Talk

Salisbury, NC

10:20 AM

Last night was the first time in a while that I was nervous for a talk. I was at Catawba College, a school NE of Charlotte. My nerves were not because of the subject or the talk; my nerves were caused by the unknown makeup of the audience. My host, Kurt, told me that there may be some students in attendance along with some people from the community, some of them retired. In speaking, I try to tailor the subject to the audience. In this case, my audience could have been an 18 year old and an 80 year old. My preparation was much different.

I met Kurt on campus and we went out for dinner. He explained his journey to Catawba and it very interesting. He has been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things. He is now a married father of two, but started on that path later than some.

After chicken Marsala it was time to see who would be in the crowd. We walked into the theatre and there were three people, a typical aged student, a non traditional student and I think her husband. They were maybe in their 60′s. The audience began to file in. Kurt and I were both pleased by the student turnout. He said he counted a total of 54 people and I would say 75% of them were students.

The talk started and I had info for all ages. The interview advice stayed the same, but someone with 40 years of the working world versus someone with 1 is a big difference. It seemed to go well. There was some audience participation and some people stayed after to talk with me and ask me questions.

As hard as I tried to speak to different groups, I learned last night that it doesn’t matter how old or young or experienced you are, we all want to have that passion.

My time at Catawba brought me full circle. It was 13 years ago my friend Jim and I made the drive from NY with my parents to look at the college. Now there I was in the amphitheatre talking. Fun stuff.

Time to get ready for lunch and catch up time with the opening interviewee from the book.