Non Extended Dinner

I was on a leadership course a week or two ago and it was very intense! I love intense so it was fine.
One exercise that we were asked to conduct was to spontaneously give a speech for 2 mins on a given topic.

I like ambiguity and spontanuity so I got quite excited waiting for my question.

My question was: "What is eternal truth and what does it mean to you and your personal leadership?"

GULP!

As I was walking up to take the hotseat I was thinking, well this is the kind of question that some of my friends and I debate over dinner. Well kind of, but we can get philosophical quickly. So I reassured myself as I walked, that this was a topic that I could handle and should feel confident about. I had done it a million times before, yet usually over a bottle of wine!

So as I began speaking to the small audience as my 2 mins kicked off, the memory of my friends dinners' was on my mind, so instead of talking about eternal truth and my leadership, I instinctively plummeted to tell the story of how this particular of group of friends got together in the first place and the nature of our relationship.

I explained that it was a group of 4 women who over 10 years have grown together through thick and thin, international moves and babies, jobs, no jobs and life events. I explained that the rules of the gathering were clear. Only the same 4 people could attend, it was always at a nice venue, there was 100% committment to come and a at some point in the evening there would be a round table on life scores (1 to 10 on how we are doing). Only brutal honesty was accepted.

I got so passionate about this story and why it mattered and some how, brought it back to eternal truths. Honestly I dont know what I said but somehow I pulled it off.

What was wondeful about these 2 minutes, was how very easily it is to tell a story about something that matters, and in every story there are morals to be told. In my case of honesty, truths, committments and meaningful conversations.

So next time you are faced with a challenge, approach it with a smile and a nice memory. Maybe you will manage to spin a tale just like I did and when doing so, secretly honouring 4 wonderful women!