Words Shape Our Reality
With appearances at several face-to-face events lined up for the near future, I desperately needed new business cards. The do-it-myself ones weren’t cutting it any more.
Great! But what do I put on a business card? Who am I? What do I do?
The tagline was easy; it is a phrase that blogger Chris Garrett used when he kindly wrote a Linkedln recommendation. “Your Accessibility Conscience” fits me so perfectly and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the right time to use it as my tagline.
But what do I do? Author, blogger and – lists are best in threes. But what was the third thing? The first thing that came to mind was “speaker”, but that felt so ironic. Having grown up as one who said as little as possible because of my difficult-to-understand speech caused by cerebral palsy, how could I call myself a speaker? Besides, I don’t actually talk when I make these presentations. It is the voice of NeoSpeech’s Kate that does the speaking via my laptop. Isn’t calling myself a speaker misleading advertising?
So far this year, I have done two presentations, I am presenting at SOBcon 09: Biz School for Bloggers in two weeks, and I have two more on my calendar – and who knows what else will pop up before the year’s end. If I am not a speaker, then what am I?
My friend Joanna Young offered these words of wisdom:
Her words rung true. Early in my life, a medical professional had labeled me as functionally non-verbal. I lived up to those words for many, many years.
In recent years, I have been slowly emerging from my cocoon of silence by doing presentations. In doing so, I have replaced non-verbal with speech impaired – a word, a label I have chosen myself to define what I am. Perhaps the next step in this journey is to become a speaker, to make that word my reality.
In designing this business card, I envisioned a card that was bold and confident; that stood out amongst a pile of business cards. I figure it is now or never to make my business seriously go somewhere.
So, why not take the same approach with the labels I use to define myself? I am a speaker. How I do speak is what makes me stand out.
Yes, I am a speaker! That’s my final answer. Business cards go to the printers tomorrow!
If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a coffee. Thanks kindly.
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