Translator: Kim Siegrist Reviewer: Theresa Ranft
My whole world disappeared.
A decision had been taken that I was no longer needed
to work for a company that I'd worked for the previous eight years
I'd dedicated my life to.
I still remember the shock at the moment that I heard this news
and, like Alice in Wonderland falling down that rabbit hole, I fell.
And as I fell, I looked up
and the whole world was still turning,
still vibrant, still moving,
still doing its thing;
oblivious to me,
laying at the bottom of this hole.
I was experiencing enormous, surprising change,
as many people here have experienced change,
as I had experienced change in my life before.
And I knew I had to pull on all of my resources to get myself through.
A few weeks later,
I realized that I was getting used to my environment.
As I fell down that hole, like Alice, I got smaller and smaller.
The world got bigger.
But as I got smaller, everything started to slow down.
I started to rebuild my life, bit by bit.
I started a new business.
But from my very small and slow position,
I got a new perspective on the world
and at that point, something amazing happened.
I started to see things that I hadn't seen for a very long time.
Little bits of my life lit up in color.
I saw things and heard things that I'd been missing.
Little things that I had recently been moving too fast to notice.
I want to share with you some of the little things
that have made the biggest difference in the last 12 months.
And share with you how I have overcome the shock of such a big change.
All the little things that have really helped.
The first little thing I call friendship and familyship.
And you might say to me,
"Helen, friendship and familyship, they're not little things,
they're enormous things!"
And I tell you, "I know that now."
But, you know, when I was moving so quickly,
I missed the beauty of my friends and my family,
in the detail that they were giving it to me.
I was missing it.
And here it was again, in all its glorious color, in front of me.
They were there for me through thick and thin,
through good times and bad times.
And every day they brought me gifts,
little packages of goodness,
little packages of inspiration.
And I can tell you they don't really know that they brought them to me
because they were just being themselves.
They would do things like come and sit beside me silently,
when I needed company but I didn't want to speak.
They embraced me.
They brought me coffee.
They would tell me things, little things that were important to them.
We had long, deep, meaningful conversations.
We ate together.
They would tell me things like, "Thanks, mom."
And, "Helen, whatever ship you're sailing, I'm sailing in it with you."
And, "I'm your proper friend, your real friend.
I'm here not just for the good times, but all of the times."
They would say things like,
"We will get through this whole thing together.
Day by day, hour by hour, I'll be right by your side."
They would say things like, "Go on, mom. You can do it!"
They'd also say things like, "Will you wash my shirt?"
(Laughter)
"Will I what? Wash your shirt?"
"Well yeah, come on mom, life goes on, come on.
I need clean shirts."
So I would wash their shirts,
and I would cook with them and eat with them,
and clean with them, and do all of the things that life does.
And as their lives moved along, so my life got moved along with it.
All the little things that were just coming back to me in glorious color.
In fact, it was my friends and my family who taught me a new skill.
They taught me how to ride my bike.
And one friend in particular who had been a triathlete,
took teaching me very seriously, and she said to me,
"Helen, whatever you do, two things to remember.
You must always wear your helmet, so that when you fall off your bike,
the helmet hits the ground before your nose hits the ground.
And the second thing,
which is the next important little thing I want to share with you,
is if ever you find yourself in trouble on your bike,
if you hit slippery ice,
or you find yourself being blown around by the wind,
you will always stay in control if you pedal, pedal, pedal.
Just keep turning those wheels
and eventually you'll pedal out of trouble."
And I can tell you, in the last 12 months, I kept turning my wheels.
I've pedaled and pedaled and pedaled, in my life and on my bike.
In my life, I am cycling up my own life mountain.
I've got a long way to go to the top, but every now and again,
I look out and I take in the view.
And I can tell you, today, the view is pretty good.
(Chuckling)
(Applause)
And I'm also cycling on my bike.
So last year, I cycled a real mountain, one of your mountains,
it's in Provence.
You might have heard of it, Mont Ventoux, the "Beast of Provence."
So I did this mountain.
(Applause)
I cycled it with my boyfriend.
He was good, it took him two hours, which is pretty good.
It took me four hours, OK, which is fine.
And the whole mountain was alive with cyclists.
And I have to tell you
that every single one of them cycled past me.
And as they did, in French of course, they shouted, "Allez, allez!"
And I kept going, "Allez, allez,"
and bit by bit I made it to the top.
But I made it there in my time,
in my way, at my speed,
and I did it.
A young friend of mine said recently to me,
"Helen, you've got to do things at your own speed.
Don't let us put pressure on you because we're faster than you.
Take your time. Do it your way."
And I am.
As I cycled up that mountain,
and as I cycled my mountain of life,
I know that I'm doing it.
Bit by bit, I'm making it happen.
I'm not trying to make it happen, I'm making it happen.
I don't try.
You know what trying is, don't you?
It's a noisy way of not doing something.
Here's a little thing that I like to listen to every now and again.
You know Yoda?
Yoda says, "Do or do not. There is no try."
And I love that.
And that brings me to my third little thing
that I want to share with you.
I call it "Right here, right now".
I think there's a song about that.
Listen, just like you I have a past.
I've got a lot of memories,
I've got a lot of experience,
I've got a lot of wisdom.
It's all mine.
And I've got a future.
It's full of the person I'm going to become.
It's full of dreams, and hopes, and goals.
And right in between my past and my future is me.
Here. Right here, right now.
And over the last 12 months,
I've come to realize that I can only be right here, right now.
I can only do right here, right now.
I can think about my past.
I can learn from my past and that's a good thing.
I can think about my future
and talk about my dreams and hopes and goals.
And that is a very good thing.
But the only place I can do anything about it is right here and right now.
So, as I've lived these 12 months,
there have been times when I've been in despair,
thinking, "How will I? How can I?
What will I do to move myself on?"
And in those moments, I've done something.
I've decided to speak with somebody,
have a meaningful conversation with somebody,
even strangers on flights; I talked to anybody.
And I find inspiration in what people tell me.
If I feel down,
I think, "This is no good, I want to feel up."
So I do what it takes to make myself feel happy.
I'll put on some music.
I might sing,
much to my children's embarrassment.
And if nobody's looking, I might even dance.
I walk my dogs, two dogs.
I take them to the park.
I can tell you, my dogs love me no matter what,
Whether I'm wearing make-up or completely not,
whether I'm successful or not, they love me.
And they give me more love I think when they know that I'm feeling sad,
which is amazing.
There's something else about right here, right now
that's really important.
It's a little thing but it's so powerful.
And that is that I let myself believe.
Belief is everything.
Luke Skywalker once said, "I can't believe it."
I don't think he said it quite like that.
"I can't believe it."
And Yoda said, "That is why you fail."
So the fourth little thing I want to tell you about is a word.
It's a small word.
And that word is "maybe".
It means perhaps.
It means possibly.
And the only way I know to really explain to you
the power of this word is by telling you a very short story.
The story is about a farmer.
The farmer had a horse.
The horse ran away and the villagers said, "Oh, that's bad news."
And the farmer said, "Maybe."
The horse came back bringing lots of wild horses,
and the villagers said, "Yay, that's great news!"
And the farmer said, "Maybe."
The farmer's son tried to tame a wild horse
and in doing so he broke his leg,
and the villagers said, "Oh, that's bad news."
And the farmer said, "Maybe."
The army came, looking for soldiers
and they rejected the son with the broken leg.
And the villagers said, "Hey, great news."
And the farmer said...
You know this.
I really like that farmer.
I really like how that farmer thinks.
Because he knows that life is real.
Life is in your face.
Life brings with it huge ups and huge downs.
And if you don't like ups and downs,
well you've got to learn to like it.
You've got to learn to be nimble and agile.
You've got to learn to roll with the shocks and surprises.
And you've got to learn to put things into their proper perspective.
Twelve months on,
I think I'm getting things into a proper perspective.
That is with my whole life.
And it's all the little things that I've looked at,
and spotted and seen that have helped me.
I'm a valued mom,
and daughter,
and girlfriend,
and business partner,
and friend.
And I value all of those people in my lovely ship of life,
valuing everything about them,
the conversations we have,
the moments that we share.
I pedal every day.
I keep life in its proper perspective.
Finding all the little things again has really helped me,
but it's been a surprise.
It's not what I expected.
It's been like opening an oyster and finding a pearl,
beautiful and precious.
It's like when you're eating couscous.
You know in a Moroccan restaurant,
they put those pomegranate seeds?
And you bite into a little pomegranate seed
and your whole mouth goes alive with flavor, you know?
It's like finding light in the dark.
I've saved my most favorite little thing to the very end to share with you.
My special little thing, and I think you might recognize it.
My favorite thing
is when all of the people that I care about are sitting at my table.
There's a lot of us, some young and some older.
Lots of food. Lots of drink. Lots of arms.
Sharing, passing, talking. All at once. It's complete chaos.
I call it arms and legs.
And it's in those moments that I sit back,
now, 12 months on, and I take in what I'm seeing.
And I realize, actually, I'm the luckiest girl in the world.
Over the last 12 months,
I have become amazed at the human instinct to survive.
Like water always finds its level, human beings are programmed to survive.
And it's all the little things that have given me strength to be able to survive
in these last 12 months.
I'd like to think that Yoda would say this about me,
"The force is strong in this one."
Because of the little things that I wanted to share with you
as an idea worth spreading, here at TEDx.
Thank you.
(Applause)