How it All Began- Jenn's Signature Story Episode 2

The number one question people ask me is, "Jenn, how did you start speaking?" Today's episode is gonna be about how my speaking journey began. My hope is that you'll hear some insights there that will help you begin your own speaking journey. 

• From being bullied at school
• To emergency surgery one week before junior prom
• To losing a family member who showed me how to be a strong woman
• To inspiring my Toastmasters mentor to change her life

My first signature story revolved around my experiences with being a big loser.

But, there's a difference between a signature story and signature speech. This is often what separates unpaid motivational speakers from paid professional speakers.

What could be your signature story? Think about something in your life that you were really proud of.

Something that you achieved that maybe no one else in your family or your friends circle or your colleagues have achieved, that could be the beginning of your signature story. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

The number one question people ask me is, Jen, how did you start speaking? Today's episode is gonna be about how it all began for me as a speaker. My hope is that you'll see some insights there that will help you begin your own speaking journey. Shall we get started?

Don't hate me because I'm fat. Oh, I mean, don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

My story started because I was a person who was morbidly obese, living in a world where nobody else was. And as a result, when I was a kid, I was bullied on playgrounds. I was kicked by guys who didn't even know me and thought I was the butt of their joke. I grew up in that kind of environment, a morbidly obese kid.

In a world where obesity was a sign of lack of willpower, it was a sign of weakness. It was a sign of just stop eating already. Now, that wouldn't have been the beginning of my story on [00:01:00] stages. Instead, I only got the courage to go on stage when I lost weight, it took me a year to lose a hundred pounds.

Yes, and I didn't start speaking right away because when you're on stage, people are staring at you. People might be pointing at you, people might be laughing at you, or you think they're laughing at you. I didn't have the courage to go on stage until I lost that weight and I didn't start speaking right away.

One thing I didn't share was another impact I had as being an overweight girl. In high school was, I almost died when I was 17 years old, one week before my junior prom. And yes, I was a junior prom officer. I helped develop the theme and the color scheme, all of it. It was like the pinnacle of my high school, uh, career, if you will.

One week before the prom, the dance happened. I woke up with incredible pain in my stomach. [00:02:00] Now I had gallstones, so the pain came and went, and usually it just went away. By the time 5:00 AM rolled around. This time it didn't. It didn't go away, so I asked Mom, mama, what I do? I, it hurts so much. We went to the hospital and within a few hours I was admitted.

I needed emergency gallbladder surgery, and the surgery went okay. A lot of crazy uncomfortable things happened. I needed to put a tube down my nose, which hurt really bad. My nursing staff was amazing. I needed to have an injection in my stomach. The needle was probably this big. It was not a fun experience

It bloated my stomach up to here. It was a horrible, horrible experience. I did come out on the other side of it. I also had internal bleeding when I was in the hospital. At one point, right after my surgery, I stood up and I fainted dead away. I wake up, open my eyes, and my mom is right there in my face and she says, Jen, are you okay?[00:03:00] 

You need to stay with me right now. Um, she told me that was the, the scariest moment of her life. She thought I wasn't gonna make it. I was like, mom, I'm a teenager. I'm invincible. I'm always gonna make it. I did make it and I did end up losing that weight that put me in that situation when I was a young girl.

Um, I loved eating and I made the mistake of eating would fulfill that need within me that nothing else seemed to fulfill. That was my problem. Emotional eater, stress eater. So when I lost the weight, I finally was proud of myself for something. Now, don't get me wrong, I was a great student in school.

Can't lie, you know, my teachers loved me. I loved going to school. I'm a great student.

What I was not very good at was controlling my behaviors outside of school. Eventually I figured out how to do that. But honestly, the reason why I decided to lose weight had to do with my family members, grandma [00:04:00] Espinosa. There's a reason I kept my last name of Espinosa, my maiden name. Part of it was because I love my dad that much.

He's passed away. He's no longer with us, but his mom was a huge influence in my childhood. She used to take care of me. And she was a very devout Catholic woman. She was, uh, everyone's friend at her church, uh, Mount Carmel, which was a very heavily Catholic church. A lot of Italian folks there. Grandma was Hispanic.

Everyone loved her. She sold the most raffle tickets year after year. Grandma was an inspiration to me, and she never once flinched. I remember one time when she was about 85 years old, she was in the hospital with a cardiac arrest and her entire family gathered and we're like, this is it. Grandma may not survive the night.

Not only did she survive the night, but she was with us for at least five more years. After that, she was a fighter, and when I was one month away from graduating college, she passed away one week [00:05:00] after her birthday.

When I looked critically at myself and the things I was doing, you know, overeating, stress, eating, emotional eating, I didn't like what I saw. I didn't wanna be that person. I didn't want to keep gaining weight year after year. And so I said, well, what can I do? And I decided that I could control the things that I can control, which was paying attention to what I was eating, how I was moving.

I decided to stop drinking anything except water. This is water by the way. This is not mommy juice in here. This is water.

I stopped drinking anything but water, and I paid attention to what I was eating. Over time, I lost that weight. And even after I lost the weight, nobody knew about it because I moved to Minnesota from Wisconsin. And that's not something you just bring up at the water cooler, right? You don't go grab your coffee chat with your coworkers and yeah, oh, by the way, I used to be a hundred pounds heavier.

That's [00:06:00] just not really how that conversation happens. So it became one of those things that I put on the back burner. You know, I, nobody really cares. That's just something I did. It's not that important. Oops. So this is an example of a signature story. This was my signature story. As you're listening to this, you might have stories coming up for you that are part of your signature story.

You might have more than one. That's part of your signature story that can help you get to the stage. When I first shared this story, it was with the Toastmasters group. Shout out to Toastmasters, my favorite organization in the entire world. I ran out of content to talk about. I'm like, fine, I'll talk about losing weight.

Let's see what happens with this. By that time in Toastmasters, I'd been doing pretty good, had won a few speech contests, you know, I was, I was lucky that way. I got a lot of really good feedback. I had great fun experiences at Toastmasters, and I'm like, okay, I'm out of ideas. Lemme just [00:07:00] talk about being the loser, is what I called it at the end of that five minute speech.

My mentor came up to me, her name is Shwvan, and she said, Jen, I'm gonna change my lifestyle. You have inspired me to change my lifestyle. What a humbling moment that was and continues to be. And that was the story I heard time after time, after I shared my story on many stages throughout the years leading that.

Now, not every time I got paid to share that story. But every time I shared that story, an impact was made on individuals, on the people who brought me in, on myself, especially

that is how everything began for me. Now, where I am today, I no longer speak on health and wellness. I love my folks in the health and wellness space, but now I focus on people who want to bring their signature story [00:08:00] into a business. And how do you get paid for that business?

How do you turn that story into something actionable that your audience knows something to do with it? One of the biggest lessons I learned when it came from turning my signature story into a signature speech is, first of all, it's not about me. It never was. And that's why I felt uncomfortable talking about it at first, is 'cause it, it felt like I was just talking about me and that never felt comfortable for me.

Your signature story can be a part of your speech and it can still not be about you. It's in how you frame it and how you deliver that speech to that audience. Some of it is being present and noticing what your audience is receiving and responding to that is a skill that you can develop over time.

I can't say that I stepped on my first stage and rocked it out of the park. Nobody does that. I'm not gonna lie to you about what that looks like. What I can say is with each time I showed up on stage to deliver this story, I got better. [00:09:00] So if you're someone who's listening to today's mic drop mindset and you're like, well, Jen, that sounds great for you.

You were able to achieve this amazing thing. I don't see how I can do something similar to that. I'm here to tell you that there's a stage for you, and if you have any story that came to your mind as you're listening to this and you said, well, how about this one? Or, yeah, I guess I did that. Think about something in your life that you were really proud of.

Something that you achieved that maybe no one else in your family or your friends circle or your colleagues have achieved, that could be the beginning of your signature story. Today I shared with you how it all began for me, how I turned my signature story of losing a hundred pounds into a business called.

Weightless. Today under the umbrella of Jenn Spin Go, I help people like you turn your signature story into a movement that lasts. So that you can deliver mic drop moments. This is a small example of what it could [00:10:00] look like for you. Now, some things to think about are what elements of your signature story resonate the most with you first, and then think about what parts of that story can other people resonate with.

We'll dive into some of those marketing techniques and ways to understand what your audience may be looking for in future episodes, so stay tuned. And if you have a suggestion for what you would really like to dive deep into when it comes to your signature story, let me know. On social media, write to me.

I respond to every message and know none of it is AI generated. I can't wait to continue this conversation with you on how it all began, and I will see you on stage,

Thank you for tuning in to Mic Drop Mindset. If you enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to leave a review on Spotify Apple or on YouTube. [00:11:00] Stay tuned for biweekly episodes and subscribe to Discover your own unique mic drop moments. In the meanwhile, don't forget to visit my website, Jen with two Ns spin go.com.