First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Mark McKeon (Episode 25)
Here’s the episode transcript for Episode 25 with Mark McKeon. Alternatively you can listen to my conversation with Mark.
Leanne: Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Mark McKeon.
Mark McKeon: Hello Leanne
Leanne: Hi Mark, thanks so much for your time. Mark to start, I'd really love you to share with our listeners your career journey, it's a bit different from any other facilitator that we've had on the show. You started out playing in a high performing footy team and then transitioned to a high performing coach, and now you work with businesses as well. You've pivoted your skills through sport and business, can you share with our listeners a little bit about your career journey and how you wound up in the world of speaking and facilitating?
Mark: It's certainly not a stayed journey, it was really serendipity 101 because, as you mentioned I was involved with footy as a player, and then as a high performance coach my original training was in biomechanics and human movement. While I was doing the high performance coaching, because in those days it wasn't a full time role, I also set up corporate gyms for clients, and one of the clients actually asked me to do a talk to the staff to try to get more people to join the camp.
I did that and I had a call couple of days later from an agent, a speakers bureau rep asking me to- when I was doing another talk I had let him know because he wanted to come and watch. I said, "Well, I'm not doing anymore, that was the only one. That was a one off." He actually then organized a job, a freebie came along, I guess he liked what we saw and asked if I'd want him to represent me.
It was purely by accident and then slowly over the next five years that took over from my corporate work and then another 10 years later from my coaching work, and for the last, I guess 20 years, it's been an absolute full time role.
Leanne: Congratulations. That first stage, can you remember that was over say 20 years ago, what kind of preparation had you had before that, had you had any kind of media training through your footy career or was this just something that you learnt on your own?
Mark: Look, no, to be honest, I think it's maybe just a skill that I've managed to have, and it was obviously very raw at the time and I've hopefully improved it since then, but I just try to do it in as honest and as natural way as I could. I still try to do that now maybe I think it's like 1,400 presentations later I still try to bring that same honesty to my presentations when I can.
Leanne: Wow. Let's talk about those parallels between I guess high performance. Also, I used to play netball, not at the level that you did, but at a pretty high level. I've often said in the Podcast the way that I prepare for a big workshop or a speech is the same way that I prepare for a netball game in terms of my morning routine, the music I listen to when I'm on the drive in. Do you find that there are some parallels between playing in a high performing game like a footy final as opposed to presenting in front of thousands of people?
Mark: Yes, definitely. It's one of the things that really drew me towards it because after I played for a little while, but then coached for a lot longer, you do everything you can and you do your role to your highest level but come game day, the players would run out, not watch from the sidelines and whether that's a ego thing or a desire to have the most influence you can, really restores the fact that if you are on stage, if you are facilitating it, it was you, it was your performance, it was your ability to affect the outcome, so I think that's a really strong parallel from a broader point of view of the AFL environment and a corporate environment.
I think it's also amazing how much impact leaders have, coaches or business leaders have in getting that discretionary effort, in getting that high level of performance out of their teams is amazingly close parallels there.
Leanne: Let's talk about that discretionary effort, what does that look like for you in terms of your preparation for a big- say for a big workshop? Say you got a new client, they want something, let's talk about you guys are in training a bit later, but you are approached and you haven't worked in an industry before, what kind of effort do you put in to making that a really great experience for the people that show up?
Mark: That's where the rubber hits the road. That's just one thing you can't [unintelligible 00:04:30] regardless of whether you have been traveling or you have been busy with other roles, you have to do that, you have to do that research. I always would want to have that absolutely done at least the day before the event, if not well before that. Certainly, that starts with your web search, you're checking their website and getting a close understanding of what the industry does, what their product or service is, if you haven't had previous experience with that company or with that industry.
Then most importantly, when you're getting a brief from the clients, often the clients don't really know what it is they want or you might be working with a committee and there are [chuckles] differing views on what should and what shouldn't happen. One of the great dangers especially in a facilitation role is it becomes vague and you don't have clear idea of what you are trying to achieve.
When I do that brief I'm always starting with the end in mind and I often ask the people if you had a magic wand in this day or this say could go as well as they possibly could, what would be the three outcomes? For them that can be a really challenging question that they need to go away and think about and discuss. Once you know as a facilitator what those three outcomes are, then you can work back and do your preparation about your discussion groups or what content you might provide yourself and you can structure your day.
I'm quite a casual person but that's one thing that I'm not casual about, I can be quite painful about that and the only other thing is room set up. I'm very pedantic about room set up to make sure that you've got the best opportunity for people to be involved.
Leanne: Great, so in terms of room set up, what does that look like for you?
Mark: Every room is different, but I would certainly, and it depends on the size of the group and so on. The worst rooms are long, skinny rooms like corridor type rooms where you are at one end and there can be a long distance between you and the last person. That makes it much harder. A room that was like that, I would try to have that configured, so that I was in the side in the middle so people are only half as far away from you as they would be to have it the other way.
If it's more of a presentation thing and it is a large audience, you have to have a stage. Often, organizers won't provide a stage, but you have to have a stage. I'm about 183 centimeters, I'm reasonably tall, but if people are sitting down and they might be 10,15 meters away from you, it's very hard for them to see you. I also would never have a lectern because a lectern is a barrier between you and the audience and you need to be open and in control, so I'd absolutely get rid of that.
In terms of seating with a small group where it may be a facilitation where there's 30 or 40 people, I think round tables open at the front, so people aren't sitting with their back to you, are much more preferable rather than a U-shaped- most are U-shaped depending on the number of people in the room can work, but it tends to be very formal and very back to school because people are sitting next to each other almost like they are back in school.
If it's a large audience but in a bigger auditorium that might hold a few hundred or even more people to block off the back and have the people more towards the front, so they are closer to you.
Leanne: Yes, you always find a nice big sort of room set up. When you invite people to come in, they always linger towards the back and it's a bit of effort to rally them up the front. That's really good practical advice.
Mark: Pleasure. Just in regard to that too for people who haven't facilitated so many times before, if you are ever in doubt as to whether you should or shouldn't use a microphone, always, in my opinion, use it because you might have a strong voice, but you could be speaking all day and the extra amplification that you get through a mic makes your voice much deeper, much more resonant and it just really adds to quality.
Sometimes people say, "Why did you use a mic? There wasn't that many people there." It actually, it's one of those subtle thing that helps. My preference is for a lapel mic because it means both hands are free. When you have a hand held mic unless you have it in the right spot as it very easy to get that popping peep all the time. If it's a directional mic one other thing that sometimes people may not be aware of, if you hold the mic a hand held mic vertically just in front of your chin, you don't get nearly as good a sound as if you hold it at an angle so the top of the microphone is directly in front of your mouth, but of course, when you do that you are actually partially hiding your face. [chuckles]
Whichever way you go with a hand held mic you lose a little bit, so my preference is the lapel mic. Of course, I wouldn't use a lectern mic because to use the lectern mic you need to stand behind the lectern, and as I mentioned that could be a block between you and the audience, but just to add to that all these things or opinions and people have their own preference.
Leanne: That's true, but I agree with you on all of those, especially the having a lectern up there. I think there's nothing worse, it creates a block. I guess people use it because it's a bit of a safety net for them, because they can have their notes there and everything else. I do challenge all of our listeners too, if given the option go the lapel, it's definitely more free. Just remember to have it switched off when you're offstage. [chuckles]
Mark: Yes. Also, I'm sorry to interrupt there Leanne, also, be pedantic about the battery. If there's an AV take there, they'll often say, "Just had a new battery yesterday", but I would actually respectfully ask for a new battery before your session because I've been on stage in front of quite a few 100 people when the battery's gone, just fails and you're mute. It's embarrassing for someone have to run up on stage and fiddle around with the battery pack while you're trying to do your presentation.
Leanne: Is that one of the worst things that happened to you onstage or have you had any other experiences that you can share?
Mark: Look, things are going to happen, that certainly happened a couple of times. There's been malfunctions in the warning system, you'll get alarms as if there's been a fire and so on. Once at a presentation at the MCG they were testing a siren, so they rang the siren every 15 seconds for about 10 minutes. There's been malfunctions of equipment where stages have collapsed, not in a dangerous way where anyone's got hurt or anything like that, but things are going to happen and that's when it does the audience will take the lead from you.
If you show that it's not really worrying you or you're pretending that's it's not really worrying you, they'll come along for the ride. Expect the unexpected.
Leanne: That's really good advice, to expect the unexpected, I think it's key for all facilitators to be extremely flexible, which is difficult if you want to control where it's going and those outcomes that you spoke about, your top three and waving that magic wand, I think that's a really great question. What other in terms of your delivery style, what do you think that you bring to a show or to an event. What does Mark bring?
Mark: Well, hopefully some knowledge and some expertise and some enthusiasm. When I was thinking about the chat we were going to have, and this is my number one tip if you like, it's something that even quite a few people in the industry with a lot of experience, to be honest I think don't do. It's what I call being audience centric. What I mean by that is, if you're at the front whether it's a keynote presentation or a facilitation, you've been given the privilege because either you know something that the audience don't know or you're trying to get the audience to do something that they may not be doing.
You're in a really important center of influence there. A lot of people when they're in that situation, they're thinking of themselves, "What will I say? How will I go? I hope I don't run out of time, I hope they can see my slides, I hope I get an eight out of 10." They're thinking about themselves. Even to the point where sometimes when I actually help teach presentation skills, when people are putting a practice, I'll put a plant in the audience who will actually get out their phone and pretend to send a text message or even lift up a newspaper, full tabloid newspaper and hide their head behind the newspaper in the front row.
After the person has done this practice presentation you'll say of them, "Who do you think wasn't quite engaged?" Very often they won't know.
Leanne: Wow. Okay. Because I weren't paying attention, I was more absorbed in-[crosstalk]
Mark: Exactly. By audience centric, what I mean by that is you're a servant for the audience. The more you think about the audience, how can I help the audience in your preparation phase, and then in the actual presentation or facilitation phase, it makes you look at the audience, it makes you aware if a particular person maybe isn't quite engaged or if you've really hit a note that you need to keep going on, whether it's time to pause and ask questions.
The cues are always there from the audience and I think it's the most important thing. In addition to that, audiences love it, they love it, they can sense it, they can smell it when you've got their best interests at heart. I think it enriches the experience for everyone. If as a presenter you get a bit nervous or unsure, it tends to take away all that anxiety because your focus is away from yourself and towards the audience.
I often say to people, some people present with a easier solution, "Now, what we should problem again, mentality." As a facilitator you need to have the opposite, you need to dig and find and listen and watch. I think that's the magic, I really do think that's the magic.
Leanne: That is the magic. I love audience-centric approach. What you were explaining in terms of your presentation skills training, I think that everyone's worst fears is they're out there talking and someone will pull out to find that it's very real. I think instead of seeing it as something to be fearful about, it's really a sign to you to say, instead of continuing what you're doing, why don't you break it up? Why don't you ask your question and use this as a cue to make the workshop a better impact?
I think that's a really great practical tool for all of our learners. Don't take it as a personal hit to what you're doing, take it as a sign to switch things around.
Mark: What happens from that and if you using a slide deck and where that session has gone means that the next couple of slides are no longer valid or not at that time. Then I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that because of the way the session's gone. Going to slide mode, fast forwarding through to where you want to go and just bring up the next slide.
You don't have to be a prisoner to the structure that you've set. A lot of people are worried about running out of content, they'll prepare four hours worth for an hour presentation.
I find it's always different, if certainly in a facilitation, a keynote it's a little bit different but a facilitation is always different and on forever swapping slides around and stopping and accelerating and changing the times and the breaks and so on, all really hopefully, to the benefit of the audience rather than my own comfort level.
Leanne: Wow. Yes, very challenging, great information there. You talked about people do have this fear of running out of content before the times allocated is over. What do you do in that situation if you have run out of time or do you throughout the day recognize, "We've gone quickly here, we have more time for a discussion here." Do you pace it a bit more or do you wait until the end and go, "Well, here are some other things I've thought about, let's do this now." How did you approach it?
Mark: It's a good question. To be honest, I've been doing this a long time now, I have a lot of blocks of different information and I think maybe one of the indicators that you maybe have reached a certain level of competence or beyond is that you've always got more than you have time for. That's one thing so I guess you'd say fundamentally. The second thing is I will always have more ready in the preparation phase than I think I'm going to need.
Sometimes those later ones that I wasn't going to get to because of the way the session goes, maybe will come forward and something else we wont to get to. I'm always going back to that thinking with the end in mind, "What's going to be the best thing to actually get to those outcomes we want?" That's the other, maybe a really important thing that's a little bit different to sport, to be honest.
When you were playing netball or if any of your listeners are playing sport, I found I would always perform better when I was just in a moment, I wasn't really thinking about it too much. I wasn't conscious of how many kicks I'd had, I was just doing it. As a facilitator you almost need another part of your brain because while you might even be speaking, listening and be part of discussion, part of your brain has got to be thinking, 'Where do I go next? What does that person mean? What's the context, how do I move towards that outcome?"
You almost need to split your brain to the one that's actively there, to the one that's thinking about where do I go next. That's something that probably does come from experience. When people come to me and say they want to be a facilitator, I actually [inaudible 00:19:02] focus on that audience centricity I spoke. I mentioned about the split brain and then I'll tell them, "Go away and do it a 100 times and come back", because that's what it takes I think. That's a [unintelligible 00:19:14] -
Leanne: It is. It's really, really difficult to stay in the moment and stay completely present, which as we know is really important. Then also I think, "where is this moving to? What do I need to do next?" You don't need to split your brain, but I've never heard of it being compartmentalized that. I think by doing this Podcast as well, when I first started I think this is episode 25.
When I first started I was keeping to script a lot, but I think through the journey I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm thinking where is this conversation leading to, and directing it that way. I think live questions and interviewing is very similar to the whole and split brain in terms of facilitation too.
Mark: I agree, absolutely agree. There's a lot of synergy there and sometimes when you're being interviewed from someone and the discussion is headed in a certain direction, [chuckles] it can tell you that they're just asking you the next question that's on their run so just not no longer [unintelligible 00:20:06] relevant or is congruent. A good thing for facilitators to do is to listen to skilled interviewers. You're doing a great job.
I think the morning DJs who interview a lot of people get really skilled at-- [unintelligible 00:20:26] and really getting to the core of whatever the issue is really quickly, because they only have a short amount of time to interview someone. They maybe not get so much time for preparation. I find that terrific and sometimes when I'm listening to them I'm thinking to myself, "what question would I ask next?" Then they ask a better one than the one I have in mind and I think that's-- you always got to try to keep learning if you can.
Leanne: That's right. I think my favorite, I've got two favorites. Richard Fidler from ABC Conversations is one of mine and Andrew Denton is a bit of a legend in Australian journalism. He really gets the core, he gets a lot of emotion right there in a longest space of time. Mark, I guess being present is and then having to forecast ahead and being standing up all day, it can be pretty exhausting. You do this full time. How do you manage your energy levels through the day and through the week and make sure that you set to go and full of energy every time that you're out onstage?
Mark: That's a good question because it can be extremely draining. You might have heard the saying, it's a hard way to make an easy living. I think anyone who's been on stage for six to eight hours in a day can certainly attest to how mentally draining it is. On the day, I do get there early to make sure the room set up is right, the sound is right and so on and everything's ready to go.
Then I disappear until about five minutes before the session is going to start and I don't mean to be disrespectful to people. As soon as people know you're the facilitator, you're the speaker and they see you, they want to engage, they want to start and it's almost like your work has started little early. During the breaks, I disappear during break. Sometimes I think many people may take the wrong inference from that. I'm not trying to be arrogant at all. I'm just trying to freshen myself up to the next session.
Even to the point sometimes where I'll say, "look, sorry, but I have a quick phone call I needed to make." Just to get away and get that space.
If at all possible I try to get some fresh air. Have one coffee during the morning break. Then just really chill out even to the point where at lunchtime if I can, if there's a green room or something like that, I will actually lie down and just breathe or do a bit of meditation, that sort of stuff. Just give myself as much space and as much rest as I can. Then at the end of the day I will always stay back and talk to people and answer any questions they may have.
I absolutely try to be quite selfish during the day. I never drink alcohol the night before I'm going to present. Usually, I will fly in the night before rather than the morning for there's a few reasons for that, because you never know if you're going to get a flight delay, but then you can get a good night's sleep, be up, ready to go. Usually do a little bit of exercise on the morning of a presentation to to be ready.
I also just mentally prepare too, done all of the actual preparation the day or the days before. The actual morning of the event, I don't say that loud, but I do say to myself how great this is going to be, how much fun it's going to be.
Leanne: Fantastic.
Mark: How it's a privilege for you to be there. You're really going to help people, you really do. Pump myself up on the morning of a session.
Leanne: That's really great to hear that tip. Especially about being selfish, I think because you want to be of service to people and help everyone, but I think you do have to protect yourself particularly, when you haven't done the days workshop. I really like your excuse of just going to make a phone call because I want to get away, but I don't think people pick up on that cue sometime, so I'm going to use that one. I think some of our listeners will too, so thanks.
Now, I was wondering if you could explain, I really found that your concept of the Go Zone, that I saw on your website. I find that really interesting. I think it would be useful for you to explain that to our listeners. What that Go Zone is really about?
Mark: Yes, sure. Truly, I guess you'd say it's my signature program. It's one of those things it's been like 20 years in the making. It's really an evolution of all of the work I've done in the past because my passion is for what I call sustainable peak performance that people in corporate life achieving to a high level, but being able to maintain that level for five, 10, 20 years as opposed to someone who can reach a level of sales goals or be a good effective leader or manager, but they just can't maintain that pace.
It's also part of the issue is when I was a young footy player, the training that we actually went through was quite barbaric. I think I spent five years just being tired every day and just enduring my career rather than really enjoying it. All those things really set up a passion for me about this whole sustainable peak performance. The Go Zone is a structure in a system where you shift between keys or zones as I call them between a Go Zone, a slow zone and a no zone.
Go zone is for corporate people are usually two hours, their periods if they're at their desk where they are having the door shut. They've switched off their email arrival times and they just power through tasks. A task is anything that's up to an hour, anything beyond an a hour is a project and you break it down into smaller tasks. You have a task list, you have everything you need.
The task could be a phone call, it could be an email, it could be working on the spreadsheet, it could be writing a report, it could be doing a 101. When you're in this Go Zone, there the most important tasks for your business that day and there's no excuses, there's no distractions. You actually have a buzzer that tells you when the Go Zone is up and you just power through them. You're not trying to do five or 10. You're just trying to do one at a time to the best of your ability till the time is complete.
There's a lot of blood chemistry that sits under that the way adrenaline, cortisol work in your body and the neurotransmitters of serotonin and melatonin to balance them out because you can't be this Go Zone state all day, every day. For most people, it's a couple of hours. The slow zone is a longer zone where you're still working, it's still productive, but you do a bit of this, you do a bit of that. You maybe make a call, go out grab a coffee, check the paper, listen to another conversation. You're just going from one task to another which is fine as long as it's not your only level of performance, because a lot of people are in this slows zone, all day, every day.
Leanne: Yes.
Mark: It's like a groove that they can't get out of it. In the third zone is the recovery zone, that's what I call the no zone. This is away from work times, when you're not at work, but crucially you're not thinking about work, where you're investing in a passion or hobby, a pastime. You take it easy on yourself, your phone's off, you just do something you really enjoy.
You're trying to do these Go Zone to no zone on a two to one ratio. In the course of a week, if you had eight hours in the Go Zone, you'll be four hours in the no zone, not necessarily same day, just by [unintelligible 00:28:01] over the week. You had some structure of changing levels of intensity upwards and downwards and everything else is asleep or the slow zone. A lot of people use that to really create some rigor and structure around their performance and to get a little bit of mental toughness into their daily routine.
Leanne: What a great concept because I know that all the rage now is high intensity interval training which is the difference between doing something at a really fast rate and then recovery as well. I think what you're doing here just aligning that to the workplace. I think when you were talking about the slow zone, I was thinking, "yes, that's exactly what I'm sitting in most of the time." I'd love to share this with my colleagues and just go, "look, can we make a commitment to looking at creating a ratio like this and respecting each other's time and getting to the Go Zone two hours every day." I think that would be really-- you churn up so much work, you could- not coast, but I can imagine those two hours are high impact.
Mark: You're right, it's important. What you said it's true, there especially if you're working in an open plane environment or something like that where respecting each other's time. There's quite a few companies who do Go Zones and during the Go Zone time, it's not okay to go and interrupt someone or ask them about something or play music or have loud conversations. There's certainly that element of it.
I think the two major benefits are certainly the productivity, I think that's pretty well proven. Also, the liberation, the control of your blood chemistry. I love doing Go Zones in the morning. I usually do mine 10:30 to 12:30, lunch is the reward. I'm still working in the afternoon. [chuckles] It feels like I'm cruising a bit. It just feels like the end of the day, it's like, "wow, that's just-- how easy was that."
I don't feel comfortable doing slow zones unless I've either had a Go Zone or I've got one scheduled. That's the other thing I always schedule these things in advance, I always know when my next Go Zone is going to be, when my no zone is going be. If I have to move them because of flight changes or something like that, you tend to move it, but you don't lose it, and that's really important because a lot of people, the thing that they will neglect will be the no zones.
They'll do the work part because there's always extra work to do, but when they get busier, they won't do the no zone, the fun zone, the recovery zone, and I often [unintelligible 00:30:26] stresses and the problem, the problem is like a recovery and when people don't have recovery, it's virtually impossible long-term to get that sustainable level of peak performance. They can do it for a while with work ethic or they just grind it out, but long-term that just doesn't work like that. You'll know from your athlete days, you have to have the rest in order to get that level of performance.
Leanne: Yes, for sure. What I like that you said in the recovery zone, the no zone is to stay away from your phones because I think a lot of people think they do relax by looking at their phones, [chuckles] but I do think it's counter-intuitive, and you need to give yourself a break, so thanks for raising that. Mark, this is not even a segue but I really wanted to bring it up before our time lapses, but I loved-- on your website you got a video of you entering a stage, it's like 007 style.
I mean that's a really cool idea, kind of x-factor, what kind of other things that are x-factors that you bring into leading your workshops or all these keynotes? I do encourage, on a side note, for all our listeners to hop on there, we'll link to that video in our show notes of this episode, because I thought it was really funny and cool.
Mark: That's an interesting point you raise. It's a fine line, so that video you're talking about, that was for a company I had already presented to, I think six years in a row. In one sense, you're looking for something different, but also the people remember stories and they remember images, so I was dressed as 007 and the content of that message was O-O-7, so 'O' for organization, 'O' for optimism, and it's seven daily habits.
The whole idea of that imagery of me in a James Bond mask was meant to remind people and to create a bit of an entrance, so another time all done for a sales group, I actually dressed in a crocodile outfit to make the point that in sales you had to have a thick skin and people remembered that image. Once as a caveman with a big wooden "Why?" about finding your strong "Why" because a caveman had a very obvious "why", they just needed to eat and stay warm, so helping people remember that image.
You also have to be careful that you don't go too far, because I have a little bit of a hobby to do illusions like magic tricks and I used to do them on stage and make things disappear and so on, but you have to be really careful that the gimmicks don't take over and that audience would start waiting for the next trick because I wouldn't introduce it, I'd just do it and something funny would happen, and then you can lose the impact of the key message you're trying to convey.
You have to be clear for the audience, what is this? Is it a keynote or a magic show? I actually don't do that much anymore because the imagery and the gimmick taken too far actually detracts from the session, and I did have to learn that lesson. But stories and images, as long as they're congruent to the message, so the James Bond OO7, the crocodile skin, you've got to have a thick skin, you've got to be strong, the caveman, the strong "why?", they were congruent to the message, so it works, but if you just do a gimmick without a reason, without a link, then the people won't get it and it'll detract.
Leanne: Yes. Just a question, how did you get these ideas of the caveman and the "why?" Was that something that you thought of straight away or were you in the shower one day and thought that this was a great costume, how did you link those two kind of seemingly disparate things together?
Mark: I suppose you say it's imagination, but I think it's one of the great things if you -what we're talking about the Go Zone before, I've done the Go Zone presentation of a book, at least 300 or 400 times, I think, and most of the time it's pretty much the same and I love doing it, but as a facilitator, it's also great to have these other challenges that get thrown at you.
It's a client you've worked with before or there's a specific really strong theme, and to go away and think of something that's going to make that work, and if you can make it a lot of fun for the audience and also fun for yourself, it's an absolute winner, so I think that really comes back to the imagination, but for me it's not so much the idea that comes during the shower, it's a time when you do a Go Zone and lock yourself in the door and you just think to yourself, "right, what are we going to do in this session?"
It might take you 20-30 minutes of grinding out ideas till you come up with something, so that's that whole thing about, it's more about perspiration than inspiration. I think it's a great thing for facilitators to do to keep themselves on edge.
Leanne: Yes, I agree too. On that note, finally, what is your advice to a first time facilitator?
Mark: I think a couple things. Certainly, the audience centricity. Certainly, do your preparation beforehand. Certainly, work on splitting your brain, so that you can think about what's coming next, all those things. Certainly get every job you can, get ever [unintelligible 00:35:52], it a rotary club, do meetings, local sporting clubs, even if it means you're not getting paid for those jobs, there's no substitute for being up the front.
Also, don't be put off if you think that it's a crowded field and, "how am I going to get work?" From a marketing point of view, the absolute best way to get jobs is to do a good job, and it might be hard to break in, but there's always room for a quality facilitator in the industry. Personally, I think it's just a fantastic career because it gives you a lot of challenge, the opportunity to travel, meet great people, but it also gives you personal freedom, so you're not working a 9 to 5 job, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I love the ability to be free, almost be a performer in a way because it all comes down to your level of performance.
For people who've maybe got that aspiration or do a bit or like to do more, work on your craft, just work on your craft, look for every opportunity because it can create a - and I've been so lucky that it's created such a fantastic lifestyle and provided for my family and so on. Don't give up if it's a bit hard because there are opportunities there, more and more.
Leanne: I've got to say Mark, that's probably been one of the most inspiring responses I've heard to that question on the show today, so thank you so much. We've covered, just in these 40 minutes, there's so much that we've covered and a lot more that we could cover. We've covered everything from your tips in terms of even the detail of getting a new battery for your microphone and the type of microphone that you should use, through to the questions that you ask to clarify with the clients and the research that you do and why that's so important.
As well as how to structure your day, so you are more productive and can be the best facilitator that you can be, so Mark, thank you so much for all your insight and wisdom, it's been really great talking to you today.
Mark: My pleasure, thanks a lot, Leanne.