Translator: Dan Meyer Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
What if your pain could become your purpose?
When you were younger, what did you dream about?
Who here had big dreams?
Think about one dream that you had,
and keep it in your head.
Now think about your why, your purpose in the world,
and keep it in your head.
Lastly, think about one connection that you have in your life,
and keep it in your head.
When I was younger, I had many dreams:
dreams to be a fashion designer and have my own clothing line,
dreams to be famous and influence thousands of people,
dreams to create an unforgettable legacy.
They say life is about connections, who you know and how you grow from them.
But today,
we're going to connect to a journey
to find the ultimate purpose, fulfillment, and the desire
to feel better
through connecting,
disconnecting,
and reconnecting.
On April 3rd of 2017,
I was sitting in a cold library at Iowa State University.
I opened up my browser
to check the status of my first book that I just published on Amazon.
I scrolled down to the end of the page to check out the rankings,
and I couldn't believe my eyes!
My book was number three in the third category,
number two in the second category,
and there it was ...
number one in the first category!
I couldn't believe it!
My book was a best-seller on Amazon!
I did what everyone else would do at a time like this:
I took a screenshot,
and I posted it
on Facebook!
About a week later when I checked my mailbox,
there was a package from Amazon.
I ripped open the package
and pulled out the very first hard copy of my book!
The shiny surface, ideal size,
and my name printed in bold on the front cover!
It was surreal!
I literally felt like I'd just won a new car!
I was a twenty-year-old college student at the time,
and becoming an author was out of the ordinary,
something that you don't hear every day.
To me, it was an unexpected dream accomplished,
and a boat full of doubt diminished
because I learned to break the rules and challenge myself.
I had to connect,
and by connecting, I gained confidence and I gained courage.
I connected with the world through my book.
I thought to myself,
"I feel better."
That day was life-changing for me.
But it wasn't the only day that changed my life.
Five years earlier, on August 13th, 2012,
it was the night before my 16th birthday.
I was 15 years old,
sitting in a cold hospital room,
watching the nurses go by,
the smell of rubbing alcohol
and the sound of the IV machine ...
beep ... beep ... beep ...
I was sitting next to the bed
holding my mom's hand
who was dying from kidney failure.
You can only imagine the thoughts that were running through my head,
the feeling of uncertainty, fear,
the feeling of loss,
the feeling of disconnect.
I asked her how she felt, and I'll never forget her last words:
"I feel better."
That night my mom passed away.
I didn't feel better.
I felt worse. I felt horrible.
I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, both agonizing and painful.
Usually on your 16th birthday,
you celebrate the transition to adulthood,
being overwhelmed by gifts,
planning your birthday party,
and entering a new chapter in life.
But on my 16th birthday,
I was going through a different transition.
I was overwhelmed by condolences;
I was planning my mom's funeral;
I was entering a life of despair.
I was still in high school at the time,
caught in a never-ending toxic relationship.
For four years, I was mentally, physically and emotionally mistreated.
I disconnected from my friends.
It took a huge toll on me,
and I started missing full days of classes
to fight about what was right
and what was wrong.
The only thing that would fill my ears
was my partner telling me I wasn't enough.
That led me to see life with minimal expectations.
I developed a low self-esteem and a loss of sense in myself.
My mom as a role model was no longer there.
And my partner, who I believed loved me, was disloyal and turned his back on me.
I kept asking myself,
How do I regain myself again?
How do I come back from this setback?
How do I reconnect with myself and my dreams again?
My hope was low,
broken,
disconnected.
But at that moment,
all I could think about was the last words my mom said to me,
"I feel better."
I got the courage, after four painful years,
to get out of my toxic relationship,
but that left me weak, with a lack of confidence.
However, I realized something through this four year period:
Staying connected to the trauma wasn't going to help me.
In order to take control of my life again,
I had to disconnect,
to go through what I was going through,
to feel better.
Three years later, on September 23rd, 2015,
I was sitting in a cold college classroom waiting for a speaker to walk in.
I felt sick that day,
my nose was runny, I had a terrible headache,
and the last thing I wanted to do
was to sit and get my ear talked off for an hour -
know what I mean?
However, the only reason I was at that speech
was for extra credit in one of my classes.
At the time, I was an overachiever in academics.
I see this speaker walk in,
and he has a gigantic smile on his face.
He sets up his camera to record it,
and I wait in despair for the talk to be finished.
But something happened.
The minute the speaker started to talk my mind got intrigued by his words.
The speaker was Brandon T. Adams,
and he told us his journey through college and now building up a business.
It wasn't necessarily the words that started to move me,
but more so the passion he displayed,
something I hadn't experienced before.
I wanted to learn more.
So shortly after his talk,
I went up to him and I asked him for his business card,
didn't have a conversation with him, and I left.
Later that evening, I kept thinking about that speech.
So I sent Brandon an email
saying I wanted to intern and learn from him.
He emailed back
and he accepted.
Throughout the next year of my college career,
I got introduced to an entirely new world of people through Brandon.
People who were ambitious,
people who were driven,
but most of all people who broke the rules and looked at things differently.
I felt like I was on a wild ride in a convertible with the top down.
And then I realized something
as I heard my mom's voice echoing in my head:
"I feel better."
What I learned from Brandon
was all of these people had something in common:
their belief system -
whatever they set their mind to was what their outcome was -
positive or negative.
In order to connect with the world around them,
they had to reconnect with themselves first,
that if you believe it,
you can achieve it.
As a result, over the next two years I reconnected with myself,
the goals and dreams that were once in my head when I was younger
started to become a reality.
I wrote a best-selling book.
I've spoken live to hundreds of people,
shared my story with thousands on live TV,
built my freedom by owning a business.
I launched a t-shirt line.
But the amazing thing wasn't the accomplishments that I achieved.
It wasn't that.
It was myself that reconnected from my disconnect.
I became aware
that sometimes you need to disconnect with what doesn't matter
to reconnect with what does.
One night when I was a senior in college,
I was looking at my book
and thinking back to everything I accomplished.
Holding the book in my hand,
I glanced over to look at the ring I was wearing,
which was my mom's.
At that moment, I realized ...
I feel better.
Now this process taught me
it was no longer about my toxic relationship
or the loss of my mom;
it wasn't going to foresee my future.
It was the loss of connection,
that I never reconnected with myself.
When someone has a painful experience,
they tend to pull away, to disconnect.
But stop there, and they disconnect forever.
They fail to come back and reconnect with themselves
because the only thing they're feeling is what they're familiar with:
feeling of uncertainty,
feeling of fear,
feeling of loss.
The feelings and belief system inside of them
is only based off of their knowledge.
But in result, they approach the ultimate pain
because they live life without fulfillment,
which is why we are so afraid to dream again,
feel happy again,
feel fulfilled again.
We desire to feel connected with others
but can't because we're still broken with ourselves.
I used to think that the most important thing in life
was connecting with my mom,
a partner or a best friend.
Then I thought it was connecting with my mentor, Brandon,
or connecting with the world through my book.
But the one thing I found,
the one connection that's most important
is the connection with ...
yourself.
It's in reconnecting after disconnecting
that we can really connect with the world.
So how do you reconnect with yourself?
It starts with your why,
your goals and dreams that you once had.
Turn your fears into fuel,
your hurts into healing.
Turn your failures into teachers,
your losses into lessons.
Turn your setbacks to setups,
your letdowns to comebacks.
It's about turning your disconnects into reconnects
because it lies in your perspective.
Life as we know it only works two ways:
you control it,
or it controls you.
So what about you?
Think back to the dream
I told you to keep in your head at the beginning of this talk.
Where are you sitting in life?
Have you connected with your dreams?
Disconnected?
Reconnected?
Now think back to your why.
Are you living life through your why
to find ultimate purpose and fulfillment?
Lastly, think back to that one connection you've kept in your mind.
Who was that that one connection?
Was it you?
Was it with yourself?
The change that we want to see isn't going to come from others.
It starts with you.
Because I believe we all are born with a gift
to aspire to become something greater than what we are currently doing.
Your gift is already inside of you.
But some of you have given up on your why,
your dreams
to achieve more.
So here's what I've learned:
If you keep looking back at the bad,
you can't look forward to the good.
And if you keep holding on to the pain,
you can't reach for your purpose.
If you don't disconnect from your disconnects,
you can't really reconnect with yourself.
My challenge for you is this:
Disconnect from your fears
and reconnect to your dreams.
Disconnect from your uncertainty
and reconnect to your legacy.
Disconnect from your pain
and reconnect to your purpose.
And when you do,
as a result,
you, too,
will feel better.
Thank you.
(Applause)