‘It Wasn’t My Time’: ABQ Business Owner Brushes With Death Drive Mission

He’s 6-foot-7, so it’s easy to imagine Mark Tobias as a basketball big man during his childhood and college years.

But it was coaching the sport that eventually led him to a career helping local businesses and organizations thrive.

Tobiasen is a certified business and executive coach who deals with cash flow issues and issues related to running or expanding a business. Most important, he says, is the mentorship and human connection he provides to help business owners overcome their fears and move forward with confidence.

“It’s helping individuals, typically business owners or executives or management teams, with their personal development as a first person,” says Tobiason, a business coach at Action Coach. “Companies grow or not, largely based on the growth or lack thereof of their owners. What I’ve done with high school kids on the basketball court is helping them become better people, better leaders. And then the result follows. “

Tobiason has worked with hundreds of clients, including local veterinarians and doctors, a New Mexico cancer center, attorneys, restaurant and apparel companies, and at least one funeral home.

He and his wife hold a quarterly workshop where their clients — and anyone else who wants to attend — can listen to guest speakers and “reboot the next 90 of their business and personal lives.”

Tobiasen says he speaks from the heart — he once nearly died three times during a three-month stint at the Cleveland Clinic from an autoimmune disease.

“It changed me in a way that nothing else could have,” he said. “I can be more real with people.”

What makes you think personal development is so important to a business owner?

“I had to learn the hard way – I could read profit and loss[statements]in my sleep. When I started this business, I thought, ‘I have to teach that stuff.’ Won’t they? Focus, accountability, confidence, teaching the human side, teaching the psychological side (requires) them to go out and do it.”

Is there a client you are particularly proud of?

“The most important thing for a coach to work is that the person is the coach. They have to be comfortable with airing their laundry and taking advice and taking help. One of the most coachable people I’ve ever worked with is[a woman]who owns a consignment boutique company. Eight or nine years later, I’m still with her today.” I’m working on it. The thing I’m most proud of is her ability to overcome adversity. Like, the pandemic hit, she got these three stores, and one day they were going to close completely. So she was literally crying in my office. We started coming up with a plan: ‘Hey, guess what? Online business. It’s about to be built.’ Today, her online business is close to being as big as her physical business. And she sells things everywhere, not just here in Albuquerque.”

What makes you good at what you do?

“I can look anyone in the eye and tell them, ‘I’ve been there.’ Even though Enterprise (Rental Car) is a multi-billion dollar company, each branch is independent so when I was there it was just me and my branch. In my 20s, I was becoming a leader and developing others around me and then I started moving up. So having a tough conversation with that employee, a big competitor comes in, whatever, I’m over that. Number 2, I humanize the experience. Personal growth is key and staying true to it. The third thing is that when someone sits down with me and we set their goals, their goals become my goals.

What are your pets?

“Say what you’re going to do, then do what you’re going to say. Another is to set your goals very low. Don’t enter all, only half.

Please tell me about your near death experiences.

“In 2017, I fell in the bathroom and passed out. There was massive internal bleeding. That started a downhill slide that landed me in Presbyterian (hospital) for two weeks. The bleeding stopped and I was sent home. And it happened again. I spent three months at the Cleveland Clinic, where the best man in the world who had this disease was a resident. It is the origin of lupus. I had two surgeries. He got through all that, but dropped 60 pounds, couldn’t walk, had to go through rehab. I was in remission, but it flared up, and I was on (bright thin) and my numbers were off. I’m driving down the street, and a 19-year-old kid pulls up on me. It was that influence that started all this happening, and that survival was huge. It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. But now I am healthier than before. We made a lot of discoveries about what was going on and fixed things.

And please explain how that affected your business.

“My husband and I often talk about this… believing it’s not my time. And this business was a big part of that. We are dead serious about this. An idea we haven’t finished yet. This was yet to happen. So I believed. When I tell people, we build a better business so you can live a bigger life, I know what that means, because I’m living it. I connect the dots with life. This is not all we are talking about. It’s who we are.”