She knows what it means to show up in a room where you aren’t always seen.
I spent most of my life thinking I was playing in the background.
I picked up a trumpet at age 11 dreaming of being a famous soloist. What I got instead looked, at first, like a lifetime of sections and ensembles. Orchestras, cover bands, jazz groups, brass quintets, and a clown band I will absolutely tell you about if you ask.
But look closer. I sang lead vocals in front of the Army bands at Fort Drum and Fort Campbell. Patriotic songs, complex vocal harmonies, and yes, rap parodies. I sang acapella in Iraq for church services before we even had instruments to play with. I played Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors at 18, Nancy in Oliver at 38 while pregnant, and Grace in Annie last December. My daughter Hope played one of the orphans right beside me. I’ve played Taps at over 100 military funerals and memorial services. I was the command bugler, the one they put front and center when the moment demands absolute precision and presence.
I was performing. Leading. Showing up fully. I just couldn’t always recognize it in myself.
That’s exactly what’s happening in your organization right now.
The Invisible Thread
It wasn’t just music. I was the soldier who blended into the formation. The mom in the waiting room that doctors talked past. And in 2008, one of the worst real estate markets in modern history, I was the new agent in a new city who knew almost no one.
Getting there wasn’t a straight line. I transferred to UMass Boston with a newborn, a tight budget, and exactly zero certainty about what came next. I graduated Magna Cum Laude in Economics. Not because everything was lined up perfectly. Because I showed up anyway.
What I had was a genuine ability to connect with people and show up for them consistently. By the end of my second year, I had paid off $40,000 in debt from a home sale loss and was earning $45,000 a year. This was in a market where most agents were walking away from the industry entirely. By 2020, working solo with no formal systems, I earned over $90,000. Not from technology or funnels. From relationships.
That’s not a strategy I read in a book. That’s the framework I was already living. I just didn’t have a name for it yet.
The Framework That Came From All of It
I’m Marcy Renken. Keynote speaker, leadership program facilitator, Iraq War Veteran, Army Bugler, musician, performer, and mom of six. My son’s traumatic brain injury taught me more about advocacy and human connection than any business book ever could.
I’ve been speaking and leading from stages since 2011, earning my communication chops through Toastmasters, marriage ministry, and years of showing up for rooms that needed someone willing to go first. I placed second at the district level in Toastmasters competition and served as Area Director of the Year. Since then I’ve delivered keynotes and leadership programs for organizations including Indiana Members Credit Union, spoken at women’s retreats, and built a growing body of work with leaders and teams across the region. My first solo paid keynote was in 2023. The path has moved fast and the rooms have gotten bigger.
I spent 15 years in real estate learning how relationships actually drive results and where organizations quietly lose people by treating them like transactions. I built the Exceptional Outcomes Model™ from everything I lived, because I refused to believe that being overlooked was just the way things work.
When people feel seen, heard, and empowered to contribute fully, everything changes. That’s not inspiration. That’s what I’ve watched happen in rooms across the country.
Why the Name?
Orchestrated Performance isn’t a branding exercise. It’s the story of my life.
Every performance, from military ceremony to community stage to living room rehearsal, taught me that exceptional outcomes don’t happen by accident. Someone has to set the tempo, know every part, and make sure every person in the ensemble knows exactly why they matter.
That’s what I do now. Just on a different kind of stage.
When Marcy takes the stage, audiences don’t just feel inspired. They leave with a plan.
