UT Benefits HR Conference 2016

He was a little older than I was, and was on his fifth treatment of the chemo that I was starting that morning.  We talked about our chemo experiences and the days that were the hardest, and he said that with this chemo it was day six.  Deep inside I immediately felt of wave of anxiety, day six was the day I had the honor to be the lunch keynote at our annual HR Benefit Conference in Austin to hundreds of employees from all 13 UT institutions.  The title of my talk was Engaged Resilience.   

My son drove me us to Austin that morning, and I slept most of the way.  It was a beautiful ballroom with round tables and four giant screens.  The stage had 3-steps, a podium, and table set for a four-person panel.  I’ve never been a podium speaker, I’m a storyteller, so I ask for a lavalier microphone.  After setting up the microphone volume, I approached the steps and Shelly gave me her hand to steady my walk up the steps.  As I looked over the slides and got comfortable with the stage, deep inside I kept wondering if I should ask for a stool or chair, but I didn’t. 

After two amazing introductions, I don’t remember walking up the steps, what I remember is the energy I felt from the audience mixed with my lifetime of passion for life.  Throughout the talk, I had sprinkled heart led stories that still bring too many tears to my eyes, but remind me how I have become who I am, a major theme of the talk.  Then I was on my last slide, and reminding them “that we all have challenging journeys, but they are our journeys and our futures to energize.”  Finally, asking them what, would they do different tomorrow to engage / energize their resilience?  Thursday, June 9 will remain special for many reasons, but the one I will always hold in my heart is it was the first time my son had heard me give a keynote, and on the way home when I was not sleeping we talked deeply about life.