My graduation speech

I feel so honored to be here with my friends, family, and most importantly my amazing support team. . I can’t begin to tell you how much the love and support that I received from all of you means to me, without it , I would still be that scared, and shy young woman that I was when I arrived in 2006

It was an emotional rollercoaster ride for me to get to where I am now; it’s not easy for me to talk about it either. I was homesick my first year here, I didn’t want to do anything, seeking out the support didn’t come easy for me at first either. I was frightened of this new environment, I went to classes everyday, but once they were done I went back to my room and completely shut myself off from the world. It got so bad that I thought to myself would things ever change?

If anyone knows what an emotional journey I had to go through to get to this point its Julie Osherson, I say a big thanks to you from the bottom of my heart for your compassion and support. I went into your office as a scared young woman, but the support and advice you gave me helped me to find that place in my heart to reach out and seek support that would help me to grow even more. For that I am grateful.

It was a couple weeks into my fall 2007 semester that I said to myself, something has to change; I had to make those changes for me, the first step I made that would end up changing my life was to start coaching, it took a lot of convincing from my mom to do it, I thought I didn’t need it, but with my mom’s convincing and the little courage that I had I finally emailed coaching services and started working with Deb Berigow in October of 2007.

There are no words really for what coaching has done for me, I have learned how to balance out my life and I made sure I talked about my weekly activities, and the that I did to branch out and grow not only as a leader but socially as well. Deb I thank you for your amazing support for 2 semesters. Thanks for being a listening ear and for always being so willing to work with me.

You’re support was such a safe haven for me; I remember what you said to me a while back. You said that I reminded you of the baby bird flying out of its nest. Well it took me a long time but I finally flew out of my nest. I think that was the important thing I had to do during my time here. I had to let go of home and be independent.

I also want to thank one more person who made an extra special impact on me and that’s Susan Crowther, thanks for encouraging me to be a little different, to be louder, to take not be afraid to take risks, thanks for your love and support and for always lending your listening ear.

There are so many people in this room who saw that incredible growth and I don’t want to forget any of them. I can say without a doubt in my mind that not only has Landmark changed my life but so have those who worked with me and witnessed the change first hand.