right said fred

so last night i attended a really great event that my friend's boyfriend created.  he's a cool entrepreneur (he started a great company called living homes) and has spoken at an uber exclusive yearly conference called TED (look it up if you aren't familiar, it's awesome!)... anyhow, he had the very cool idea of hosting something inspired by TED that he dubbed "FRED talks" at his very groovy, beautifully designed,  eco-friendly home every month where several people get up and speak about something they are interested in...  the topics are random and unrelated but always interesting... i attended his FRED talks a couple of months ago and thoroughly enjoyed the speakers that night and was looking forward to attending this one...  well, my friend strongly encouraged me to become one of the speakers at last night's event and to share what it is like to be an almost 40 year old intern.  i wasn't sure that people would be all that interested in what i had to say but i figured that in the spirit of challenging myself and keeping myself out of my comfort zone, why not???

well, i was so nervous when last night arrived (over 100 people had rsvp'd to attend!). i have had a career that required a lot of public speaking however i have never spoken publicly about myself and really put myself out there. when the moment finally arrived and i began to tell the 5 minute version of my story and road to becoming an almost 40 year old intern the positive energy i was receiving from the crowd gathered was amazing. they laughed at all the right spots (thank god!), and i think really got what i was saying. after i was finished many people (men & women) came up to me and said they were inspired for one reason or another...  a lot of them don't work in corporate america yet could still relate to my message of trying to start over, taking a step way back and finding happiness along the way. one woman even asked if i had considered doing a one woman show based on my blog/story (yikes! i can't imagine but it was flattering...).. and a bonus was that a cute guy i was speaking with earlier came up to me after and mentioned that he wanted to become my public speaking intern!  so, all in all a great experience and i am so glad that i did it!


until next time....