Speaker Slam® Alumni

Charles Achampong

Executive in Residence, Bestselling Author and Keynote Speaker

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

#2 Inspirational Speaker of the Year 2025

Award Winning Inspirational Speaker

charlesachampong.com @aroundtheworldinfamilydays LinkedIn

About

Charles Achampong

Charles Achampong teaches leaders and teams how to harness the power of pause, not just as a wellness tool, but as a performance strategy. With over 20 years of leadership experience across business, government, and philanthropy, he's led initiatives with organizations like the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Committee, Scotiabank, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. His bestselling book, Around the World in Family Days, was inspired by a year-long global sabbatical with his wife and daughters.

“In an age of constant noise, pausing is the loudest statement you can make.”

On Stage

2 Speeches at Speaker Slam®

2025 Grand Slam: Legacy · 2025

The Story They'll Tell

Nov 26, 2025CBC Glenn Gould Studio · TorontoGrand Slam: Inspirational Speaking Finals

#2 Inspirational Speaker of the Year

At the 2025 Speaker Slam® Grand Slam, the Inspirational Speaking Finals held at CBC Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Charles Achampong delivered “The Story They'll Tell” and was named #2 Inspirational Speaker of the Year.

Transcript

Thank you. Her waters broke. We're out of time and there is no backup plan. It's just me and my wife Janice, and this baby is coming now. Before I even have a moment to process what is going on, the front door flies open and I come face to face with our midwife, Maria. She casually walks towards me, calm, cool, collected. Janice is screaming and the words that are coming out of her mouth. Let's just say they're not in any parenting manual that I've ever read.

Maria is scanning our house looking for a soft spot to land. Okay, Janice, let's just get you onto the couch. No, no, no, no. We just bought the couch. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, honey. Okay. Well, let's just take you up these stairs to your room. No stairs, lady. Maria, God bless Maria. Maria's giving me this look. You know, the kind of look that says, "Hey, buddy. You helped cause this problem, so help fix it." My mind is racing. Yoga mat.

I see the yoga mat in the corner. I run over. I grab it. I run back. I rolled across the kitchen floor and we lay Janice gently onto the ground and all I can think is yoga mat. Of all the things, Janice is squeezing my hand so tight that my black fingers are starting to turn white. Our house is both loud and quiet at the same time. Then all of a sudden, in a quick second, everything just stops. I look down and there she is, tiny, perfect, alive.

It's the 11th day of the 11th month at approximately 211 in the morning. In a few hours, the world will awake to honor and remember the legacies of soldiers from time gone by. But on that day, on our kitchen floor, our story is just beginning. I thought I understood what legacy meant, but I don't know, guys. At that day, it completely turned it upside down for me. Have we been taught to think about legacy backwards? That it lives in the grand monuments, the pyramids, the palaces, the plaques with our names etched in stone.

Maybe legacy doesn't live in the grand things we chase. Maybe it's in the stories our moments create. in the corners we overlook on the kitchen floor. Most of us forget to vacuum. I mean, we all have our kitchen floor moments. Messy, raw, beautiful. That is your legacy. Not carved in stone, but carried in your story. Here's what I want you to think about tonight. If a kitchen floor can hold the beginning of a life, what ordinary place in your world is holding your legacy?

Because legacy isn't what you leave behind. It's the stories they'll tell long after you're gone. Because let's face it, one day when we're no longer here, the only thing left of us will be the stories. Which one will they tell about you?

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

No Risk, No Reward · 2025

A Pencil’s Pointed Truth

Mar 25, 2025Lula Lounge · Toronto

1st Place

Speaking on the theme No Risk, No Reward at Speaker Slam® in Toronto on Mar 25, 2025, Charles Achampong delivered “A Pencil’s Pointed Truth” and won first place.

Transcript

pencil. A simple wooden pencil. You see, in most places around the world, this is a tool that you would use to write your story. But in Johannesburg's apartheid museum, this thing did more than write your story. It determined your destiny. I can recall as our guide ever so carefully placed this pencil into my daughter's curly hair and then cringed as I saw history unravel right before my eyes. You see, 30 plus years ago, this wasn't a museum demonstration. Nope. This was reality.

If this pencil stayed fixed in your hair, you were determined to be black. If this pencil moved ever so slightly or fell out of your hair, you were considered to be colored, someone of mixed race. This simple pencil test determined where you could live, who you could love, and what dreams you could aspire to. Standing beside my daughter, her innocent eyes meeting mine. I could feel this history flowing through my veins that gave her this experience that no textbook could offer.

It was in that specific moment that it became clear to me what my heart already knew. that pressing pause on our carefully constructed life, of careers, of routine, of certainty was the right decision to show our girls the world. I mean, my wife and I, we dreamed of showing our girls the world. Not through screens, but through history lived and not just learned. I remember on that faithful morning where we made that decision to pause. It was like an ordinary morning that became in hindsight extraordinary.

Watching my kids, I could see history and time flying right by. You see, that's the thing with these life changing decisions. They don't announce themselves with trumpets or this voice from the heavens that you see on TV, right? Instead, they whisper. They speak to your soul. They speak to your heart. They they give you goosebumps. One year on the road taught us more than a decade at home. In Ghana, we danced on the soil of our ancestors. In Jordan, our fingers traced the ancient walls of Petra, feeling history through touch.

In New Zealand, we learned how a country grappled with its indigenous past in order to chart its future. I mean, there were so many places, but it didn't matter about the destination. It was about the fact that we wrote our own story. People would come to us, weren't you scared? Of course we were scared. Have you ever tried packing for a year with children? Like that to me that is that is fear. Ladies and gentlemen, all of you will need to make a decision.

Whether you choose the path of certainty or the one of possibility, whether you take the road less traveled or the one well taken. yourself, what would happen if you took your pencil, crossed your line, and wrote your story? Would safety whisper, "Wait, wait, wait, wait." Would fear plead, "What if?" Or would comfort force you to stay? Your destiny doesn't ask, it commands. Now, thank you.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

In Their Words

What Charles Says About Speaker Slam®

I am an executive in residence, a keynote speaker and best-selling author. I wrote my story around the world in family days that chronicled my family's trip around the world last year and we had a phenomenal and transformational time. This is an opportunity that most speakers would beg for. And so to be able to reach audiences from coast to coast to coast and even globally to be able to have the opportunity to tell my story in an impactful way is something that I think we all would relish and enjoy the opportunity to be able to do so. I'm speaking on stages across the country conference board of Canada on Bay Street in the US. It's just been a wide range of opportunities even in the EU as well. So, this idea of focusing on the power of pausing, not necessarily going on a long-term sabatical or break, but just finding those micro pauses throughout the day so you can take a step back, pause to see, pause to shift when things aren't align, or pause to strengthen for your own well-being. Do it. I was hesitant as well. You're thinking the investment is too significant, but there's a reason why you have to bet on yourself, right? No one else believes in you more than you do. And so the opportunity to be able to invest in yourself, to be able to put you on stage, hold yourself accountable, it has completely changed the entire trajectory of my speaking career. So I would wholeheartedly endorse pursuing an opportunity with Speaker Slab.
Charles Achampong · 2025 Grand Slam

One Speech Can Change Your Life

Charles is one of the speakers who have told their story on the Speaker Slam® stage since 2016. The next one could be you.

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