toe and dropped in level ten pain. It was an ingrown toenail that had grown into the skin. He had lived in pain for so long it felt normal.
His point: a lot of what we call depression, isolation, or just being introverted is really pain nobody ever addressed. The behavior is the symptom. The pain underneath is the thing.
How long have you been walking on something that should have stopped you?
We become what we are around
Marcus believes environment shapes habit more than willpower does. A child who never sees McDonald’s does not know it exists. Change what is around a person and you change what they reach for. His advice is blunt. If you are not thriving where you are, change your environment.
Strength is not leadership
I asked Marcus what real leadership requires that social media motivation never teaches. He said courage, creativity and a listening ear. He pointed to the Greek philosophers, who mapped the heavens with no modern tools by listening to each other.
Leadership is not how strong or how much I can dominate over a person.
Marcus Norman
That one landed for me. I have kids, grandkids and a blended family. The first lesson I learned was that to truly be in charge, I had to lead first. Listen first. That is not weakness. That is the job.
Comfort or freedom?
This is a question I have been chasing in my own writing for a long time. Do people want freedom, or do they want comfort with fewer consequences?
Marcus did not hesitate. The latter. Freedom means carving a new path and being accountable for it. Comfort is easier. And for most people, he said, the turning point only comes when “life has to break you.”
He talked about money the same way. He believes most adult stress is financial, and the cure is knowledge. Then he told me about a man whose friend gave him a Dave Ramsey book, gift-wrapped, with a thousand dollars in cash tucked inside. A year later, the man was still broke. The book was still on his shelf. The money he needed had been sitting in his house the whole time.
Compound your coping
This is the part I keep for the GUDWUDZ community. I asked Marcus what adults should ask themselves before any habit becomes part of their relief ritual. You know how it goes. You smoke for your nerves at night. Then it is wake and bake. Then a lunch break smoke. Then after dinner. Then bedtime. And the thing you started for relief has become a habit.
Marcus borrowed from his grandmother: everything in moderation. Then he added a math term. Compounding. When something gives you relief, stack something else positive on top of it. Walking. Exercise. Kickboxing. Meditation. He once saw a man power walking through his neighborhood with a smoke in his hand. Not perfect. But compounding.
There’s no toolbox with just one tool, right? It’s a multi-tool in that toolbox. So add more tools to your toolbox so you don’t have just the one.
Marcus Norman
That is how I think about ritual. I made GUDWUDZ for intention, not for autopilot. One tool in the box, not the whole box. My friend Farmer Tom Lauerman talks about keeping cannabis core: the plant, grown honestly, enjoyed simply. Simple is not the same as constant.
Marcus is a COVID survivor. He spent a month and a half in the hospital. Someone once asked him what his friends and family would write on his headstone if he died today. If the answer would not make you proud, he says, change today.
So what is in your toolbox right now? And what would they write?
Read the full episode recap on Unscripted Cannabis, and find Marcus at the Gentleman Style podcast.
Another tool worth adding is other people. That is what I wrote about in The Circle Is the Point. And when you do sit down for your ritual, hold something made to last.
Marcus’s views are his own. Nothing here is medical advice.
GUDWUDZ is a handcrafted walnut smoking accessory brand rooted in culture, craft and intentional living. Just J, also known as Mr. Gudwudz, hosts conversations on Unscripted Cannabis. More from Just J at mrgudwudz.com.
