In the midst of taking Speaking and Influence Mastery, I came very close to dying.
Early September, I was celebrating the upcoming arrival of a new baby in our cul-de-sac. Days later, COVID hit. Then the rebound. Then pneumonia. But something still wasn’t right; I kept getting worse. After two ER visits, I was finally admitted and rushed to the ICU. I was crashing and no one knew why.
It took nine days to discover that I had a life-threatening fungal infection in my lungs. Today, I’m home, tethered to oxygen, walking slowly, recovering steadily, and profoundly changed.
While lying in that hospital bed and hovering between worlds, my life began to unspool like a reel of stories. Moments, memories, scenes. The ones that shaped me, the ones I’ve lived, the ones I’ve helped my clients express. And in the strangest, most poetic way, I kept thinking:
“That’s a story. That one’s for the catalog. That one I haven’t told yet.”
That instinct was something this program planted in me. Collect your stories. They are your power. They are your legacy. They are your way of connecting.
Before this program, I was already a presentation coach and a professional actor. I know how to stand in a spotlight. However, I am genuinely grateful to this course because it gave me new tools, new insights, and new ways of influencing with intention. I opened myself up to learning in ways I didn’t fully anticipate. What I didn’t realize was how many of my own stories I had set aside waiting for someday, or simply forgotten.
Facing death made that painfully clear.
So very grateful for this course! Eric is a wonderful teacher and truly inspiring. I also enjoyed the guest instructors! I now understand more fully that storytelling isn’t just a skill. It is a lifeline, a responsibility, a way to remind myself that I am still here.
And now I get a second chance to influence the narrative.