LIKE FATHER
like daughter
his daughter carries on. You see, Lee
Robert is the daughter of NSA founder
Cavett Robert, CSP, CPAE. She’s not only
living his legacy in the literal sense, but
with her own style, message, and guid-
ance on how we can sustain and grow
our own seeds of “greatness.”
Lee is quick with a story to convey
her own version of his words of
wisdom. “Back then, Daddy talked
about the farmer standing out in the
field holding a rope in his hand, and
how he couldn’t figure out if he’d lost a
cow or found a rope,” she says. “For us
now, the same story holds true. Many
of us are standing in the middle of our
lives and careers, not able to understand
whether we’ve lost our economic direc-
tion or found ourselves in a new era
of operation we don’t understand.” In
order to stay great when times change,
no matter your message or medium
for engaging an audience, Lee Robert
believes her father’s advice for being a
speaker with staying power still applies.
LEE ROBERT CARRIES ON HER FATHER’S LEGACY,
WITH A UNIQUE SET OF TALENTS AND MESSAGES
THAT ARE ALL HER OWN
BY MONICA WOFFORD, MA, CSP
LEE ROBERT has been intimately
involved in the speaking business since
1960—though not always in the manner
you might think. It was a family business, with the early beginnings started on
the dining room table. She spent childhood summers being paid to send out her
father’s books and tapes, and later worked
in his office in sales and marketing as an
adult for 12 years.
Of course, it’s not just the years of
experience that mold her insights on the
past, present and future of the speak-
ing business. A professional musician
since age 14, Lee began performing in
coffee houses. She lived, performed
and received performing arts training
in England for a number of years, and
as an adult was encouraged to visit the
San Francisco Chapter of the National
Speakers Association while on tour with
a 13-piece orchestra and seeking a new
agent. Her father told her there might
be agents at the NSA meeting. He also
told her that he thought she was a great
speaker and storyteller.
THE TOOLS OF
INFLUENCE
Cavett Robert was always into high-tech
stuff. When he started in the early ‘60s
that meant 45 RPM records and film
strips. Lee, a 10-year-old girl when her
father launched his business, saw a dif-
ferent landscape when she came into the
speaking realm: digital technology and
murmurs of the internet. “I’m always using
and learning brand-new techniques and
mediums that my dad was never exposed
to,” she says. “But I’ve learned to think of
all of them as simply tools to help me as
a speaker. It’s not about ‘I’m a TV per-
sonality’ or ‘I’m a writer.’ I use them as
tools to influence. They communicate our
message, and our message evolves as well,
just as we evolve as human beings.”
It’s often said that the speakers who
stay great are the ones who reinvent
themselves by learning and applying new
things. Not unlike her father, a lifelong
learner who believed in lifelong learning
