The 12-Year-Old at Leadership Camp Who Wanted This Exact Life

I was 12 years old at leadership camp, sitting in a folding chair in some gymnasium that smelled like sunscreen and floor wax, when a keynote speaker walked out and changed something in me.

I don't remember his name. I don't remember most of what he said. What I remember is the feeling — that electric, slightly nauseating feeling of “I would do absolutely anything to do that." He had a microphone and a room full of people leaning forward, and he made it look like the most natural thing in the world to stand up there and just... say true things, out loud, to strangers, and have it land.

I went home and told my parents I wanted to be a keynote speaker when I grew up. I don't think I fully knew what that meant. I just knew I wanted to be the person at the front of the room telling stories and inspiring people.

This week, I'm in St Pete Florida, doing exactly that.

I'm giving a keynote at the IFP Conference on redefining human identity in the age of AI — built around organization, team, and you — to a room full of people I've never met, who are trusting me with 45 minutes of their attention. And somewhere between then and now, I apparently became the person 12-year-old me was staring at from a folding chair.

I want to be honest about how strange and wonderful that is to sit with.

It didn't happen in a straight line. There were 15 years of talent development work before this — building a Talent & Culture Transformation practice inside a global consulting firm, sitting across from leaders at every level, learning what actually moves people versus what just sounds good in a deck. There was media training and panel discussions and white papers. There was a whole career before Definitions existed at all. The keynote stage wasn't waiting for me; I built the staircase to it one client conversation, one framework, one terrifying first speaking gig at a time.

And what I get to talk about now is the thing I actually care about — not generic leadership platitudes, but the real question underneath all of it: who are you when the org chart changes, when the team dissolves, when AI can do the task you used to define yourself by? That's the work. Organization, team, you. Strip it all back and see what's left.

I get to do this and see the country doing it. St. Pete this week. Miami and Atalanta and Columbus and a lot of time in Milwaukee before this one. Hopefully more after. I'm not going to pretend that part isn't a thrill — getting on a plane because a room full of strangers wants to hear what I think about identity and leadership is not a thing I take for granted, even on the travel-delay days.

If 12-year-old me could see this — the keynote, the travel, the fact that people fly me somewhere to talk about purpose and identity for a living — I think she'd be surprised, honestly. She had no evidence this was possible. She just wanted it badly enough to say it out loud to her parents in a car after camp.

I don't say any of this to brag, though I'm aware this whole post is basically that, with a bow on it. I say it because I think we underestimate how often the thing we wanted at 12 is still the thing we want — we just stop saying it out loud somewhere along the way because it sounds unrealistic, or precious, or like something we should've grown out of.

I didn't grow out of it. I grew into it.

If you're building toward something that sounds a little audacious to say out loud, that's not a reason to go quiet about it. It’s the best reason to start speaking up.

Have a dream you want to make a reality? Let’s Chat.

Casey Schaffer is the Founder of Definitions Coaching & Consulting.
Discover Your Purpose. Develop Your Story. Define Your Success.