How Have You Grown Since COVID?

What things were you doing before Covid that you haven’t put back in your life yet?

Recently I had the opportunity to speak on stage again. It was the Health, Wealth and Self Summit in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. While I had prepared a 45-minute presentation, on the spur of the moment I had to cut it down to 20 minutes.

When I got on stage my PowerPoint wasn’t showing on the screen so I started speaking anyway. I just started talking about authenticity and told the poem I had planned to open with. By then I was sure that my slides would be visible. They weren’t.

I kept talking.

When I prepare presentations, I set up my slides as my notes. Mostly I use pictures and images and just speak from them. I knew that my first slide was the word AUTHENTICITY so I talked about how authenticity represents the 0.01% that makes us different from each other and spent a couple minutes on that.

I was surprised that I was feeling nervous and a little discombobulated. The slides still weren’t up even though I had called out Linda, my Operations Manger who traveled with me, to see if she could help. Linda jogged over to the AV area and I kept talking.

Finally, Linda came to the side of the stage and handed me the clicker. As I moved the slides forward I realized I had gotten a couple out of order so I talked about what I missed, kept on going and ended right at 20 minutes to dynamic applause.

Later, when I talked with Linda, she revealed that she was quite aware of how ‘off’ I was feeling. Both of us were surprised when not one person who shared their appreciation could tell.

This experience was a true testimony of how much I have grown in the past two years. After doing Zoom calls, sometimes more than two or three times a week, I’ve become pretty good at what I do. I think that keeping people engaged on Zoom is more challenging than in front of an audience. The experience was very exhilarating and inspiring and confirms that I need to be on more stages.

What did you do doing during the pandemic and how has it promoted your growth? Maybe it’s time for you to get out and test your advanced skills and abilities.

So many people are different now than they were before the pandemic. Take time and examine your life and see how you may have evolved. Authenticity is not a static thing. It changes and modifies as you grow. When you evolve with your authenticity your life grows in meaning and fulfillment.