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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-25
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLIe8vDvGKo
on July twenty seventh twenty sixteen my heart stopped I was ten thousand kilometers away from home when this happens and my friend Jason immediately began CPR while simultaneously screaming of my other friend call the front desk ask for the E. D. thirty minutes twenty three floors down into resuscitation later our ambulance began to meet into and out of Chongqing's traffic this evening marked the premature end
of my trade mission in China so last summer I was hand picked to represent Canadian businesses in China along with other youth ambassadors and for those of you who know me you probably know that my career aspirations involve business enough light as soon as I was offered a membership with junior team Canada I immediately said yes little did I know that a trade mission would mean
waking up in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV ECG machine BP cuff and nasal canola I woke up to the site of needle markings on my arms electrode pads all over my chest and on top of that he couldn't even understand what the doctors were saying I didn't know what was pretty being put into my body and I couldn't just tell the nurse excuse
wieners could you take these off because they really need to go to the bathroom the language of it barrier was very daunting and in fact at one point one of the nurses pulled out her phone started typing something in it just showed me is for me the screen Google translate I had never felt so helpless and so lost in my life for soon after I was
sent home in tears to seek further medical attention and the weeks that followed were a blur of doctors appointments lab results a few more trips to the ER and yes more doctors of but what consume me was not the fact that I was virtually that that it thanks for helping you when they make so anyway the week that followed that word just a blur of doctors
appointments lab results a few more trips to the ER and yes more doctors appointments %HESITATION but what really got to me was not the fact that I with virtually living in these doctors clinics but rather the sense of failure that kept me up day in day out and I found myself slipping further and further into depression and before I knew it my doctor's appointments were coupled
with just as frequent psychotherapy session and while Daphne was really really nice she gave me two lollipops at the end of each session instead of just one my saving grace actually came from elsewhere and it came from these four lessons which I will share with you today lesson number one the power of impermanence so nothing helps us understand the fleeting beauty of life more than death
itself has anyone here travel before also so when you're traveling you're taking in every single moment and that's because you know that your time and that place is so limited he tried to savor every bite every photograph at every site said sounds and every friendship you make in every conversation you have is just a little sweeter than the friendships and conversations you have back home and
that's because you know it's temporary prior to my near death experience I didn't have a sense that my time was limited nor did I understand that life was a gift a gift with a time limit so this brings us to lesson number two the power of now because impermanence begets presence and to me being present means understanding the today is all we're ever going to get
because yesterday was once a today and tomorrow is just gonna be another today and before you know it you've allowed for days weeks months years to just slip by when I catch myself getting lost in the mechanics of my daily routine I just try detect take a step back away from all of the noise and spend time with the people I love because that is it
makes me feel alive and present see the paradox of death is that it actually points you towards what it really feels like to be alive and living has to do with connection and experience and full expression so I want to ask you today what makes you feel alive and present and who makes you feel alive and present lesson number three the power of transformation so I'd
like to share with you a quote from Cynthia Charlie and it goes like this proceed to achieve its greatest expression it must come completely undone the shell cracks its insides come out and everything changes someone who doesn't understand growth it would look like complete destruction so according to this quote your struggle holds the seeds of transformation and I completely agree as I've experience multiple episodes of
struggle and loss I've noticed a pattern and it's that I become more resilient in the seeds of my struggle have always resulted in growth see I've learned that life is a continuous cycle struggle transformation and growth and although it may not always seem obvious if you look at growth you can always trace it back to the struggle that preceded it so what this growth actually look
like that brings us to our final and most important lesson lesson number four the power of why have you ever step outside of yourself to connect with something bigger than you Daphne actually advised me to start journaling but he really does like writing so I started talking to people instead and through that I began to understand what kind of impact I wanted to have on the
world and why I even existed in other words I began searching for my wife so after realizing my passion for modern education the classroom of tomorrow I actually co founded a national nonprofit which continues to grow today and I'm really proud of that you see the beauty of pursuing a purpose and following your calling is that you are guided internally and yet you're also connected thing
beyond you and this is the experience and I think most of us strive towards because when you know you're why you have a sense of purpose they can guide the way you interact with the world so what if I gathered from all of these lessons I've gathered in the death it's powerfully in lightning but you don't have to wait for someone you love for yourself to
get close to it to start changing the way you think and live in fact if there's one thing that I would like for all of you here to try it is death find your why I know some of you may be thinking oh that's just the mission statement right not necessarily if you look at a company or organization's mission statement it will usually only include the
whites and the how but really does it include the why that's because it's not easy to pinpoint but your why matters because dot is where it all begins when you know your why and you chase it everything else falls into place with your why do you have a purpose not purpose gives you a sense of urgency which ties into the time limit I mentioned earlier and
when you have a sense of urgency you get things done not just busy work but the things that actually matter to you the things that are relevant to your why this is where growth comes in when you work from the inside out and when everything in here is reflected and expressed in the things you do and this is what I call being why driven this is
