Last time on my blog I talked about how amazing my book launch was but I didn’t mention two big things that happened to me.

In 2004, I went to my first meeting of the National Speakers Association in Arizona and before attending, I only knew one speaker, my mentor, Frank Miles.  When I got to the event in Arizona there were about 100 people and being the networker that I am, I tried to meet all of them. On my nametag, it had the city that I’m from.  When I met a speaker, everyone would ask me if  I knew Terry Paulson. I think I was asked that question at least 25 times. It turns out that Terry Paulson lives in the same city I do. I returned home and looked Terry up. It turns out that he was the former president of the National Speakers’ Association. I emailed Terry and asked him if he could meet at Starbucks. He replied and we began a relationship. A week before the event I sent Terry a note inviting him to my book launch and half way through my speech, I noticed Terry in the audience and called out to him after the speech saying Terry’s here, Terry’s here. No one understood my excitement except my manager Linda, but I didn’t care.

The second thing that happened on the night of my event was for the first time, my baby boy walked! I had seen him take a couple of steps and fall down, but that night, with nothing but yards of hotel carpet, he took off! I’m not going to get into the psychology of a guy in a wheelchair watching his son run because it might cost me thousands of dollars in therapy, but it was AMAZING!