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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-13
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnwTPcuDIVo
I'm here today because of a question it's a question that occurred to me quite a long time ago but the question that I want to share with you hoping that it will embed itself in your mind the way it has mine this is a question that has caused me to really look into the way I interact with people and it's made me a better person I
had a twenty five year radio career and I was a news reporter and a sports announcer and when you're in that role in a community you have a front row seat all the good and bad things that happen I remember covering %HESITATION fire that struck a family about a week before Christmas and wiped out everything they owned they were okay but they had nothing we turn
the radio station lobby into a storage facility for all the donations that came in from people that were just reaching out to strangers they were asking nothing in return but you ten souls in pots and pans and clothes and toys and all the things you would need to started to stack up there in the lobby was a beautiful reaction from the community I remember a key
person in our high school who suffered from cancer in his diagnosis was not good and we shaved our heads and raised a whole bunch of money in his name in order to is just sort of hug he and his to be widow to let them know one way or another everthing was going to be okay and I remember talking with family members of a soldier who
was killed in Iraq the wife and children of that man not knowing what the future was going to be like and how devastating that was and yet the road between the of %HESITATION chapel and the VA cemetery was lined with thousands of people with flags and signs and messages of hope and love to a complete stranger is that hurts roll by and how much that meant
to the family the pattern was devastating tragedy followed by incredible togetherness over and over again and I remember the first time this question occurred to me I asked a friend of mine do you suppose it's possible we could skip the tragedy and just live in that togetherness is it possible for us to have togetherness without tragedy and he gave me a sort of strange look in
from what I remember left the room in a kinda left the question hanging in the air and it was sort of up to me to decide how to answer that question and I've been trying to do that ever since I was fifteen years ago at first I tried to answer that question thinking about global tragedy and how difficult it is when something horrible happens across the
globe it spreads like in in seconds especially in our social media driven world and I was looking for a way for us to respond within Aventis or something we could do that would provide an equal and opposite balance to this horrible thing that happened then I had to quickly decide they're just was nothing that could provide that kind of counter balance to that tragic event so
I had to settle in my mind on the fact that togetherness without tragedy happens in small doses like birthdays and anniversaries and weddings and babies being born in graduation ceremonies and for some state championships national championships world championships but that was always involving a very small group of people it was short lived usually and in some cases if you're not a sports fan you couldn't enjoy
and be part of that community so although it wasn't a perfect answer I felt like it was a partial answer to this question about togetherness without the togetherness without tragedy but that question lay dormant for quite a long time because I felt like I couldn't really fully answer it back then and I lay dormant until October first two thousand fifteen of course that was a day
when I'm quite community college in our community was knocked to its knees by a horrible shooting tragedy that affected hundreds if not thousands of people in this community and for a lot of us the recovery still continues in may continue for many many years and people here tend to have a you see see recovery story my you see see recovery story centers around an organization called
you see strong that was the name given to a fund that one point three million dollars came into from complete strangers around the world trying to do something to help the victims of that shooting and we had to assemble the United Way had to assemble and I help them a group of about fifteen people to manage this fund because while it's easy to give money away
it's hard to do it responsibly and under the potential scrutiny of all kinds of people who would be more than happy to sue us these fifteen people dedicated themselves because of distributing that money to the victims and I remember the first time that group of people was together in the room for the first time I was just thinking how is this going to work we have
people from such different points of view you had philanthropists and and wealthy business people in the same room with students you had a mental health professional in a pastor yet people edges normally don't associate with one another labels just all around the room and it was amazing to watch that group of people put those labels down and focus on the goal and distribute that money and
do it well the way we were hoping and they did it because there was something greater than them at stake they didn't ask anything in return they just did the job they did it very very well they put those labels aside if you think about it there was also young and old in and liberal and conservative gay and straight tattooed in un tattooed plenty of reasons
for people to not get along and yet they did such an amazing job it was an excellent example of togetherness and the sort of thing that I think about when I thought about togetherness of course the catalyst for that was tragedy I want to do in a experiment with you on labels just look at me I'm of white middle aged middle class educated straight married Christian
conservative Republican American man and I just divided the room some of you will say that's the kind of guy I'd like to get to know but for some other people you wouldn't want to even talk to me because of the label so I just laid out there but you know what it goes further than that for some people the labels I just laid out create fear
and when I think about those labels I have to wonder why do we pay so much attention to labels is it because we just really want to have a relationship with and trust the people that are just like us who do you see only as labels or who do you not see because you put a label on them following my you see see experience I was
able to go speak to some leaders in other communities and they would ask me what can we learn from what you went through in Roseburg and I started talking about leaders in the role leaders would play in recovery if a tragedy and eventually one will hit a tragedy hit that community what what should leaders do and I would always tell them I think the thing you
should do is think about the people who would be around the table to help your community recover if something were to happen think about the other leaders that would be there you probably know some of them but you may only know of others should reach out to those other leaders and get to know them a little bit before you're forced to find out if you can
trust them or like them under the pressure of recovery and it really seemed to resound with people they really like that idea and we came up with the phrase of togetherness before tragedy which awaken that whole discussion about togetherness without tragedy but there was also a incomplete part to this whole thing as well because if only leaders are able to help us get the togetherness without
tragedy were missing out on a whole nother section of people we need everyone involved in order for togetherness without tragedy to become a reality so the idea lay dormant again for awhile until I found the kindness diaries one day I was flipping through looking for something to watch on Netflix and I came across the first episode of the kindness diaries and I was fascinated the kindest
ares depict the effort of a stockbroker from Britain who happen to live in Los Angeles who got tired of being a stockbroker and his idea was even though the world looks like a very bad place from a distance there still is kindness in this world he just wanted to go find it and so he conducted at an amazing experiment which is documented in the series what
he did was he got into a Canary yellow motorcycle with a sidecar and begin driving across the United States with a goal of going around the world on nothing but the kindness of strangers he had no money for fuel food or lodging he was gonna rely completely on people now what he did have was the ability to gift people with a life changing gift that would
help them %HESITATION change their lives because of the incredible kindness that they showed a course they denies can undercover boss thing so Leon took off headed east and one of the first episode he comes across a man named Richard who lives in Pittsburgh and it's getting late and getting dark and Leon needs a place to stay and he runs into Richard any ass Richard if he
could stay with him for the night Richard said sure absolutely but I'm homeless then Leon said that's fine so Leon spent the night in the doorway the Richard lives in and Richard gave Leon his Matt and his blankets and some food and they later talking all night long it Richard told a story before he became homeless he had a dream of being a chef but he
dropped out of culinary school as his past the homelessness in the morning Richard gave Leon three pairs of underwear and more food for his trip and Leon told Richard that he was going to pay for Richard to go back to school so he could complete his dream of being a chef and he did fifteen episodes of that inspirational get the Kleenex ready it's awesome why was
so inspired I reached out to Leon through his Facebook page and website I was able actually to exchange some emails with them eventually he and I Skype for about a half hour one day while he was in New York I told about togetherness without tragedy I asked him if he thought it had legs and could I do something on the same level as the kindness diaries
and he encouraged me to do so his number one piece of advice to me was be the change be the change I wanted to see I'm we've all heard that night really took that to heart now I have been the change a little bit on this site was part of a group of people that did a thing called adopt a block here in rows for for
a couple years we went up and down Mill Street with rakes and shovels and we do actors and lawn mowers and garbage bags just knocking on doors and asking people if they were odd jobs that we could do for no pay we just wanted to do something to help the neighborhood out mostly to get to know people in case there was something bad that happened because
we thought maybe we could help them out an amazing things happened during that time there's two stories to share one there was a house we knocked on the door W. ever come to the door we could hear TV but nobody would ever come to the door months went by the neighbor came to us one day and said that fella fell down and broke his hip in
his back and he's coming back in a wheelchair and there's no ramp he can't get into his house so we built a ramp foreign we met a woman who is raising her grandson because his father had bailed out on drugs she was sleeping on the floor of her house she had died diverticulitis so bad she was headed to surgery she's miserable she gave the only mattress
in the house to her eight year old grandson and when we heard that story we made sure she had a twin mattress and you would've thought we gave her a new house we didn't ask for anything in return it was simply a gesture that needed to be done so I understand the the change but as I thought about it more actually what this became was be
the catalyst be the catalyst begin to ring in my head trying to answer that question of togetherness without tragedy be the catalyst well in scientific terms catalyst is an element that's introduced to an environment that changes that environment well let's talk about the environment we want to change we live in an isolated anonymous angry label throwing argumentative divided angry world right now just begging for something
to change begging for something to believe in begging to be part of something that we can all be a part of something better than what we have right now and if we choose not to make any changes were just going to go ahead and continue to add to all of those bad things in fact if we don't make a change deliberately really what we may be
saying is we'll just wait for the tragedy to come along before we make a change in how we treat one another but there's another option that option is to make a deliberate decision to be the change to drop the label's the way they did it you see see strong and the preconceived notions that come along with them to manufacture kindness the way Leon Logothetis did with
