How many times has someone told you, "You would be great at that, you should totally do it!" and then… you just don't Mountain Dew it!
As my fellow Colorado Speakers Academy classmates and I approached graduation day, I was invited to be the emcee for our graduation ceremony. I emphatically said yes and dove into preparing for it. I researched all of my classmates and wrote personalized introductions for each of them. Midway through the ceremony, Sarah Michel who was attending the ceremony and a seasoned emcee asked, "Keith, who created these introductions, did each graduate ?" "I did 😀" I responded.
"Wait, you wrote a personal introduction for every one of your classmates?" she exclaimed. "Yes…" I confirmed. She then proceeded to tell me that emceeing is not for everyone and that from what she was seeing I had a knack for it. I was blown away by her observation, then proceeded to do NOTHING about it. That changed throughout last year as I had a number of opportunities to step back on the stage as a professional emcee. Thanks to Sidney Stoper and AREMA, the National Speakers Association and Mike Rayburn, and the Meeting Industry Council (MIC) and Servicing Up Hope for providing incredible opportunities for me to lean into one of my passions.
I sometimes kick myself for not executing on expanding our services to include emceeing sooner but in the words of Edna Mode, “never look back, it distracts from the now”!
I am thrilled to say we have officially launched emceeing as part of our Articulated Intelligence service offerings. We have an entire page dedicated to it on our refreshed website along with a sizzle reel video so you can see what you get, in addition to personalized introductions, when you work with me as your emcee.
If you have an event coming up and are considering an emcee, reach out, I’d love to be of service. ~ Keith Bailey and the Articulated Intelligence Team