Motivational Leadership Speaker, Bestselling Oprah Author

I have gone six delicious weeks without getting on an airplane. What good fortune that all of my speaking events have been in Florida this summer, giving me time to recover from the last frenzy and prepare for the next. I will spend most of the next eight weeks on the road, which means e-mail will pile up, voice mail will fill up and I will wear down. The good news is, I love my work.

The reason I even have this career is because my old friend Kerri Smith suggested I become a professional speaker way back when I was a starving author. She said, “You ought to be a professional speaker. They make a lot of money.” It never even occurred to me that you could make a career out of speaking and that companies and organizations would actually PAY for something like that, but I checked it out and, WOW. She was oh-so-right. As I waited for that book to finally get published, I joined Toastmasters. There are thousands of Toastmasters clubs where you can polish your speaking skills, and the group gave me a chance to give a speech every week. Eventually, I started going to meetings of the National Speaker’s Association, which teaches you how to turn speaking into a business.

I used that time that I struggled to get my first book published to get ready for the biggest reward of all: this career as a public speaker. I go out on the road, meet great people, talk onstage and get so much love from my audiences. Then, I come home to Clearwater — the best place on earth. I can’t believe I get to live this life. I say that every single day.

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And even though I am on the eve of an extremely chaotic and exhausting fall travel season, I know how lucky I am.

Fawn Germer is the best-selling author of four books and speaks to corporations and organizations about courageous and creative leadership strategies.