Motivational Speaker: Michelle Lee

Earlier this week, I had the fortunate opportunity to be the keynote speaker at the Asian American Student Assocation's (AASA) High School Conference.  This annual event is one of the biggest events AASA puts on.  When I was in high school (go Brighton Bengals!), I remember attending this conference and having a blast, knowing I wanted to join AASA and have fun like all those college students up there.  Ever since 2004 (wow, did I just date myself?), I've been Treasurer, Vice President, Recruiter, Asian American Awareness Chair, and an actively valuable member of AASA.  Who knew what a conference could do to a high school girl?  It's traumatizing!!! lol

This was my first keynote speech.  Although I had the option of speaking on whichever topic I wanted, I knew my specialty area was involvement and organizations.  Unfortunately, I procrastinated my speech prep to the last minute (the night before the conference I got very little sleep) and had difficulties coming up with a good speech.  Sure, I've done workshops, panels, activities, but... a speech?  Sounds kinda boring.  Especially from the viewpoint of a high school student who's sole reason why they're at the conference was to miss just 1 day of school.... just 1 was enough.

Many ideas came and left quickly.  Why was I trying to make a speech with activities?  Visuals?  I think it might have been the OT inside me making this speech meaningful to the students, not just to me.  I started working on my speech right after work, fell asleep on accident, and woke up at 3am to finish what I had started.  In the end, when I reviewed it the next morning, very little of the tail-end made sense.

I have never been a good public speaker.  Believe it!  As much as I like to hear myself talk (which might be a reason as to why I started this blog in the first place), I am a mess when it comes to speeches.  Fortunately, I had other AASA members rooting for me and their support gave me confidence.  After I was introduced, my nervousness seriously just melted away.  I felt really comfortable up on stage with all those eyes staring at me.  I was able to say everything I wanted to (although the demonstration lacked a microphone and people couldn't hear me as well), but I did it.  My aim: 10-15 minutes.  My allotted:  30 minutes.  My actual: closer to 35 minutes (with intro, house rules, and other AASA officer orient.).  Boy, do I talk A LOT.

I'm glad to hear that my fellow AASA peeps enjoyed my speech and thought it was great.  Hearing feedback like that really means a lot to me.  Even though I wasn't nervous on stage, the nerves came back afterwards... my hands were shaking and my heart was beating out of my chest.  Weird.

It made me laugh to myself to see (after the speech) on the program that I was titled as "Motivational Speaker: Michelle Lee."  I actually DID try to motivate those students, without even knowing my speech was aimed for it until the night before.  It might be another way of seeing me with my new leadership roles.  I was thanked with an awesome free AASA t-shirt; one I can add to my collection of many years of fun at the U of U.

Thanks to Amy Tran & Natalie Fang who made the high school conference happen.  Thanks to Jen for facilitating and keeping me updated on details.  A special thanks to:  Esther (whom I could trust to give me honest feedback on how cheesy the first draft of my speech sounded), Somchay (for letting me pick on him and his friends during my speech), and Tricia (for allowing me to get the campus involvement flame lit again earlier that week to pump me up for this motivational speech).

Now, if only I had a recording of it....