00:00:01
[Music]
00:00:06
[Applause]
00:00:13
what if I told you that you could
00:00:15
overcome
00:00:17
anything but there is in a circumstance
00:00:19
or situation known to man that you
00:00:22
cannot
00:00:24
overcome that you are indeed
00:00:28
unbreakable do you believe
00:00:30
me and more importantly than me telling
00:00:33
you if you told yourself those things
00:00:36
would you believe
00:00:38
you I want to talk to you about a
00:00:40
critical element of Happiness success
00:00:44
and overcoming obstacles resilience and
00:00:48
how it's built through some of the most
00:00:49
painful
00:00:52
moments I'm not sure what the ideal
00:00:54
route to a TED Talk is but I'm guessing
00:00:57
that my journey isn't
00:00:58
it was born and raised in Oakland
00:01:01
California Coming of Age the 1980s and
00:01:04
it's nearly 20% unemployment rate for
00:01:08
blacks systemic housing segregation and
00:01:11
discrimination education inequities High
00:01:14
poverty and murder rates and the dawn of
00:01:17
the crack epidemic and its partner the
00:01:20
War on Drugs that made historical
00:01:23
criminal justice and equities even
00:01:27
worse against that backdrop
00:01:30
I also came a age with a mother who
00:01:32
would become an
00:01:34
addict and a father who though his
00:01:37
listed occupation on my birth
00:01:38
certificate says
00:01:40
custodian he was also a
00:01:44
pimp despite their flaws and doing the
00:01:47
best that they could in a situation that
00:01:50
exploited the worst of themselves I knew
00:01:53
that my parents love me to pieces and I
00:01:55
love them to
00:01:56
Pieces my mom had custody of me as we
00:01:59
moved and settled into Acorn housing
00:02:02
projects in West
00:02:03
Oakland so during a 3-year period
00:02:06
between age seven and 10 years old that
00:02:10
some of the most traumatic yet Vivid
00:02:14
moments of my childhood would play out
00:02:16
as my mother's disease of addiction took
00:02:22
root When I close my
00:02:25
eyes I see them all just as clearly
00:02:28
today as they happened decades ago
00:02:31
go like the time I discovered my
00:02:34
mother's
00:02:37
boyfriend Eyes Wide
00:02:40
Open laying on the floor of a drug
00:02:43
overdose a discover that discovery that
00:02:46
initially paralyzed Me In Fear much in
00:02:49
the same way that his body
00:02:51
laid motionless at my feet as he blankly
00:02:54
stared at the
00:02:56
ceiling like the day my mother sat me
00:03:00
down on my bed to read me a handwritten
00:03:03
letter that my dad had written and sent
00:03:05
me in the
00:03:07
mail it would be the first time I'd ever
00:03:10
heard the five syllable
00:03:12
word
00:03:14
incarcerated and learned what it
00:03:18
meant like today my grandmother who took
00:03:21
over raising me when we were evicted out
00:03:23
of the projects due to my mother's
00:03:27
addiction received the call to inform me
00:03:29
that my
00:03:31
father after being jumped in a prison
00:03:35
fight was brain
00:03:39
dead he would die later that night
00:03:42
before I ever saw him again
00:03:45
alive like the times I would later visit
00:03:48
my own mother in jail
00:03:51
a hazy plexiglass
00:03:55
window separating us physically and
00:03:59
emotionally
00:04:01
while also serving to remind me of the
00:04:03
Fate that my father met in those very
00:04:09
walls I felt the pain the sadness the
00:04:14
shame the Solitude the adjectives that
00:04:17
as a
00:04:19
pre-teen meet the clinical definitions
00:04:22
of
00:04:28
depression yeah when I open my
00:04:35
eyes the worst of Life couldn't take out
00:04:38
the best of me cuz I'm still standing
00:04:41
here in front of
00:04:42
[Applause]
00:04:53
you despite being truly disadvantaged I
00:04:57
stand here in front of you having
00:04:58
overcome all those things and more I
00:05:01
would emerge as the first in my family
00:05:03
to graduate college earning
00:05:05
undergraduate and Master's business
00:05:07
degrees then on to a nearly two decade
00:05:10
corporate career before starting my own
00:05:14
Venture I've been from the projects to
00:05:17
exploring a couple dozen countries
00:05:19
across the
00:05:21
world from poverty to being the furthest
00:05:24
from broke and broken that I've ever
00:05:28
been from tragedy to Triumph I have
00:05:32
overcome and even
00:05:34
already I have
00:05:37
succeeded now I could entertain and
00:05:40
engross you in a fascinating story of
00:05:43
how but that's not nearly as important
00:05:45
as a different
00:05:47
question
00:05:49
why why do I and others still succeed
00:05:52
and flourish despite immense pain and
00:05:57
Trauma those people and myself they
00:05:59
aren't aren't just strong or thick
00:06:01
skinned or good at
00:06:04
compartmentalizing what they are is
00:06:08
resilient you see change it's a constant
00:06:12
in life nothing gives us immunity from
00:06:15
it resilience is the capacity to adapt
00:06:19
to negative
00:06:21
change and recover from it as quickly as
00:06:24
possible now note that I said negative
00:06:28
change as you typically don't need any
00:06:32
help in coping with positive
00:06:35
change right you get the job that you
00:06:37
interviewed for and it comes with a 30%
00:06:39
pay increase or you find out class is
00:06:42
canceled the day that you have an exam
00:06:44
that you haven't prepared
00:06:46
for oh it's a bunch of a students in
00:06:49
here right it's just me
00:06:53
okay well those are really good things
00:06:56
and so you don't need any help or
00:06:58
strategies on how to
00:07:00
cope with the Good Fortune it's the
00:07:02
negative things the hurtful things the
00:07:05
bad things in life where our level of
00:07:08
resilience
00:07:09
matters how we process respond to and
00:07:12
act will have huge implications on where
00:07:15
the story goes from
00:07:16
there whether we succumb to
00:07:19
it or we surmount
00:07:23
it but understand to exercise resilience
00:07:28
some change in circumstances
00:07:30
must happen must have
00:07:32
happened some change in circumstances
00:07:35
must have
00:07:39
happen the idea is to understand your
00:07:42
belief system your beliefs impact your
00:07:45
feelings your feelings impact how you
00:07:48
think about things and your thoughts
00:07:50
ultimately impact how you act and
00:07:55
respond I discovered this truth not
00:07:59
through
00:08:00
some Bolt from the clouds some specific
00:08:05
aha
00:08:06
moment but from going through and
00:08:09
escaping my own hell as a
00:08:12
youngster there were some
00:08:15
excruciatingly painful gut-wrenching
00:08:19
days days where I didn't even know how
00:08:23
it was going to move forward and the
00:08:25
only thing that I could cling to was an
00:08:28
irrational hope
00:08:30
a belief that tomorrow would be better
00:08:32
than today sometimes without even really
00:08:35
truly believing it
00:08:37
myself but there I was trying to make
00:08:41
each moment better than the next today
00:08:45
better than
00:08:47
tomorrow without sacrificing my
00:08:51
future for today's
00:08:58
pain
00:09:01
even at a young
00:09:02
age and despite not
00:09:05
knowing what Scholars and researchers
00:09:08
were already
00:09:10
confirming I was laying the foundation
00:09:13
of
00:09:14
resilience by using the most
00:09:17
important resource available to
00:09:21
me my
00:09:26
mind I wish I could say that the bad
00:09:30
luck truck stopped dropping boxes of
00:09:33
trauma off in my doorstep when I was a
00:09:37
kid
00:09:38
but
00:09:40
life doesn't adhere to any delivery
00:09:44
Windows change comes whatever it comes
00:09:48
and for as long as we all
00:09:50
live after my
00:09:52
childhood I'd go on to experience the
00:09:55
death of family and
00:09:57
friends job loss
00:10:00
Financial issues Health
00:10:03
crisis all the things that life has a
00:10:06
tendency to throw at
00:10:08
us show you how much of a comedian God
00:10:13
is he gave me a
00:10:16
breakup heartbreak and distraction to
00:10:19
start this very week as I Was preparing
00:10:22
to talk to
00:10:24
you about
00:10:28
resilience like really
00:10:31
now
00:10:35
now so what does trauma teach us about
00:10:42
resilience sometimes we need to tell
00:10:44
ourselves what to think when our mind
00:10:46
starts telling us things that we don't
00:10:48
need to
00:10:51
hear that you can and
00:10:54
will overcome and succeed and not just
00:10:58
in spite of but
00:11:00
precisely because
00:11:05
of that with the proper
00:11:09
perspective and a positive
00:11:12
attitude we have
00:11:18
power the life is easier when you're
00:11:23
prepared and just because you can't plan
00:11:25
for
00:11:26
everything does mean you can't be ready
00:11:28
for something
00:11:37
that
00:11:38
perspective sometimes
00:11:41
requires
00:11:43
partnership and
00:11:47
perseverance
00:11:49
and
00:11:51
understand
00:11:52
sometimes it gets
00:11:55
hard and it's tough and it's painful you
00:11:59
get tired you get weak and when you
00:12:01
don't know how to keep going sometimes
00:12:03
all the strength you
00:12:05
need is the strength to ask others for
00:12:13
help that it's okay to acknowledge that
00:12:18
I was a
00:12:20
victim but
00:12:23
refuse to own being aay
00:12:27
victim you get that subtle
00:12:30
distinction that difference between past
00:12:33
and present tense that gives us power
00:12:38
power to change the way we think power
00:12:40
to change our circumstances and
00:12:42
ultimately power to
00:12:47
overcome because of my faith I've long
00:12:49
been a believer that everything happens
00:12:53
for a reason some reasons are
00:12:56
immediately Available to You others take
00:12:58
time to reveal
00:13:00
themselves as I was piecing together my
00:13:03
talk one of the central questions I kept
00:13:04
coming back to was who am I talking
00:13:10
to I ultimately realized that I was
00:13:15
talking
00:13:16
to the Adolescent
00:13:18
me the college me the professional me
00:13:22
even the future me with life adversity
00:13:26
yet to be encountered the varying
00:13:28
versions of me is who I was telling you
00:13:30
are indeed unbreakable that you can
00:13:33
overcome
00:13:36
anything
00:13:39
but if you happen to find a little
00:13:42
something in your ease dropping to help
00:13:45
you through whatever adversity you
00:13:48
face then I was talking to the
00:13:51
Adolescent you the college you the
00:13:55
corporate you the professional you the
00:13:57
future you to
00:14:00
and more than
00:14:02
anything I thank you for giving my
00:14:05
trauma a purpose thank
00:14:20
you
