Australia's master storyteller for business leaders, business growth, marketing, sales, motivation, inspiration and professional development. Keynote topics 'Storytellers changer the world, so speak wisely.' Mark Jones CSP is a keynote speaker, storytelling coach and advisor who helps leaders and brands rewrite their story for success on their terms. Described by clients as ‘exceptional,’ ‘gifted,’ and an ‘absolute delight,’ Mark has delivered high-energy, entertaining and heartfelt messages to audiences across five continents for 17 years. Read on to learn about Mark's speaking and interactive workshop topics. Flip the Script Rewrite the stories holding you back. Mark's breakthrough message of vulnerability, courage and optimism ignites positive change. Topics: Leadership development, storytelling, communication, resilience, mental health & wellbeing. Learn more Chasing Gold New rules for marketing in the age of AI. Storytelling secrets to cut through, stay relevant and engage customers for today's AI Gold Rush. Topics: Sales & marketing, digital transformation, AI, innovation, marketing tech, brand storytelling. Learn more

Shift from self-doubt to success with Australia's master storyteller for business leaders. Professional brand, thought leadership and storytelling skills. Executive Impact Coaching Welcome to Impact Leaders: Strategies for work and life Impact Leaders is Mark’s proven program for enabling executive performance and organisational growth. Designed for individual coaching, this program is tailored for senior executives and professionals seeking to make a greater impact. Uniquely powered by the world’s first brand storytelling framework, Beliefonomics™️, Impact Leaders helps leaders at any level rewrite the stories they tell themselves, build confidence in critical communication skills, and develop sustainable thought leadership strategies. Stage 1: Core Strengths Identify your unique strengths, overcome limiting beliefs and co-create professional pathways for success using proven tools and methodologies. Stage 2: Personal Brand Develop your unique personal brand to stand out and engage. We co-create your personal brand statement for use in different professional scenarios. Stage 3: Thought Leadership Craft a compelling thought leadership strategy that builds on your core strengths, personal brand and aligns with business can career goals. Thank you again so much for your time, wisdom, energy and inspiration. I LOVE working with you – thanks for going above and beyond the way you have to support me. It is truly appreciated. Group VP, Multinational Firm Custom packages Realise your goals with the right mix of services. Interactive 1-hour sessions: Virtual or in-person. Live coaching experience: Mark attends your event and provides invaluable real-time feedback. LinkedIn updates: Fresh bio, profile and blog content. Thought leadership strategy : Personalised template for filling out your content calendar with compelling stories. Content production: Co-created assets for socials, blog, video and podcasts. Outcomes Leaders working in confidence with Mark report they're more confident and clear storytellers when engaging with key stakeholders including customers, colleagues and partners. Achieve program goals in a positive, psychologically safe environment. Practical tools applied in personalised ways to drive personal brand growth and thought leadership. Tangible difference in performance and presentation skills experienced in a variety of professional settings. Ready to bring your stories to life? Contact Mark to learn more about the Impact Leaders program.

Mark Jones is an acclaimed leadership keynote speaker, facilitator and executive coach who helps leaders move from self-doubt to success. Pre-order now! Learn more Change your story, change everything. Get ready for my exciting new book, The Story Code: Unlock resilience and influence by rewriting the stories you tell yourself, launching 28 October, 2025! Pre-order The Story Code Keynote speaker Mark's keynotes help leaders use storytelling to drive growth, understand emerging technologies, and develop authentic personal brands. Speaking topics Facilitator & MC Mark's an expert MC, facilitator, and executive roundtable host who makes corporate events memorable and meaningful. Mark's motto: Audience first. Facilitation Info Coaching Personalised 1:1 coaching to crush limiting beliefs, craft your personal brand and develop compelling thought leadership strategies that work. Coaching info Storytellers change the world, so speak wisely. Mark Jones Executive coaching Flip the Script Is self-doubt holding you back? Feeling stuck? Welcome to Flip the Script , a group coaching experience for leaders and senior executives. This isn't just another coaching programme. It's a transformational reset. Working with facilitator Mark Jones and your peers, you'll discover what's hold you back, write a new story about your future self, and bring it to life with your team. Learn more Subscribe to Mark my Words: Trendspotting, inspo & optimism for leaders Enter your email here Sign Up Thanks for joining the conversation! Speaker bio Hey there, I’m Mark. I’m a motivational speaker, executive mindset coach and business author. I help leaders overcome self-doubt and discontent by rewriting the stories they tell themselves. Using proven strategies from The Story Code and Beliefonomics ™ – I challenge and empower leaders to shift mindsets, transform brands and drive growth. Why? Because storytellers change the world. Click here to chat about how I can help you, your team or bring your next event to life. Clients Mark's worked with leaders and brands across five continents for three decades. Here's a mix of current and former clients . You're in safe hands. Mark Jones is a Certified Speaking Professional, company director, successful entrepreneur and respected journalist and podcast host who's consistently rated 'excellent' by clients, event organisers and speaker agencies. Challenging Mark’s presentation was really thought-provoking and insightful for our broader marketing team. It challenged traditional approaches to the way companies talk about their brands and highlighted why a brand story helps build stronger emotional connections between a brand and its key audiences. Brand & Communications Manager UniSuper Insig htful I know how tough it is to engage staff and customers. I can fully recommend Mark’s keynote as a clear way of using storytelling to meet this challenge. The content and delivery is insightful, real, and easy to apply - exactly what you enjoy from a business speaker! Daniel Davis , A/NZ Regional Leader EOS Worldwide Engaging Mark Jones has got a great way of thinking strategically and pushing out to the future with an approach beneficial to brands, particularly those reaching the Millennials. Julie Praestiin , Head of Corporate Communications Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing Book Mark! Am I available? What's my fee? Hit send for a quick response. First Name Last Name Email Message Subscribe to Mark's newsletter - Mark my Words! Send Thanks! I'll be in touch shortly.

We all have an inner voice – a constant stream of thoughts narrating our lives, offering advice, opinions, and feedback on everything we do.   But for many professionals – including me – this voice can sound like a mean soccer coach.   Our quiet, inner narrator says stuff like, “I don’t think I can do this, I’m in over my head,” or “I’m not as smart as others.”     Staggeringly, 70% of people will experience imposter syndrome – feeling unqualified for their roles despite evident success – at least once in their lives, according to a study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science .   Research also reveals it’s not just an experience shared by early-career professionals but people right across the spectrum of working life. Seasoned leaders, entrepreneurs, and even CEOs frequently face self-doubt, often in silence.   In a global survey by KPMG , 75% of female executives admitted to having experienced imposter syndrome at some point during their careers. It’s also troubling many women in traditionally male-dominated fields such as science, engineering, technology and health sciences experience imposter syndrome. As for other genders, academic research shows few differences. However, it’s an open secret we men rarely drop our guard.   So, what’s wrong with these stories we tell ourselves?   The core issue is limiting beliefs are self-fulfilling. Over time, they shape how we see ourselves and what we believe is possible.   In fact, Dr. Valerie Young , psychologist and author of The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women , says they also drive behaviours that limit our potential, such as avoiding new challenges to downplaying achievements.   This silent struggle is particularly prevalent in the workplace. High-pressure environments, expectations of success, social media’s obsession with comparisons, and competition for jobs lead many professionals to suppress their self-doubt.   People can feel trapped behind a facade of confidence while privately questioning their worth. Fake it till you make it! It’s a dangerous disconnect, where even those at the top feel isolated and fearful of being “found out” as inadequate. I’ve been there, done that and got the grey hairs!   Storytelling to the rescue   The good news is these stories we tell ourselves are not fixed. Our inner narrative can be rewritten, a positive self-image can be revived. This too is part of my story.   The first step is to embrace one deeply cathartic idea: You’re not alone .   Why does this matter? Because it helps you crush harmful narratives.   For example, I once listed off my stress inputs during a walk with a good friend. We got up to about 10 different stressors impacting me at work and in my personal life. I truly felt alone in the struggle.   “You know that’s not normal, right? my wise mate countered. "Most people have just a few stresses.” Turns out I had forgotten what should be normal. But I wasn’t alone, and it was a profound moment.   Of course, moments like this are just one part of the journey. What matters is you keep moving forward with others, rewriting your narrative one line at a time.   'Stories We Tell Ourselves' is an exciting, breakthrough keynote by Mark Jones. His message of vulnerability, courage and optimism ignites positive change. Read more here .

This week I presented a real-time 'choose your own adventure' session at Mumbrella360. The live virtual audience chose one of two 'broken brands' and we used my diagnostic approach to operate on it in real-time surgery. Offered Mitre10 or Target, the audience chose ... Target! Here's what happened. How do you fix a broken brand? Every marketer faces this dilemma at least once in their career. The trouble is, how do you know if your brand, product or service is truly broken? Perhaps it’s just a bit damaged, or neglected. We often get so close to our brands that it’s hard to tell. It feels ok to you, but is that what the data says? I’ve distilled this complex issue into just three simple stages and this week we’ll apply my diagnostic questions to one broken brand you know very well. But first, a story Way back in pre-covid times, my colleague Paula and I sketched out this crazy idea for how to fix a broken brand in real-time. It was a pitch for this year’s Mumbrella360 event, hosted virtually last week. The crazy idea was I’d give the audience a choice of two pre-selected broken brands. Inspired by the memory of choose-your-own-adventure books, we'd have the audience choose one brand and together fix it on the spot. I had to be ready to go either way! Well, Mumbrella loved the idea, but since then everything changed. The live audience was to become a virtual one. Audible feedback and audience eye contact replaced by scrolling chatter on an iPad. Gulp. How’s this thing going to work? This wasn’t in my script! Analogy for the real thing It’s only now, having (successfully!) delivered the virtual experience, that I realised my own journey from clarity to complexity, mirrored the challenges we face with broken brands. Photography: Zahrina Robertson We can easily imagine a big brand campaign, large budgets and spend months laying the groundwork for a career defining moment, only for the perfect combinations of a global pandemic, budget cuts and layoffs to come in and wreck everything. So, what do you do when faced with the cold hard reality of more with less? Well, glad you asked! Here’s how I tackled the issue during my session. Step 1: Know what you’re fixing You can’t fix a broken brand without knowing exactly what you’re fixing. Call me Captain Obvious, but it’s a serious point. The fact is business leaders often have conflicting views of what constitutes “the brand”. Is it the name, the logo, or the idea of what your organisation stands for? Others talk about the importance of a go-to-market strategy. A brand is considered a mere speed bump on the road to sales glory. My simple definition is this: That is, your organisation is like a mirror, reflecting the story your customers tell out there in the world. You’re the embodiment of felt needs, desires, aspirations and random impulse purchases. Importantly, if we understand a brand as a customer story, it isolates the issue. If the brand is broken, it means the customer story is broken in some fashion. The remedy? Understand what customers are actually saying, and respond in a way that better reflects reality and future aspirations. Step 2: Know thy brand For the sake of example, let’s use the brand the audience opted to “fix” during my Mumbrella session: Target. Why Target? In the simplest terms, it’s losing badly to Kmart. 🤷🏼‍♂️ For years, Target’s Wesfarmers sibling has captured the hearts and minds of customers who love Kmart’s cheap but stylish products and 24 hour convenience. Our first step in fixing a broken brand live is to get our minds around just three diagnostic questions that represent the brand and its relative health. For efficiency, I’ve included my personal opinion responses, but feel free to replace with you own if you're familiar with Target. What’s one word that springs to mind about this brand? Daggy! What does it believe, or stand for? Cheap prices, but better quality than Kmart. How could it be better? It’s sorely lacking personality, quirky fun and a sense of adventure. When I was growing up, my mother called it Tar-jhay. It was classic Aussie culture: fun, a little bit classy, but not too serious. Step 3: Customer feelings Again, we’re focused on just three questions. Think about your own instant responses - I’ve added mine. Describe the typical customer? A busy mother. How do they want to feel? Happy. Life is stressful, budgets are tight and kids always need stuff! What would surprise and delight them? More name brands at Target prices. They want to feel proud of the clothes and homewares they buy for themselves and the family. Look good, responsibly. Step 4. Imagine long-term impact The hottest word in marketing today is purpose. But a brand’s purpose is only useful if it creates long-term, sustainable impact in the community. So step four is all about thinking ahead and imagining a future world where customers are experiencing the effects of your refreshed, fixed brand. Back to our three questions: What do customers value about this brand? They want to be proud. The secret shame is gone! How do brand and customer beliefs overlap? Customers and the brand want the satisfaction of knowing they are doing good things in the world. Yes, budgets matter and quality cotton clothes. But so does the idea of not exploiting cheap labour overseas. What if Target also took a stand on ethical supply chains and lasting community benefit? What lasting impact can you imagine? Customer satisfaction and positive word-of-mouth is on the rise. Target has a greater share of voice than Kmart because of its positive message, fresh personality and messaging that reinforces a cheeky tar-jhay vibe. Step 5. Write a brand story brief Fresh with all this creative thinking, it’s now time to write a brief for a creative storytelling agency to bring your vision for a restored Target to life. This brand story brings together your new insights and the first sketch of a creative story that could engage hearts and minds - a type of storytelling I describe in Beliefonomics as the Belief Moment. We want people to believe in this new brand proposition, not just see our creative work as a cute twist on an old idea. In this slide from my presentation, you see we’ve abstracted Steps 2-5 above into short answers: I’d picture the Brand as the “best”. The one Customer emotion is “satisfaction,” and the value created from lasting Impact is the “confidence” to shop regularly at Target again. All that remains is a creative story that brings it all together. What would I do? Well, here’s a thought. One of Target’s biggest, most under-utilised assets is its iconic logo. 👈🏼 This internationally-recognised logo can be reimagined to tell a bigger story: customers are in the centre circle, with different stakeholders radiating out in concentric circles: jobs, suppliers, families, communities and people employed in ethical supply chains. In one creative execution, a three minute highly-emotional mini-documentary takes the viewers from an in-store moment where a customer selects a garment and looks up, smiling to realise it’s a great decision. We see the ethical production of raw materials, manufacturers and suppliers. We see happy families, connected communities and people experiencing an authentic reality that’s not ignorant of fast fashion. A strong narrative voice and inspirational music tell the story, and a compelling new tagline brings it home. I won’t tell you that tagline, of course, because I’ve already given Target enough free creative inspiration, but you get the idea! Did we fix the broken brand? Well, what do you think? I’ll be the first to say this approach is best viewed as a quick, high-level pass to get people engaged, thinking and excited about possibilities. Brand research, analysis and creative work is non-trivial and time-consuming. But at the same time, we also need to make it accessible and fun. Brand stories are not fixed quickly when left alone with a few creatives at an external agency. Just like customers themselves, it’s time we democratised brand strategy and involved more people across departments and stakeholder groups in the creative process. I reckon we could all use a bit more tar-jhay-inspired personality to deal with the inevitable surprises that lurk just around the corner. Keep believing, P.S. Ready to choose your own adventure? Let's talk. MARK JONES is a brand strategist, author and keynote speaker. His purpose is to inspire more people to use the power of storytelling to change their world. Find out more at markhjones.net and subscribe to receive his weekly blog direct to your inbox.

It’s my last blog of the year and I’m more reflective than usual as 2020 comes to a close. Like all of us, I didn’t see the events of this year coming. Few words do it justice, but how about this: deeply unsettling . I don’t know about your journey, but this was the year three core pillars in my life were disrupted. My faith remained solid, but my home, work and health were all shaken by the pandemic and related forces. I hasten to add, I’m sailing off into the holiday season with an optimistic and hopeful mindset. I’ve come full circle, in part because I realised something really important I’d like to share. But first, the drama. Wind back the clock a few months. I'm at the gym, working out my frustrations on the treadmill, and the final chorus from Powderfinger’s award-winning and haunting anthem of 1999, These Days blares out how I was feeling: This life well it's slipping right through my hands These days turned out nothing like I had planned Control well it's slipping right through my hands I really was in a pretty dark place. And as a middle-aged man facing all the things we blokes face at this time of life, it really wasn’t a good thing. Stay with me as I connect a few dots and then we’ll land on a note of optimism that attempts to drag my story back into our marketing and storytelling wheelhouse. Personal life I’ve rarely, if ever, written about my own journey. I’m told I should, by some, that I shouldn’t by others. But I always pause for thought. I marvel at the likes of Brenè Brown and Donald Miller who champion vulnerability and authenticity. So here it is, a risky moment of vulnerability. I turned 46 this year and it sailed past in a blur. Only now have I realised what’s bugged me ever since turning 40. Guitarist John Mayer put it well in a doco on his life. He described waking up one day and realising he had a plan for the first half of his life, but not the second. The idea hit home. Then we’ve got an inspiring man by the name of Gordon MacDonald, an 80 year old Christian pastor and Chancellor at Denver Seminary. He’s still doing his thing, and by all accounts an inspiring leader. Driving to work one day I heard him on a podcast describe his life decade by decade. The ambition and growth of his 20s and 30s had given way to a realisation in his 40s that he wasn’t in a place he expected. Like a kind of grand existential awakening - how did I get here - and it resonated for reasons I’m still processing. The events I experienced were tough. Our family of four kids and two dogs endured the stresses and uncertainty associated with selling our home and moving to a new area during a pandemic. In addition, I endured mental and physical health issues that almost got the better of me. Sleepless nights, an unfamiliar sense of hopelessness, overwhelmed by sights and sounds, and a constant state of edginess. Channeling Mayer, it was hard to imagine the next 40 years. Then we had the stresses of lockdown and homeschooling life, like all other families. Just one of those issues would be enough for me, not all at once! Work life Next, we’ve got work. Many of you will know I self-published my first book, Beliefonomics , in March this year. We had grand plans, a launch event booked at Boutique Event Cinemas in George Street, guest speakers, Square payment mobile POS set up, and a humbling number of endorsements from leaders who’d agreed to review preview copies of my book. All cancelled. I love Peanuts , thanks to the BBC.com for this one: Like most of you, we took it all online and adapted. We did OK ... but the lack of direct audience engagement and feedback (validation?) was deafening to me, and I couldn't help wondering could we have done it differently? What if...? Likewise, I harbored ambitions for more paid speaking gigs at real-world events following the book launch. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen! Thankfully, we dived headlong into virtual events and to a large extent it was a great experience (right, guys!). Kudos to the Filtered Media team for their trust and agility in doing the switch to virtual events with me! Pictured with Daniel Marr, Tom Henderson and Paula Cowan. The bigger issue was that from March our agency, Filtered Media , took a revenue hit as marketing budgets suddenly went into a pandemic-powered deep freeze. Client after client started calling to regretfully tell me they needed to stop work. Like every small business, we’ve got a payroll, rent and ongoing commitments. Harrowing is a word that comes to mind to describe this season. Yet, here we are in December and the phones are ringing again. It’s a strange feeling, daring to hope that things really are getting better. Your experience Despite all these issues, I’ve also been mindful of our clients and industry friends. Through it all we kept recording and publishing episodes of The CMO Show podcast, keeping me tapped into the marketing zeitgeist. I marveled at how marketers, other working professionals like you and I, were coping with the year’s series of rolling events. While preparing for our final podcast, I went back and listened to our shows to catch a few snapshots of life as a marketer during a pandemic. Check out these stories: Louise Cummins , Marketing and Digital Innovations Director at H&R Block said the company shifted from advertising spend to a content strategy so they could better help customers by answering their tax and business questions. That is, lead generation took a back seat while they dialed up empathy and usefulness. Louise commented: “One thing that really resonated for me this year has been questions. That's the thing that every single person's got about everything in their life at the moment is, ‘what are the big questions?’” Ashley Killeen , Head of Impact at OzHarvest, echoed this sentiment. Imagine working at a charity primed to help feed people at a time such as this, but donations are hard to find. “It's more difficult than ever to tell the [OzHarvest] story and to appeal to people's sense of empathy when everyone is also struggling on a personal level, whether that be financially or emotionally.” Nicole McInnes , Director of Marketing and Commercial at WW (formerly Weight Watchers), was another professional who had to think quickly. The company switched from in-person workouts to virtual workouts with Zoom integration into the WW app within just five days. It was heart stopping, thrilling and ultimately rewarding. Joining the dots As is my habit, all this got me thinking. How do you make sense of all these experiences? Is there a golden thread that connects my somewhat dramatic personal experiences with the intensity experienced by marketing communications professionals? To my great delight, I realised the marketing trade press and industry people have done my homework. Even a casual observer of marketing trends could see that one issue has risen above it all this year - purpose . For example, Mumbrella360 Reconnected dedicated its first day to the topic of purpose. The word was peppered throughout our podcast transcripts, and it’s rarely a breath away in client conversations. And McKinsey wrote a useful article noting, “People who have a strong sense of purpose tend to be more resilient and exhibit better recovery from negative events.” Looking ahead, it argues purpose will be top of mind for employees in the “subsequent phases of the ‘next normal’ .” “People seek psychological fulfillment from work, and, as the crisis recedes and companies ramp up new ways of working, some people will experience friction, and even dissonance, around issues of purpose.” It’s a good point, and echoes something that’s bothered me for a while. It’s not a new idea, so what does purpose mean in the current/post COVID-19 era? Here’s my take. COVID-19 has forced us to realise we want something more than tokenism and kind words about doing good stuff. For too long in business we’ve accepted purpose as a nominal idea giving us social license to operate. It easily becomes an internal feel-good soundtrack for internal communications. Here’s how Kantar takes it up a level, mapping out four progressive steps toward a purposeful brand for organisations. I’ve taken the liberty of adding ( my interpretation ): Purpose is seen as an isolated tactic ( tokenism ) Purpose becomes infused with a societal brand promise ( vision ) Purpose is amplified and aligned with a company-wide strategy ( authenticity ) Purpose becomes a business-led movement ( impact ) I like the way they have called out the maturity that’s needed by leaders throughout an organisation to bring the notion of purpose to life. Yet, as I’ve mused on this model, something was missing. The gap, it seems, is the ‘ so what’ factor. What’s in it for me? What if I don’t like my employer’s purpose? After all, that purpose could simply be profit, and for some that’s motivating enough, but what if I want, no, need , more? I believe purpose needs a companion. And its name is Meaning . We all want to live and work in meaningful ways. It could be overcoming personal challenges, helping family, building community, or contributing to a noble cause championed by your employer. Whatever it is, it should be meaningful . Why? Because that’s what we’re hoping will fill the COVID-shaped hole - which is the same shape as our humanity-shaped hole, but COVID cleared away some of the roughage that used to be at its outline. One last thought Let’s wrap up with a return to Powderfinger lyrics. My Happiness is a fantastic song from the album Odyssey Number Five . Bernard Fanning sings: My happiness is slowly creeping back Now you're at home I’m taking him out of context because this song is about the loneliness of life on the road. But the sentiment still works for me. My happiness is slowly creeping back for multiple reasons. We found a new house. Life feels more stable. My mental and physical health is recovering. Our clients and team are happy. My faith gives me strength. I’m grateful. All these things are meaningful, and the end result is this year feels redeemed. You see, I’m a big believer in excellence, not perfection . I define excellence as, “doing the best you can with the resources you have in the time available.” On this score, I did pretty well in 2020. It wasn’t easy, or fun most of the time. But that’s not the point. I’m better for pursuing excellence - enduring, listening, learning and staying the course. In other words, my deeply unsettling year morphed into a meaningful one. What about you? Keep believing, P.S. Thank you to everyone who subscribed, bought a book, posted a review, supported and cheered me on this year - you’re awesome. I’ll be back in the New Year. Until then, stay safe and enjoy the holiday season. MARK JONES is a brand strategist, author, keynote speaker and father of four. His purpose is to inspire more people to use the power of storytelling to change their world for good, and has created a world-first storytelling framework for leaders to do so called Beliefonomics . Find out more at markhjones.net and subscribe to receive his weekly blog that restarts January 2021.