A Break from 30 Life Lessons

I know I am in the middle of 30 Life Lessons, but my mind is not in that space today. As the sole content creator for this blog, I figured I could decide when I wanted to stray off the path. I promise that I will soon return and finish my 30 Life Lessons. It is hard digging into my past and pulling stories. I know I have so many, but I also have a terrible memory.

Anyway, the short divergence is courtesy of my occasionally frenetic life. Over the next 48 hours, several significant events happened. One is part of my spiritual journey, and while very important to me, it is not something I will dig into here. Suffice it to say, it is taking a sizeable chunk of my head and heart space over the next 24 hours.

The other is related to my professional speaking/coaching journey. The main reason for this site and its partner site (www.dougascmccall.com) is to promote content for my professional speaking and coaching business.

I continue to enjoy my work in education, but I have also been searching out and honoring parts of my identity that have been put on the back burner for far too long. I realize that my passion for performing and teaching would best be served as a professional speaker who focuses on the high school and college-age audience.

I have been chiefly quietly nurturing this passion for the past 10 years (about when I joined Toastmasters for the first time!). I have spent several decades giving presentations to audiences of teachers on topics directly related to music education and choral music education. I have received a lot of joy from providing those sessions (far more than I ever realized at the time). However, something was missing.

My time at Penn State gave me three years to focus on my journey. As it happened, my topic of interest became identity. As I sought to understand how others could explore and live into their identity, I slowly realized that I had to do the same. I can no longer ignore my need to step out as a professional speaker.

Tomorrow night, I will be back home at my Alma Mater (Penn State, not any of the others), speaking to a room full of college students from a variety of majors (not my usual group of music educators) about how to examine and live their identity to create a personal brand. It is a 45-minute presentation, which is the same length as most classes I teach on any given day, but this is very different.

As part of the speech, I name and claim who I want to be and will strive to be moving forward. The wonderful truth about identity is you can honor who you are in all its parts. I am still an educator and will continue to live that part of my journey at West Liberty. But now, I will put deliberate energy into finding more opportunities to speak to various college and high school audiences.

My name is Douglas McCall, the Identity Doctor, and I am a professional speaker. I harness my skills in education, theatre, topic development, and public speaking to engage high school and college-age audiences on a variety of topics that relate to identity and how it impacts their success across areas of their lives.

If you are in State College, PA, tomorrow (Thursday, 10/24), stop by the Hintz Alumni Center at 6 pm to hear my talk. Otherwise, stop by here again to read more about my 30 life Lessons and whatever else I decide to write about as my journey as the Identity Doctor continues.

Regardless of what you do tomorrow, take time every day (even if it's only 5 minutes) to examine and honor your true identity in all its multi-faceted splendor!

Be well!

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