Empowerment

So I was at this conference over the weekend, Steve Wiltshire’s Life Line Coaches Million Dollar Protégé Leadership Retreat. It was an amazing experience. The conference is for leaders in direct sales, across many many companies, all brought together because they coach with Steve and his team. Being in direct sales, you get very used to hearing from “your” company, your home office. It’s interesting to get the perspective from leaders with other companies. In my case, it really did make me appreciate even more my company and all that our home office does for us.

What set this conference apart from many others is that it was us, the leaders who coach with Steve and the Life Line team, who were doing many of the presentations throughout the weekend. Of the roughly 200 people who attended, there were 21 of us speaking. My talk was on “Building Your Culture Through Empowering Leaders”.

Speaking in front of that many people, on a stage with an actual podium and microphone, would have been something that would have made me VERY nervous a few years ago. And I admit I was a little nervous before I stepped on stage. But once I was up there, all that melted away, and I was just IN the moment. It was a fabulous experience. And truly very empowering for me, because I DID it. And afterwards, to have so many women, both those I knew and those I had never met, coming up to me and telling me that I was a natural speaker, or how much my talk resonated with them, or that I was the best presenter they’d heard all weekend…well, that was absolutely an indescribable feeling. So ironically, my speech on empowering leaders actually empowered me. And that’s a beautiful thing.