Mark Gorkin
MSW, LICSW
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Motivational Humorist, Keynote Speaker & "Psychohumorist" (TM) Expert
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Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, is a psychotherapist and "Motivational Humorist," an acclaimed Keynote, Kickoff and Celebrity Cruise Lines Speaker and an OD/Team Building Consultant. His diverse clients range from Booz Allen Hamilton, DuPont Corporation, Skadden Arps (Intl law Firm) and SAP to the Australian Embassy, the City of Suffolk, VA and Human Resource Associations, including the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) and the Intl. Personnel Management Association (IPMA). Mark is the author of Practice Safe Stress: Healing and Laughing in the Face of Stress, Burnout & Depression and of The Four Faces of Anger: Transforming Anger, Rage, and Conflict Into Inspiring Attitude and Behavior. Also, the Doc is America Online's "Psychohumorist" ™ running his weekly "Shrink Rap ™ and Group Chat." Finally, Mark is an advisor to The Bright Side ™ -- www.the-bright-side.org -- a multi-award winning mental health resource. See his award winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" -- www.stressdoc.com -- cited as a workplace resource by National Public Radio (NPR). Email for his monthly newsletter showcased on List-a-Day.com.
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The Audacity of Humility: Leading by “All Too Human” Example
Just before the start of a “Stress, Change and Creative Teaming” workshop, I was testing out my microphone. The program was for managers of a global engineering company. Most of the 50 + particpants were ex-military, now contractors working with commands and brigades based at Ft. Hood, TX or presently stationed overseas. As I called out, “Can people in the back hear me?” a former Sergeant Major who knew me from my work at Ft.
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Strengthening Stress Resiliency and Brain Agility with Humor and Natural SPEED
My participation as the “Stress Doc” ™ at the USPTO Health Fair reminded me of two basic facts: 1) people like to laugh, especially when they can share a gentle and knowing laugh at their own flaws and foibles and 2) especially in a high demand-production work environment and a “TNT – Time-Numbers-Technology – Driven- and Distracted World, many folks are hungry for concepts, tools, and strategies that will impact and improve the quality of daily life.
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In Challenging Times, No More “Inner Child”: Boldly Bring Your Inner Chutzpah
Over lunch, a colleague posed a provocative challenge: “Write an article on chutzpah.” He believes the timing is right. In this difficult economy and uncertain times it’s certainly tempting to withdraw into a shell. But a better strategy might be a contrary one, throwing off the shell and putting yourself out there.
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Discovering Your Passion Through Humble Practice and Outrageous Play
A playful challenge from an audience member helps bring to life the importance of searching for and developing your passion, whether in the face of skepticism, long periods of self-doubt and/or having to accept (even better, learn to play with and laugh at) your own flaws and foibles. Setting the stage for the dramatic close of my Practice Safe Stress program with the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Dentistry faculty and staff, I declared, "Find something you love to do, that you are truly passionate about.
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The Four “R”s for a PROductive Relationship: Be Respectful, Real, Responsible and Responsive
The Stress Doc presents a four step, “Four 'R'” communicational guide for building successful “give and take” professional relationships. The Four “R”s are dramatically illustrated in his recent encounter with an ENT surgeon. Many of us “Boomers” grew up with an alliterative academic mantra as educational foundation, that is, the Four “R”s – Reading, Writing, Rithmetic and Religion. Let’s just say I focused more on the first two “R”s and sort of made a nominal wave at the latter.
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Laughing in the Face of Layoffs
"How can the person displaced or downsized see both the danger and opportunity in career change or disruption? Can we learn, even, to both cry and laugh at this career crisis turning point?" To be able to see the comic in the crisis requires two achievements. First we must embrace Charlie ...
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Confronting Your Intimate FOE: Fear of Exposure
Confronting Your Intimate FOE: Transforming Fear of Exposure into the Fun of Embarrassment As a speaker and workshop leader, I’m always designing and experimenting with small group exercises that, hopefully, generate positive energy, emotional give and take and some knowing, if not hearty, ...
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Leading With Passion Power
Leading with “Passion Power” ™: A Four “P” Interactive Model for Expanding Personal Energy, Professional Creativity and Organizational Synergy – Part I Awhile back, preparing for a talk on “Becoming a Dynamic and Engaging Speaker,” I asked myself a fundamental question: what are the essential ...
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Developing Your Passion Power: The Four “P” Path
A few years back, preparing for a talk on “How to Give Exciting and Engaging Presentations,” I asked myself a fundamental question: what are the essential qualities that I bring to a speaking program? In general, my goal is to help people become more FIT, that is, how can attendees have “Fun” ...
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On Becoming a Leading “Word Artist” on Stage and Page: How to ASPIRE2 – Part I
As a speaker, writer and leader I’m always looking to follow in the mind-prints of, or at least understand and hopefully emulate, Nobel-prize winning scientist, Albert Szent Gyorgyi’s “elegantly simple” words: “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought!” With originality as frame, form and function, what are the key skills and strategies for exploring new performance possibilities, generating potent ideas, inspiring others and strengthening my creative output as a word artist – whether on the stage or the page?
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The Silent Wall of Shame
Recently writing about “Bully Types” resurrected an emotio I have grappled with much of my life: a) being part of a family, especially as a child and teen, riddled with mental illness and shrouded in family secrets, b) as a child and young teen, threatened and emotionally bullied by peers for too many years, c) as an oft underachieving student and, finally, d) as a financially vulnerable speaker/word artist. The emotion is “SHAME!” And the crown with the cross: The ability to harness shame for uncommon empathy as well as creative and inspiring performance.
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Courageous Resilience & Creative Risk-Taking (CR2): The ABCs of Designing Disorder
Notice the vertical letter pattern to the right of the first “Preamble” stanza. It’s the rhyme scheme: A-B-CC-A-B-CCC. This is the basic scheme throughout the poem. Also, it’s one reason the poem is subtitled, “The ABCs of Designing Disorder.”rn~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Courageous Resilience & Creative Risk-Taking (CR2): The ABCs of Designing Disorder Preamble Trio: 1) Weariness… 2) Uncertainty… 3) Failure A Resilience and Risk B The new “R & R” C Where effort and pluckr C With guidance and luckr A Help you stretch and stickr B To that rising starr
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Mark Gorkin
"The Stress Doc" (TM)
Stress Doc Enterprises
9629 Elrod Road
Kensington, MD 20895
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Other highlights
Clients have included:
Corporations: Booz Allen Hamilton, Dupont Corporation, SAP--Human Capital Forum/ASUGS (Keynote Speaker), Celebrity Cruise Lines, America Online, Kelley School of Business/Indiana University, Day and Zimmerman, Tellabs, Computer Sciences Corporation, Thalle Construction Company, SkyLink: The Airline Ticket Center, Biography Magazine, US Pharmacopeia, Skadden Arps (Intl law Firm), Reed Smith (Intl Law Firm), Patton Boggs (Intl Law Firm), Piper, Marbury, Rudnick & Wolfe (Intl Law Firm), Blackbaud, Georgetown University
Associations: American Chemical Society, CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2005, Human Resource Assn. of the National Capital Area, Society of Human Resources Management, Airplane Owners and Pilots Assn., American Industrial Hygiene Association, Business Owners and Managers Assn Intl, National Council of University Research Administrators, Professional Conference Management Association, Association of Legal Administrators, International Personnel Management Assn, Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors, American College of Physicians, National Wildlife Federation, Defense Research Institute, Southwest Industrial Contractors Association, ColdFusion Conference 2003
Government Agencies: Training Officers Conference Institute, Virginia Human Resource Leadership Conference--2005 (Opening Keynote Speaker), Fairfax County Govt--HR Conference (Opening Keynote Speaker), Australian Embassy, VA Medical Center, Northport, Long Island, Centers for Disease Control, Health & Human Services--Div. of Acquisition Management, DOD/Population Health and Health Promotion, Department of Justice, National Institutes of Health, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (including National Weather Service), Naval Sea Systems Command, Department of Commerce, US Postal Service (as a Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant; the Stress Doc is battle-tested).