I have had an interest to get out and do more public speaking, today I took one step closer to reaching that goal.  Tonight I had a lovely conversation with an amazing lovely lady named Carolyn Parks. I was connected with her through a mutual acquaintance, Juanita who woks with The Waterloo Region crime Prevention. Juanita had touched base with me earlier this year asking how I was doing on that goal. I had to tell the truth and say that it was going no where.

Before my call with Carolyn tonight I had no clue where to start, what to do… I had thought about printing business cards even designed a few options but never went through with the order. I tried reaching out to the Waterloo County Board of Education through their Facebook site but I’m not sure how often that’s reviewed or if they take those types of posts seriously. I have not actively pursued anything, the few gigs I have done have been because of my existing connections. They were really great experiences and have me knowing that doing more public speaking is something that I want to do and that I think I’m pretty good at.

Carolyn has helped me understand what things I should complete as part of a framework and after speaking with her I’m excited to get started. I plan on writing down some ideas about which topics I could explore as potential speaking topics, by narrowing this down it can give me a better sense of who to market myself to. I think that I can speak to a wide range of audiences; from school aged children, high school kids, and corporations.

Also over the next little while I will be setting up another website that is a bit more polished, that will be more professional looking and have videos of the various interviews I have done. None of the public speaking engagements I have done were recorded so I won’t be able to put those up but I think that if I can present myself and make it clear that I do bring a unique perspective that should go along way towards getting my foot in the door.

If I could speak at a TED talk or WeDay conference that would be so awesome, I think both organizations have such a wide range of speakers and a wide range of topics that I feel I would fit right in with.

I would welcome your input, if you know of any company or school that is looking for someone to provide a voice about bullying, about diversity, or if you feel my story would be a great fit for an upcoming event just shoot me an email: loker.penny@gmail.com, I will of course keep everyone up to date on the progress and look forward to being able to continue to share this journey with you.