Flashback Friday: What’s Your “Why” Story? It’s Your Legacy.

It’s time for Flashback Friday! The following is one of my favorite blog posts from 2017. It received great response and it’s something I coach my clients every day, so I’m sharing it with you again.

If you had 10 minutes to speak about what has been most important in your life, what would your Legacy Speech be? It would probably include your “why” story. Why do you do what you do? What’s at the heart of your business? People want to know. Where do you get your juice to keep going when all looks bleak?

When you can answer that question, you will access your personal power, create the vision that excites you, and learn how to express your uniqueness. The reason you do what you do is the thing that draws people to you, among all the others in your field.

So think about why you do what you do. We all have a “why” story. My dad had a very straightforward “why” story. His dad, a physician, died at forty-six of massive heart disease. So my dad became a heart doctor – internal medicine.

One of my clients was a schoolteacher, whose student had witnessed a traumatic event in his family and needed help. My client didn’t have the skills to help this family in need, so she went back to school and is now a therapist. Her “why” was the realization she wanted to do more than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

At this moment you may not have a clear-cut “why” story. I didn’t have a clear “why” when I started working – I discovered my “why” along the way. I was a drama major in college, and I thought I wanted the bright lights of Broadway.

Later, as Human Resources trainer, I saw the eyes of mangers light up when they learned that praising an “employee” in a role play made that “employee/actor” sit up a bit straighter and want to cooperate. I saw my name up in lights, but it was about lighting up the eyes. My speech coaching today is direct, one-on-one, and I see clients’ eyes light up all the time with insight, excitement, and discovery. The first time a client told me, “In my speech, I said the sentence we wrote, and it got a laugh from the group,” and his eyes lit up, I was hooked.

Please get in touch with me! Together, we will discover your “why” if you don’t already know it. Then, we can position your “why story” in your marketing speech or in your TED Talk.

Please come join me as I emcee my 9 TEDx Talk clients on Saturday, October 27 at Loyola Marymount University TEDx.