Mark Allen Hayes
THE QUESTION THAT STARTED EVERYTHING
I have spent most of my life at the intersection of story, enterprise, and meaning. As an entrepreneur, I have built companies. As an educator, I have taught hundreds of students how to bring ideas to life on screen. As a real estate professional, I have worked inside some of the most remarkable properties and with some of the most accomplished people in Central Florida. And through all of it, one question kept surfacing in every room I walked into:
Why do some leaders leave a legacy that outlasts them, while others just as talented and just as driven, leave almost no trace at all?
The answer, I eventually discovered, was never about talent, resources, or even accomplishment. It was always about story. Specifically, whether the leader had ever built their story into anything — or whether it had simply lived and died inside them.
WHAT THE REEARCH CONFIRMED
I did not arrive at that conclusion casually. I spent years researching it. My doctoral work, grounded in narrative inquiry, explores the relationship between vocational calling, meaningfulness, and the stories leaders tell about their own work. What the research keeps confirming is both simple and urgent: calling is not assigned at birth and discovered overnight. It is excavated — through lived experience, through failure, through the years that felt wasted and the rooms that felt wrong.
And here is the part that changes everything for most leaders I work with: those years are not wasted material. They are the material. Every wrong turn, every pivot, every season of invisibility was the construction of a story that someone else desperately needs to hear.
People I work with have often spent thirty years in the wrong room. They are not broken. They are overdue.
Education
JOHNSON UNIVERSITY
PHD in LEADERSHIP, NARRATIVE, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, and VOCATIONAL CALLING
NAR COMMERCIAL INSTITUTE
CCIM., 2008
TOASTMASTERS INTERNATIONAL
CTM., 2003
SAC UNIVERSITY
2000, LAB RAT STATUS
ROLLINS
M.B.A., BUSINESS, 1997
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FL
B.A, MEDIA : FILM & MEDIA , 1989
Making a difference.
Stockworth Institute
In 2004, Mark Hayes founded Stockworth Institute where he created an Entrepreneurial Fast Track program for young adults, where instead of teaching business to young adults, he went into business with them. His program was featured at Lake Highland Preparatory School for four years, and since then, he has helped prepare over 400 young adults for a life of entrepreneurialism. For years, Mark has been a guest lecturer and business plan judge at both UCF and Rollins College.
Mark’s Hobbies
A former champion BMX racer, Mark has been an avid biker his entire life. For his 50th birthday he undertook a life-changing mountain bike trip across the continental divide.
He is also an avid collector of watches and guitars. He has an impressive collection of both (some of which his wife doesn’t know about yet…shhh!) He loves music so much, he has been known to spontaneously break out one of his guitars in the middle of a meeting.
But probably the most cherished collection: his fountain pens. “All good writers and storytellers should write with a truly great pen.” He is well known for never forgetting to write a handwritten birthday note to every friend, colleague, and employee and is passionate about expressing his thanks and appreciation through personal handwritten letters.
