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TEDx Talks
Published: 2016-12-12
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1invnTgDgY
my husband and I traveled to a small island nation to go and do some volunteer work when we were there my husband who is a family doctor we were asked if we would go to another neighboring village which was a three hour boat ride away and this village had never seen a family doctor before and so of course we said yes and we got into this
rickety little boat and we started this journey out toward this village and as we started to approach the shoreline one of the most magical things started to happen we could start to see that it was lined with little bodies and the closer that we came the more we could see that it was lined with children an even closer as we arrived at the shoreline we could
see they they were children and many of them were wearing tattered tee shirts many of them holding onto adult size underwear every one of them with the distended belly and rented red tinges on the corners of their hair a sign of what is called kwashiorkor in medical terms are malnutrition to you when I but those kids were playing just like kids do they had no idea
that anything was wrong and we tossed off some soccer balls and we got off and we played with them for a little while and then we went over to a building that the village had established it was a small room and inside of that room my husband was set up we had an interpreter and I was taking notes and the people of this village they lined
up around the building there to see the medicine man and one by one over the course of the day they came in and you know they presented with the same kinds of things that he would see here in North America high blood pressure diabetes et cetera but there were two young men they came in during the course of that day and they were both in their
late twenties early thirties and they presented with the exact same symptoms they both talked about how they had a fever fever in their belly and so no gas them probing questions well when do you have the fever when don't you have the fever and the reality was the only time they didn't have the fever was the once or perhaps twice in a week that they'd had
a meal they didn't need a diagnosis they needed food and I don't tell you that story to make you sad I tell you that story because I believe that when we share our stories when we tell our stories like minded people want to join with us and help to do good in the world and I am very pleased to tell you that in this village of
it right now there is a school their very first that has been built and it has a food program it feeds the children and it feeds their families that will be a step for them out of the cycle of poverty that story it's about service and service is one of my personal core values so let me ask you a question how many of you in the
room no who you are how many of you know your own personal core values I'm not talking about right from wrong good from bad if I were to ask you to name three to five words that define who you are could you answer that question our core values are our sacred true is the things that define us the things that no matter what happens no matter
what situation that you're in they don't change you know a couple of years ago I was at a conference in there was a a speaker a great guy out of the Chicago area John Bloomberg and he put forward a similar kind of challenge to the audience to think about what's important to us and at the time I thought well of course I know who I am
but as I sat back and tried to think about the words that defined my life I hadn't done the homework I thought I knew who I was but I had to go home and I had to sit and I had to think about what was important what are those sacred truths for me so today I want to share with you the remainder of the four additional
core values that I identified for myself in the hopes that this might spur some of you to go away and do a similar exercise because I truly believe that if we identify what is important to us what is at our core that it helps us to lead a life of purpose a much more fulfilling life so let me continue I have a brother who lives in
Chicago he's a wonderful artist and my husband and I were visiting him and while we were there I wanted to other was only one thing I wanted to do we're going to go out shopping for a day and I wanted to find a gratitude journal now many of you will remember that this was an Oprah led craze about ten years ago the whole notion being that
you would write three or four things down a day and it would help to create the power of positive thinking this was something at that point time in my life that I thought would be really valuable and so we found ourselves in this lovely little boutique in the Chicago area and as I was shopping around on the Florida basket I saw this beautiful tapestry covered book
and so I bent down and I picked up the book and I opened it up and the pages were empty and so very quietly I said to my husband I said this is gonna be my gratitude journal and so I put it on the counter and I shopped around a little bit more and and Dow finally went over to the counter to pay and the clerk
my book any walked down to this end of the counter any pulled out this beautiful wrapping got tissue paper and he wrapped up the book and they walked down to this end of the counter any pulled out this beautiful blue box with gold piping and then he walked back to the center any pulled out this gorgeous riven any took all this time to make it quite
elaborate and then he handed it to me and he said I couldn't help but overhear what you said that this is going to be your gratitude journal I want to be the first entry in your book I want you to write that the man who sold you this book took the time to make it a more beautiful experience a more meaningful experience he is indeed the
first entry in my book and silly but the second entry was a really good pickle that I had later in the day because sometimes a good pickled just makes me very very happy of but that is my second core value gratitude being grateful for the things that happen in everyday ordinary not necessarily over the top moments but those one on one connections between people and the
things that make us grateful the next of my core values is love I've had a wonderful opportunity to be involved in an organization called rotary international a global organization of leaders who would join together to exchange ideas to solve the world's most pressing challenges both here in our local communities on a global level as well one of the programs in rotary is youth exchange program and
I've been very lucky to have three youth exchange sons one from Brazil one from Denmark and one from Ecuador and they have enriched in added so much to mine in my husband's lives we don't have our own children and so our first exchange student was a young man named Leo from Brazil and he arrived in August %HESITATION the year that he I was with us and
his language skills to be quite honest were really good and but you know what in high school he was struggling he didn't feel the confidence in his own language ability at that point he was still integrating and you know he came from a place where he was the cool kid he was the one at home that had the girl friends that organized the parties he was
the it guy and so he was in very different territory when he arrived in Canada and so a few months went by and we spent lots of time with him and gave him lots of love and we were coming home from midnight mass and it was one of those absolutely spectacular nights when it was just one of those beautiful nights where the snow was drifting down
flea and it feels like you're inside of one of those shaky snow toys that's the kind of night it felt like it was magic and from the backseat Leo said Nick Jen I want to tell you something so as of all what's sad Leo and he said I love you and then Nick said what do you want Leo and he said no no you don't understand
you don't understand I have never spoken these words before anyone not even my own parents this is what you have taught me a gift what an incredible gift and that is why I love is one of my core values the fourth is integrity I believe that we need to do the things that %HESITATION we do because they're the right things to do the things that we
do that it doesn't matter whether anyone else is looking at us that our internal compass always drives us towards the things that we know are inherently right as opposed to wrong like to tell you a story about it a fella named Larry he belonged to a company and the CEO of this company was going to retire in one year's time and he didn't have any children
and so he called into his office %HESITATION all of his top executive team any said in one year's time I am going to retire in one of you in this room is going to become the new C. E. O. of our company and he said I'm going to give each one of you a seed and I want you to go home and I want you to
plant the seed and the person who comes back with the largest plant it's going to be the new CEO of our company and so everyone went away and Larry went away with his CD when Khomeini planted it in the water didn't he nurtured it he did everything he even talked to it and nothing happened and so weak after week he would nurture he would water he
would he would do everything to try and make this plant growers wife was even helping him now fast forward one year and they go into the board room and Larry's got nothin and all of his colleagues have these great big plants and they're all making fun of Larry they're all teasing him why don't you have a plan Larry and the CEO says Larry I'd like you
to come up to the front of the room so Larry came up to the front of the room and he put his arm around him and he said Larry ladies and gentlemen I want to introduce you to the new C. E. O. of our company I gave you all dead seeds Larry was the only one who had the integrity to not he was the guy and
I think all of us should be a Larry and that's why integrity a fourth of my own personal core values the fifth is leadership leadership is a wonderful journey as I told you I I'm very involved in rotary and odd that is an area where we bring leaders into an organization that we make them better leaders and I was at a training session in San Diego
a couple of years ago and it was a two week long %HESITATION conference in midway through this conference I received a call from my brother that it was seven o'clock in the morning in San Diego I live in Windsor and he was letting me know that my father had just collapsed in church now we were pretty quickly able to surmise that he had suffered a stroke
and so I knew that I needed to be on the next plane out of San Diego and I needed to be with my father without question and so I flew home and very quickly got into the emergency room and at that point my mom and my my husband and my brothers left and went down to the cafeteria to go in and and take a little bit
of a break and I crawled into bed with my dad he had complete right side paralysis and I laid there just rubbing his arm comforting him comforting myself now before I tell you the rest about my father let me tell you a little bit about my mom that year my mom has always done the bookkeeping from my dad's tool and die shop she has been a
leader in her church she's been a %HESITATION a volunteer in in many different capacities but she never really had the opportunity to really really stretch her leadership skills she'd not been ever given that gift that opportunity and that year she became a rotary club president over the course of that year my mother changed and being able to watch that was one of the best gifts of
my life she really rocked it was awesome so back into the hospital my father through very garbled speech says I always thought that I would take care of your mother but because of rotary and her leadership skills I now know she can take care of me the fact that he had seen the woman that he loves more than anything in the entire world growth that much
over the course of one year at a later stage in her life wow what a gift what a gift and that is why I think leadership is one of my own personal core values so I'd like to go back to the beginning to the question that I asked you do you know who you are I'm sure there's many of you in the room who have probably
done the exercise and I'm sure that there's many of you in the room who haven't done the exercise so I challenge you to go back into your own homes to sit and do the homework to think about what is important what is at your very core what are your core values because ladies and gentlemen in the end there is no one who knows you better then
