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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-31
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyv08hn7kY
so how many do you guys consider yourself a change agent alright alright maybe we'll get some more hands up %HESITATION within the next twelve minutes or so I got my start as a change agent early %HESITATION about twenty six years ago I woke up the morning of may fifth today if this government at my brother committed suicide I remember waking up that morning of voices in
the kitchen below me thinking it was too early for my nana's pea knuckle game to have started she was watching us that weekend because my parents were away I remember later that day just vivid mode moments heart wrenching an awful especially as my parents got home that afternoon solving depleted and defeated why why would this thing happened what could we have done to it stopped at
I also remember later that day standing alone on the driveway as the sun was setting behind the house when the thought really the sentiment came through my body that we would probably never know why this thing happens and that we would have learning in transcendence none the less now I had just turned thirteen so I'm sure those were not my words but that sentiment was still
the same everything happens for their reasons notice I didn't say everything happens for a reason once I rented an apartment from a woman named Betty in Manhattan it was a great rank controlled building and Chelsea third floor apartment Betty had lived in that apartment for thirty years prior to me one day that he went out to New Jersey with a friend of hers tip to see
his new house that was under construction when they got to the site they got out of the car he was distracted on his cell phone she went up to the front door locked in immediately fell to the basement there was no floor anything can change in an instant in one instant everything can change often when things happen unexpectedly like a sudden illness or death people often
ruminate on why why me why us why now because we're meaning making creatures our brains tend to construct stories to make sense of all things challenges our thoughts are often incomplete and fraught with many many biases the thing about that why question is that it's futile to try to figure out why anything happens is is like to try to try to find a particular pebble in
the San amongst millions even zillions of specs there are so many reasons leading to any happening usually many specs linked together that racking our brains to figure out the reason can lead to stress depression or worse why did Todd take his life why did Betty take that fall the thing about that why question is that it often leads us to the blame and fault game pointing
fingers at ourselves or others as if any one reason could suffice the truth of the matter is that there are so many reasons so many so many variables that leads to the cascading causes of %HESITATION out think it's cascading causes that lead to the outcomes in our in our lives because this can range from the side of the bed he woke up on in in the
morning to whether or not you decided to snooze to the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil that led to the tornado in Texas even amongst all of these variables we can stand strong and our confidence that we got this and no matter what has happened we can moving forward which is the only way to go spoiler alert we can and will in are doing better
starting right now the world is changing at a very rapid rate healthcare education undeniably in politics even the weather this thing called global we're adding how can we help each other remain sane and stable and kind through that's me tremendous tumbled of uncertainty we face how can we help people learn to struggle well throughout all of the uncertainty and change and our world I say first
we'd be better off and and best off if we just surrender to what adds we're always where we need to be one where there our greatest pain can be our greatest teacher and our greatest force for change then instead of asking why we'd be better off with a different question a more future oriented question the question is what next this question requires that we learn to
think like Olympic athletes to learn to see and prospect the vibrant future and then get pulled by at this question really enables us as change agents to step into our most expansive most abundant most aspirational most affirmative kind of thinking which is a skill a set of skills really that we can learn especially in this era of uncertainty it's so easy to catastrophizing worry about what
at what next worry is such a misuse of our imaginations when we learn to think expansively but we learn to think abundantly this is not an neglect or at an a side of the problems but instead this kind of thinking really helps us build a psychological capital which research shows helps us learn to creatively in cooperative the solve those problems even better as catalysts of change
we can learn to think differently in fact it's been said time and time again we can't solve the world's problems with the same level of thinking that created them one way we can do this another way we could do this to to learn to think about how we think and to change our neural networks is to change another question so often were so good at asking
what's wrong what about asking what's right when we ask others this question what's good we prime for spotting and focusing on the winds strengths what's working doing so helps us like I said bill the psychological capital to solve the problems more creatively the thing is things change every day we change every second of every day and when we work together as change agents we can solve
our problems we can we can learn to live in a more abundant future you know I got my start about fifteen years ago as a public school teacher and right out of college I saw many kids not feel good about who they were really really concern me I'm it reminded me how I felt when I was a student actually but as a teacher I had a
very Wei different vantage point from the other side of that task when I tap into some of those kids lives I saw families a little dysfunctional and it was the first time in my life as a young twenty something that I looked at my family and I thought %HESITATION boy we could do better we could do better to look out for the well being of each
other and what would that mean then for the world's it's interesting at this inflection point in human history we are living in a world that I think are positional leaders not being a quit with the open hearts and there'd an authentic ways that are called for in our time and that's why it's up to us the change agents the influencers who I call the social emotional
leaders the people who are out here to remind us all that the heart is the engine of change and when we work together to ask different questions despite whatever the circumstances are we can and will and are moving in the direction of something better and different Ben Franklin once said probably not far from here that there are three types of people in the world the move
