Transcriber: Rocio Pérez Maier Reviewer: Cesar Guadarrama
There’s power in writing. Literally, it saved my life.
In March 2017
we had some,
terrible things happened in our lives.
Two of our goddaughters were coming home from spring break and died in a car crash
I got a phone call from her mom,
I wasn’t sure what she said on the phone but I knew it wasn’t good news.
When I got there,
I heard from the state trooper what had happened.
Five days later I slid out of bed to receive all of the candles
and all the people that were coming over to bring the candles to our home,
for a candlelight vigil for the girls.
Once I received everything,
I was actually heading into the bedroom to wake my husband up,
to let him know that I was leaving, going back to visit with the girls’ mom.
I went to the bedside to wake him up and couldn’t wake him up.
I shook him a second time and he still didn’t move.
At that point I knew something was wrong, I wasn’t sure what.
I ran across the street to my neighbor
to get her to come and help me.
And I remember standing in the corridor, looking,
and she looked up at me and she said, “Twila, he’s gone.”
And I thought for a minute, “Gone? Going where? No, he’s right there.”
And at that moment, I didn’t understand what was happening.
Maybe I blanked out.
But the same phone call I got from the girls’ mom
was the exact call that she got from me.
I wasn't sure what it all meant,
but I knew that three people that I loved so dearly
were gone in a matter of five days apart.
Understanding the grief, the pain and all that went with that.
There was a message and I wasn’t sure what that message was.
But I started to write.
Started to Journal.
And one of the things that I realized is
through writing,
it allowed me to really understand the process of grieving,
the process of forgiving, the process of courage and loyalty.
The process of strength and leadership.
And these were all things that literally shaped my life.
The eight letters that shaped me.
When I think about forgiveness,
the one thing that I had to do was to forgive myself.
And maybe there are some of you out here that holding on to something.
Something someone did or said.
Or even maybe it’s you that you have to forgive.
For a long time, the four days that I was away from my late husband,
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I didn't see him until Thursday.
He passed away on Friday.
I had to realize that it wasn’t anything that I’d done wrong.
It wasn’t anything that I’d missed.
That basically, it was just God’s will, something that was supposed to happen.
And through understanding guys,
through writing and allowing me to let myself off the hook
because I wasn’t there.
That process has allowed me to forgive other people.
So many people did wrong to me, stabbed me in the back and said things
that weren’t true. And I’ve always been the bigger person.
But I can tell you that happened through the act of forgiving myself
for not being there.
But I thought that I should be there when Erwin passed away.
When I think about courage, you know, so many people say,
Well, Twyla, how were you able the very day that your husband passed away
was the very day that you were able to go out into the park,
be the lead person for the candlelight vigil.
Where did that come from? How were you able to do that?
Well, it’s courage.
And I can tell you, I got courage through my grandmother.
She was someone who worked in the fields, pulled cotton, hauled hay.
She was someone who was a recipient of domestic violence and racism.
And I watched her be courageous and walk through that process.
And that’s how I was able to just pull deep and just have courage
and be able to move through my life.
You know, when I think about kindness,
one of the things that when I felt bad, when I was grieving,
when I didn’t want to get out of bed,
I thought, Who can I go and help? How can I do a random act of kindness?
What can I do for someone else?
And those things allowed me to get up and go out and be kind to someone.
And so what I’ve done in my life is,
I don’t let a day close without a good deed.
Good deeds are to me the key to your peace, to your happiness.
Because what you find is what you’re going through,
there’s always someone that’s going through something a whole lot more.
So be kind. Get on the elevator. Say hello.
You know, often times I get on the elevator
and it’s like, “Hey! How y’all doing? Where’re you all from?”
And people are so taken back.
Because they’re accustomed to people getting on, turning around,
pressing the button and saying nothing.
But sometimes your kindness can be the only kindness that someone will see.
Let's talk about leadership.
Leadership is not just in your business or your company, or your team
or whatever it is that you are a part of.
Leadership is everything.
I’ve always heard, “the spirit of a leader, is the spirit of the pack.”
“I’ll show you a good leader then we’ll show you a great organization.”
Ladies and gentlemen,
when my husband passed away,
the girls passed away, my son was seventeen.
And they were his best friends. He’s an only child.
But I watched him sit on the front row the next day after his dad passed,
with his arms around the mother and the grandmother, like a big boy.
But all through life he watched his father and his mother, show leadership.
He watched us build teams and build organizations across the world.
He listened to the phone calls we made, and how we helped people to grow.
So it wasn’t on him ladies and gentlemen, it was in him.
So leadership is not taught. It’s caught.
And people are watching. Even when you think they aren’t.
So this play a big part, of being a great leader.
And great leaders just do great things.
And I’m not saying making a millon dollars.
I'm not saying owning the block.
Sometimes leadership is just saying, “Hey, that’s wrong.”
Call it out when it's not right.
Sometimes leadership is just doing the right thing
because it’s the right thing to do.
And so I believe in this season that we’re in right now.
It’s a calling for more leaders.
It’s a calling for people to step up and step out.
And just not be a part of the crowd.
My dad used to always say,
“See what the masses are doing and do the opposite.”
And sometimes being a leader calls for that.
I’m going to tell you about another letter that I was able to write.
It was a letter of loyalty. Loyalty.
Loyalty just simply means that there’s something that you stand for.
Sometimes people believe,
“if I don’t go here and I don’t go there, then you shouldn’t do it either.
If I don’t talk to this person, you shouldn’t talk them either.”
That’s not what loyalty is about.
Loyalty is about standing for what you believe in.
Loyalty is about, you know, letting a friend know.
Or letting whoever it might be, letting them know that,
“Hey, I love you, but I don’t agree with you.”
I have a good friend that I met in fourth grade.
The very first friend I met when I moved to Houston.
And she doesn’t buy my products, she’s not in my business.
But she’s a loyal friend.
She’s someone that I know will stand with me.
And she's also someone I know will tell me when I'm wrong.
I really believe ladies and gentlemen, that when you think about,
what is it that has shaped you? What shaped your life?
I often talk about these eight letters,
because these are letters that I wrote to people that shaped my life.
I watched them and because of their character and what they did,
it has really allowed me to be the woman that I am today.
You know sometimes people take your meekness for weakness.
But you know what? It’s not about that.
I believe that vulnerability will allow you to be who you are.
It will allow you to do what it is that you want to do.
But man, you can be vulnerable and you can be a big boss.
Guys, I thought I was taken out to have that much pain in my body
and that much disappointment, all in one week.
I thought that I was out of here.
But because I was able to put the pen to the paper and write,
and remind myself why I was left behind.
To remind myself the people that were counting on me.
To remind myself that I had a 17-year-old son that was counting on me.
And people in my team and my business and all the things that I was a part of.
All the organizations I was a part of; they were counting on me.
I was in leadership positions in various organizations.
And I knew that there was a reason, I needed to thrive and not just survive.
There was a reason that all of the personal development
I had gone through over the years,
all of the training and the workshops that I had attended. Now it was time.
Now was a time for me to pull all of that I learned
and put it into practice.
And that’s what I did. I put it all into practice.
And ladies and gentlemen because of that, because I was able to write,
I don’t know if it was my English teacher or who it was,
but I remember somebody saying
that there is power in writing.
That writing engages the subconscious mind.
And the more I wrote, the stronger I became,
because I was able to write whatever I needed to write.
I’m so happy and grateful now that I am full of peace and happiness.
I am so happy and grateful now that I am healed.
I am so happy and grateful now that I'm going to win.
And let me just tell you what's happened.
Let me fast forward for you a little bit.
Just opened a brand new headquarters. In Houston, Texas.
We are one of the one, or maybe two
women-owned-businesses, label owners,
record label owners, excuse me.
We've just signed to a major record deal.
We’ve been able to build organizations across the world,
help people earn hundreds of thousands of dollars
and some even millions of dollars
We've been able to write two books. We're on our third one.
We started a foundation in the honor of the late Erwin Portis.
We've given out hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships.
All because I understood
what those letters were and what they meant
and how they were able to shape my life.
I understood that I was here for a purpose and for a reason, and so are you.
And so it's time for you to stand up. Stand up tall and stand up strong.
And remember not only who you are, but whose you are.
It is time for you;
to understand what are the letters that have shaped you?
Who are the people?
Each one of those letters are actually connected to a person
that really showed me the way.
And I was able to sit down and write them a letter and say thank you.
Not once they passed away and I’m standing at the mic
for the five or the two minutes.
Now they got their flowers.
Right now I want to encourage you to do the same thing.
Allow someone to get their flowers now.
So I’m so encouraged.
I’m so excited for you. I’m excited for your journey.
And I'm excited for all of the success that you're going to achieve.
So thank you so much for watching. God bless you. God bless your families.
And we'll see you at the top.