Today we’d like to introduce you to CeCe Espeut.
Hi CeCe, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started as a photographer, behind the camera, telling other people’s stories before I ever told my own. That work is actually what led me into public speaking. Capturing so many other people’s moments made me want to find my own voice, and that pull brought me into Toastmasters, where I earned my Distinguished Toastmaster designation five times over and mastered the craft of communication at a level most people never touch.
I served ten years in the Marine Corps, ten years of service that taught me discipline, standards, and how to lead under pressure. That foundation, along with my Toastmasters background, led me to the TEDx stage twice as a speaker. And it was on the other side of that experience, watching how few people actually understand what it takes to get selected and deliver a talk that matters, that TEDxMiramar and TEDxMiramar Youth were born. I wanted to build something that didn’t just put talks on a stage, but built a real pipeline: helping people find their message, apply strategically, and speak with the kind of clarity that changes rooms.
Today that mission runs on two tracks. I’m the author of Standing on the RED Dot, a roadmap for aspiring TEDx speakers who need real guidance instead of guesswork. And I consult with organizations and corporations on how to build TEDx style events and speaker development systems the right way, using the standards I learned from doing it myself, on stage and behind the curtain.
I still shoot a handful of photography jobs each year, but it’s no longer where my time or focus lives. TEDxMiramar Youth is where my story now points forward, giving young people a platform to find their voice early instead of waiting a decade like I did.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It hasn’t been a smooth road, but I don’t think a story worth telling ever is.
One of the hardest chapters of my life was a period I spent in federal custody, which included a year in solitary confinement, more commonly known as “the hole.” I won’t dwell on the details, but that entire experience was a full stop on the life I thought I was building. What mattered most was what came after. I used that time away to reflect, and when I came home, I rebuilt my life from the ground up, first through photography, then through Toastmasters, where the work of finding my voice again became the thing that gave me a future. Every credential I’ve earned since, the five Distinguished Toastmaster awards, the two TEDx talks, and an entire organization built around helping others find their voice, exists because I refused to let that chapter be the final one.
Rebuilding also meant confronting how few second chances are actually built with structure and standards behind them. That’s part of why the systems I now build, whether it’s the frameworks laid out in my books or the standards I bring into corporate consulting, matter so much to me. They exist because I know what it’s like to need a real roadmap and not have one.
Out of those struggles, TEDxMiramar Youth has flourished. There is nothing like watching a young speaker walk onto that red dot and own it. Unsure and a little nervous is how most speakers feel when the team first meets them and starts developing their ideas, and that’s completely normal. By the time they take the stage, they’ve worked through a curriculum built on the Toastmasters Youth Leadership Program, covering body language, vocal variety, and speech development. What the audience sees is confident, near flawless delivery. That transformation is the entire reason the event exists.
But getting a young person to that stage takes real money: venue costs, production, speaker development, marketing, and none of it is cheap to do at the standard we hold ourselves to. Funding and sponsorship remain the hardest part of running this event year over year.
That’s where we need community partners. We’re actively seeking sponsors and donors who want their name behind a platform that turns nervous teenagers into confident speakers who can walk into any room and own it. If you believe in what that transformation is worth, reach out to us at cece@tedxmiramar.com and let’s build that partnership together.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
What I do is see what’s possible before anyone else does, then build the team and structure to make it real.
The Marine Corps trained that instinct into me early. I learned to take a big, undefined idea, an objective with no clear map yet, and turn it into something concrete on the ground. I don’t wait for a perfect plan to exist before I move. I build the plan by moving, then bring the right people around me to execute the pieces I can’t carry alone. That’s the real skill: spotting potential in a person or an idea before it’s obvious to anyone else, and having the patience to develop it instead of demanding instant results.
Toastmasters is where I sharpened that into an actual craft, team building. I’m most proud of the teams I’ve assembled around big, unproven visions. Bringing an ambitious idea to life is never a solo act. My strength has always been rallying people toward something they can’t fully see yet, then handing them enough trust and room to make their piece of it their own.
TEDxMiramar Youth is where all of it converges, and it’s what sets me apart. I think in systems and futures, not single events. I’m always asking what this becomes in five years, not just whether it works this year. That long view, paired with an eye for talent in people who haven’t been given a real shot yet, is what turns one idea into something that outlasts me.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
The morning I turned six felt bigger than the day itself, mostly because of the walk.
I stood in front of the mirror in my orange and white polka-dot dress, my white Mary Janes buckled just right, and I felt like the most important person in the whole neighborhood. In my hand, curled tight enough to leave little half-moons in my palm, were a few silver coins. Not many. But they were mine, and today I was allowed to walk to the store by myself.
Every step down that road felt like an announcement. Look at me. I am six, and I am walking to the store alone, and I have my own money. The dress swished against my knees in rhythm with my steps, and the shoes made a small, proud clicking sound against the pavement that I swore only I could hear.
I didn’t let go of those coins once. Not to wave at a neighbor, not to swat away the heat, not for anything. They were proof of something I didn’t have words for yet, that I could be trusted, that I could go and do a small piece of the world on my own and come back having done it right.
By the time I reached the store, I don’t even remember what I bought. What I remember is the walk there, the sun on my shoulders, the coins sweating in my fist, and a feeling of pride so enormous for a six year old girl that it has never really left me. I think that was the first time I understood what it felt like to do something entirely by myself and be proud of the person who did it.
That girl in the polka-dot dress had no idea how many more roads she’d walk alone. But she already knew how to hold on tight and keep going.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CeCe.Espeut
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/CeCeEspeut/
