There’s no easy way for me to share this and not feel awkward about self-promotion so I’ll just come out with it.
Last month, I did a TEDx talk in front of an amazing audience of over 650 people. I was invited to share the story of my recovery thus far and how I’ve handled being dealt the most catastrophic hand I could ever imagine.
Quick recap on how I got here:
Last year, when I wrote my blog post about standing up and asking Brita to marry me, a random friend reached out and asked me to share my story at a technology conference he was organizing. While I’d always felt comfortable talking to people and presenting in front of small audiences, I had never done anything like that event, in front of 300+ CEO’s, venture capitalists, and business leaders. He gave me very little guidance and I still to this day have zero idea how or why he knew that I might do a half-decent job, but he trusted me fully and told me to give it a shot. So I got up there, told my story and then made way for will.i.am and his fireside chat (and yes it was deliciously entertaining to see a hipstered out rapper talk to a roomful of Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs).
My talk went over quite well and since then, I’ve been invited to do a number of speaking engagements including large and small conferences, corporate workshops and meetings, business events, and even a roomful of medical students who were on their way to being the doctors, prognosticators and hope providers (or deprivers) of tomorrow.
Although I was hesitant at first about sharing my story, mostly because I haven’t yet achieved my ultimate goal of getting back on my feet and didn’t feel quite comfortable sharing a story of a partially achieved objective, I got over that and realized that I really enjoy speaking to people. As a result, an incredibly generous and selfless friend who I’ve mentioned on this blog anonymously and who hates self-promotion as much as I do but who I will now shamelessly reveal because he’s an overly humble yet completely badass published author, conference organizer and entrepreneur, told the organizers of this particular TEDx event about me. The rest is history.
So here’s the video. Feel free to share as much as you’d like. If there’s one time I’d be ok to see social media saturated with something I did, it’s now. And yes I am interested in other speaking opportunities so please contact me if you have other ideas.
Arash Recovery 