0:06 [Music] [Applause]
0:15 what if I told you that you could overcome
0:17 overcome
0:19 anything but there is in a circumstance
0:22 or situation known to man that you cannot
0:24 cannot
0:28 overcome that you are indeed
0:30 unbreakable do you believe
0:33 me and more importantly than me telling
0:36 you if you told yourself those things
0:38 would you believe
0:40 you I want to talk to you about a
0:44 critical element of Happiness success
0:48 and overcoming obstacles resilience and
0:49 how it's built through some of the most painful
0:52 painful
0:54 moments I'm not sure what the ideal
0:57 route to a TED Talk is but I'm guessing
0:58 that my journey isn't
1:01 it was born and raised in Oakland
1:04 California Coming of Age the 1980s and
1:08 it's nearly 20% unemployment rate for
1:11 blacks systemic housing segregation and
1:14 discrimination education inequities High
1:17 poverty and murder rates and the dawn of
1:20 the crack epidemic and its partner the
1:23 War on Drugs that made historical
1:27 criminal justice and equities even
1:30 worse against that backdrop
1:32 I also came a age with a mother who
1:34 would become an
1:37 addict and a father who though his
1:38 listed occupation on my birth
1:40 certificate says
1:44 custodian he was also a
1:47 pimp despite their flaws and doing the
1:50 best that they could in a situation that
1:53 exploited the worst of themselves I knew
1:55 that my parents love me to pieces and I
1:56 love them to
1:59 Pieces my mom had custody of me as we
2:02 moved and settled into Acorn housing
2:03 projects in West
2:06 Oakland so during a 3-year period
2:10 between age seven and 10 years old that
2:14 some of the most traumatic yet Vivid
2:16 moments of my childhood would play out
2:25 root When I close my
2:28 eyes I see them all just as clearly
2:31 today as they happened decades ago
2:34 go like the time I discovered my mother's
2:40 boyfriend Eyes Wide
2:43 Open laying on the floor of a drug
2:46 overdose a discover that discovery that
2:49 initially paralyzed Me In Fear much in
2:51 the same way that his body
2:54 laid motionless at my feet as he blankly
3:00 ceiling like the day my mother sat me
3:03 down on my bed to read me a handwritten
3:05 letter that my dad had written and sent
3:10 mail it would be the first time I'd ever
3:12 heard the five syllable word
3:14 word
3:21 meant like today my grandmother who took
3:23 over raising me when we were evicted out
3:27 of the projects due to my mother's
3:29 addiction received the call to inform me
3:31 that my
3:35 father after being jumped in a prison
3:42 dead he would die later that night
3:48 alive like the times I would later visit
3:51 my own mother in jail
3:55 a hazy plexiglass
3:59 window separating us physically and emotionally
4:01 emotionally
4:03 while also serving to remind me of the
4:14 walls I felt the pain the sadness the
4:17 shame the Solitude the adjectives that
4:19 as a
4:22 pre-teen meet the clinical definitions of
4:38 eyes the worst of Life couldn't take out
4:41 the best of me cuz I'm still standing
4:42 here in front of [Applause]
4:53 [Applause]
4:57 you despite being truly disadvantaged I
4:58 stand here in front of you having
5:01 overcome all those things and more I
5:03 would emerge as the first in my family
5:05 to graduate college earning
5:07 undergraduate and Master's business
5:10 degrees then on to a nearly two decade
5:14 corporate career before starting my own
5:17 Venture I've been from the projects to
5:19 exploring a couple dozen countries
5:21 across the
5:24 world from poverty to being the furthest
5:28 from broke and broken that I've ever
5:32 been from tragedy to Triumph I have
5:34 overcome and even
5:37 already I have
5:40 succeeded now I could entertain and
5:43 engross you in a fascinating story of
5:45 how but that's not nearly as important
5:47 as a different question
5:49 question
5:52 why why do I and others still succeed
5:57 and flourish despite immense pain and
5:59 Trauma those people and myself they
6:01 aren't aren't just strong or thick
6:04 skinned or good at
6:08 compartmentalizing what they are is
6:12 resilient you see change it's a constant
6:15 in life nothing gives us immunity from
6:19 it resilience is the capacity to adapt
6:21 to negative
6:24 change and recover from it as quickly as
6:28 possible now note that I said negative
6:32 change as you typically don't need any
6:35 help in coping with positive
6:37 change right you get the job that you
6:39 interviewed for and it comes with a 30%
6:42 pay increase or you find out class is
6:44 canceled the day that you have an exam
6:46 that you haven't prepared
6:49 for oh it's a bunch of a students in
6:53 here right it's just me
6:56 okay well those are really good things
6:58 and so you don't need any help or
7:00 strategies on how to
7:02 cope with the Good Fortune it's the
7:05 negative things the hurtful things the
7:08 bad things in life where our level of resilience
7:09 resilience
7:12 matters how we process respond to and
7:15 act will have huge implications on where
7:16 the story goes from
7:19 there whether we succumb to
7:23 it or we surmount
7:28 it but understand to exercise resilience
7:30 some change in circumstances
7:32 must happen must have
7:35 happened some change in circumstances
7:39 must have
7:42 happen the idea is to understand your
7:45 belief system your beliefs impact your
7:48 feelings your feelings impact how you
7:50 think about things and your thoughts
7:55 ultimately impact how you act and
7:59 respond I discovered this truth not through
8:00 through
8:05 some Bolt from the clouds some specific aha
8:06 aha
8:09 moment but from going through and
8:12 escaping my own hell as a
8:15 youngster there were some
8:19 excruciatingly painful gut-wrenching
8:23 days days where I didn't even know how
8:25 it was going to move forward and the
8:28 only thing that I could cling to was an
8:30 irrational hope
8:32 a belief that tomorrow would be better
8:35 than today sometimes without even really
8:37 truly believing it
8:41 myself but there I was trying to make
8:45 each moment better than the next today
8:47 better than
8:51 tomorrow without sacrificing my
9:01 pain
9:02 even at a young
9:05 age and despite not
9:08 knowing what Scholars and researchers
9:10 were already
9:13 confirming I was laying the foundation of
9:14 of
9:17 resilience by using the most
9:21 important resource available to
9:30 mind I wish I could say that the bad
9:33 luck truck stopped dropping boxes of
9:37 trauma off in my doorstep when I was a kid
9:38 kid but
9:40 but
9:44 life doesn't adhere to any delivery
9:48 Windows change comes whatever it comes
9:50 and for as long as we all
9:52 live after my
9:55 childhood I'd go on to experience the
9:57 death of family and
10:00 friends job loss
10:03 Financial issues Health
10:06 crisis all the things that life has a
10:08 tendency to throw at
10:13 us show you how much of a comedian God
10:16 is he gave me a
10:19 breakup heartbreak and distraction to
10:22 start this very week as I Was preparing
10:24 to talk to
10:28 you about
10:31 resilience like really now
10:44 resilience sometimes we need to tell
10:46 ourselves what to think when our mind
10:48 starts telling us things that we don't
10:54 hear that you can and
10:58 will overcome and succeed and not just
11:00 in spite of but
11:09 of that with the proper
11:12 perspective and a positive
11:23 power the life is easier when you're
11:25 prepared and just because you can't plan for
11:26 for
11:28 everything does mean you can't be ready
11:38 that
11:41 perspective sometimes requires
11:43 requires
11:49 perseverance and
11:51 and understand
11:52 understand
11:55 sometimes it gets
11:59 hard and it's tough and it's painful you
12:01 get tired you get weak and when you
12:03 don't know how to keep going sometimes
12:05 all the strength you
12:18 help that it's okay to acknowledge that
12:20 I was a
12:23 victim but
12:27 refuse to own being aay
12:30 victim you get that subtle
12:33 distinction that difference between past
12:38 and present tense that gives us power
12:40 power to change the way we think power
12:42 to change our circumstances and
12:49 overcome because of my faith I've long
12:53 been a believer that everything happens
12:56 for a reason some reasons are
12:58 immediately Available to You others take
13:00 time to reveal
13:03 themselves as I was piecing together my
13:04 talk one of the central questions I kept
13:10 coming back to was who am I talking
13:15 to I ultimately realized that I was talking
13:16 talking
13:18 to the Adolescent
13:22 me the college me the professional me
13:26 even the future me with life adversity
13:28 yet to be encountered the varying
13:30 versions of me is who I was telling you
13:33 are indeed unbreakable that you can overcome
13:36 overcome anything
13:39 anything
13:42 but if you happen to find a little
13:45 something in your ease dropping to help
13:48 you through whatever adversity you
13:51 face then I was talking to the
13:55 Adolescent you the college you the
13:57 corporate you the professional you the
14:00 future you to
14:02 and more than
14:05 anything I thank you for giving my
