Hey there Greenblasters.

Today is a short, but heavy one.

Now:

I know some of you subscribed for the “find paid speaking gigs” tips (in which case, I’ve written a ton of articles on that subject: start here and here).

But I believe when people talk about the real heavy shit that they go through - usually kept behind the scenes - it makes some of us feel less alone, and reminds most of us about our shared humanity.

And that’s becoming more and more important by the day (millisecond, more like).

So:

I wanna tell you about the trip I’m going on tomorrow.

An unorthodox family vacation

Tomorrow, my mum, sister and I (along with our various spouses, children, and dogs) are heading to beautiful Temagami, Ontario.

It’s where my sister, brother, and I all went to camp.

We all loved canoe tripping as teenagers, and we all went to the same canoe tripping camp, Wanapitei.

But when Lukey was 15 years old, during his 25-day “Bay Trip” on the Hurracanaw River, he was left unattended by his trip leaders during a rest day, and drowned while playing in the rapids.

I was on my own canoe trip when I found out. If you’re interested, you can hear the story below:

I’ll be speaking to 70 camp staff, along with my mum and sister, sharing the above story and some of our memories of the kind of kid he was.

Why we’re doing this

The camp basically swept it under the rug 20 years ago, not wanting to face lawsuits etc.

But now, there’s new leadership, and the counselors are constantly fielding questions from new campers about “that boy who died” and they don’t even really know the story.

So, the camp has invited us, along with the two leaders of his trip when it happened, to tell the story, and find a way to document it as part of the camp’s history.

Why, you might be wondering, is THAT important?

This gets to the heart of my “mission”, “purpose” whatever you wanna call it as a speaker, writer, coach and creator:

Why stories matter, especially hard ones

Stories are survival.

Stories are how our ancestors passed life-saving knowledge to one another, and over time they have become “the operating system of the human mind.”

But often when stories are particularly painful, we don’t tell them.

And all kinds of bad things happen:

• trauma gets stuck in the body (reference)

• people get stuck in unhealthy narratives

• families get stuck in shitty dynamics

• and societies get stuck repeating history

So:

I’m gonna drive 7 hours, and talk about the worst moment in my life that happened 20 years ago, to a group of strangers, obviously for no money, because:

I believe it will help them - and me - be better leaders to the kids in their charge, be better people in general, and make all of us more human by telling and hearing the hardest stories.

If I didn’t believe that, I’d be kinda f*cked.

I think we all would.

That’s it for this week. Lemme know if you’d like to hear about how it went, otherwise I’ll go with Part 2: How to market ‘speaking’ vs ‘training’ in the queue for next week.

Greenblast out.