Mark O’Brien Reveals: The Power of Storytelling to Transform Your Life & Business

In this inspiring episode of the Starter Girlz Podcast, host Jennifer Loehding sits down with renowned storyteller and entrepreneur Mark O’Brien, founder of O’Brien Communications Group. Mark dives deep into the transformative power of storytelling, revealing how your personal narrative can become your greatest tool for connection, authenticity, and business success.

What You’ll Discover:

• How storytelling reshapes your life and business
• Ways to merge creativity with entrepreneurship
• The importance of finding your niche and authentic voice
• How passion and purpose fuel meaningful storytelling
• Writing tips, morning rituals, and creative flow hacks

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a creative professional, or someone looking to rewrite your story, this episode will give you the tools to show up more powerfully and connect more deeply.

🎧 Tune in and learn how to unlock your narrative, lead with authenticity, and build a brand that resonates.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Starter Girlz Podcast
• 0:45 Empowerment and storytelling overview and what to expect
• 3:02 Transform your narrative and the power of storytelling
• 11:38 Building a successful business with authentic storytelling
• 15:47 The creative journey of writing, editing, and inspiration
• 21:38 Merging business and creativity for entrepreneurial success
• 27:07 Embracing individuality in storytelling
• 28:28 Finding your niche with authentic entrepreneurship strategies
• 33:29 Fuel your success with the impact of passionate storytelling
• 36:21 Unlocking extraordinary stories to inspire and connect
• 42:04 Mastering the art of writing and rewriting your story
• 46:24 Increasing creativity through morning rituals and daily habits

Transcript

Jennifer Loehding (00:00)
Welcome to the Starter Girlz podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment. We're here to help women succeed in every area of their lives, career, money, relationships, and health and well-being while celebrating the remarkable journeys of individuals from all walks of life who've achieved amazing things. Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, build financial independence, nurture meaningful relationships, or enhance your overall well-being.

the Starter Girlz podcast is here to guide you. Join us as we explore the journeys of those who dare to dream big and achieve greatness. I'm your host, Jennifer Loehding and welcome to this episode.

Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girlz podcast. I am your host Jennifer Loehding and wherever you are tuning in today, we're glad to have you. So excited about my guest today. We've got another awesome guest on the show as we always do. And so I want to open up with this. Stories have the power to connect, inspire and shape how we see the world. And sometimes the right story can change everything.

My guest today knows exactly how to bring stories to life, whether it's through his own experiences or helping others craft their narratives. He's a master of the art. So you guys are gonna wanna stay tuned because I love stories. And as you know, this whole show is always about stories. And so I always feel blessed when we get great storytellers on the show. But before I welcome him on, I do wanna do a quick shout out to our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Walt Mills Productions.

Need to add excitement to your YouTube videos or some expert hands for editing? Look no further. Walt Mills is the solution you've been searching for. Walt is not only your go-to guy for spicing up content, he's the force behind a thriving film production company with numerous titles in the pipeline. Always on the lookout for raw talent, Walt is eager to collaborate on film and internet productions. With a background deeply rooted in entertainment and promotion, Walt Mills leverages years of skills to give you the spotlight you deserve.

Want to learn more about Walt and his work? Head on over to waltmillsproductions.net and let your content shine. All right, with that, one more thing I want to mention is to head on over to startergirls.com. And why do I want to send you there? For a few reasons. One, if you've missed an episode, guess what? You can find it over there, right? And catch up. You can also sign up for our community news and then you will never miss an episode.

And lastly, if you are a business owner, a creator, I don't know, you're just an aspiring entrepreneur and you want to figure out what your number one success block is that may be hindering your success, we've got a free quiz over there and it is fun. It's a two minute quiz and it will tell you what might be stopping you from achieving your next big goal. So head on over to startergirls.com and remember it's a Z not an S. I don't know where you're going to go with the S, but make sure you get the Z in there.

Click that quiz. All right, so my guest today, it's fun. All right, he is a storyteller at heart and he's got plenty of them, I know, because he's already shared some with me. So this is gonna be fun. Mark O'Brien is the founder and owner of O'Brien Communications Group, a B2B brand management and marketing communications firm that he launched in 2004. He's also the host of the globally syndicated

program, the anxious voyage on dream vision seven radio and TV network. says he's been writing for his stories for as long as he can remember. And he's a passionate writer, but sees himself more as a storyteller, one who's passionate about helping others share their message, whether he's working with insurers, software developers, retirement living communities, or even musical acts. Mark's mission is always the same. Uncover the story and connect it with the right audience.

So Mark, welcome to the show. We are so glad to have you here today.

Mark O'Brien (03:57)
Thank you, that was quite the introduction and I have to say, I can't wait to go downstairs and tell my wife I'm one of the starter girls.

Jennifer Loehding (04:06)
That's not funny or what? so listen, we have this, I feel like this conversation comes up so much. Well, first I told you I was in Mary Kay for a long time. So we always had great introductions because we had to have accolades and we had to learn how to have them put them together. But you know what? I actually, the conversations, I love the conversations in these shows, but I really love crafting these bios. Kind of like you do your storytelling for, I love crafting these bios for people because is there nothing like.

I think there's something powerful, like when you're on the receiving end and you hear somebody say these things about you, because we get so used to what we do and we sort of take it for granted, right? Because we just like, do this, I've been doing it forever. But when we hear somebody kind of spit out our accolades, it's like, wow, I did that. You know what I mean?

Mark O'Brien (04:51)
I do. That's absolutely true. And it was the second thing that I realized about my radio show. My intent was to get people on to tell their stories so that people who listen to those stories could understand or at least think, well, maybe I could do that. But then I realized what you just explained, that when people come on and they tell their stories, and especially

if they go back and watch or listen to the replays, they start thinking, wow, wow, I never really thought about myself that way. And I want to tell you that I love what you said about the power of storytelling. And I'll just give you one example. I was, this was probably in the...

late eighties or early nineties, I was working at an insurance company and one day I typed the line, Stephen A. Kindle had only one wish. And then I probably put a couple more ideas in there and then I completely forgot about it. But I thought at the time, well, it's kind of rhythmic. Maybe that could be poetic or something. So fast forward to

I'm going to say 2007, I had learned of a company that Amazon had created, which is now gone, but it was called CreateSpace. And it was for self-publishing. And I thought, wow, I wonder if I should try to do something with that. So I went in the closet, I pulled out the box of floppy disks that I've been carrying around forever. And I started plugging them in and pulling them out.

to see if I could find this Stephen A. Kindle thing. And I did. And it became this, which was my first book for children. I'm telling you this story now because I came to realize that writing a book, at least a book for children, and I've now written three of them, is actually like having a child. And it's like having a child because

You bring this thing into the world, then it's going to take on a life of its own. because it's yours, you have a responsibility to it. So I sincerely could not tell you how many schools this book ended up getting me invited to and then the two others that followed it. I had no idea that was going to come.

But it speaks to me about the power of storytelling. A good story is just contagious.

Jennifer Loehding (07:44)
Yeah. And it's interesting that you said about the parenting because I somebody I was on a show Friday or was not really sure she does interviews. It's like a high five Friday interview my friend kind of thing. But it's like an episode like we would do. And she asked me about the podcast and I said that I bird that in a park at a parking lot.

Over a conversation because that's how it came about. We came up with an idea and two weeks later we launched it, but it's funny that you use that because that's what I talk about too is like this whole like it's it's like you have an obligation to it. You create it. You don't know what it's going to do, but you have this obligation and the episode that I was talking to right before I recorded yours. We were talking about that like when guests come on the show and the obligation that we have with these shows and in the work that we put out right like because we're essentially there are there are.

Children there are projects, you know, so I love that and I agree with you storytelling is huge. And when I all the years that I was in Mary K, that's really how I learned the power of storytelling because we would always have to get up and do presentations. And at the beginning, we had to have a good story as or not as a good. Some of my guests didn't have good stories, but a reason why we were doing what we were doing so that we could try to relate to, you know, who our clients were the potential people that we were going to be working with.

Mark O'Brien (09:03)
You know, as you were talking, I had a thought that I'm not sure I ever had before, which is that if we, by whatever means in whatever medium, discover and believe that we are storytellers, I think maybe it creates greater senses of responsibility for us. And I will tell you,

What I mean, because you said that your podcast was birthed in a parking lot. In June of 2023, was invited to be on the show that same station that I'm on now for by the publisher of this book. And it was a Tuesday. I had a great time. And I was thinking, wow, you know, I wonder if I should consider doing that.

Jennifer Loehding (09:38)
Right.

Mark O'Brien (10:03)
Two days later, I was invited to an event at which 13 women were presenting their concepts for health-related startups. And two of the women who I thought had the most worthwhile business ideas and were the most effective presenters ended up being completely overlooked by the judges and everybody else, I thought.

So I went and introduced myself to each of them individually. And I had my business card from O'Brien Communications Group. And I said, please understand, I don't have this figured out yet at all. But I want you to know that I'm thinking about this and somehow, some way, I'm going to find a way to help you promote those businesses. I got in my car in the parking lot and I thought, that's why I have to do the radio show.

And it felt, absolutely felt like a purpose. So the next day I called the station owner and took off from there. I think the first episode was August of 23.

Jennifer Loehding (11:14)
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that yeah, they are stories or messages and I think that's really when we talk about it. That's what you're doing in a sense. Just so tell us a little bit about your company because I want to come back to the podcast. We're going to come back to that in a few minutes, but I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing in your work and then let's talk to your book and all this good stuff that you got going. Yeah, a of things going on several obviously. So start there. Tell us a little bit about the current that your business that you got going on.

Mark O'Brien (11:38)
Okay, this may sound like a weird place to start, you may...

Jennifer Loehding (11:42)
It's

episode.

Mark O'Brien (11:44)
You may have noticed that sometimes the worst examples are the best examples. Yeah. So I had worked for two agencies. one was a small public relations agency. Another one was a larger advertising and public relations agency. loved, I loved the people who had founded those agencies. I loved the people that I worked with, but I recognize that both of them struggled with.

creating, trusting, long-term client relationships. I believed I knew why. So I thought, okay, I can hang around or I can take a shot at surviving by my own wits, but I will be mindful of what I think those folks did by way of making mistakes and not make them.

And it turned out to be mostly about the business model and the way we charge and the things that we don't and won't charge for because I don't think they're good faith. So that's 21 years ago. And our typical client relationships, I would say on average, probably last seven years or more.

Yeah, and then what typically happens is the companies will stay with us until the brands get elevated prominently enough that they become targets. And then they either attract an outright buyer or equity funding that causes the equity partners to try to take some control. And they typically end up bringing in their own marketing people and things like that.

You know, it's nothing to complain or worry about. It's just something to take note of as a fact of life. You know, if the shelf life is going to be somewhere, let's say between five and eight years, you just, you just have to be mindful of keeping a pipeline. And that's what we do.

Jennifer Loehding (14:03)
I like it. you're clearly you're doing something right with your clients. I mean that that you're keeping them there. If you're having a hot retention, which is good. Fill all your secrets because right we don't want to tell everybody, but you know what it listen. There's something to be said about this whole. Client retention because that's a that's a hard thing for a lot of people.

Mark O'Brien (14:10)
Yeah, and-

Well, I think one of the differences is, and this may be philosophical, but we do everything that an advertising agency or a marketing communications company or a web development company might do. But to those, or I'm sorry, to us, those are tactical executions. And what we want to do before any of that is take a much higher strategic look.

at what needs to be done and most important, why it needs to be done. The second client we got in April of 2004, we got because a gentleman called me up and he said, we need a press release. And I said, why? And he explained to me why. I didn't tell him that his reasoning was wrong, but I said to him, well, actually, the press release is not going to help you. You need a brand management program.

So next thing I know, I'm in Georgia telling these guys why they need a brand management program. That was 04. They were acquired in 07. We somehow managed to hang on till 2009. So another five year relationship.

Jennifer Loehding (15:34)
Yeah, no, that's awesome. I think it's impressive. Yeah, good stuff, Mark. So what led to your because you've put out several books now and obviously you're I do. How many tell me how many books you have again?

Mark O'Brien (15:46)
I have to tell you, don't know. so I have, I have three books for children. have this one. Okay. And most recently, actually, I'm proud as heck. Yeah. This is my new graphic novel. And it only took me all these years to write my first comic book.

Jennifer Loehding (16:05)
Yeah, that's awesome. Congratulations.

Mark O'Brien (16:07)
Thank you, but I've been in love with comic books since I was since I was a kid

Jennifer Loehding (16:12)
Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. And even like even the children's, but it's funny because I am doing this. You know the the doodle whiteboard stuff? Yeah, OK, so the other day I because I put out this whole quiz thing and my daughter's like, why don't you make like a doodle whiteboard video? And I'm like, I've never made a doodle whiteboard like I have no idea. I like him never did. So then I get on these. You they have these applications on that. So I have two of them going right now. You're to laugh at me. I got two of them going now. All of a sudden.

I'm like, I kind of like these doodle board things. These are kind of fun to create. I'm like, man, I could do videos. Like I could do like lessons and things with these videos. Like I'm having fun. So now like I've got this new, like when you talk about like your comic books or your children, like I'm, I'm like, this is so different because it's not something that I would normally do and there's no people. It's like characters and stuff, right? So I'm writing these little scripts. I'm like, I did, I haven't finished one, but I'm working on one right now. It's like meet Jenny.

Jenny is this person, she's this entrepreneur with this problem and this is how we're going to fix it kind of thing. So it's like, I'm telling stories with these little cartoon characters, but I'm having so much fun. So then I'm telling my husband, I'm like, maybe I should figure out how to do some more of these videos. And I could just make like a little webpage with these and these could be like little learning videos for fun, you know? And you see what I'm saying? It's like, it's still storytelling, but it's like a whole nother kind of way of doing what we do, you know?

Mark O'Brien (17:38)
It is I use them all the time. of my clients really love them. Some of them they don't they don't think it's their style. I'll tell you this. Do you ever include music?

Jennifer Loehding (17:55)
I do. mean, well, I'm just, this is, I have, this is my first one. So Mark, I'm just going to be honest with you. I'm like, I'm green. I'm totally playing with it right now. But yes, I will probably put some.

Mark O'Brien (18:05)
music in there. Then I'm going to give you a suggestion that will keep you out of trouble.

Jennifer Loehding (18:09)
Okay, keep me out of trouble.

Mark O'Brien (18:10)
If you go to a site called artlist.io, they have an ever-growing library of copyright-free music. Gotcha. I don't know if I pay monthly or I paid an annual fee, but it's a very, very nominal thing. Gotcha. Then you can select the kind of music you want, the mood, the length, anything.

and you're never going to infringe on anybody's copyrights.

Jennifer Loehding (18:42)
I've had to do that with like, well, my podcast, because I do is Riverside. They got stuff within there, but I've had to do. I didn't know about that site. So thank you for sharing that with me because I had to do when I was making my intro and outro, I had to I had to buy like specific because when we first started for anybody listening, when we first started our show, I had because we didn't know we were doing.

I had ACDC's Thunderstruck as my opening song because I liked it. It was like a powerful song for starter girls. Well, of course, when we had it on there, then they started flagging all my things, you know, saying, you know, copyright, copyright, copyright on that. anyways, you do you learn. So thank you for sharing that with me, but also anybody listening to this because there may be somebody out there that's, you know, doing that or using it for anything else and they need to know where to go. I've had people ask me that before, you know.

Mark O'Brien (19:30)
And I will tell you too that Facebook must have really, really good algorithms because at one point I was creating one of those whiteboard videos for a client happened to be a psychology practice. And when I sent them the sample, I said, please don't do anything with this because this is copyright protected music. The next thing I knew they put it on Facebook and we're on the verge of getting pinched.

So you just, you do, you have to be very, very careful.

Jennifer Loehding (20:01)
Yeah,

well, I'm just playing with this just so you know, I should start. This is for me and nobody else and I was just playing with it. But I'm having fun is my point. That's what I'm telling you. Probably kind of like you when you were doing your your con. I'm just having fun doing it. I'm like this is kind of good because it's not serious. I don't have to be like we got all look good and all that. These are just little put them on there and craft it up. You kind of thing and stuff that I think the biggest challenge for me really has just been trying to learn those how to do like the applications like how to navigate all that so.

Mark O'Brien (20:30)
Yeah, it takes a little while, then, I mean, at least for me, I just, got used to it. Yeah. I probably shouldn't think too much about how many hours I spend doing that because you're right. It's, just a blast.

Jennifer Loehding (20:43)
Right, I know, I was working on it this morning at breakfast. I'm like, get off, you've got places to be. Put the computer down.

Mark O'Brien (20:49)
And you know what? Actually, I don't know that I'm entirely sure how this happened, but it turns out that the three children's books that I wrote are all in verse. Okay. And now a lot of the videos that I do are also in verse. So it's just you almost get yourself programmed to think that way.

Jennifer Loehding (21:11)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

it's interesting. Well, I think it's great, Mark. I, know what I'd love to ask you? Cause I obviously, you know, you're an entrepreneur and a B2B, but then you're also a creator and you know, this art side, which I think is great because you're running, know, I think it's great when you got kind of the best of both, like you can be a creator and you can have the business too. You know what mean? Cause I think so often we get stuck in these businesses, whether you said insurance, I actually used to do insurance too. You know, I studied accounting.

You get stuck in these, but then you got this creator site and I love it. I was in an event a couple of weeks ago. It's actually a speaker at that event and it was awesome because everybody in the room was like authors and want to be podcasters. They were all want to be speaking. They were all like creator people. I'm like, I'm in my world. These are my people. Yeah. days later I went to another event and it was so crazy because I love these group of people, but completely different. These were like realtors and tech people.

But it was so funny because I'm sitting in this room and they're talking about how to use AI, how to create funnels, how to do all the things that us as business owners in this space as creators, we have to do that on the daily. We're using AI, know, chat GPT every single day to do podcast notes and write things for, know, like I'm putting flyers together with it and stuff. And so I'm listening to this and I'm realizing, wow, like there's.

This is stuff we do every day, right? And on this side of the entrepreneur spectrum, these people don't know a lot of this stuff and they're learning it, you know? And so it's great that you're in that space where you've got like that creator space, but you got a business too and you get to meld them together in a way, you know what I mean?

Mark O'Brien (22:45)
Yeah, and they do overlap. I'm not exactly sure how to express this. I'll offer it this way. All I can think of is Arthur Miller. It's not Arthur Miller. I'll think of him. At any rate, one writer was talking about

the racks and wheels that people create, this is how he put it, to crush the miracle of personality, Henry Miller. I think one of the keys, at least for me, is to recognize that one of the most distinctive aspects of each of us is our personality. And somebody said to me once quite a while ago, and this was in the context of my professional work,

I would recognize your writing anywhere. And as soon as that person said that, I thought, whoa, maybe there's something going on here that I hadn't really counted on before. So if you can learn to be unafraid of letting what you do, whether it's professional or purely creative, if you can learn not to be uncomfortable,

with your own personality or maybe to put it more positively, to accept that and use it. And I was thinking about this also when you were talking about being together with all of those creative people. Well, the fact of the matter is...

Many of them may be doing what appear to be the same things, but they have to be different in some way because each one of those people is an individual. And if you can recognize what you do, that's different from what everybody else does and trust yourself to do it. I really do think that's the key.

Jennifer Loehding (24:57)
No, I agree. I agree with you. Yeah, I think that you said be accept your, you know, it's kind of like when when you're saying this to me, it makes me go back to my voice because I've said this in so many episodes, you know, over the years. Like when I was a child, I used to get in trouble for talking all the time. Like that was like I made good grades in school, but I was always.

in trouble for talking. And it became kind of a thorn for me because I'd get grounded for like six weeks for getting a bad grade on my, I'd had straight A's and then conduct would have like a C and my mom would get mad because she felt like that was a reflection of her. And so I would be in trouble. And so it became kind of a, like I became self-conscious about it. And then when I got into like middle school and then I went through high school and college and even probably up until.

I'm in my 50s now, so let's take this middle school all the way to maybe even my early 40s, mid 40s. I was extremely, and I still find myself every once in a while hesitating on something because I'm like, and that's why I find it so funny because now that I do a podcast, is probably one of my best things that I'm good at doing is delivering content and having, know, conversing with people.

I just think it's so interesting. So I think when you say that being unafraid, right? Like it's that thing that it may, and the point of that, it may be annoying to somebody else. It may be something that somebody else is either doesn't like or whatever that is, but you being unafraid to accept it and realize that it may be a strength and then use it, right? Use it appropriately. That's what I think, that's what I'm hearing you say. And that's what's coming to me when you said that.

Mark O'Brien (26:40)
So I'm going to tell you this. And you're a parent, you know this. We learn incredibly valuable things from children. So the first time I had the opportunity to go to a school with this book, they put me in a gym with 320 kids because it turned out to be K through 8 plus preschool. So I shared the book.

They had a projector. I put it up on a screen and then I made time. gave me a microphone so could walk around. So I made time so that kids could ask questions or express concerns or whatever. But that that day that and it was the very first time and it's happened that almost everyone since one of those children said to me. How do you know? That anyone is going to like what you've written and the answer is.

I don't. I don't have any idea. But there's no way to ever find out if you don't do it and put it out there. Whatever it is, it doesn't even need to be writing. There's no way to find out unless and until you do that. And the other thing I somehow knew to say to that child was,

I don't believe for a second that I'm the only person on the planet who thinks the way I do. So if you're willing to do whatever you're going to do, create whatever you're going to create and put it out there, you will attract people who think the way you do. And Lord knows there's enough people in the world that there's plenty to go around for each of us.

Which is why the distinctness of our voices and our personalities is so important.

Jennifer Loehding (28:29)
And this is good because and I know you would this would be you would be all on this. This is why it's so important to like find your people find or find your niche right like find who you're marketing to because we get so as entrepreneurs even I find myself occasionally doing this because it's like I can help so many people right like I know that I have these modalities and it's like I can help so many and even last night I was trying to revamp my LinkedIn. I'm still kind of playing with it. I'm doing this little LinkedIn.

It's like a four week thing where they have you do something every day to try to build your engagement and that kind of thing. And so I was like going in and I'm looking at my headline and I'm like, okay, here's what I do. So what is that unique thing that I have? Cause I can do a lot of things. I got a lot of modalities, right? But what is that unique thing that makes me different? And so I was like in chat, I'm like, okay, this is, it's this, it's this, it's spit something out to me. So I think, yes, what you just said was so powerful to that child, right?

Mark O'Brien (29:23)
You

know, yes, and I was just thinking this too while you were saying that I don't believe, I could be wrong, but I don't believe that I set the intention of helping people. Yeah. And I'll give you an example. One time I was at a trade show and there were several of my clients there and I was walking toward the booth of one of my clients.

And he said, Mark, come here for a minute. He goes, I got to introduce you to this guy. So he brought me to the booth next to his. And he said to this guy, I want to introduce you to Mark O'Brien. He's the best salesperson I've ever met. I was crushed. And I didn't say anything right away. But even that night when I was in my hotel room, I was thinking, why?

Why would he say that? I just didn't understand. So I went back the next day and I said to him, listen, I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful or anything, but yesterday you introduced me to this guy and you said he's the best salesman I've ever known. Do you think I'm a huckster or a snake oil salesman or something? And he started laughing. He said, He said, when you are

passionate about something, you don't have any idea how contagious you are. That's what he said to me and I thought, that I can live with. Because if I'm explaining something to someone and I utterly believe in what I'm explaining, apparently that's contagious and I'm fine with that. But I do not consider myself to be nor do I want to consider myself to be a salesperson.

Jennifer Loehding (31:20)
Well, and that's the thing, you know, I used to when I used to train when I was in Mary Kay, I would have to train people on sales. And I always I think we hear that word and we just go it right. Because we think of it just being a bad thing. But, you know, we used to actually do a lot on this. And I would tell people I'm like, you know, every day that we exist, we actually do sell and here's and you're going to get this now because like if we buy a great pair of jeans, we go get a good haircut like the other day. My new dentist, I have this I say, I've had him for a year, but

I don't know about you or you were at, but when I was going to dentist as a child, I was traumatized. Like they didn't do all these fancy things they do. They rip teeth out of your mouth, whatever. So I have had anxiety my whole life going to dentist. Like I'd go in, they put the heart rate thing. I have, you know, where my white coat, what are they called? White coat syndrome heart rate goes up. I found this new dentist over here and he's probably just a few years older than me. Nice guy. They're very laid back.

Like I went in the other day, it was so funny. They did my blood pressure was like 107 over like six. I said, I'm comfortable in this dentist office, right? But here's the thing. And guess what I did? I wrote a review about them. I think that either Google or Yelp, I wrote a review and said, this is the first dentist that I've ever been to where I've actually gone in and I'm not having a little, I'm not freaking out, but having a little bit of anxiety when I go into the desk, right?

And so we sell really to your point, what this guy's saying to you is that when we're passionate about things or we really like things, it's not even really we're selling, but not even intentionally selling, right? Because we're passionate and we're telling a story basically of how it worked for us. And that's what people want.

Mark O'Brien (33:02)
And you know what else I learned along the way that's related? And I haven't had the opportunity to do this very much recently, I think because of the way the world and technology have transpired. But I think I get to do it on my radio show. I used to have to interview customers of my clients on video. And now that I think about it, I still do the same thing on my radio show.

And those customers that I was going to interview, always wanted me to send them questions in advance. And I would never do it. And I won't do it for my radio show either because I believe two things. One, it's my job to just make people comfortable. That's all. I'm not a big deal. Being interviewed by me or being on my radio show is not a big deal.

I just need to make people comfortable. And then I also believe that the best stories tell themselves. And if you can get somebody comfortable enough to start to open up, magic happens. At one time I was hired by the New England chapter of the American Public Works Association, if you can imagine that. And they did a monthly newsletter. And I would write,

a feature interview every month with a different director of public works. So I was talking to this guy from Concord, New Hampshire. I drove up to New Hampshire. We went out to dinner. this conversation was it was like trying to eat sawdust. It was just dry and grinding. And I'm thinking, my God, I just don't even know how this happened. But I must have said something about fireworks.

and no pun intended, but this guy lit up. It turned out that in addition to being the director of Public Works, he was a licensed pyrotechnic.

Jennifer Loehding (35:06)
wow, yep, we got it going, yo.

Mark O'Brien (35:10)
Yeah, so this whole conversation, I have goosebumps right now. It's just like a fireworks display. It just exploded. And it was brilliant and fun. So that's it. mean, get people comfortable and they'll find themselves and the story will just come out.

Jennifer Loehding (35:28)
Yeah, no, I agree with you too. When it's crafted, it's too much work. But if you can get people, and sometimes that can be the challenge, right? And in what we're doing in the medium of podcasting, we're to talk about that because you do, our job is, I always say that too, if my guests, when they walk away leaves going, this was fun or I had a great experience.

That's what I want because then I know what's gonna happen. If that was a good experience and somebody listening to that's going to see that energy and they're going to like it, right? And so it's almost like the taking care of your people and the people take care of the customer thing. You're right in a different level, but same thing. So yeah, and I feel like when those conversations just happen, right? But sometimes you do, you have to work sometimes to get that, that, and there will be sometimes I have those moments too where I'm talking to somebody and it's going for a while.

Mark O'Brien (35:58)
Absolutely right.

Jennifer Loehding (36:13)
And then all of a sudden there'll be that question. You're talking about the fireworks. Like I can't, I'm trying to get it. And then all of a sudden I hit the right. And it's like, that's the question. There it is. Because we've got him talking now, you know.

Mark O'Brien (36:26)
And you can you can feel it. And maybe even sometimes even before, you know, you find whatever it is and before the whole thing just starts to blossom. You can start to feel the energy shift. Right. And it's and it's just brilliant. And and you know what? What I what I really hope people understand is everybody has an amazing story and I don't.

I don't know that enough people have faith in that. so again, part of the reason for my radio show is that I firmly believe everybody has an amazing story to tell. It's just in some cases finding a way to get it out of them.

Jennifer Loehding (37:17)
Just gonna say that, bingo. Getting it out and what are you gonna do to do it, right? Like what's gonna be the medium? What's gonna be the way that you're gonna do it, right?

Mark O'Brien (37:25)
And the other thing I want to say too about preparing questions ahead of time. There's some weird psychological thing that happens when you do that because the people that we're going to talk to.

They start considering the questions and then they think, there must be a right answer to this. if they think there's a right answer, then they necessarily think there must be a wrong one. that, no, there's no room for that.

Jennifer Loehding (37:58)
Good to know. Yeah. Well, I've been sending my, but you know what I tell everybody? You probably don't even want to look at them because I ain't going to ask anything. Don't marry those things. Cause I'm not even, I'm going to tell you right now, even if you do, if you do look at them, I ain't going to ask them because I never know how these things are going to go. And, and I'm not going to script it. So that's why when you guys all come on, say from the very beginning, the beginning and the ending are the same. kind of open up, but after that, where this plane goes, I don't know where it all landed. We're going to land, but where it goes, goes.

Mark O'Brien (38:26)
You know,

Jennifer Loehding (38:27)
I don't want it to be where you've come on and you're like, my gosh, is she gonna ask this or this, you know?

Mark O'Brien (38:34)
Well, that's another thing. Then you create expectation. I also want to say something about interpretation. My wife is a painter. OK. And I don't know the first thing about art. And I won't get up and get it. But around the corner, one of her paintings is hanging there. OK. And when she paints, she will write something in pencil on the canvas first.

And then when she paints, it's a reflection of whatever she's written. So I asked her what she was imagining when she created this painting. And she told me. And it's nothing at all like what I see in it. So I said to her, well, dang, that must be art. So I created a writing workshop called Finding Your Voice. And we began the workshop by having the people in the workshop

write their interpretations of that painting. they interpreted, that can't be wrong. Because all they're doing is expressing what they see in it. That's exactly the way I think about people's voices and people's stories. My story cannot possibly be the same as your story because I'm not you. They're all different. And you know what? I learned a long time ago,

And I'll tell you how, you want to know, not to use the word unique. The only way in which I'll ever use it is in saying that each of us is unique. And if we can learn to appreciate that, I'll tell you the story quickly. I was working at one of the agencies. I had to write the annual report for a company that's now gone. It was called the Connecticut Natural Gas Company.

Jennifer Loehding (40:13)
Okay.

Mark O'Brien (40:27)
They had their annual meeting and all of the media people had left. And I saw this guy. This guy was every day of 85, if not closing in on 90. And he came across the room and he had his annual report rolled up in his hand. And he was kind of waving it. I mean, I didn't think he was going to hit me, but he was waving. He goes, did you write this thing? And I said, well, yeah. And he said,

You wrote in here that Connecticut natural gas is uniquely positioned to blah, blah. Nobody is uniquely positioned to do anything. I thought, amen to her. Never wrote it again.

Jennifer Loehding (41:09)
That stopped out, right? and that's, you know what? And that's one of those things where, yeah, you learn, you learn to, you saw something, you're like, I'm not doing that again.

Mark O'Brien (41:11)
Yeah

Right.

But that's why the only thing I think is unique is personality. And that's why I love Henry Miller's notion of the miracle of personality. Right. It's a gift. We've got to use it.

Jennifer Loehding (41:37)
Yeah, no, it's good. So you've said a lot of really good things here, Mark. Let's say somebody is maybe thinking about maybe they want to become a writer. Like they want to. We talked about getting the story, right? Everybody's got the story and we just got to get it out there. Any advice to maybe lend somebody in that position? Maybe they're at the beginning of this. Like they're like, I'm fixing to write this book and I'm not even started.

Mark O'Brien (42:04)
As as a late blooming college student, I was probably about 30 when this took place. I was invited to be a teaching assistant for the freshman composition class. And and the gentleman who was teaching the course said to these kids. And at 30 I didn't consider myself a kid. You can't learn to write. You can only learn to rewrite. And I'm going to say it took me.

A solid 20 years to figure out what he meant. So in answer to your question, I would suggest to anybody that if they feel compelled to write something, anything, they should just do it. Just dump it out. You can't even know what's on your mind until you get it out. Excuse me. And then the, then the learning to rewrite is looking at what you've written, determining if it says

to you what you wanted to say. think of it in terms of music. Can I hear the rhythm in it? And if I can't, I will modify it. And I also firmly believe if you can think, you can talk. And if you can talk, you can write. And

There are enough programs now so that if you still remain afraid to write, you can just talk into any kind of recording device. And there's so much voice to text technology. Just plug the recording in and you'll get a first draft. But don't be afraid. That's my strongest advice. Don't be afraid.

Jennifer Loehding (43:47)
Thank you that so I know it's so good with the technology now that you can do all that we didn't have that when I wrote mine. I did mine in 2019 but to your point on that rewrite made me think about how like I was just the other day I was like man I need to do like a rewrite of my book because I feel like I have like. New ideas about it you know what I mean it's like what you're so it's making me think of it's like rewriting because we do we evolve right and we keep continuing to change and.

Our views change and I'm like, wrote this whole book on personal development. None of it's wrong by the way in my mind. I just have more. That's what I think. I have more stuff. So I don't know. I'll get inspired and I'll just do it.

Mark O'Brien (44:23)
And thank you.

I think you're right about the evolution. so I firmly believe we have to be careful about the way we judge ourselves, because I will tell you, considering this was the first, I'm sorry. Thank you. You know what? When I published the company wouldn't let me communicate with the illustrator. I accidentally found her on Facebook one time.

Jennifer Loehding (44:41)
I like the cover. like the

Mark O'Brien (44:55)
So we decided to do another 1 together. Um, but I forgot what I was going to say about that, but that's all right.

Jennifer Loehding (45:03)
They're fine, they're warm, they're friendly colors.

Mark O'Brien (45:07)
Yeah, and you know, she's obviously a brilliant illustrator. then the young woman who illustrated this was just, she was just a whole other talent. She was amazing.

Jennifer Loehding (45:19)
So yeah, so be careful and give yourself grace. That's what you were saying.

Mark O'Brien (45:23)
Yeah, exactly right. And another thing is, you can't, your judgment of what you've done in the past, can not change if you're not learning and evolving. So give yourself credit for the fact that you are moving on and continuing to do more, learn more. I'd be much more worried if I thought I wasn't evolving.

I mean, if I thought I were the same guy that I was last week, I'd be nervous. agree. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jennifer Loehding (45:58)
So I have a fun question I want to ask you and then I'm going to tell you to get us, plug us in where people can find you. This is just part of a fun question. And I know we talked about your guitars back there and you like music, all these fun things, but I'd love to know like what's the one thing in the morning that you do that you're pretty faithful to do? I'm like, I get up in the morning and I drink my green tea with my breakfast like every day. Like I have to have my green tea every single day. So like what's your one, it doesn't have to be food. It can be anything.

Mark O'Brien (46:27)
I grab a cup of coffee even before I've had anything to eat and I come here to my desk and I write something, even if I don't have the vaguest idea what I'm going to write. I just, I just have, I have to write. I wrote something once called Eddie's broken tails. T-A-L-E-S cause Eddie is our little rescue dog and his tail was broken. but I was thinking about the fact that

Jennifer Loehding (46:52)
I'm going to

Mark O'Brien (46:55)
Until you take Eddie out in the morning and he can sniff around and check, make sure everything's okay in the neighborhood. He has no idea how he is or how the world is that day. I'm the same way about writing. Unless I come to my desk and write something first thing in the morning, I don't know how I am. And I'm not really sure how I fit in the world that day.

Jennifer Loehding (47:18)
good for anybody listening. That's great. mean, that's like, it's like just taking that that time for yourself in the morning to just I'm almost thinking like when we when we used to go to school and they'd have us do the journal prompts and we go into English class, they put something up on the board and we it was really just a prompt and we just wrote for like 10 or 15 minutes about something. So how like in a way that's kind of therapeutic right? Because you're just sitting down and putting some thoughts on paper and kind of setting sort of your intention for the day like whatever comes out of your.

Mark O'Brien (47:48)
You're home on that day. And I would suggest that you also think about that in terms of self-faith or self-trust. Because if you're not sure of what you might write or if you're afraid that it's going to be judged, you won't do it. So you have to have that kind of conviction to just do it. You don't need to know what's going to happen.

Jennifer Loehding (48:12)
Do you spend writing and do you have like a time limit or are just kind of writing and you're like, I'm done now.

Mark O'Brien (48:17)
Yeah, I just write until whatever it was that had moved me has passed.

Jennifer Loehding (48:23)
Gotcha. Yeah, no, I think that's great. I think that's a great advice for, know, let me just say this because my husband likes to write. Okay. I'm not as I'm more of like the like I like doing the video creations and the things like that. He actually likes to write. So he was telling me yesterday we went to see a play Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd. Where we went saw great acting. It was a neat little place here in Carrollton. And anyways, we were coming out. He was talking about how when he was in college, he liked to write but he is an engineer by trade. And so

Funny enough, the episode before you, we were talking about how we have these roles. We fit these certain personas in these roles. So as we're driving home yesterday, he tells me something like, I really should get back to writing, because I really enjoyed writing and I'm good. I like telling stories, but I just haven't done it in a long time. And I was talking to him about how you just need to do it. You need to just start doing it. And the more you do it, the more it will come to you. It's kind of like me with the videos. Like if I stopped being creative,

and then I pick back up, it's hard for me to get back in, but I'm doing it all the time, so the ideas flow more freely, right? So it's funny that you're saying it because I was just having that conversation with him yesterday about just writing and seeing it, and when I listen to what you're talking about, I'm thinking, okay, you could sit down for a few minutes, maybe you just, if you don't have all the time, maybe you just say I'm doing it for 10 minutes today, and just write some thoughts out or whatever on paper just to get things going, you know? So great advice that you're talking about.

Mark O'Brien (49:48)
Ernest Hemingway, actually the book was published after he died, he wrote a memoir called A Movable Feast and it was about his life in Paris when he was in his 20s. And he kept a separate room from where he and his wife Hadley lived and he would go to that room every morning to write. And he said, on the mornings when he felt like he couldn't write,

He said he would look out the window at the streets of Paris and he would tell himself, you've written before, you will write again, write one true sentence, write the truest sentence that you know. And when he did that, he always knew what he was going to write next. So even if I come up and I have no idea what I'm going to write, if I write the first truest sentence that occurs to me,

Jennifer Loehding (50:42)
something else comes up.

Mark O'Brien (50:44)
Yeah, it just takes care of itself.

Jennifer Loehding (50:45)
That's good. Well, that's good advice for anybody. I might try that myself. I might try that. Just do that. Like try the one sentence and then see what comes up after that because yeah, I firmly believe that doing these kinds of things, they inspire ideas and stuff. And so I'm all about doing that. I think we need to, we need to activate the creative part of our brain because it helps us with the other, the logical side of our brain too. So absolutely good stuff.

Mark O'Brien (50:53)
They know if it works.

Jennifer Loehding (51:09)
Mark, this has been fantastic. If our audience wants to get in touch with you, maybe they want to pick up the books, they want to reach out, maybe they need your help on their marketing, whatever, where do we want to send them?

Mark O'Brien (51:19)
Okay, and I only have two places to send them one. They can find my company at O'Brien. CG.com O'Brien communications group, and they can find all of my published work on Amazon, but they have to put in my middle name. So they have to put in Mark Nelson and ELL, S O N O'Brien and they'll find me.

Jennifer Loehding (51:42)
Awesome. We'll make sure when this goes out, we'll get this in the show notes too for anybody that you've set it on the audio prepper for anybody reading. We'll make sure it's in there too so they can.

Mark O'Brien (51:50)
Okay, and

if you decide to try Hemingway's experiment, please let me know if it works for you.

Jennifer Loehding (51:55)
I will. I'm going to put it on my, it's funny because I have all these little things I'm doing. Like I'm in the middle of all these like little mini course things I'm taking. So I write out to do, I try to write out a to-do list for myself every day. So I put on there all the things I have to do. And it's like, you need to do a little piece of this, a little piece of this, a little piece of this. I'll put that on that on my list. You'll need to do your statement. I want to see what happens with it. So I did that when I started reading, you know, cause I wasn't a big reader.

Mark O'Brien (52:17)
Okay.

Jennifer Loehding (52:20)
And I decided one year I wanted to read and so every day I just made an attempt. I didn't care how many pages it was just like you're going to read for if it was a small book, maybe I would do a chapter. If it was a bigger book, I would just set a time limit. But it was just to do this every single day and I did that for a year and I'm not. I will tell you it had a huge. A huge impact on not only just the way I was conducting business, but the way I was looking at things in the world like my outlook and stuff so.

Mark O'Brien (52:48)
I will share one more thing if I may and it has to do with writing. Be patient. You're simply not going to be able to force things. And if I get myself to a point at which I think I'm not writing the way I want to, I don't beat myself up, but I do what you just suggested. I read more. And it always, always works. So be patient. That's the one.

Jennifer Loehding (52:51)
Yeah.

Good. you, Mark. I appreciate that. That's awesome. All right. So listeners, we appreciate you. We hope you found this episode both inspiring and informative. Of course, reach out to Mark if you have any questions or you want to follow him, pick up books, you know where to find him and help us obviously so we can keep sharing all this fabulous content. Hit that subscribe, like, you know, do all the things, share and we appreciate you for that. And I want to leave with a closing thought in order to live the extraordinary, you must start.

Mark O'Brien (53:16)
Thank you.

Jennifer Loehding (53:43)
And every start begins with a decision. You guys take care, be safe, be kind to one another, and we will see you next time.

Mark O'Brien (53:52)
Amen to that. Thank you, Jennifer.