So You Wanna Know Why?

So You Wanna Know Why?

John Paul Derryberry

With the downtime from speaking during the last couple of years due to the constant stops and starts to society, we decided to do a minor overhaul to my public speaking website and create new marketing material. It’s the first time I have handed this over to anyone else besides my wife to shape. Once I signed on the dotted line, the question I knew was coming came- So John, why do you do this? I hang my head and think about what I have always thought when this question lands on my plate. Do you want the storyteller to sum up their motivation and lifelong dream of storytelling in a short quick marketable phase? I can't do that. I wish I could; it would make this stuff easier for me.

I could tell you why I started-- to selfishly finish my healing journey. Telling my stories and having other people relate was the final piece to finding peace after my trauma. It was vital for me to do, but being honest not my best work- too selfish. Lucky for me, I grew. I would say the second reason was to help others have that sense of peace as well. Relieving the pressure other people feel from their trauma and or mental health issues is an act I enjoy immensely. So, my second act was mainly repaying the favors to those who did it for me. It is something I feel in my core because I know where I would have ended up if a select few educators, friends, and family members hadn't taken the time to help me heal. So, I try my hardest to do that for others. That is the noblest part of my character, the pay-it-forward mantra.

Yet the evolution of my why changed again. I became a better storyteller as my understanding of our emotional and mental health capacity expanded. The question in my head became, could I not just ease the pressure of emotional and mental health but also leave the community more willing to talk about these subjects? Could I convince mental health workers to move past the obvious and into the world of messiness? That's where the real change occurs—that's where understanding happens. Lastly, that is where we come out the other side of our struggles a better person. I’m only in my audience’s space for 90 minutes; could I leave people wanting to have more conversations about emotional and mental health long after I leave their space?

When I entered my mid-30s, something else moved in my thinking. As I examined how, why, and what occurred to help people turn their lives around, I realized it only sometimes added up. Conventional wisdom, steps, and programs could help, but it was more than one size fits all. It’s hard to describe what changes in someone who wants to change. It’s this invisible aura they give off, and it comes from the wildest places. Could I create talks where we had as many healthy avenues to a better life as possible? Could I present a way to make that type of magic? So many clients gave me off-the-ball reasons why they turned their life around that the notion that anyone, even professionals, had it figured out was undeniably wrong. Can presentations around this topic capture that energy? So I pushed myself down that road.

The last transformation came from my audience. With no marketing, my talk has grown from one person to the next. People passed my name around in a whisper. In a world so interconnected through technology, I grew the old fashion way; word of mouth. So I embraced the power of the whisper. The loudest guy a lot of people know doubled down on whispering. I know how powerful the connection is when our struggles, emotions, and trauma healthily bonds through the whisper of a shared experience.

It transcends the noise of our world. And maybe that is my biggest WHY this talker, this loud guy, this storyteller, thinks perhaps a whisper of a story can have a better chance at changing lives over time than the shouting occurring in our society. Possibly I'm wrong, but the older I get, the better I understand my why- help others connect through the noise through candid, honest storytelling. But, ultimately, the whispers of hope that are created are the most significant why. Without those, I’m just a guy raving about emotional and mental health. But with those quiet connections, we all are so much more.

A big thank you if you have ever passed my name off to someone else to do an event. It means the world to me that you trusted me with your community and informed another community to trust me too.