My 8-10 minute speech about what I’ve accomplished in my career.

They told me I’d have to talk about this.

Dry.

Sounds boring to me.

If at the end of our lives, we simply had stories of how we got some award, attained some high level executive title or job description, had health insurance and retirement, published some books, recorded 10 albums, built a mountain of wealth, I don’t know, it sounds boring to me.

I’d like to tell a story about something that touched my heart. Maybe how I spent 2 weeks in Hawaii and became ohana with a friend I met online. How I met an old man at a bus stop and heard his story of how his father left at 14 years old. We shared a moment in the middle of nowhere, bus 22, in the waiting, we enjoyed the moment by capturing and sharing our deepest fears. In that moment, he released secrets he wouldn’t have to his best friends even. A 27 year old and a 60 year old.

Most of the world would think we’d have nothing in common.

The world is a jumbo, a melting pot of content, so is the web.

We can choose to judge based on achievements, or on who that person really is.

Because at the end of my life, I’d like my eulogy to be a story about someone who didn’t necessarily have an easy beginning, but learned to say that “in my weakness, I am made strong”.

In the last 2 years, I found myself striving to be independent, to prove that I could make it on my own. I didn’t need my family’s help, they didn’t support my dreams. But I’m coming to a season of my life where relying on others have been a sweet opening to my heart. So as I ask for help, I find that the person sitting across me opens their hearts to me, and in doing so….we are healing each other. 

I don’t believe in being perfect.

In fact I’ve followed my heart to the wrong places, to partners that abused and neglected my heart.

But it’s in the aftermath that you learn, you can’t learn from sitting in a box.

That’s why when I receive accusations from people that say I’m unqualified, that I’m offensive, judging everything I write, I know I’m doing something right.

I don’t coach people to be perfect, to get their shit together. I coach people to tell their stories.

With authenticity, truth….minus shame and guilt. 

There is no shame and guilt in being human. But stop running to a pool of poison and stop drinking from it. That’s why I don’t believe in shaming or telling people what not to do or what to do, I simply ask questions that guide them to their own truth. Most people know deep down what’s truth for them.

It’s not my job to control people, your job is to be happy and controlling people is not happiness.

My 8-10 minute speech would be about how I learned to let go and live in freedom.