I encountered a funny question a couple of weeks ago when I was doing a speech in Lakeview Michigan. A student in the crowd asked me how long I’ve been a motivational speaker.
Whenever I’m asked this question its hard not to smile on the inside. Most people expect this long-winded story of a young boy with a dream to inspire the masses, but that’s not how this fairy tale goes. To be completely honest I’ve only been speaking (to non basketball folks) for about eight months.
When I wrote my first book last year I told myself that I wanted to be a motivational speaker. I started speaking wherever anyone wanted to hear my story. My first speech was at a friends dance studio to about fifteen of her employees. I’ll never forget the feeling I had driving home after my speech that day. It felt great to impact other people’s lives. After that day I told myself that I would eventually speak in front of thousands of people. I started doing import speeches in my car on the way to work. I know that anyone who must of saw me at a stop light during one of those speeches was either really inspired or really scared.
A month or so later I spoke to a small group of students at a local college. Then I traveled to Boston two weeks after that to speak again at another college. Opportunities were happening because I was putting myself out there. At that time I was paying my way to work on my new craft, but the experience was more than worth it.
The next thing I knew I was booking a flight to speak in Las Vegas. From there I ended up speaking in Michigan, and just recently in Wisconsin. In thirteen days I’ll be back in Vegas speaking with three other world changers at their event. I think back to eight months ago and one message sticks out amongst the others, “See it and then be it”.
Speaking is what I wanted to do so I went out and did it. There wasn’t some elaborate story of overcoming adversity to be a speaker. I put in my mind that I wanted to share my story to help inspire the world. I didn’t weigh the pro’s and con’s because there are no cons when you’re chasing your passion and purpose, but that wasn’t the only thing I had to do. It wasn’t just seeing what I had to do, I had to take action towards making that vision a reality.
So my first question to you is what do you want to be? My second question is why aren’t you being it right now? If you can see it you can be it my friends, GO GET IT!!!
If YOU can see it, YOU can be it! It’s all I’ve been saying for the post few weeks
and sharing it with others. This have really confirmed blessed and encouraged me to just launch out into the deep! I’m a first lady, I encourage folks daddy in and day out. Then there’s me! I encourage myself! That’s what I desired to do, BE motivational speaker. I wanted to be this before it came really really popular. I am very proud of you for stepping out and doing it!
Typo: Not daddy, daily