From Frustration to Action: Activating My Speaking Portfolio
Last week I was incredibly frustrated after conducting my mid-year assessment and realizing I wasn’t achieving the goals I’d set for myself.
As someone who believes it’s important to be authentic both on and offline, I shared that frustration in a recent post. Hopefully you missed it. If not, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, as my youngest says, “Don’t worry about it.”
Not one to sit with frustration, or any negative feeling, for too long, I spent the last week thinking about how I wanted to move forward. Yesterday, I started taking action.
For the last couple of years, I’ve paid for Innovation Women, a platform that connects women speakers with speaking opportunities. I was surprisingly passive in how I used it because I thought I needed to create a one- to two-minute promotional video.
Despite spending years on stage speaking and teaching, hosting more than 100 episodes of the Piloting Your Life podcast, and creating content for not one but two YouTube channels, I’ve been terrified of making that video.
Yesterday I updated my Innovation Women profile and discovered I could simply use one of my existing YouTube videos instead.
Problem solved. Time to solve: 5 minutes. Elapsed time: 3 years.
As I searched for speaking engagements to apply to, I realized I had a boatload of experience that I hadn’t given myself credit for. That realization turned into a three-hour exercise of pulling together previous speaking engagements, both paid and unpaid, along with podcast interviews.
Current Terri is very thankful for Past Terri’s prolific writing on Medium.
Looking back through blog posts, interviews, and talks from the last ten years, a few things became very obvious.
Most importantly, there was a common thread.
How do I intentionally create a life that feels like my own?
That question has shaped almost everything I’ve built over the last decade.
It inspired my book, Piloting Your Life. It led to creating and teaching Navigating Midlife for Women through Stanford Continuing Studies. It’s behind the coaching conversations I have with clients. It’s the reason I’m writing my first novel. And now, it’s the foundation of my speaking.
Rather than trying to be a speaker who talks about everything, I’ve developed a handful of signature talks that explore different parts of that larger conversation.
Piloting Your Life: Designing and Living a Life of Your Own Creation
This keynote is the foundation for everything else I do. Piloting Your Life, my Stanford Continuing Studies course, my YouTube channel, and even Zeke & Terri Adventures are all built on this premise.
It’s about questioning expectations, making intentional choices, and recognizing that we have far more influence over the direction of our lives than many of us have been led to believe.
This is one of my signature keynotes on intentional living, courageous leadership, and designing a life of your own creation.
Beyond the Itinerary: What Travel Teaches Us About Living More Intentionally
Travel has taught me far more than geography or history. It’s taught me about curiosity, discomfort, resilience, humility, perspective, and the assumptions we carry through life without realizing it.
This talk isn’t about travel. It’s about paying attention.
In this keynote, I encourage audiences to embrace curiosity, challenge assumptions, and discover possibility beyond the itinerary.
Why I Quit Angel Investing
After investing in dozens of startups, I walked away with a very different understanding of risk, success, failure, and how we decide what’s worth betting on.
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This keynote focuses on leadership, values, and the courage to walk away when success no longer feels like success. It’s as much a conversation about decision-making as it is about investing.
Women, Power, and Permission
Many women spend years waiting for permission to take the next step. Permission to lead, to change careers, to leave a bad relationship, to disappoint someone, and most importantly, to choose themselves.
This keynote explores why that happens and how we begin making decisions based on our own values instead of other people’s expectations.
Midlife Is an Opportunity, Not a Crisis
So much about aging, especially for women, is framed as something to fear.
But what if it’s not?
We’re not living our mothers’ midlife.
What if we explored what’s possible instead of focusing on what’s been lost?
For the women asking, “Now what?”, this keynote is about letting go of what no longer serves us and embracing the freedom, wisdom, and confidence to intentionally choose what’s next.
Taking the Controls: Becoming the Pilot in Your Own Life
Sometimes people don’t just want inspiration. They want to leave with a plan.
This interactive workshop gives participants practical tools to clarify what matters most, identify what’s getting in the way, and begin designing a life that’s aligned with who they are, their values, and what they want next.
How I Operate
None of these talks are scripts that I deliver the same way every time. There’s a reason I’ll never give a TED Talk.
Every audience is different. Every organization has different goals. I adapt stories, examples, and discussions to meet people where they are while staying grounded in the central ideas that run through all of my work.
If there’s one thread connecting everything I write, teach, coach, and speak about, it’s this:
We have more choices than we often realize.
I want more people around the world to understand that and act on it. That’s why I write. That’s why I teach. That’s why I coach.
And now, it’s why I’m being much more intentional about seeking speaking opportunities around the globe.
I hope we have the chance to have that conversation together someday.
About the Author
Terri Hanson Mead is the multi-award-winning author of Piloting Your Life, a Stanford Continuing Studies instructor, speaker, entrepreneur, commercially rated helicopter pilot, and Managing Partner of Solutions2Projects, LLC.
Through her writing, speaking, coaching, retreats, and adventures around the world, Terri helps women navigate reinvention and intentionally design lives aligned with who they are now — not who they were expected to be.
Based in Redwood City, California, Terri is the mother of two college graduates and has been married to her husband, Zeke, for more than 30 years. Together, they share their travels, adventures, and observations about navigating modern midlife through Zeke & Terri Adventures.
In her spare time, Terri plays tennis, explores museums and gardens, enjoys a great glass of champagne, and flies helicopters around the San Francisco Bay Area, especially under the Golden Gate Bridge.
terrihansonmead.com
Piloting Your Life (the book)
Terri Mead YouTube Channel
Instagram: terrihansonmead
