Tackling your ‘next big thing’
Christine Mark Photo by Kimberly Hatch
By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
As the co-founder and CEO of Gravity Switch, a Northampton-based marketing firm with an 18-year track record of assisting firms to get their message heard, Christine Mark is used to going after “big things” for her business.
“There’s new things that I’m learning and doing all the time,” Mark told PRIME. “We’re a small boutique firm, 12 people strong – we’re small but mighty– and we work with a lot of different clients; higher education, non-profits; we’ve got some nice names [including] Yale University, The Hartford and Disney.”
She’s also taken on several “big things” in her own life, including leaving a post-college job with Microsoft to come back East and co-found her marketing firm with then-friend and now husband Jason Mark, then figuring out how to run a successful business and be a mom to four children.
“In my 20s I wanted to have a family. I wanted to be a business owner and have kids, and I figured it out,” she cited as an example of tackling personal “big things.”
This March, Mark will be sharing some of the strategies and techniques she uses to go after those “big things” in life with other women as a presenter at Bay Path Univeristy’s 2015 Women’s Leadership Conference.
The daylong conference, now in its 20th year, takes place on March 27 at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield. Keynote speakers include Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Angélique Kidjo, Latin superstar and humanitarian Gloria Estefan and business CEO turned medical research innovator Kathy Giusti, founder two myeloma research foundations. For more information and tickets, visit
www.baypathconference.com.
Talking about ‘big things’
“It’s really funny that I asked for this,” Mark said of her gig as a presenter of “Going After Your Next Big Thing” at this year’s conference. “I’m an introvert and it’s not that I want to get up on stage. The thing is, the topic occurred to me; I do this all the time in my own life.”
Still, she said it was taking on a specific “next big thing” in her life – turning 40 – that sparked her to step out of her comfort zone and share her strategies with others.
“I realized I was applying different kinds of tools and techniques and approaches to how I was tackling [this issue] that I felt were worth sharing. I was [sharing my process] on Facebook and found people were really inspired by it, and that inspired me,” she said.
She pitched the idea to Kathleen Wroblewski, Director of Communications & Institutional Marketing, and quickly found herself on the slate of speakers.
“I’m very excited,” Mark said.
She will be offering her insights during both the morning and afternoon breakout sessions of the conference.
Why you need a ‘big thing’
Asked if she felt everyone should be thinking about a “next big thing” either in their work or their personal life, Mark’s answer was an unqualified “yes.”
The scale of that “next big thing” will be different for each person, she said, but whether the challenge is something we want to “start doing, or stop doing,” embracing that change is an opportunity for growth, for learning, and for creating a sense of accomplishment
“I think it gives back to you in a lot of ways,” Mark said. “People can surprise themselves. Living day to day – if that is what you are doing – life can pass you by. When we change up our routine – or what we are trying to accomplish – it feels like you can really notice and learn things that you might not have noticed or seen. It’s comfort-zone pushing in a good way.”
A ‘big thing’ gameplan
For those who won’t be able to attend her breakout sessions on March 27, Mark graciously shared the following four-point formula to accomplish your personal “next big thing.”
1. Deciding on a “next big thing.”
“I think some people may struggle in terms of an idea, they don’t know where to start or have so many things they want to do they don’t know what to focus on,” Mark said.
To kickstart the process, Mark suggests individuals do some self-observation. For example she said to consider what types of things your attention is on, or what bothers you. Here it’s good to enlist the help of someone close to you – a spouse or friend – to find out what you complain about, or dream about.
These observations, Mark said, can give you clues about what’s important to you.
She said another way to find your “next big thing” is to figure out where you spend your time and “thought energy” when you are not being absorbed by must-do tasks.
“Is there something there that you can grab onto?” Mark asked.
This approach, however, doesn’t mean she advocates turning everyone’s hobby into a “big thing” type goal, Mark emphasized.
2. Committing to the change, or as Mark said, “having the guts” to go after that “big thing” is another crucial step to making any type of personal or professional change.
“Bravery is an element for some people,” Mark noted. “If the ‘big thing’ is a habit change, it will take some emotional and mental energy.”
3. Making the time for your “big thing.”
“I’ve yet to met a person who tells me that they have so much time they don’t know what to do with it,” Mark said. “One of the roadblocks is ‘where will you have the time to do it.’ Nobody has the time. You need to make the time.”
4. Figuring out the logistics – or, making it happen. This is where Mark said individuals need to draw on their personal “superpower” to help plan and execute the change.
“Some of us are good at organizing, others are good at seeing the big picture, others at details,” Mark said. “It’s how you use these things that will help you get to your next ‘big thing’.”
Christine Mark’s first real “big thing” came her senior year at Mount Holyoke College, when the computer science major decided to take a class in 3-D animation at UMass Amherst. Discovering she “liked using cool software more than writing it” and meeting the course’s grad student instructor Jason Mark, changed the course of her life.
Mark is currently at work on her next personal “big thing,” but isn’t ready to go public with it yet.
