The Awakened & Aligned Podcast with Shannon Kaiser
Toast Masters About Me Speech
[APPLAUSE] Thank you. Thank you. Hello fellow Toastmasters. There are no honored guests. My name's-- well, yeah, honored guests, hello. My name's Shannon Kaiser, and I'm here today to do my icebreaker. It's called All About Me. I thought about what I could tell you guys to tell you who I am. I could tell you where I was born. I could tell you where I went to school, or where I've lived in my life. But none of that paints an accurate picture of who I am and why I'm standing up here today in front of you. Let's go back in time, three years ago. Just three years ago, I was living in Chicago, Illinois. And I was working at one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. Now, if you knew me, you knew that I had strategically put myself in a position to work on the best accounts, to work under the best people, so I could pursue that corporate ladder. And boy, did I do that. I climbed that corporate ladder like there was no tomorrow. But with every new race, I came farther and farther crashing to the floor. With every new achievement, I felt more out of alignment with who I really was. You see, I thought that my happiness would be in my job title. Or perhaps the company that I worked with, or the huge loft that I lived in, three walks south of this year's tower. But none of that felt right to me. The people that work at the water cooler, they wanted to talk about American Idol and who was winning. Or the latest fashion trend at Macy's. But for me, the questions that plagued me were, who am I? What am I here for? What is my purpose? Well, it wasn't until one day a coworker came into work. He's all proud. He had just had his engagement photo shoot with his new beautiful fiance. He's tacking up his picture on the wall. He looks over at me. I saw something in him that I had never recognized. I saw happiness. He said, Shannon, do you ever notice what people put up in their cubicle wall is a direct reflection of what they care most about in the world? Does that make sense? I looked around at everyone else, and I realized a spooky resemblance. Every single person had pictures of chubby babies. Beautiful homes, honeymoon pictures. I looked in my cubicle, and I saw there was no humans. There was pictures of places. Postcards of places that I wanted to go. Pictures of places that I had been. I looked at him and I said, well, what does my area mean about me? He said, Shannon, you want to escape. It was at that moment that I realized my depression was a direct link to the career that I was in. So I did the only thing I knew how to do, which was take a vacation. And I went to Paris, France for two weeks. Only this trip was different than any trip I had ever taken before because I took myself, and I took my computer. And I wrote, I wrote every single day. Everything was inspiring me. The Eiffel Tower, the cheesy pasta, everything. It was like the Shannon had emerged, and I sent these stories to my friends and my mom and my dad. And within hours, I received messages from people I had never even met. They said, Shannon, your words moved me. You brought me back to Paris. I have always wanted to go to Paris. You inspire me, and I realize that I do have a voice, and it's here in my writing self. But like anybody, perhaps when you see a glimpse of happiness, I shied away from it. And I had to go back to advertising. The depression grew larger. And it became clear to me that I was on a dead end. About eight weeks later, I received a message. It was an email message from an editor. And it was from a little book called Shagensup for the Soul and said, congratulations. Your story from Paris has been selected to run in our upcoming issue of chicken soup for the soul. This is an international best-selling series. And it was at that moment that I fell to my knees because tears of extraordinary happiness flooded through me. I realized that I do have a purpose, and it's in my writing self. But I got scared. I didn't know how you could make money being a travel writer. I had no idea. That was starting over. And I was pretty secure up high on this corporate ladder. So I shied away from my dream. But it was only two weeks. Two weeks later, the HR office called me in, my walk-in. This is different than any other meeting. This didn't feel like a promotion. It was my boss and the hiring lady. And I said, Shannon, we need to let you go. This was a miracle. This layoff was the sign that I needed. This was divine intervention that got me on the track to being who I am today. Today, I lead every moment from my heart. I inspire other people to be true to who they are. And I just want to finish today with just a part of my story. There can be beauty and breakdown. But it is our job to be open to change and trust that miracles do happen. When we follow our heart, it will never let us down. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] (applause) [BLANK_AUDIO]