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