Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York

Titles

Overcoming Adversity
Sarah Ferguson has faced numerous obstacles during her extraordinary life and in this very personal speech she talks candidly about some of her most formidable challenges, such as her parent's acrimonious divorce, her difficulty adjusting to official life as The Duchess of York, her despair over the unrelentingly vicious British press, the heartbreaking failure of her own marriage, and the burden of massive personal debt she took on as a single working mother. Sarah credits her faith, values, and devotion to family, for enabling her to navigate crisis and grow from life's experiences.

My Road to an Authentic Life
Sarah Ferguson describes herself a born people-pleaser. When her marriage into Britain's royal family thrust her onto the world stage she says her seeming inability to please everyone caused her to lose confidence and direction. Following her divorce in 1995 the Duchess says the process of starting a new life helped her to refocus, rebuild her esteem, and find the inner peace she thought she'd lost. In this speech the Duchess uses personal accounts to dramatize the differences between her former "inauthentic" life and the "authentic" life she lives today.

Motherhood & the Spirit of Caring
Nature provides mothers with a powerful instinct for caring. In this speech the Duchess shares her views on motherhood, based on her unique perspective as a hands-on mother of two royal princesses, as well as from her experiences as an international humanitarian who has witnessed extraordinarily caring and courageous mothers all over the world.

Risk & Self Discovery
Sarah Ferguson says that on the first day of her divorce it was as if all doors suddenly slammed shut. "If my marriage in a fishbowl had been disorienting, divorce for me was like being cut adrift in a raging sea." Faced with a staggering personal debt and with two young daughters to help raise, one thing was certain: Sarah needed to go out and earn a living and to do that she began commuting to work in America where she said people gave her a "second chance" and encouraged her to take risks while building a new career. In this inspiring speech the Duchess talks about how she broke with the past and learned to embrace risk for personal growth.