When Michelle Weger walked onto the stage at CBC Glenn Gould Studio on November 22, 2025, she didn't walk on alone. Beside her was Quinn, a Great Dane in a working service vest, the first service dog to compete at Speaker Slam® in the event's nine-year history. By the end of the night, Quinn would also be the first service dog on a championship stage.
Michelle won the title of #1 Inspirational Speaker of the Year at the 9th Annual Grand Slam Finals, taking home a $3,000 cash prize and a prize package valued up to $50,000. She edged out 13 of North America's strongest speakers with a five-minute talk called "Your Wake-Up Call," about narcolepsy, hiding, and the moment her biggest fear became the bridge that connected her to everyone else.
What made the win unusual wasn't just the dog. It was the route Michelle took to get there.
The Premed Path That Ended at 22
Michelle's story starts in Halifax. She was a science student at Dalhousie University from 2008 to 2011, on a premed track, with her sights set on becoming a neurosurgeon. At 17, she started falling asleep in places she shouldn't. During exams. On first dates. Once while looking into a microscope, which left her with two black eyes.
It took five years to find an answer. At 22, she was diagnosed with narcolepsy, a neurological disorder that causes sudden sleep attacks regardless of how much sleep someone gets the night before. The diagnosis closed one door and forced a different kind of life into focus.
She describes the day-to-day as waking up with a phone battery stuck at 40 percent that can drop to 5 percent without warning. Surgery wasn't going to be possible. Long shifts weren't going to be possible. She had to rebuild around the energy she actually had.
So she did. She founded Venture Creative Collective, a web and automation agency in Ottawa that now generates high six figures annually, built around short peak-hour sprints and the kind of automation that means progress doesn't depend on willpower. She wrote a memoir, Don't Snooze Your Dreams, which became a bestseller in Canada and the United States. She was named one of the youngest winners of Ottawa's Forty Under 40.
Through most of it, she kept her diagnosis quiet.
The Day Everyone Found Out
For years, Michelle left Quinn at home rather than face the stares, the questions, and the assumptions that come with an invisible disability. She didn't want clients seeing the dog and rewriting her in their heads.
Then in 2019, a travel mixup forced her hand. She had to bring Quinn to a major business event. She walked in with her husband, 140 pounds of Great Dane, and a clear sense that the room was about to know everything.
What happened instead, she told the Grand Slam crowd, was that the only comment shouted across the room was about Quinn's size. Her husband cracked a joke. Everyone laughed. And then people started pulling her aside, one by one, to whisper their own invisible things: chronic pain, epilepsy, trauma.
The fear she'd been carrying for years collapsed in an afternoon. She started speaking publicly, with Quinn beside her, on what she calls accessible high performance. The keynote bookings followed. So did the media features.
The Wild Card That Won It All
Michelle's path to the Grand Slam podium wasn't a straight line. At The Underdog 2025, the July qualifier, she placed fourth with a speech called "Max the Great Dane: The Underdog Who Became My Hero." It was about her first service dog, Max, the Great Dane who self-selected for the job years before her diagnosis by gently pulling her to the floor before sleep attacks. Max wasn't a perfect candidate. He was scared of plastic bags, of men in bow ties, of photos of other dogs. They trained for years. He became a working service dog at seven. And before he died, he trained Quinn.
"Quinn was trained by Max the underdog," Michelle told the Underdog crowd. "She skips straight to Superdog."
Fourth place doesn't normally advance to the finals. But the Wild Card Race did. Michelle entered, her community rallied behind her in the vote, and she advanced.
Three months later, she won the whole thing. Watch the moment her name was called.
In her Grand Slam speech, she pulled the throughline together: "We didn't get here despite my disability. We got here because of it." On the theme of Legacy, she added the line the judges would later quote: "Legacy isn't what you build for yourself. It's what changes because of you."
About Speaker Slam® Grand Slam Finals 2025
The 9th Annual Grand Slam took place on November 22, 2025, at CBC Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto. The theme was Legacy. Fourteen finalists, drawn from five qualifying competitions across the year plus the Wild Card Race, delivered five-minute speeches in front of a panel of judges and a sold-out room.
The full podium:
- Michelle Weger (Ottawa, ON), "Your Wake-Up Call"
- Charles Achampong (Toronto, ON), "The Story They'll Tell," a reflection on a kitchen-floor home birth that reframed legacy as the ordinary moments families carry forward
- Rimshah Ahmed (Milton, ON), "My Voice, My Legacy," tracing her path from enforced silence in Kashmir to speaking publicly on Gaza and human rights
The Grand Slam is Speaker Slam®'s annual finals, the culmination of a year-long competition series that brings together the top inspirational speakers in North America. The #1 Inspirational Speaker of the Year title comes with $3,000 cash and a prize package up to $50,000, including a book deal with Lucky Book Publishing, a Times Square billboard feature, and mentorships with producers from CBC and CTV Your Morning, YouTube creator Evan Carmichael, Gordon Breault of Speakers Bureau of Canada, and Anne Marie Perrault of AMP Talent Group.
For more on the event, see the Grand Slam 2025 recap.
In the Media
Michelle has spoken about her win and her journey on CTV Your Morning, Breakfast Television, CHCH Morning Live, CTV News Ottawa, CTV News Atlantic, and in The Coast.
"Your Wake-Up Call": Full Transcript
Please close your eyes and take a deep breath. Think about the one thing you would never want the world to know. The secret you would do anything to protect. Open your eyes. Imagine standing on this very stage and telling everyone that secret.
When I was 17, I started randomly falling asleep all the time. During a university exam. On a first date. Once when looking into a microscope, resulting in two black eyes.
It took five years to find out what was wrong.
I have narcolepsy, which means I could fall asleep at any moment. Kidding. It doesn't happen like that.
Having narcolepsy is actually like sleeping all night, charging your phone, waking up, and the battery is still at 40 percent. No matter how long I sleep, I will never have more than 40 percent energy. Even worse, at any moment, that battery can drop to 5 percent without warning. Can you even imagine?
That's where this little lady comes in. My service dog, Quinn, warns me before I fall asleep so I can sit down before I fall down. My guardian angel.
Being diagnosed felt like both an answer and a life sentence. Relief after years of exhaustion and confusion. But I felt completely broken. I had worked so hard to build a life I was proud of. But every day felt like a performance. Smile. Nod. Pretend you're okay. Stay awake. Do not fall asleep.
And I succeeded for a long time at keeping my secret. Until the day everyone found out.
I was headed to a huge business event I'd been excited and terrified to attend. But with a travel mixup, I had to bring my service dog with me. So there we were. Me, my husband, and 140 pounds of surprise. I'm disabled.
I braced for the judgment. I knew the things people said about me behind my back. She looks normal. Seriously, she brought a dog. Who does she think she is?
We walked through the doors and the only comment shouted from across the room was: "That's a big boy." To which my husband, always the charmer, said, "Thanks, I work out. He doesn't." Everyone laughed.
And that was it. Until the strangest thing started to happen. People pulling me aside to whisper, "I have something too." Chronic pain. Epilepsy. Trauma. Somehow seeing me with my service dog made them feel safe enough to share invisible secrets.
My biggest fear, the thing I thought would ruin my career, became the bridge that connected me to others.
I was out of hiding. How could I not be?
So I started speaking on stages everywhere. And one day, a young woman from the audience approached me and said, "I've been secretly training a service dog, but I was afraid to bring her to work. Hearing your story changed everything. I'm done hiding."
Wow.
It was a full circle moment. I used to be her.
And that's when I realized: legacy isn't what you build for yourself. It's what changes because of you.
So let's go back to your secret. What if sharing that secret is the one thing you can do to change someone's life? Would you still hide?
When you see someone like you doing something you thought was impossible, the glass ceiling you placed on yourself shatters.
Which brings me here tonight, standing on this stage as the first service dog team in the nine-year history of the Grand Slam. We didn't get here despite my disability. We got here because of it. Because of that terrified young woman who stepped into a room with a Great Dane and said, "Here I am. All of me."
And this big girl, well, she won't be here forever. But maybe this stage, this moment, is her legacy too.
Thank you.
Michelle Weger
Founder, Bestselling Author, Disability Advocate
Michelle Weger is the founder and CEO of Venture Creative Collective, an Ottawa-based web and automation agency. She is the bestselling author of Don't Snooze Your Dreams and speaks on accessible high performance, narcolepsy, and supporting invisible disabilities. Her Great Dane service dog Quinn alerts her ahead of sleep attacks so she can stay safe in public.
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