Conquering Life’s Stage Fright

Transforming Fear into Confidence Now and Post Pandemic

Based on Mark’s popular book, he brings the content to life at your event through exciting stories, performance and interactive processes to transfer fear into confidence both in times of crisis and times of prosperity.  Mark demonstrates how all individual and team performances are broken down into three simple yet powerful steps: Clarity, Capability and Confidence.  Your immediate benefit is the ability to use these three powerful and universal concepts to drive you and your team’s performance to a higher level by transforming fear and trepidation into Confidence  and optimism.

Everyone must have clarity with respect to their goals. Whether you’re the Beatles or Bill Gates, it’s essential to clearly examine and define your ultimate objectives in order to accurately determine the skills required to get there. Through his failed audition for Bad English, at the beginning of his professional career, Mark realized that he needed real clarity about what was missing from his skillset in order to create the mindset to move forward and succeed. Clarity allows us to cut through all the ambiguity and confusion to get us to the next level in our personal and professional lives. The root of any failed performance, presentation, communication, pitch or sale stems from vital (and usually simple) information that we are missing – things we do not know, but certainly can learn. Once we understand that fact, we can identify where we currently stand relative to that missing information or goal, and put ourselves on the path toward top performance.

Mark talks about and demonstrates (through playing drums on a P!NK medley) that it is truly not what we play but how we play that determines step two: capability. Once our goals are crystal clear, only then are we in a position to develop proficiency in the necessary skills that will  expand our current capabilities. It is more than simply putting in Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘10,000 hours’; it is the attention and intention with which we perform that determines the quality of our output. Capability is embodied by excellent preparation, education, the continual feeding of one’s mind and the proper execution of our skills. Only then can we bust down barriers and solve the problems that have prevented us from accomplishing the goals we have so specifically clarified. We will be poised to become skilled, proficient, accomplished and talented in ways that will move us towards the goals we have worked so hard and so smart to create.

Like his longtime friends and colleagues P!NK and Ex-Chicago Bears Kicker Robbie Gould have done, Mark demonstrates actual confidence through cultivating the state of being certain. Mark tells fascinating, emotional stories about ‘Design Thinking’ that encourage participants to shift their ‘have-tos’ to ‘get-tos.’ Instead of assessing your success from your past performances, Mark emphasizes that you are only as good as your next kick, next gig or next communication/presentation.

And remember: it is not about completely eradicating fear or stage fright; it is about taming it, harnessing it and using it to your advantage. Then you can use the chemical balance between fear and excitement, taking advantage of the fire in the belly. You will achieve a state of pristine performance in your personal and professional life.