Sunday Night With John: The Intimate Reminder of Why

Ten years ago I walked into a small room with 12 kids to give my one of my first talk ever. I was wide-eyed and thinking I was right around the corner to becoming a full time speaker. I procured this gig without a fancy website or logo and figured this was a sign I was on my way to the big time. I had passion, a good message, a way to connect with my audience and a goal to simply inspire people to have a better life.

I started to look around at the space I was charged to fill with my message.  It was small and there were chairs set up in semi circle.  I took the leap and stood in front of these skeptical kids and started to deliver my talk.  I quickly realized that I was nobody to them. I had to prove that my knowledge and story was worthwhile.  They were standoffish at first, as I’m sure they thought I was just another adult here to tell them what to do and how to do it. As my story unfolded the room began to tighten, but tighten in a good way. I could feel the kids and myself becoming a group of people with something in common – emotions.  And the room began to fill up with them as we all became more comfortable being vulnerable.

The kids laughed, cried, shouted out questions and by the end they had accepted that my intentions where authentic.  I walked out of the building knowing I had made an impact. I have grown a lot personally and professionally since convincing 12 teen-agers I had true intentions. The impact of a small intimate venue had an immense impact on my speaking. I had to keep asking myself, how could I re-create the intimacy of a small room as my audiences and venues become larger?  I was naïve to think that after my first talk I would hit the big time.  However, that small talk did give me the courage and confidence to keep pushing, rehearsing, shaping and craft my message into something that has allowed me to reach bigger and broader audiences.  I wonder what the 22 year old public speaking version of myself would think about my fancy website, cool new logo and online presence? 

After landing some of my biggest gigs ever in recent months, yesterday I returned to a small venue. I found myself nervous as I was stepping back into the intimate environment where I started so many years ago. I had flash backs as the teens entered to sit in a semi circle of chairs, the looks on their faces telling that they were not totally open to the idea of some guy sharing his story about life.  As I was giving my talk, I was reminded of why I started doing this and continue to work towards bigger audiences.  I created this talk to soothe hurt, to give humor to situations where we forget to look for it, to create hope for healing and forgiveness and to ignite the passions of my audience members.  In this intimate environment I could see the looks on these kids faces, the tears welling in their eyes and had the opportunity to pause when I saw them pondering.  I could feel that we were one.  I was not only sharing my story, they were using my anecdotes to connect to their own emotions.

We all enter into different professions with a core idea of the impact we want to make.  A simple gift we want to give others, a simple message we want to pass on to the next generation, or maybe we just want to help people. Sometimes we lose that pure simple message along the way. When we lose sight of why we started we will never make it to the finish line. After yesterday, I have a great view of why I started and find myself sharply refocused on my message “Share Emotions, Emotions Matter.”