Last week I was invited by both GUST University and NES to come in and speak about my blog to their students. I was never a big fan of public speaking since back when I was working in advertising, public speaking was part of my job. I was always presenting work to clients and it was always a nerve-racking experience but last week I realized, I actually love public speaking when it has to do with my blog. I mean why wouldn’t I? Getting invited to come and basically talk about myself to a large group of people who are interested in what I have to say, who wouldn’t love that? Although I do that with the blog on a day to day basis, in person its a completely different experience.
At both GUST and NES I spoke about various blog related topics but the most important one I wanted to discuss with everyone was not only how the blog had taken over my life, but how it’s also taken over my day to day thinking process. It’s something I’ve only come to realize recently and something I’m still trying to understand better so it was pretty therapeutic talking about it out loud.
Speaking to all the students last week was a very exciting experience for me and I’m hopefully going to being doing more of it from now. Thank you to everyone who attended, NES students you guys were a blast and GUST students, I’m sorry you had to endure an hour and a half of my sober ramblings!
21 replies on “Frankly Speaking”
If possible and if you don’t mind.. record future ones!
My daughter goes to GUST and she really enjoyed your presentation. She found it very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to inspire the youth in Kuwait in such a positive manner. Best of luck to you in your blog!
nice selfie mark..
Do you ever have regrets about the blog thing? Like I mean, making it as large a part of your life as it is now
No, no regrets at all, it just limits my freedom sometimes. For example I was telling the GUST students how I’d love to go on a one month road trip all across California but I can’t, because I can’t be away from the blog for that long. A friend was telling me a couple of weeks back how they volunteered at the Lotus Temple for three months and I was like wow I’d love to do that but obviously I can’t. I can’t even travel abroad to do my masters because it would mean the end of the blog if I do…
i think we have mutual friend – Lotus Temple –
Congrats Mark!
Hopefully, you can share here some pointers about ‘responsible’ blogging… 🙂
if anybody has recorded it, can you upload it on youtube? i’d love to watch.
I doubt anyone recorded it since I spoke for like an hour and a half
Hey Mark,
What a cool thing to do! As a teacher, I can guarantee that the students will remember more about what you said (and stand for) than most class lectures and what they read about in their dated text books. Congrats on being super different and making a difference in this world.
But I don’t get why you can’t take these adventures and just write from the road (hotel wifi!). That would make for some interesting reads! Take a few months off; then write a lot about your experiences when u get back to reality.
Ps u look handsome with a beard
hey will majority of my readers check the blog to find out what’s going on in kuwait. very few people would care about my vacation stories.
and thanks 🙂
Hey Mark,
Just wanted to say keep up the amazing work!
You are actually the only blog I still read in Kuwait.
Even though I am 100 percent Kuwaiti born and raised, I feel like a complete stranger in my own country when I read your posts about all the interesting places you have been to here .. I also love the way you actually say the truth about places not like the other bloggers/ instagramers that currently offer their posts for sale.
P.S. I wish you could travel and enjoy your vacation for more than a month, but secretly I don’t hope to because I would really miss your posts ;p
hahahaha thats why i don’t travel for long
On behalf of GUST and my students enrolled in Internet and Services Marketing, thank you, Mark. Your real-world dose of reality, if even only lasting 90 minutes, was insightful and helpful. And look, it helped you get 1 of your 3 anticipated stories for the day!
Dr. John Hayes, I miss your classes a lot! Because of you I love marketing so much and I miss GUST too!
Thank you, Abdulrahman. I have been blessed with good students like you at GUST — you are the people who can make a difference in this country! And you are always welcome to visit my classes and share your experiences.
I for one would be equally intrigued with your vacation posts even if it is for a couple of months. You can still do it and ensure your readers are interested as long as you occassionally thrown in a post about a new burger joint or a cupcake business. And one of us can send over the latest fight at the avenues to you via whatsapp, for you to post.
Go for it dude!
maybe you should try toastmasters
You should have been to the the American International School or Canadian Bilingual School too!
It was a pleasure having you in our common room at NES. Hopefully we will see more of you and P.S. everyone was kind of in love with your arms 😀 and the rest of you too ;). Best of luck with everything
God, I hated NES. Studying there was such a traumatizing experience for me.