I got in to Corpus Christi on a Wednesday evening after flying with Southwest from San Diego through Houston. While I boarded for Corpus, I just so happened to run into another SkillsUSA past National Officer (who I helped in preparing a speech she gave last year at the national conference) and had a fun 45 minute flight catching up with her! Upon arrival in Corpus we were met by a whole troop of other past national officers and got to go out to a very intriguing dinner with talks of awkward moments and other public embarrassments.
Thursday was filled with preparations, checking people in, starting competitions, directing people where to go, and working with the State Officers on the opening ceremony and my speech!
When the lights started flashing and the arena was filled, the officers started the program and I felt the tingle of nerves as I did the final overview of my speech before I took the stage! We were in a big hockey arena (and the ice was covered with simple plywood so it was cooolllld!) with somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand attendees. I think at this point I actually am more nervous speaking to a group of 15 strangers than I get speaking in front of large audiences (you can't really see them and all) so nerves were not really an issue. I made sure to have my clicker in hand for the powerpoint and I gave myself a bulleted list of the points I wanted to make on each slide (I had graphics and pictures and such) just in case I got nervous and forgot what I was talking about.
On stage, you don't really notice the people in the crowd-it looks more like what you see on TV when watching a big concert--just a sea of some lights and faded figures-not any particular people that you can look at and see that they're falling asleep because you're boring. So it's really not bad at all!
I went on stage with a clicker for my presentation and a notes page, which I didn't end up using in the least! It makes it a little easier as I am talking about stories that have occurred in my life rather than random topics. What I did was speak on the Accessibility of Innovation. Basing this talk on a lot of my prior knowledge of innovative economies (wrote a nice big paper on it a few quarters ago) I spoke of the way that innovation is something that is built upon rather than invented out of nowhere. Some of the thing I referenced were Edison and his lightbulb (you do know he didn't actually invent it right, he innovated from what others had!), the Portland Cello Project (an awesome Cello group that takes the cello out of its context-look it up on you tube!).
The big kicker was my car wreck. Yup, I had my first big debut of a speech where I shared the experience outside of my close friends and took them through the details of the devastation, recovery, and yup, you guessed it, the innovations that were put into play to save my life. Doing the research on the medical and technical innovations that saved my life was very interesting, and also terrifying. The most shocking information I found was in regard to the subarachnoid hemorrhage (blood clot) that burst in my brain. According to The Brain Aneurysm Foundation, "50% of those people die within minutes of a massive hemorrhage. Of the 50% who survive, half will suffer delayed death. The remaining survivors, depending upon the level of hemorrhage, usually live with severe long-term deficits."
Now isn't that a quote that really puts my life into perspective. Oh my.
And the point of talking about my story was 1. Yes, to share the optimism and support networks that I experienced that kept me alive and 2. Discuss the importance of innovation and risk taking to a group of some of the most highly skilled students in the nation. It really truly is up to individuals like them to make the changes and find the new techniques that will keep people alive-be it the seatbelts, the car windows, the medical procedures, or the surgical skills--each of them are in a trade that, with innovation, could evolve to keep one more person like me alive.
*applaud, cheer!* :) And that's the basis of the speech.
It was an amazing, amazing experience to get up there and share my views and I am so incredibly honored that I was asked to speak at such a prestigious event. I hope that my story touched many of the students out there-and to those of you who were there through that difficult time, thank you for helping to have a story to tell!
The rest of the Texas conference was wonderful and I had lots of fun judging students in leadership competitions and hanging out with other SkillsUSA past national officers. Texas SkillsUSA really has their stuff together and I was honored to be a part of it.
And now we await the National Leadership and Skills Contest in June! (Yup, going back to volunteer for year #3)
