Mark here with a deeply personal story to help you take your message to the next level.
This isn’t easy to share on a blog, but I want you to know how far I’ve come thanks to speaking.
Before I met Shannon, I was married for 8 years.
And about 1 year into my marriage, I was leading a seminar and got a call from my (former) wife.
She was crying in hysterics and just found out her dad died of a heart attack.
By the time I went to see her, she had received a 2nd call that her mom was admitted to the hospital with advanced stage breast cancer.
She died 109 days later.
Needless to say, we were devastated and although we tried to make it work, over the years, our marriage just fell apart.
The death of my in-laws & the complexity of keeping a broken marriage together was too much…
I felt broken and just trying to make each day the best it could be.
Then we divorced.
What Life Is Like When You’re Not Speaking
I wasn’t speaking or following my calling.
I wasn’t doing yoga or hiking… In fact, I had gained almost 40lbs… I was having a really hard time, alone with nothing but my thoughts.
Having worked as a Senior Branding Consultant for Clear Channel, the largest communications company in the world and consulting clients like Marriott, AFLAC, Porshe & Wells Fargo, I knew how important a brand was…
but couldn’t quite land on who my ideal clients were.
I was spinning my wheels trying to figure out my niche.
I spent 7 YEARS spinning my wheels having developed 11 different iterations of my brand… none of which was an authentic expression of my essence.
I was beginning to think… I don’t have what it takes.
Maybe I should just go back to Corporate and get a J.O.B.
But the thought of that made me cringe.
I was isolating, depressed and realized I was out of integrity because I wasn’t following my spiritual practice or speaking…
I was miserable.
I couldn’t take it anymore and finally, I took control of my life.
I mean, I had ran branding campaigns that resulted in $4M of revenue, worked with 6 figure marketing budgets, wrote and produced 1000’s of Radio Commercials, over 200 seminars with the top name leaders in our industry – so why was I having such a struggle?
I remember crying in the mirror… and saying to myself, “Mark you’re out of integrity… You’re not walkin’ your talk.”
It was in that moment, that I took back control of my life:
I got back into my daily yoga practice, got back to studying ‘A Course in Miracles’… both of which I had been studying for 15 years.
And… I hired a spiritual mentor.
I started speaking and was committed to following my calling.
So how did we START?
How did we generate 6 figures in our first event and $400,000 in our first 10 months from scratch?
BY SPEAKING!
The reason speaking helped me was for the following deep reasons:
- Speaking put me out there (instead of staying home pondering my options)
- Speaking allowed me to HELP others
- Speaking wasn’t rocket science (you can get up in front of 4 people at a Meetup, this isn’t like putting a man on the moon!)
- Speaking connected me to a Higher Source
- Speaking focused me on my purpose
- Speaking…attracts clients!
Share with me in the comments how my story helped you, it would mean a lot to me.
“How Did My Story Help YOU?
What Inspired You MOST?”
In your corner and by your side,
Mark
