The Speaker on the BBC

I don't watch that much telly now that I am married and have kids and work for myself.

My life has moved in so many new and exciting directions. In the last few years I started my own business, I gained a Diploma in Funeral Celebrancy with high Distinction (read a blog recently where someone said tell yourself how good you are now and again), I was accepted as a full member of the prestigious Professional Speakers Association this year and am now getting booked to speak on the subject of your legacy (My 45 minute keynote is called 'Who wants to live forever), I formed a new association for funeral celebrants in the UK along with Terri Shanks, I help train people to become funerals celebrants and have just linked up with the pioneer and father of the celebrancy movement to start a UK branch of the Australian International College of Celebrancy.

Change is good, more than that; necessary to live.

I have been captivated by the BBC TV show 'The Speaker' in the last couple of months and deservedly the youngest but most talented and most passionate speaker won the show- Duncan a 14 year old school boy from Bristol. He is blessed with an abundance of talents but what was fascinating is that in the second last show he ended up in the bottom 3, could have possibly been voted off but then came back with an amazing speech.

What drove him to a new level was personal change. For the first time in the series, possibly his life he experienced bereavement. Not death but the loss of who he was as a speaker. For the first time in his life he said he delivered a speech and didn't enjoy it, he then cried, one of the judges said he went through the bereavement cycle in one day.

He changed, he learnt, he grew. It was all powerful stuff. I think that is why Duncan won the show, he was not afraid of change or failure or crying. Yet he still had a passion to win and learn and feel life.

How amazing, a 14 year old speaker has inspired me to change.

Pint sized courage, touches the parts others do not reach

Courage!!!

It has got to be Shrek fighting the dragon, some motivational poster someone sent you as an email attachment or a pint or beer hasn't it?

Or could it be a widow standing in the pouring rain, drenched to the skin, singing her heart out at a graveside.

It was not planned, I was just about to begin my tribute to her husband and out of the blue the widow, with arms out stretched sang Jennifer Rush's 'The Power of Love' at the top of her voice and not just the chorus either, the full song. She had told me at the family interview that she used to sing this to him. There was no indication as we sat in the kitchen chatting that she was going to pour her heart out on the funeral day.

Maybe she didn't know either. Courage need not be pre meditated.

What could I do but let her sing, listen and admire.

What an inspiration. I don't remember feeling so touched in my last job four years ago as I sat at a desk wondering what I should do with the rest of my life.

I am so glad I have been called to help the bereaved.

I wonder how many of them know they help me.