Today we’d like to introduce you to Stevon Lester.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
As a transformation speaker, I’ve that it’s not about when you started but more about when you realized what your purpose was. Everything that I’ve experienced in my life prepared me in some shape or form to be able to share my story with someone else. I’ve learned that the majority of times that we go through something in life, it’s not just for us but it’s for others to. Nothing is new under the sun, so that means that somebody, somewhere will go through what you have gone through, What better way to help someone get through that challenge in their life than to explain to them how you got through it? So for me, I share my challenges, experiences, wins and losses openly in hopes that it’ll give someone what they need to press forward.
I grew up as the only boy to a single mother with two children until the age of 8. We were doing okay, but as anyone else could imagine, it’s hard growing up as a Young Black male without the father in the home. In 2008, my mom would meet and marry my Step- Father who had three children of his own. Almost overnight, my life would change as we would become a blended family. Once my Step-Father moved down from Baltimore with his three children, we began to talk this journey together as a family. Little did we know what awaited us, my mother would lose her job. The Job that my father had lined up fell through, and now here we are trying to figure out how to live with no job, seven mouths to feed in the midst of a recession.
For almost a decade, we would move every year to a new home, restarting our lives as my parents worked to get their business that they created off of the ground. Yes, it was hard. We struggled, we missed out on a lot of opportunities that others had, but we had each other, I learned so much during that time of my life, it instilled principles that I still live by till this day.
My goal is to help the next generation understand that it doesn’t matter what your background is, or what cloth you were cut from. Every day that you wake up is a blessing, it means that your life was stamped with purpose and a promise. Now it’s up to us to make the most of it and walk in it fully!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Of course not, but nothing worth living in life comes easy. As a Transformational Speaker, I understand that everything that I live through and experience can and will be used on stage to help others be set free. So I welcome the struggles, it’ll only make me stronger. I’ve come to grips with the fact that anything that I experience in this life is not about me, but it’s about those that will be helped by hearing about what I’ve dealt with. So it doesn’t matter if it’s depression, poverty, growing as a man, self-worth, people pleasing or anything else in between. I had to go through so I can show others how to get out of it! I know how it feels to be evicted and moving to a new home & school every day. I know about having to lie about where I got my clothes from to avoid being bullied. I know how it feels to wonder why my father isn’t in my life & asking if I’m really loved. I know how it feels to try and fit in, follow, and people please when I was made to stand out and lead. I know how it feels to struggle with believing in myself and truly grasp if I am deserving of all the good that I see in my life. I get it, I’m human. Far from perfect, but constantly pressing toward the mark!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I know that I have been chosen and called by God to speak life into the next generation. There are so many distractions and attacks against them it makes it almost impossible to make it out without someone to come and realign their focus, that’s what happened to me. I was caught in the common rat race of popularity in middle school. Pretending to be something that I wasn’t so that I could be liked by the masses. But I had teachers that would constantly pull me out to realign my focus. They saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. They knew that I was wiser for my age, so much so that they would even call me “Grandpa”. It’s comical but true. There was something on the inside of me that would never have the chance to come out if I continued to follow the crowd.
A lot of times, students in this next generation just fall by the wayside with so many different distractions, social media, peer influences, & issues within the home. Teacher are burned out, overlooked, and underpaid so a lot of times they won’t even have the mental bandwidth to try and pull out those students that they can save. So as a speaker, I’ve made it my mission to travel across the world and deliver a word of hope to pull those out that cannot save themselves!
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Compassion, Discipline, Consistency, Determination, Transparency and Authenticity. These are the qualities that are required to be an effective and transformational speaker. You must truly have a heart for your audience. This is more than just delivering a 45-minute speech to a student body. I want them to be able to feel my pain but also experience the hope that I have! To know that there is more to life than what they have currently experienced.
But also as a speaker, there is a certain level of discipline and consistency that is required as well. There are no jingles, commercials, or creative ads to market us as transformational speakers. The life will live on the day-to-day will speak louder than any billboard that is created. Therefore, I’m on a journey to truly become disciplined in all aspects of my life and then consistent enough to maintain it and go further, It has not been easy at all, it’s a journey that I’ve been on all of 2022 and even going into 2023, but I constantly remind myself that what I am going through isn’t just for me and my life, But it help save the lives of others.
Which brings me to transparency & authenticity. Growing up in church, I believed that the preachers were untouchable and didn’t struggle with anything in life. Which would leave me so clueless when different leaders would fall from the things that they kept quiet in their private life. I’ve never desired that, I’ve always asked God to help me be the same on stage as I am off stage. It hasn’t been easy, distractions and battles come and go but as long as I keep my eyes on him, I always come out on top. I’ve stressed the importance of having brother’s that I can lean on, be transparent with, and hold me accountable during this growth process & it has helped me tremendously during life’s hardest moments. I carry that principle to the stage as well. Letting the audience know that we all go through challenges, that I’m no better than the next man. I have just decided to live a life of purpose to the fullest extent that I can!
Contact Info:
- Website: iamstevonlester.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamstevonlester/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevonlester
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC67ayQzt2a6qqwW5OWeNdfA
