The Communicator.

A friend of mine wants to manage me.

He said to me: “Rick, we need to get you on the speaking circuit.”

“A speaking circuit huh?”

So what would I talk about? Sure I used to speak a lot, especially while running for Secretary of State. Actually, that wasn’t speaking that was debating the audience.

Most of the time all they wanted was to try to trip me up or find out whether I totally agreed with them. When they found out I didn’t the debate started.

I started thinking about all the things I could and do speak about.

Wow, Prostate Cancer, Surviving Cancer, Bullying, Risk Taking, God, now there’s a huge topic I can talk about, God, the church, what it is, what it isn’t.

I could talk about the media, people and the lives that have touched me. I could take all the years of experiences I’ve had and use them to motivate or inspire people?

It’s funny, as a kid I took an “F” in a speech class because I was afraid to get up and talk. I had a teacher at Portland Community College who saw something in me and tricked it out of me.

He forced me to get up in front of the class and relay a simple message and it worked. He looked me in the eye and said: “Rick, do you understand? Do you understand you are a communicator?”

That was the day that turned my life around. I started taking classes in Speech and Journalism and look where that got me.

So, yeh, perhaps this speaking deal might be worth looking into.

1 Comment

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  Greg Ewert February 28, 2012 at 1:45 pm

  LOL… My Speech/Debate teacher in HS tricked me too..