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 “speakerâ€, 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 chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.
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