Transcription
Hi, my name is Judy O'Bello and this is my submission video. I think the first thing that you asked is who am I aside from my bio, which I'm really glad that you asked because it always makes me feel like it's very rigid when you're reading credentials off of a piece of paper. You don't really get to know the person.
When people ask me that question, I always say I'm just a mom and people are like, "No, no, no, no, you're not just a mom." And you're absolutely right. I'm a lot more than a mom, but being a mom has been the central theme of my life. And so I take that role very seriously and it's the most important role I have ever had in my life. I'm also a wife. My husband and I have been together for a very long time. I'm a doggy mom. I'm a business owner. I'm a college student. I'm an instructor. A peer facilitator. And I also speak. Speaking is my passion. I love storytelling. Like that is what I love doing. I get so much fulfillment out of it.
So, the next question was how does my talk fit the theme? Well, I think that it aligns with every single little box in that theme. So, the edge, the place where courage lives, innovation begins, and transformation becomes. This is a transformative tale. So, it hits every single one of those things, right? I go from being a bereaved mother who's trying to navigate through grief as a Latina who's been taught certain cultural beliefs and really doesn't know how to talk about emotional well-being. And I have this child of mine pull me out and change the way that I view mental health. I think that is incredibly transformative and I think that I am not alone in this and I think that maybe some people need to hear this.
I purposely go out and look for demographics outside of my own demographics cuz I live in South Florida and we have a very diverse population. I do a lot of work here, just to be clear. However, I always like going outside of my area because I like to reach the people who normally maybe wouldn't have been touched with my work or touched with my talk. Um and and I think that they need to support. So, that's why I selected you guys, right? Because I felt like it was a different demographics.
Now, finally, my speaking style. Well, as you could see, I'm very conversational. I use a lot of imagery and I use a lot of humor. The other day I did a talk and and one [clears throat] of my friends who's brutally honest told me, "You're a great storyteller. You take us for a ride. You show us pictures, you know, like we do a lot of imagery and you make us cry and you make us laugh and then you bring us back again." And to me, that was the highest compliment, because when I get off the stage, I don't just want to talk and be on a stage for the sake of being on a stage. I want to impact people. I want whatever I am sharing to be impactful and I think that that is the core of who I am as a speaker and what my speaking style is. Thank you.