Transcript

The power of disability | Harry Wexler | TEDxNYU

hello my name is dr. Wexler I was noticing that you looked a little uncomfortable when I wasn't speaking that's how people feel when they're with somebody who has a speech problem with stuttering problem you can't get out those words my children used to be very uncomfortable I couldn't say my name waiters when we went to the restaurant they were uncomfortable I couldn't say what I wanted right now as of last last Saturday I turn 72 I'm probably one of the oldest Ted talkers and I've had a long life I've done many many things I've been through I've been through Wars I've seen so many changes I've raised children have a family I've done a research work I've done clinical work I've done so many things and yet I am in adequate that feeling of being in adequate comes from the stuttering as a child it's a trauma you can't speak you imagine that right you're running around and you can't do it your only choice is not to talk and that's really impossible how many people have seen the movie The King's Speech oh good then you know a little bit about stuttering 25% of children when they're very young preschool have a hard time saying words and they have primaries guttering that's a relatively normal 5 percent though becomes self-conscious they try not this daughter and dammit that's what makes them into a stutterer the self-consciousness and not trying not to stutter that's it and now you're caught it's it's a lifelong thing it's almost impossible to get through it want to read your little quote finding meaning a trauma is one of the key elements of well-being I like to do a little exercise with you I'd like you to turn to your neighbor and I would like you to say something that you feel as something is an in adequacy just a couple moments and you can even use this you know you can say what you are not go ahead and then we're going to change take a minute and then we'll reimburse it go ahead now change okay thank you now I I would like to have I I would like to check with you how many of you felt some relief when you did that racing had a couple how many felt uncomfortable uh-huh I have a few more well let me just say those who felt neither I'm a psychologist and you can talk to me later let me talk about conversion this is critical we heard from our prior speaker to back about positive psychology and needing to have the negative to get to the positive well let me take you through some very personal experiences to try to illuminate that and the ideas that we have it's a three-stage process acknowledging the inadequacy engaging the challenge and then completion when I was in high school I was turning 16 and I was told I was going to be expelled in the next month because I had cut classes I had not attended school much of the time I had a lumped a lot of courses and they said look you're 16 you're gone because what I had done with this stuttering problem I took a negative path I went to the path of a delinquency I was in trouble I was trying to get away from the problem I didn't know really what else to do but this warning scared me a lot so I went down to the bedroom downstairs you know in the house I lived in the kids would move to the lower floor kind of a basement apartment and then they would leave so I went down to my place down there close the windows shades dark in the room sat with piles of textbooks and I worked like I never worked before in my life it was incredible I just never never never did that and it worked I passed the exams there was a major test and a statewide test I did extremely well they even put me back into the academic program and I graduated but took me five years I had to go an extra year to high school I was a five-year man did postgraduate work at that point went on to college and went on to get a PhD now that experience take a look at that experience I was in trouble comes from that vulnerability comes from the--and adequacy and yet what I had to do from being a bad student I had to become a good student from it from indi inadequacy was it sort of a navigation it gave a kind of direction and I became a good student that became a strength still had a terrible speech problem loads of other problems but I could be a good student so I went off to college and up to Boston Emerson College and my speech problem was useful there that college I majored in speech therapy so they kind of liked me people it's you know plus right had a girlfriend though for some years before in high school and she came up to visit me and this was toward the end of my first year of a glorious year I was the best one of the best years of my life I was flying I was in college I was free even got rid of my speech problem for a little while she came up and how many people know that town Boston raising him and the Commons you know those beautiful Commons right downtown there used to be a hotel vendôme it's no longer there we went to that hotel we had make-believe marriage rings and we never saw those Commons we the time in the hotel and we had a marvelous time it was so wonderful incredible actually month later I find out she's pregnant now what so there goes my college back home to that little basement room in fact we had to live down there for a little while gotten married within two years of 21 I think a lot of you maybe close to 21 at least you know good number right imagine this 21 to children working full-time learning to be a father and going to college at night part-time kind of a crummy ecology actually now here's something magical when you have children this is a forecast I actually make this as a recommendation of people have children even if it's under not the best conditions they bring out love you really want to be a good parent I mean you have a kind of choice though you can leave run away or stay and do something so engaging that challenge is critical now that looks like a catastrophe right if that happened to you right geez it's a catastrophe turned out now it was it was just the reverse of a catastrophe it put me under such horrendous challenging conditions that I learned how to be a terrific a worker I learned things that I would never have learned I worked so hard I had to get such tolerance and I still had a speech problem but I developed a lot of other things because of the necessity to meet that challenge engaging the challenge so having having vulnerabilities can be a real unknown potency it's a fuel it's something that's not recognized if you go there and it can even tell you what to do do what you're feeling bad about do the flipside none that doesn't always work sometimes you have to change and pivot it not black and white but it sure is a direction my work getting a PhD now I'm a psychologist right so I chose to work in the field of substance abuse and then later criminal justice and prisons in fact I was drawn to these populations I think because of my problem because of the pain in my life I could see their pain but my inadequacy I could appreciate theirs they weren't patients to me they were people so I got very enthralled with the therapeutic community which it's in form of a self-help it's not quite positive cycle psychology but it has certain parts of that where you take the problem or the fee in adequacy and you make it into a solution you work on that problem so for example in a 12-step program right alcoholic ism you walk in first thing you do to start that process is you admit I'm an alcoholic I admit it and then you're on the move you've got to the pain to the problem you didn't run away you accepted it and now you have the challenge to be doing something about it and lo and behold how does that whole thing work it's not just stopping using something you can stop like that ya know it's possible just don't do it right but you got to change your whole life gotta peed a decent human being got to be a good family person you had to be good at your work that's really about the problems so self-help and therapeutic communities that's that was my work I want to talk about completion I'm a psychologist and I've I've seen a lot of people over the years of patients clients and people in their later years when they're not that happy or positive a lot of times of course they have incompletions they quit something they let something go something got too difficult and they made this excuse or they kind of and what what else could I do she got pregnant right what else could I possibly do well these people wind up in negative psychology they're depressed they have anxiety they're not happy and that's important to know that in my work as a researcher I worked researching the therapeutic community and helping to get them into prisons and to do that it's very hard go write a big grant gotta take that it takes five years to do a study like that you got to write it you got to put it in place people have to go through the program leave the program and have time at risk I want to show you a completion that's a completion this is a data from one of my major studies in California in the third puter community in prison I want you to look at the left the controls you can see and then the intent to a treat that's the program everyone who comes into the program pretty good difference 50% for controls that's returned after one year return to prison recidivism that's the main variable intent to treat 34 pretty darn good but look way to the right look at the lowest number under ten eight percent I always got her on that and my children know it and they're watching me right now and I did it right but that was a WoW kind of finding the whole thing was a WoW finding because of these findings and replication of others these programs have been spread throughout the country and has helped tens of thousands of people by giving them a chance now even more important this is me of course at the program in Donovan prison and john-john this was a couple years back he went through put his life he came out went back with his family he had some school and training he's now a counselor in a program and becoming a very good dad and that is what it's really all about now what about you you poor people Jesus I read the newspaper about you guys the Millennials the down the toilet the economy hundred thousand dollar loans you get a twenty thousand dollar job when you leave here how are you gonna do it what's gonna happen to you it's horrible employment income hip mobility you got to go home to your mother's house and live downstairs in that same basement it sounds sort of familiar right well the real news of course is that you're there with me you're in the same opportunity that was mine you have trouble and that I think is an important part of the meaning of life is trouble and responding to that trouble accepting that trouble if you don't have trouble if you don't struggle you don't got that much life in a way you don't learn as much as you might real emotional learning couple of takeaways one is convert in adequacy into power in fact it comes from the difficulty can fuel that power and tell you where to go in terms of maybe what you want to commit yourself to work on as a if you find something that's painful or in your world that you want to make a change and a difference that can create your whole career and/or an entrepreneurial project these days and quite useful welcome the challenges complete what you start and vulnerability is not a weakness but an opportunity I'm gonna say a couple more words about vulnerability vulnerability if you talk to people about it if you connect on vulnerability you get closer the emotional richness of your relationships is many times in relationship to how much you can talk about what you care about and what you are bone ability is that takes us to the call to action I have a question you might raise this is a question for you what in adequacy have you put aside that is an opportunity for challenge and growth and here's what I suggest and I really hope that you will do it think about this question and when you go home later tonight you have a partner or a friend or you can call somebody talk about this this is this is connecting on being vulnerable but it's looking in places where you may not have looked and you may discover things that you didn't quite know because you put away and may give you new reasons to be doing your things this is my family um my kids said it dad keep yourself together right this is my family this is a wedding picture in the middle is Josh and his beautiful wife Elizabeth they're in fact in the back row Josh's are on trumpet and you're here in New York Danny to the left is one of my first children he's a lawyer in California that's his daughter Emma Rose my granddaughter behind there is Karen Karen and Dan it's my heart as are the rest of my kids move to the right who's that tall guy Jordan Jordan is an entrepreneur in China he just came back the other day partly to come to this presentation and he's right here and he was real helpful then of course you see me I'm not real tall in this group if you notice I'm standing on its top like and next to me the woman in red Ellen McGrath is the love of my life they said it couldn't be done well it's been done and I want to say to you my name is Harry Wexler and Armas dutterer thank you you