Death Repurposed
At the 2025 Speaker Slam® Grand Slam, the Inspirational Speaking Finals held at CBC Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Ivan Fredette delivered “Death Repurposed”.
Transcript
You're pathetic. Your kids would be better off not remembering you than becoming anything like you. I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror. My eyes are bloodshot. My head's pounding. And I'm still drunk from the night before. My family's in the next room. The house is quiet. Yet the noise in my head is deafening. It's an internal war, a battle between two men and one of them needed to die. And for the first time in my life, I chose the hard path.
I chose to live for my family. Truly live because choosing death that day would have been taking the easy way out. But living, showing up every single day, choosing discipline over comfort, purpose over pain. That's the real fight. I made a promise to myself that I would no longer let external circumstances dictate how I live my life and I would make winning choices every single day so that my family could have winning results tomorrow. And I became the man that I'd be proud to see my son become and the type of man I'd want my daughters to fall in love with.
You see, our kids don't listen to what we say. They watch what we do. And every choice that we make teaches them who to become. And I knew that if I didn't lead, my kids would inherent my weaknesses rather than my strengths. So, I built strength. I built physical strength so I could be a true protector and challenge my kids to keep up with me. I built mental strength so I could show my family what true discipline was keeping the promises that you make to others, but most importantly the ones you make to yourself.
And I built emotional strength so I could respond rather than react. And I could prove to my family that no matter what adversity we faced, Three years later, I faced the ultimate test. We were in a hotel just outside of League City, Texas. The room smelled like musty storage boxes, childhood memories scattered all over the bed. My mom looked up to me, tearfilled eyes, with a look on her face that I could only describe as lost. She was holding pictures of my sister Genevieve, and she said, "You know, honey, if this happened three years ago, I would have lost both my children."
She was right. It was just 5 days after my sister took her own life. Every single day, over 130 people in North America take their own lives. Not because they're weak, but because they've never been shown how to fight the battle within. And that day, I swore my sister's story would not become just another number. I would be proof that pain would be repurposed. You see, when we stop living for ourselves and start living for others, we learn, we grow, and we teach.
And it no longer matters what car you drive or who the next politician is. What matters is that you continuously grow, and you take what you've learned, and you guide others, and you live life the way it's truly meant to be lived. The truth is, most people die in their late 20s. We just don't get around to burying them until their 70s. Legacy is not the name on a hospital wing or the number of zeros in your bank account. Legacy is not what we leave people, but what we leave in them.
And when I look in that mirror now, I see a man that my son can look up to and my daughters can be proud of. But I also see a man with work to do. I see a man committed to growth. I see a man who will be remembered not for what he had, but for who he became. Thank you.
Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.