What is your life’s purpose?
My mission is to increase connectedness and unleash individual potential through improved communication skills.

How are you living your purpose?
I founded a company that offers communication coaching and training to a wide range of individuals to help them get in touch with and express their value through the way they communicate. I do this in the for-profit space and the not-for-profit space.

I help for profit business leaders see the value of getting in touch with and communicating from their purpose so that they can make more of an impact on their teams and environment. I’ve seen that when you communicate knowing your purpose and your value, you are happier, more productive, and encourage those around you to be their best.

On the not-for-profit side, I work with government agencies to help their employees restore optimism and encourage connectedness by helping them get back in touch with their desire to do good. This helps organizations improve morale and increase retention.

I also donate my time to speak about communication and getting in touch with your value to organizations that serve youth and underprivileged individuals because I feel like empowering people to understand and voice their value is critical to shifting the inequities of this society. To that end, I’ve spoken at events for: Power of You Teens, a non-profit for young girls in Harlem NY; Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP); Central Penn College and others.

How did you find your purpose?
I was incredibly shy as a child and, as a result, did a lot of observing of human behavior and communication. I was fascinated by how people continually said and did things that triggered negative reactions in others. I somehow seemed to know what words, tone of voice, and body language were hampering a person’s ability to be understood. At the same time, because I was so shy, I had no way to express what I believed to be my value. Nor did I feel anyone would ever listen to me.

It wasn’t until I went to high school and decided to force myself out of my shyness by auditioning for a school play that my life began to shift. I became more comfortable expressing myself on stage, which eventually allowed me to feel more comfortable expressing myself off stage. The more comfortable I became stating my opinions, the more I wanted to help other people who were trapped in the straight-jacket of repressed communication that had crippled me for so long.

For many years, I pursued an acting and writing career but it wasn’t until I combined those skills with my innate talent for knowing how to help people effectively express what’s in their heart and head, that I discovered my real purpose.

What advice do you have for purpose seekers?
I often tell my clients to think back on what you wanted to be or do when you were eight years old. Or what people said about you around that age. There is usually a clue there that can lead you to what your purpose is. I also think you can take yourself through the “5 Why” exercise. That means using a statement about what you do for a living or what you love to do for fun, or what you majored in in school, and asking yourself “Why?” And once you answer the first Why, ask yourself Why again. And keep doing it. Usually, by around the fifth Why, you have come to a deeper reason which could be your purpose.

For example: I just worked with a young girl who is majoring in animation and sign language. She knew that she wanted to help very young deaf children understand children’s TV better by using new animation technology. But by taking her through the 5 whys, we could pinpoint her actual purpose which is to eliminate inequality and make the world more inclusive.

What resources do you recommend?
Books:
Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long by David Rock
Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan
Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results by Judith Glaser
Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results by Carol S. Dweck

Organizations:
National Speakers Association
New York Women in Communications

Connect with Robyn Hatcher
Email: Robyn@speaketc.com
Website
Book: Standing Ovation Presentations
Blog
Facebook Page
Twitter: @speaketc
YouTube
LinkedIn 

Robyn Hatcher, communication expert and author, knows successful communication is the lifeblood of any thriving organization. Robyn transforms average communication skills into potent business gold.
Her 15 plus years in the entertainment field as a professional actress and film and TV writer plus her experience as a certified Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner, give her a powerful combination of creative tools and scientific research.
Robyn has transformed the careers of thousands of business leaders through corporate programs, private coaching, and interactive presentations. Fortune 50-500 companies and brands such as Allstate, Deloitte, Hewlett-Packard, AXA, and UBS are a few notables on Robyn’s rich list of clientele. Her first book, Standing Ovation Presentations (Motivational Press, 2013), contains a unique communication-style system called ActorTypes and was named on Forbes.com as one of 2015’s Top 100 Coaching Books.