Last week I got a standing ovation. But, it wasn’t for me.
It was for my client.
Here’s what happend:
One of my favorite things to do from stage is to thank a company for the work that they have done by telling them a story of how they have personally impacted my life. Thanks to VaynerSpeakers, I got to do just that last week for ViiV Healthcare, the world’s largest HIV healthcare company, at the global leadership event.
Forty million. That’s the number of people living with HIV.
Years ago, that diagnosis would have been a death sentence.
Today, thanks to ViiV, not only is it not a death sentence, it’s entirely preventable in the first place.
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Here’s what I told them at the end of the talk, after I laid down the challenge, and if you’ve been in one of my audiences you’ve heard me ask you the same question:
What ambition are you going to embrace today?
What is it costing you, and your patients, and the community you serve every day that you are not embracing it?
And, what do you need to do, here, today, before you leave, to commit to living fully in that potential that you know you have inside of you?
You have 40 million reasons to act with urgency and ambition. I have one.
My son. He’s a sophomore in college. And he’s grown up in a world where he can as a happy, healthy, sexually active gay man and remain HIV free.
Before he went to college he asked his doctor for PrEP. And his doctor’s response was, “Well, gee, I don’t know much about that. I’ll have to look into it.”
We live in Boston, Massachusetts, where it’s not even remotely uncommon for a pediatrician to have gay kids in their practice.
And yet. He ”othered” my kid.
But he “othered” my kid in a way that, because of your advocacy work, and your active advertisement of your medicines, my son immediately knew was wrong. And because of you, he was able to immediately advocate for himself, seek out a different medical provider, go to college with the care and confidence he needed. And because of you, he is living in a very different world than my friends in college in the late 80s and early 90s had to live, and will have a future that many of them never ever got.
And, for that I am grateful.
I have one reason. You have 40 million.
What are you going to do with this opportunity?
What are your going to do with your Wonderhell?
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There were tears, and there was applause, and yes, a standing ovation.
But, it wasn’t for me. It was for them.
It was because they, themselves, felt seen.
It was because they, themselves, felt honored.
And, it was because they, themselves, remember why they were there and why this work mattered.
No matter what you do, whether you show up on stage, or stand cheering on the sidelines, there are people in your life who are the real stars. They may be your clients, they may be your team members, they may be your children. And here is what I know to be true this week: your power lies not in your ability to absorb the spotlight, but to reflect it on everyone who matters.
PS. Each Tuesday, I send my Hello Truesday newsletter to thousands of subscribers. If you like the unfiltered truth and real-time, real-life insights, you’ll fit in just fine.
