Last time I gave a lengthy speech it was to a massive room full of tired dietary managers. My concentration was on spices and how they could make a difference in the foods they were preparing and presenting. The whole interactive session had everything to do with empowering them in their kitchens with new ideas. While an energizing event, I can remember one very non-responsive woman sitting in the front row directly in front of me. Arms crossed, I couldn’t tell if she was completely absorbed in the differences between spices and herbs or if she had checked herself out somewhere. I pride myself on the interaction between myself and my audience so her cross armed demeanor was quite off putting.
Towards the end of my presentation we were happily on a tangent discussing less common spices and on a whim I asked the group when they might use Celery Salt. My totally nonresponsive woman in the front row actually threw her hand in the air, jumped to her feet and yelled out quite loudly, “Bloody Mary’s.” Seriously. She was the only person in the room who responded to this question in a room full of people who prior to now had been quite responsive and vocal. It was a spectacular moment and I remember just hugging her afterwards in gratitude. There was a connection! She had absorbed every word!
Just two nights ago I gave a very small speech to an amazing room of people attending the celebration for the national release of my book. I find it more difficult to talk to a room full of people you know than it is to talk to strangers and ask them to interact. This was a wildly special group of people and I wanted to give them everything I had besides making sure they left with some nugget from the evening. A light bulb moment from something I said, a connection with a new person, a reconnection. A spark. A seed. An idea.
While the event was to celebrate what I had done, I wanted the evening to have absolutely nothing to do with me. I wanted the evening to have everything to do with the power of dreaming. I had agonized over what I was going to wear, what I was going to say, the fact that my children weren’t there all for naught. (Though My Casey traveled straight from Colorado to surprise me!) What was most important was the fact that everyone was there in that room for a reason. They had traveled to this place in deathly hot summer evening traffic to celebrate me when all that really mattered was that they celebrate themselves.
I dreamt the book and I did it. Now I need to move onto the new dream. My hope in the afterglow of last Tuesday night is that someone in the room has since jumped up and raised their hand to the universe and told it what their dream is. That they made a connection and vocalized plans to follow up.
Do you have a dream for your business? Do you have a dream for your life? We are only here one time and the time for you to start dreaming is right now, this moment. Big dreaming, please.
Now I would really like a great Bloody Mary!
www.recipesfromalife.com
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