I refuse to call myself a motivational speaker. I simply do not like what the label has come to signify, and that in my mind is, someone to hire to talk to employees about how to be happy in less than ideal situations, such as the place they work. This sort of speaking goes against everything I have come to believe a person can, and probably should expect to be able to pursue in life.
I think of myself as an entertainer. I am a very well informed entertainer who often happens to be able to connect people with neglected parts of themselves.
Most of my presentations center on the inner strength of women, and men too, but I find that my audiences or classes predominantly composed of women. These talks are not about how to use that strength to overcome anything. My presentations focus upon how to tap that strength to be, to achieve, and to create a better world.
I draw upon my own life journey in overcoming personal hurdles that cause many to stumble and fall to never again walk confidently on life's path. How is it that some of us can do this while others hesitate and live in a life made up of "i once..." thoughts or "when I was young..." statements. I speak from a larger perspective than simply that of my own experience. My anthropological training taught me how to look beyond my own prejudices as much as possible, but more importantly to recognize that I have them and that they shape everything I do, say, or think. My advanced studies took this a step further as I explored the facility of the semiotic model for understanding how meaning is created.
I applied this to my own life and found that the beliefs I hold and the things I find meaningful are more than sufficient to guide me to personal greatness.
Now more than ever the consequences of each of our actions demands that we act from that great and good center of our being.
I connect to different groups via different places I've stopped along my path in life, all the way from the small farm rooted in 19th Century agrarian values where I grew up to the cosmopolitan urban enclaves of the 21st Century where I find excitement and ever-expanding whirls and eddies of information .
Tools I use to engage members in the classes or audiences to whom I present include simple guided visualization, the creation of personal cartographies, drawing patterns for body art and other very easy to facilitate and inexpensively set-up break-outs.
