Want to improve your Self Esteem?
Are you a woman that sometimes feels disempowered or inadequate at work?
Do you find you often have to deal with difficult people at work, especially in meetings?
Do you feel that you work in an aggressive male dominated work environment?
If you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions, then you might be interested in participating in the beta test of my online course called Activating Self Esteem for Women.
Check out this article I wrote recently that appeared in Daring Woman magazine in the US.
How To Not Need Help From The #MeToo Project
Presenting the Activating Self Esteem for Women (Overcoming Challenges in the Workplace) online course
Activating Self Esteem for Women teaches you how to achieve profound self-esteem and thereby live up to your potential in the workplace so you can:
- Identify and release negative emotions and beliefs that limit you, thus helping you to move from a state of contraction to a state of expansion.
- Identify and own your genius traits so that you can believe in your unique specialness which can be extraordinarily useful under pressure.
- Identify and strengthen your boundaries and thereby move towards love and power.
How this course works!
- There are 6 modules. Each module has some theory and then practical exercises.
- The practical work is critical. The better your focus around the practice, the more you will get out of the course.
- You are investing time and money into this and I have no doubt that you want to get the absolutely best value from it.
- There are 3 essential elements we will be working with. Feelings, thoughts and behaviour. We have about 60,000 thoughts a day, that’s about 1 every second!
- The more you can bring focus to the exercises, the better you will do.
- If focus is a problem for you, you can learn to ‘let go’ using the Emotional Releasing module of all of the negative emotions that obscure your focus.
- We are thus predominantly focused on the mind and the feelings that are generated by these thoughts.
- Behaviour, what we do, is critical. Life is not just lived in the mind, it has to be lived in the world, through action, there’s no escaping that.
- Each module is designed to take one week. 20 minutes a day will do it. Just think how much time you devote to your work. 8,10,12 or 14 hrs a day. Just 20 minutes a day for 6 weeks, to change your life.
If you would like to see me speak before signing up for the beta test, check out this TV interview I did on the Afternoon Express show on SABC 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmh0rS1V_no
Here are more details about what the course covers:
- Module 1: Emotional Releasing
Identifying and releasing negative emotions and beliefs that limit your Self-Esteem. This module focuses on the feeling aspect.
Most negative emotions are released by young children in minutes. Adults hold onto the negative for hours, days, weeks, years, lifetimes… This holding on destroys our vitality and our spirit. It covers up and muddies the waters of our Self Esteem. Holding on is agony, letting go is happiness.
Holding on is a contraction, letting go is expansion and this movement from contraction to expansion is the foundation of the Self Esteem process. One of the most common difficulties my clients talk about in this work, is how to be more direct and open in meetings with difficult people, self-righteous and dominating people. If you think about yourself in these situations you might notice how much holding on is happening inside of you. Resentment, anxiety, anger and judgements?
Every client I have ever worked with tells me that these emotions and the judgemental beliefs, are experienced as a contraction in the body and mind and that this is painful. Letting go of anxiety and anger and negative beliefs is expansion and it paves the way for skilful and powerful interactions. I have watched so many people in teams in the ‘meeting’ scenario, not speaking their truth, not standing in their power.
There are many reasons for this, but the 2 primary ones are: Fear of being judged, attacked and criticised. Fearing judging, attacking and criticising others – and hence appearing ‘difficult.’
- Module 2: Activating your Genius
Identifying and owning your genius traits. Also focuses on the feeling aspect.
When you don’t believe in your specialness, your genius, you will not believe in yourself under pressure. You will abandon yourself. You will betray your specialness, your uniqueness. You will let people and situations overpower you. We get really upset when other people betray us, but we betray ourselves countless times.
The lower your Self Esteem, the more you will betray yourself e.g. a manager discounts you/undermines your value in front of others. You say nothing. You have betrayed yourself by not speaking out in support of yourself. You will invite others to overpower you when you give them a message which says, “I won’t challenge you, because I am not worthy, so…take advantage of me!”
When you are sitting in meetings and you fear speaking your truth to keep the peace, to avoid conflict, so that you can reduce your ‘Career Limiting Moves’, (CLM’s) avoid conflict and not hold people in power accountable, you are living in self-doubt and anxiety, you are holding back your career and limiting your potential to influence people and teams and you are not experiencing the joy and freedom of being yourself.
Life in the corporation or business is going to deflate you and create wall to wall anxiety. You cannot think you are really, really special and be anxious at the same time.
- Module 3: Cultivating Wisdom
Identifying your toxic beliefs to become free of guilt and shame. Focuses on the mind, to release the mental obstacles to mastery and great self esteem.
We live in a world full of blind, conditioned ignorance that goes back millennia. In this module we explore where the conditioning is hurting you and prejudicing your confidence. You can change this ignorant conditioning.
This will be a beautiful gift to yourself, to your family, your children, your work colleagues, your subordinates, and your company culture. Our lives are filled with rules, which cause us great pain and which we seldom question and which create great suffering.
For example, there is a rule which says you can sit in a chair outside in your garden looking at nothing in particular, but you cannot sit inside looking at nothing in particular. There’s a set of rules about this. Based on what!?!? Nothing. It’s insane.
Sitting in a reception area on your phone texting and doing emails is normal – but actually potentially very stressful – while staring ahead at nothing – actually meditating and slowing down your brainwave pattern, reducing stress and inflammation in the body, is considered mad! Where, actually, is the madness?
It’s in the culture and if you believe this mad rule, then you are going to feel very stressed, yes? As you work through this module, you will begin to realize how Toxic Beliefs shut down your power and allow others to take advantage of you. The converse is that owning your power builds confidence and your ability to manage the myriad of challenges served up to you by corporate life.
- Module 4: Activating your Boundaries
Identifying the quality of your boundaries and how to strengthen them. Focuses on the feeling/thinking process inside the body.
You will begin to feel and sense yourself experiencing boundaries that is loving and powerful. I introduce a technique, Strategic Questions (SQs) that will enable you to deepen your capacity to feel and sense a stronger boundary.
I’ve had many clients who struggled with not being able to influence anyone and thereby feeling like a total victim. The SQs technique in this module has transformed them. Your ability to deal with other people from a place of a powerful and loving boundary (not always both at the same time) is critical to living a happy and fulfilled life, traversing adversity and pain, sadness and threat, in a wise, skilful way.
And when I say ‘skill’, I mean the ability to build great, trusting relationships where you have great power! It also means being able to manage autocrats and abusers from a place of clarity, certainty and confidence. Without a powerful boundary you are at the mercy of forces and people who simply want to manipulate, use and abuse you. So called sensitive people tend to have a great deal of fear around being powerful and the not so sensitive often have overdetermined boundaries because they deal with pressure by getting angry. The sensitive ones, fear looking pushy, angry, greedy, needy, over sensitive, demanding, difficult…you name it. The less sensitive ones, cover up their vulnerability and anxiety with anger.
- Module 5: Living your Boundaries
Becoming skilful in the way your boundary is expressed by giving you a method for living them. Focuses on behaviour/action, and combines feelings and thoughts.
Here we get to the skill. I’ve worked with many really smart people, who have significant love and power, significant confidence, but they just don’t have the skills necessary for implementing a strong boundary. Having skill means you don’t just feel your boundaries, you live them. Life can’t be lived in your head, it is lived in action. The ‘skill’ part is called The Trust & Power Dynamic (T&PD). The method for implementing it is called Strategic Questions (SQ’s) which means that the T&PD describes why this works and the SQ’s describes how it works, how to do it. Your greatest skill in interaction with another human being is a combination of Challenge (i.e. taking) and Support (i.e. giving).
People don’t ask enough questions because they aren’t interested in listening, they’re interested in telling and talking and they haven’t discovered the power which arises when you ask more questions. So, we live in a culture of statements. The T&PD is very simple. It is about Support, which is Giving, which build’s Trust and then Challenge, which is Taking, which builds Power. Our culture is filled with inspiring quotes and stories about how important it is to give to others.
Nothing wrong with that. But few people talk about the importance of receiving. The giver does not exist independently of the receiver. It is wonderful to be a great receiver. To pursue your passion, whether it be in the form of your career, or in terms of expressing your beliefs and values and perceptions about life and about how to solve problems is equally as important as giving. Of course, when you do this in an authentic and inspired way, you are also giving to the world. Great communication skill is being able to move, at will and to vary between building Trust and building Power.
- Module 6: Risk vs Avoidance
Moving from avoiding situations that scare you to risking more often, to become more confident, alive and energised. Focuses on action, taking risk.
We spend much of our lives in avoidance of the pain that is locked deep in our hearts. It’s called Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) which 100% of people suffer from and that leaves pockets of pain inside of us, walled off from consciousness. We then have to navigate our way through relationships, through life, trying to avoid having this pain activated. This is called the fight, flight or freeze response.
We create fantasies that when some positive event happens in the future, we will finally be happy, the anxiety will go.
But all experiences in life are double sided. With a positive you get a negative. Whatever you are excited about – just think about one thing now – the anxiety will follow.
My trip to the Seychelles: “I hope the weather is good!” My new baby: “I hope she is healthy.” My new job: “I hope the company is as good as they sounded in the interview?”
What people are saying about Mark Kahn…
“I understood that I was in the wrong work environment and you made me realise that it wasn’t all my fault… I would recommend you to people who want more of a goal-oriented form of therapy as well as people who need to work on their Self Esteem.”
Gia Conte-Patel – Product Manager

“Before doing Mark’s work, I would always be trying to get people to like me. I would put their happiness, needs and wants before my own. It left me feeling hollow and unfulfilled. After the work I now see myself as full. It is from this place that I am able to give myself more authentically, my relationships have more meaning and I am able to connect on a deeper level.”
Kate Reymond – Senior Media Buyer

“I am able to better prepare for meetings and presentations by getting into my power. I now understand my reluctance to change/challenge and can breathe through the discomfort – usually experienced with forceful people. I speak up in meetings often and walk into them with more confidence. I keep referring you to all my friends. I love your ‘real’ approach. You have freed my from so many societal constraints.”
Cara Spies – Marketing Manager

“I have seen numerous psychologists…and none have helped me release my heavy baggage quite like Dr Mark has…he is talented, brilliant, calming, wonderful, assertive, gentle, empathetic, and caring. This work enabled the weight of my baggage to lessen until I felt free of everything that was bringing me down. I am a better functioning human in my day to day life. I view myself more confidently and have more Self Esteem. I have gained a certain level of belief in myself to be able to reach my goals and aspirations in my next career path.”
Claudia Loreiro – Business owner

Presenting the Activating Self Esteem for Women (Overcoming Challenges in the Workplace) online course
Activating Self Esteem for Women teaches you how to achieve profound self-esteem and thereby live up to your potential in the workplace so you can:
- Identify and release negative emotions and beliefs that limit you, thus helping you to move from a state of contraction to a state of expansion.
- Identify and own your genius traits so that you can believe in your unique specialness which can be extraordinarily useful under pressure.
- Identify and strengthen your boundaries and thereby move towards love and power.
How this course works!
- There are 6 modules. Each module has some theory and then practical exercises.
- The practical work is critical. The better your focus around the practice, the more you will get out of the course.
- You are investing time and money into this and I have no doubt that you want to get the absolutely best value from it.
- There are 3 essential elements we will be working with. Feelings, thoughts and behaviour. We have about 60,000 thoughts a day, that’s about 1 every second!
- The more you can bring focus to the exercises, the better you will do.
- If focus is a problem for you, you can learn to ‘let go’ using the Emotional Releasing module of all of the negative emotions that obscure your focus.
- We are thus predominantly focused on the mind and the feelings that are generated by these thoughts.
- Behaviour, what we do, is critical. Life is not just lived in the mind, it has to be lived in the world, through action, there’s no escaping that.
- Each module is designed to take one week. 20 minutes a day will do it. Just think how much time you devote to your work. 8,10,12 or 14 hrs a day. Just 20 minutes a day for 6 weeks, to change your life.
My offer
- I am offering the course as a beta test to a maximum of 10 people on a first come first served basis.
- The course has six modules and will be offered via email over six weeks, starting from 2 May 2019.
- Unlike for the online course, I will be accessible via email for six week duration to answer any questions you may have.
- The course will be significantly discounted at R500. Once the course is offered publicly, following the beta test, I envisage the online course will be priced at thousands of Rands.
- The course modules will include content in pdf format, audio clips and worksheets.
- Please email me asap on realmark@icon.co.za should you be interested in participating in the beta test. Note, the beta test will only be offered to 10 people.
What makes the Activating Self Esteem for Women course different?
- Methods based on a combination of text, audio and worksheets
- You learn in bite sized chunks, with a view to mastering each section before moving on to the next section
- Although the course provides information, it’s not an info dump. The focus is on practical application.
- The issue with a lot of information generally is that it is not easily executable. We focus on a series of steps so that skills maybe developed.
The course is designed for achieving outstanding results
- You don’t just get notes and a little nudge
- If you don’t want to grow in your life, then this course is not for you
- This is not for you if you don’t want to put in the time and work – 20 minutes per day for 6 weeks is what’s required.
Who is this course for?
- Career women
- Those with low confidence
- Those who deal with difficult people and autocratic bullies in the workplace
- Those facing challenges in the workplace
Intro to Mark Kahn

Mark has been a Clinical Psychologist for 35 years and a Management Consultant for 20 years. He has dedicated decades to his personal transformation and to activating the highest potential and fulfilment in his clients, on multiple levels; in their personal lives, in their relationships, in their careers as leaders, managers, partners, parents…in all realms that have meaning and relevance for them.
He is an expert in the arena of Self Esteem and recently published a book entitled “Love Yourself For No Reason”. He has a commerce degree and a Masters in Clinical Psychology. He has consulted to the United Nations World Food Programme in Rome in the field of traumatic stress and is a past member of the faculty of the University of Stellenbosch Business School. He is a certified Demartini Method facilitator, a certified level 2 TRE facilitator, a level 2 BWRT facilitator and an advanced EMI practitioner.