The Mentor

I had been attending leads groups for a year and running the Walnut Creek and Lafayette Chamber groups for about six months when Ed Thorpe had been after to me to start speaking in the business community. His argument was I would never achieve the level of success I deserved until I began to speak to organizations.

I grew up stuttering and the last thing I ever wanted to do was to speak. But Ed wouldn’t take no for an answer. I put him off and he just kept coming up with clever new ideas to try and inspire me to get out there and speak.

Then one day he asked me to go to lunch with him at a Lion’s Club that met at Heather Farms. He even picked me up at my office. Just before we finished eating lunch, Ed leaned over and whispered “You’re their speaker today.”

I looked back at him with what I’m sure was sheer panic. But rather than embarrass him I got up and even though I have no idea what I said, I got through the 20 minutes without completely loosing it.

Every month Ed would pick me up and take me to a service organization, but I was always prepared after that.