Who Told You That Story, & Whom Does It Serve?
Some of the stories shaping our lives were handed to us long before we had the language to question them.
Stories about who we had to be to be loved.
What success was supposed to cost us.
What kind of strength earned respect?
What we were allowed to want.
What we were expected to carry without complaint.
Over time, those stories do more than shape us, & they begin to live through our work, relationships, ambition, & silence. In the ways we over-function, over-give, over-explain, shrink, perform, strive, or disappear. And if left unexamined, they don’t stop with us, chile.
They become part of what we pass down.
Who Told You That Story, & Whom Does It Serve? is an intimate, reflective, workshop-style experience designed for folks ready to examine the narratives they’ve inherited, internalized, and mistaken for their own. Through guided reflection, facilitated teaching, and practical narrative reframing, this session invites participants to look closely at the beliefs shaping how they live, lead, create, love, and belong, and ask more honest questions about where those beliefs came from, what they’ve cost, and who has benefited from their silence.
At the heart of this workshop is a broader conversation about legacy and generational wealth in nontraditional ways. Because wealth isn’t only financial. It’s also emotional freedom, self-trust, language, & the ability to tell the truth about what shaped you before you hand it to someone else as identity, expectation, or fate. It’s the courage to interrupt patterns that were normalized in the name of love, survival, duty, or respectability.
It’s the kind of inheritance we create when we decide that what happened to us, around us, or before us doesn’t get to be the whole story.
This workshop is for professionals, creatives, leaders, caregivers, community builders, & folks in transition who know there’s a difference between functioning well and living freely. It’s for those who have outgrown certain versions of themselves, but still feel the weight of the stories that taught them how to survive. It’s for those ready to examine what gets to leave with them, what ends with them, & what kind of truth they want their lives, work, and relationships to pass on instead.
Participants will receive a beautifully designed workshop guide before the session begins to help them prepare with intention and enter the room ready for meaningful reflection.
After the workshop, they will also receive a curated integration manual with prompts, activities, and guided exercises to support the work beyond the live experience. It’s a resource designed to help participants return to the questions, nurture their clarity, and continue the practice of choosing a story that’s more honest, liberating, & fully their own.
This isn’t about rewriting your life into something more palatable, I promise.
It’s moreso about recognizing that not everything we inherited was meant to be kept, & understanding that one of the most powerful forms of legacy we can build is the kind that teaches the people coming after us that they’re allowed to live with truth, wholeness, & less borrowed fear.
Aight?
About Vanessa Smithers:
Vanessa Smithers is a Toronto-based African Nova Scotian Narrative Consultant, Legacy Archivist, and Speaker whose work lives at the intersection of story, identity, and legacy. Rooted in ancestral ties to The Hill, a historic Black community in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada, she fell in love with creative writing long before she had the language for how deeply it would shape her life. She began writing as a way to survive. In time, it became a way to name, protect, and free what had too often gone unnamed in the lives of others.
Across community spaces, classrooms, and institutions, people have trusted Vanessa with what is most tender, most unfinished, and most true. Her career has spanned community advocacy, education, and narrative consulting, but the through line has remained the same: a commitment to language as both a tool and a form of care. From local spaces to institutions, including Rikers Island, she has led storytelling and literacy work that reminds people their voices still belong to them.
Today, Vanessa supports individuals, creatives, nonprofits, and institutions through keynote speaking, workshops, mentorship, legacy archiving, and narrative consulting rooted in clarity, truth, and emotional precision. Her work includes writing and shaping speeches, personal and organizational biographies, website copy, brand messaging, one-pagers, pitch decks, grant narratives, and other forms of story-driven communication that ask people to say what they mean with greater courage and care. Whether she is helping someone articulate the heart of their work, preserve a life story in their own words, or build language strong enough to hold a vision, Vanessa’s practice is grounded in the belief that the right words can change what becomes possible.
To date, Vanessa has supported more than 3,200 people internationally, serving both grassroots builders and global institutions including Apple, Spotify, Netflix, Salesforce, VaynerMedia, and the Government of Canada. Whether she is shaping a keynote, guiding a workshop, or helping someone find the language for who they are and what they carry, her work asks people to tell the truth with more clarity, more courage, and more care.
In January 2026, Vanessa self-published her debut book, oh, to be tender: a compilation of reflections on feelings, experiences, & all the heart things, and sold more than 1,000 copies within its first two weeks.
Vanessa believes generational wealth and legacy are not only financial. They are language passed down, memory protected, and stories preserved in our own words. It’s what we safeguard when we tell the truth and leave it standing.