In this modern world of ours, we purportedly Google each other.   Today I learned that my 12-year old daughter Googled me.

It was Gigi’s first day of summer vacation and I promised to spend the day with her.  But I had a voice audition due at noon, so while she slept in, I crept over to my recording studio, Studio X, and voiced the audition.  It wasn’t until we were driving to pick her brother up from basketball practice in the evenig that she mentioned it to me.

“Mom, you are good presenter.”

“I am?  What do you mean?”

“I saw your presentation.  It was good.  I liked it.”

“What presentation? What did you see?”

“This morning.  When you were out, I decided to Google you and your presentation is on YouTube.”

“What presentation is on YouTube?  You Googled me?  What were you doing this morning?”

“I was waiting for you so I went on your computer and Googled you.  Your presentation on presentations, on communication.  It’s on YouTube.  You know, where you say that good presentations aren’t here (she points to her head) but here (she points to her heart).  I watched the whole thing.  It’s about 15 minutes.”

Good Lord.  I knew what she was talking about.  My presentation is on YouTube?  Good Lord.

Clicking away, I found it.  Indeed she was right.  It’s posted on YouTube.

Writing this blog, writing my story these last several years made that presentation uniquely important to me because it was the first time I shared information about my burn in a public presentation to a business group.  When I received the invitation to speak at the Los Angeles Legal Marketing program last Fall, it came with a stipulation — my submission on Extremely Effective Communications was accepted but would need to be re-packaged in a “Ted Talks” format, meaning it had to be 20 minutes or less in length.  My original submission?  90 minutes.  Essentially, the format required me to completely re-jigger the presentation, re-creating it as something wholly new and different.

It made me think.  A lot.

I know when I got burned, I learned how to “compartmentalized” like an expert.  How to put things that hurt into a file folder in my head and make them go away.  How I could download them at will, if and when I wanted to.  How life made me understand that living in your head all the time wasn’t really living at all.  How the best way to live was with your heart, and that when you did that, even the bad hurts weren’t so bad.  How the best way to connect with people in business (or life) was when you were doing so with heart, with passion, with yourself sort of out there.

I worked on that Los Angeles presentation for a long time because I wanted to incorporate what I’d learned about great communication and being an effective presenter.  I worked on that presentation for a long time because it had to be 20 minutes or less, which was no small feat.  I worked on that presentation for a long time because I wanted to share a little bit of my experience, a little bit of my heart.  I had never done that before.

In the months since that presentation, I haven’t thought much about it.  But today, my daughter Googled me.

Here it is if you would like to see it.  LMA Presentation — Extremely Essential Skills.