How to transform lives through hope and courage | David Young | TEDxWhite Rock
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MsKvSdOgas Video ID: 8MsKvSdOgas ============================================================ [Music] I am 67 years old you imagine how difficult that is to say when I realize that uh I'm going to be the oldest person you see on stage today but I am comforted and that as I look around the audience I know there's number of you that are even older than me and what we likely share as we age as we reach the golden Pinnacle of Our Lives is how we look at what impact have we had on the communities in which we live and the Societies in which we engage and with our children and our grandchildren and for me what I've been focusing on has been how do I instill a sense of Hope in the future and do I how do I help the people around me strengthen their courage to realize their dreams and to resolve the Myriad of issues that are facing our world today my name's David Young And I want to share with you some of my thoughts about Hope and courage my mom died this year her name was Dot 89 years old and I miss her she died 15 years to the week that my father died his name was gour and I'm going to talk to you about Dot and gour a bit because they taught me about Hope and courage my mother was the eternal optimist if we ran out of gas on a family trip 30 mil from home she would say thank God it wasn't 60 miles I think we can walk it she would say if her cupboard was half empty with her it was always half full she would find the opportunity within the challenge the problem anything that we faced it could all always be worse even during the midst of the covid-19 epidemic she would say to me you know David I lived through the measles epidemic of the 40s and 50s I was quarantined for two or three weeks then as a kid I think I got this a source of encouragement to me but also a source of Hope for the people around her my father gourd he was a man of courage and while dot had the sense of the opportunity and how we could get past the hurdle Gord would figure out how we would do it Gord made sure the car was well tuned he made sure it didn't run out of gas uh it was oiled it was fine tuned with military Precision given that he was a sergeant major in the Army it's not surprising and I always felt safe and secure with my dad as a little kid I always knew that he'd get us through whatever was going on the storms would be going on it'd be a snowstorm in Ontario and there'd be a blizzard and you weren't sure you were going to make it home and I always knew we would because my dad he had read the map he'd kept the car in shape he knew the roads he knew what he was going to do and he wouldn't let go of that and Meanwhile my mom is cheering us on helping us sing songs Keep On the Sunny Side those kinds of things you have rings a bell for a few of you why is that so important in my life you might ask why would I even choose to talk about that because what that did for me as a child was actually built resiliency to cope with the failures the pitfalls the challenges that light was going to come at me with not everybody has a DOT and gourd in their life not every person in this room or in the community we serve have had those kinds of Role Models leaving that kind of legacy to them and so they have less resiliency perhaps less inner resolve less inner hope and less confidence about how they face the future I think it was mentioned in the introduction by the way I'm the only one in in the group here that had to remove his hearing aids before they could put this set on so I couldn't quite hear what was said but I'm sure it was great I work for an agency many of you know that I've grown to love over the course of my 17 years there um called sources and as a Community Based not for-profit that promotes social wellness and Community we have a whole range of people who enter our doors and some of those folks are struggling with issues around housing around hunger around trauma that we've heard about today they come with a whole range of needs and issues and challenges and people say well you do so many things you got so many staff with all these different kinds of skills and ability what is what is the unifying thing that brings you all together as an agency and my answer to people who ask me that question and my encouragement and my request of the staff and volunteers who work with us is that when somebody enters our doors and then when they walk out again they feel somewhat more hopeful than they did when they entered we may not have solved their problems we may not have come up with Solutions there may be insurmountable challenges for them but they should not feel alone they may not know how they're going to get to where they want to go but they know they're not alone that they somebody on their side and there's a pathway forward let me talk to you about Dian if you ever um have the opportunity to visit our resources Center on Maple Street you'll get greeted by Diane I love getting greeted by Diane she treats everybody with respect kindness and warmth you enter our door she makes sure you're taken care of if we can't help you she'll figure out who can help you she gives people treats wow I don't know if there are any physicians in the audience but a number of years ago one of the things I struggled with was going to visit my family doctor who was a wonderful family doctor I didn't like going to see him because the experience in the waiting room was terrible and um the front office staff just didn't treat me like I was valued or wel in fact I seemed like I was getting in the way of other things they needed to do interesting enough my dentist office I didn't really like my dentist that much but the receptionist treated me like gold and I didn't mind going there very different experiences then I took my dog to the bet my dog was treated like Platinum they gave him treats I wanted a treat so when I think about people who enter our doors or yours whether you're a teacher whether you're a city counselor or you're a doctor what experience are they getting how welcome are they feeling when you walk through the door because the key thing you need to do at that moment is to make sure that they feel hope and the best way to do that is to express kindness and sincerity and to ensure that they realize that they are the most important person in your life at that moment in a world in which if we visit a few of the fast food establishments and I won't name them um when you walk in the door and you realize that you are less important than the person who just did it on their phone and ordered and the person who's in the in the uh Car Lane waiting to get picked up you're the last person served it's very transactional what we want is a relationship with people who walk through the doors and we need to listen we need to put away the phone we need to listen with our heart and our head and her eyes one of the things we talk about at sources is that we use both our hearts and our heads to innovate Solutions to problems people face so the heartfelt response the hope the seed of Hope is the beginning of a journey of change for people a number of years ago I was giving a presentation about a program we we offer called discover why and it's a free counseling Program for Young People and after I gave the presentation I had a couple come up and chat with me and they wanted to share their story and they said you know we have really been struggling with our daughter and in fact we didn't know what to do we were at our wits end and the father had been out for a walk with a or not a walk a drive with a friend of his and he was sharing with him the challenges he was having and I don't know if any of you have gone through Parenting teenagers there can be a few ups and downs and the friend said turn here at this corner and he turned and then he says pulled up in front of this building and it was our peace artch resource center and the friend turned to him and said take your daughter here these people will help meant a lot to me but actually what meant even more was seeing the Hope in the eyes of this couple they hadn't even had the appointment yet but they had a sense of a we're not alone and we're hopeful there's a pathway forward to make life better for our daughter and for ourselves so we use our hearts but we also use our heads we also need to think about courage person's hopeful they're hopeful of change they're hopeful that they can transform their lives in some way but it just doesn't happen like magic we need to build courage to encourage comes from an old French word called Anor which actually means building strengths when we're working with people whether it's our our own children or somebody else's child or somebody who's walking through our door we want to build hope but once we've built some hope our motto isn't just do it right what we're working from is an expression where I think I can't or I don't think I can to something that says I think I can so we engage in a process of discovery together first of all we identify a pathway forward you notice I'm avoiding the term plan most of us really don't have plans for our lives and why why should we expect other people to do so but we do we do travel Pathways and we think about we have a conversation about this is what you're hoping to change in your life what pathway may lead us to that change and after we've done that we talk a little bit about well how do you equip yourself for that is there some training you need is there some awareness building do you need to build your communication skills do you need to change your relationship do you need to build your network these are all parts of the professional engagement but it too can be a part of your personal engagement with people in your lives and I'm going to talk about that in a second so we' talked about a pathway forward and then started to figure out what are the deficits and what are the strengths we have and what do we need to build on and then we need to think about what are the relationships that we need to have to help us achieve this change in our life what are the connections who do I need to relate to who can help me with this in my life and your conversation with that person is to explore that and introduce them to some other people and then probably the most important part is you travel the journey together this isn't to show up in my office or come and chat with me son or daughter here's the three or four things you need to do to fix your life come back and let me know and you got it done in fact that could be the worst thing we do it's hard to make change if it was easy the person would already have done it it's part of where the hope and the encouragement comes in we also have to be careful that we just don't insert plug-and-play options in people's lives you show up you got a problem here here's your response um we need to be careful that we are solving with not solving for either our children or people who walk through our doors we need to work together on what those Solutions might be let me give you an example of that last year my son I'll call him Alex because that's his name he um he' been working he' finished University he was working for a large uh corporate accounting firm in Toronto oh man I'd successfully launched this young man my work was done I could focus on my own my own needs and goals well Alex informs me on the phone one night that he's not so happy in this job and uh he thinks he needs quit these aren't words the parent wants to hear and but he does because you know what that next job is just around the corner right well was and Alex and I embarked on a journey together that took one year for him to achieve his next employment and it it was a journey that I didn't realize I was going to be so intimately involved in one of the things we did is we uh we connected by phone we would Zoom twice a week I'd help him set goals I would help him be accountable for achieving those goals we'd come up with ideas around people he might connect to uh follow up on connections um and we read a whole host of self-help and professional development books together it wasn't Alex read this book report back to me on it and tell me what you think it was us reading them together and sharing what we had learned together and that that time that we spent was transformational interestingly for both of us one of the happiest moments in the last uh couple months was when Alex shared with me that you know he said Dad it was a really tough year but I'm glad I went through it he said I've learned so much about myself and I feel so much more conf ident about who I am he had worried that he was an impostor that he hadn't learned the skills that he needed or didn't have the knowledge he should have to undertake the work that he did it was it was tough and there were moments um when I wanted to just shake him and say come on get up and get this done and I had to find all sorts of inner patience um that I didn't know I had and I hope that I don't have to find again so the point I want to make is when we greet people either in the work that we have at sources and or as people that we meet on the street we need to think about where are they at we need to think how are we resp responding to them with a message of Hope and kindness one of the challenges we have here in the community that continues to grow and we struggle with is folks who are living on the street who are homeless they dealing with addiction issues and people don't know how to [Music] respond and they're looking for clear-cut guidance and solutions and responses but when you engage in a relationship with anybody it's really important to allow yourself to be in a relationship that demonstrates your authentic imperfection as a human being if you are authentic about your limitations if you are authentic about how much you actually care people people will forgive you your failures one of the things that I leared in my conversations with Alex over the last year was the more I shared that I had misunderstood some of the learning that I had over the years and the more I was vulnerable about it was still me needing to learn the more he was willing to share what his vulnerabilities were and together we grew as human beings There's an opportunity when you engage and connect with people to move it from something that is purely transactional you come in you have an aid here I'm going to give you some food you come in I'm going to give you a voucher for some housing to want an AC that can be transformational and that requires risk and it requires commitment it requires your willingness to a be hopeful and B Inspire that hope but that's only the first step the second step is to work forward in a path pathway together and when we share that pathway that's encouraged by hope but requires discipline thought fulness it's amazing what we can achieve in our human relationships and in our community so in closing I'd like you to remember that we use our hearts and our heads the Heart Alone won't help the transformation that we're trying to achieve and if you move directly to just fixing the problem we've never dealt with perhaps the trauma that is preventing somebody from having the hope they need in their lives and that it's through hope and courage we have the Hope for Change but the courage to make the change in our life that's necessary that we can have transformation whether that's at a personal level or even a community level this is for DOT and Court thank you