[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
how many of you here today have
something that you love doing something
to get you excited makes you happy that
brings you joy say aye
so you all have something like this and
for me that’s always been books since I
was about this big my mom tells a story
about a run home after school open the
door and just beeline straight to the
bookcase grab a book and there not be
good for hours they didn’t need to worry
about me those books didn’t just serve
as an escape for my reality a window to
the world these showed me things about
life and that love of books has
continued to this day
you know I love holding a book in my
hand I have my Kindle and all that kind
of stuff but I love just holding a book
my wife and my friends make fun of me on
a regular basis where every single time
we move my boxes of books have to go
with me
they’re like little treasures I just
can’t get rid of them it doesn’t matter
how long you live read them I’ve had it
up they are and today I’m here to talk
to you about one of those books a
classic book a book right now I must
have read over a hundred times this book
has made me think about some of the
basic elements of human struggle they
made me rethink the templates that we
use to explain life’s most basic
principles and concepts the book I’m
talking about is obviously
I see you’ve read the book so you might
have been expecting me to pull out
something like the old man in the sea
Ward peace Atlas Shrugged and those are
great amazing books but I have two
little kids so my reading materials over
the last two years have whittled down a
little bit and there
caterpillars a good one my kids love
this book they’ve read it by now in
English in Spanish in Hebrew they just
can’t get enough of it and why wouldn’t
they love it it’s a book about bugs and
let’s be honest kids love bugs and it’s
this nice little metaphor of their life
the little guy is born and the eatin
grows up and gets bigger and eats more
into apples and pears all this have you
read the story now as somebody who
studies human nature and particularly
addiction and compulsive behaviors I
kind of say on the sixth day I think the
guy was struggling with a little
compulsive binge eating or something I
mean for crying out loud
cake ice cream sausage and pepperoni
cheese candy pickles I mean for all we
know this here is literally the
caterpillars college stage but that’s
not even the most important part it’s
not the one I want to focus on today and
the reason is that something magical
happens on the next paper after all the
feeding is done but the caterpillars as
big as it’s going to get wrapped herself
up in a beautiful cocoon and then it
goes to sleep and on the very next pages
emerges as a beautiful butterfly it’s
such a classic tale of transformation
magical quick and unfortunately for most
of us completely divorced from reality
I know because I’ve gone through my own
version of a metamorphosis of sorts and
for my work I’ve seen hundreds of people
literally transformed for me it started
pretty simply with a nice upper-middle
class childhood growing up playing
outside hanging out with friends going
to school just the usual
and then my family decided to move all
the other way to this other side of the
world to America I was really excited
about I mean who wouldn’t be excited
about going to America but once it
happened I find myself isolated not very
well prepared I spoke the language or
not that very well I had a strange
accident
time which did make it easy especially
because I’ve missed my friends and I had
a hard time they can do friends I was 14
it was the beginning of high school not
exactly the easiest time to make friends
anyway in some ways I consider the next
few years of my life as my first active
attempt at transforming what it was into
my new American self so I did what
anybody would do I join the football
team I listen to a lot of pop music and
I practice my accent not bad right
it took a while but it worked and I’ve
got smoother I ended up having friends I
drove a car was a Buick Regal it was a
car I got a girlfriend my life seemed
perfect and then we went away to college
and she broke up with me and it felt
like my life pretty much completely
collapsed
anybody remember new love the beginnings
so I was in college going through that
and I found solace and with all my
friends Austin which was alcohol and we
a lot of alcohol and a lot of weight to
be honest that wasn’t that different
from all my friends but I wouldn’t even
harder as I’d like to do so I found
harder drugs I found cocaine I found
hallucinogens MDMA methamphetamine I did
whatever I could in order to push away
to numb to ignore the pain the
depression the sadness that was
enveloping me in my own version of the
caterpillars Saturday night binge
I mean drugs the center of my universe I
started selling them surrounded myself
with more and more people who were
equally as lost as I was I made a lot of
money used even more drugs and dug
myself deeper and deeper into a hole and
then one day somebody held me up at
gunpoint and I went out and bought my
own gun my transformation had been
complete
get up hands over your head hands in the
air get up I gotta tell you there’s no
better way to wake up in the morning
than have a SWAT team running to your
bedroom at eight o’clock on a Saturday
morning fill your room with cops were
just pointing automatic weapons straight
at your head as you lay in bed I was
facing 18 years in prison for 13 felony
counts and my life seemed pretty much
over at the ripe old age of 25 did you
know that during the process of
metamorphosis
but caterpillar doesn’t become a
butterfly simply by adding on some
beautiful wings and then removal of some
legs I mean it seems like that process
should be easy enough right
that’s why we love using it as a
metaphor for changing however what
actually happens behind closed doors or
you know closed chrysalis is way more
dramatic than we give it credit for
being that caterpillar
has to use the same that just induces it
used to eat all that food before to
literally break down its own body the
resultant cells that can pretty much if
we describe this primordial soup at that
point or goo if you open it up are like
human stem cells that then create a
butterfly essentially from scratch you
see a my next page after the SWAT team
arrests
there was no butterfly actually as I was
working on this and thinking about my
life I couldn’t even figure out exactly
where the butterfly would come in I mean
would it be when maybe it was when I
quit drugs if not then maybe when I got
into graduate school or maybe when I
graduated no not quite yet
maybe when I met my wife or got married
when I had my kids maybe the butterfly
hasn’t even shown up at all yet and
it’ll show up when I get off this darn
red circle or when I finally finished
writing that book I’ve been meaning to
work on for the last 10 years
all of this hit home as I was being
interviewed for a documentary on
addiction and the filmmaker asked me a
pretty simple question she just asked
how did you know back then after
everything that you had been through
that you were gonna be okay I started
tearing as soon as she asked the reality
was I had no idea that I was gonna be
okay
nobody did I mean pretty much everybody
who knew me back then would have been
completely surprised and happy if I
could have just found a way to move
forward through life stay out of prison
the only thing I could figure out at the
time was how to wake up every morning
and put one foot in front of the other
deliberately walking forward trust me
when I tell you that nobody imagined the
15 years later I’d be standing on a
circle like this talking to a crowd like
you back then
I was just trying to get a job and
they’d only get rejected time and time
and time again every single time I saw
the job application and had to check
that box you know that box the one that
asked me if you’ve ever been convicted
of a felony many of you may not have had
to think much about that box before but
for me that box became the seal of death
it was the nail in the coffin to
guarantee that I’m never gonna hear back
from these people and so it went for
months it was only after dozens of these
kinds of job applications and no help
that I finally applied to go back to
school the place I swore by the way I
would never go back to but I was out of
options
couldn’t get a job anywhere had no idea
how to move forward pass this life that
I made for myself
trust me want to tell you that nothing
was safe and nothing was certain
over the past 15 years I’ve had to
recreate her eat the previous version of
myself many times for me probably like
you the process of change is ongoing I
don’t think it’s anywhere near over yet
sure everybody loves the story of the
extra addict who’s made a life for
himself it’s nice and it’s easy to
ignore all the pain the struggle the
effort that went into it when the end
result seems relatively natural as you
see me now it’s even easier to ignore
this stuff you literally don’t see
behind me all the support the help I
needed for my parents my friends my
mentors people without whom trust me
when I tell you there’s no way I’d be
here but everybody wants a simple story
the problem with that is that this myth
we’ve created the real magical
transformation happens only to a select
few or either incredibly successful and
good or incredibly lucky means that the
struggles that all of us end up going
through get interpreted by so many as
failures when they’re anything but
however even in that story of The Very
Hungry Caterpillar contrary to the one
page magical transformation of the
caterpillar goes through a real
caterpillar takes two weeks or more to
transform itself into a butterfly now I
took the liberty of doing a little bit
of calculation for you guys and
translating that into human years it
ends up being about seven to forty years
ago I know that’s a big rate but how
many people think that sounds a little
bit more realistic
you see these magical transformation or
happily-ever-after stories as I call
them that we tell the ones that promise
that real happiness is waiting for all
of us just pass the magical rainbow they
serve us well I learned a lot about my
life and what to expect from the books
that I read I’m sure that you guys did
too and guess what if we teach kids that
life is full of magic and happiness and
free of struggle and that you just meet
somebody and magically live happily ever
after what are they learn to expect
exactly that so many of the clients that
I’ve dealt with in my life over the past
1012 years have spoken with exactly this
problem they expected life to be smooth
and full of beauty and success only to
be confronted with reality sometimes
it’s simple stuff maybe they just didn’t
do as well in school as they thought
that they would or promised that they
would maybe they didn’t end up being as
popular as they want it to be but
sometimes it’s serious
like maybe they struggle with trauma
early on that nobody would ever talk
about him
kind of got brushed under the surface or
maybe they suffered a health setback
that came out of nowhere the bottom line
is they weren’t prepared and when their
real life didn’t match their fantasy
they felt like failures so just like me
they turned their coping strategies
strategies that made easy to move away
from the pain numbing ignore it in the
short term but created even more pain
and suffering in the long term the most
magical transformations that I’ve seen
in these people happen when they
realizes their stripe their struggles
they’re not impossible to overcome
they’re not some magical indicator that
their faulty at heart all they’re an
indication of is that they’re human and
they’re struggling with every day life
resilience is the ability that
positively and effectively adjust to
adversity in life if we want our kids to
be resilient the same way we want it to
be good at math or reading we have to
train them to do so and this isn’t
rocket science I know they’re a lot of
rocket science is here but this isn’t
rocket science we know many of the
factors that end
this is not an exhaustive list look at
some of the things that matter social
support self esteem having an
appropriate cognitive perception and
appraisal of what it is you’re
struggling with having a sense of
control of your world think of all the
things that happen especially in these
second third and fourth points when
you’ve been told your whole life that
relationships are supposed to be easy
life is supposed to be smooth and then
it doesn’t end up being that way what
about the social support the shame the
fear you have that you are a failure and
that you would draw you look for other
ways to deal with the pain and you don’t
turn to other people because their life
is perfect let’s test this here right
now how many people got to be an adult
those of you who are adults how many
people got to be an adult up to this
point in life who is zero struggle
anyone say I anybody become part of a
relationship that was completely free of
fights all you laughs okay let’s let’s
test it the other way around how many
people I have to work really really hard
to get to whatever point it is you’re in
life right now say I how many people are
part of relationships that are amazing
but require ongoing work and effort to
maintain them you see human struggle
it’s not a problem somebody’s gonna
solve one day it’s a reality and if
that’s true and then the one thing we
get to control is how we react to it so
if that’s true let’s stop being afraid
of the pain and the work and the
struggle let’s embrace the real work
that it takes human caterpillars to
become butterflies I mean what are we
trying to hide from ourselves and our
children the truth
wouldn’t be nice if we all relate to the
struggle to just let go that terrible
terrible story do you have to be perfect
just to be good enough let’s teach our
young but the struggles that they are
gonna end up in countering there are in
no way shape or form a sign of failure
but instead they are the path to success
I think we can use hearing that
ourselves sometimes let’s drop this
notion that greatness is safe for us a
few lucky people with the reality that
the vast majority of us can achieve
great things if we just keep working
because you know what everybody deserves
to be proud of who they become and
everybody deserves to be supported
through all the work that it takes them
to get there I know that I wasn’t that’s
why I’m standing in front of you right
now I know you all want to be and that’s
why you made it here today and I know
that’s the story that I’m gonna teach my
kids and I hope you join me thank you
you
you
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
how many of you here today have
something that you love doing something
to get you excited makes you happy that
brings you joy say aye
so you all have something like this and
for me that’s always been books since I
was about this big my mom tells a story
about a run home after school open the
door and just beeline straight to the
bookcase grab a book and there not be
good for hours they didn’t need to worry
about me those books didn’t just serve
as an escape for my reality a window to
the world these showed me things about
life and that love of books has
continued to this day
you know I love holding a book in my
hand I have my Kindle and all that kind
of stuff but I love just holding a book
my wife and my friends make fun of me on
a regular basis where every single time
we move my boxes of books have to go
with me
they’re like little treasures I just
can’t get rid of them it doesn’t matter
how long you live read them I’ve had it
up they are and today I’m here to talk
to you about one of those books a
classic book a book right now I must
have read over a hundred times this book
has made me think about some of the
basic elements of human struggle they
made me rethink the templates that we
use to explain life’s most basic
principles and concepts the book I’m
talking about is obviously
I see you’ve read the book so you might
have been expecting me to pull out
something like the old man in the sea
Ward peace Atlas Shrugged and those are
great amazing books but I have two
little kids so my reading materials over
the last two years have whittled down a
little bit and there
caterpillars a good one my kids love
this book they’ve read it by now in
English in Spanish in Hebrew they just
can’t get enough of it and why wouldn’t
they love it it’s a book about bugs and
let’s be honest kids love bugs and it’s
this nice little metaphor of their life
the little guy is born and the eatin
grows up and gets bigger and eats more
into apples and pears all this have you
read the story now as somebody who
studies human nature and particularly
addiction and compulsive behaviors I
kind of say on the sixth day I think the
guy was struggling with a little
compulsive binge eating or something I
mean for crying out loud
cake ice cream sausage and pepperoni
cheese candy pickles I mean for all we
know this here is literally the
caterpillars college stage but that’s
not even the most important part it’s
not the one I want to focus on today and
the reason is that something magical
happens on the next paper after all the
feeding is done but the caterpillars as
big as it’s going to get wrapped herself
up in a beautiful cocoon and then it
goes to sleep and on the very next pages
emerges as a beautiful butterfly it’s
such a classic tale of transformation
magical quick and unfortunately for most
of us completely divorced from reality
I know because I’ve gone through my own
version of a metamorphosis of sorts and
for my work I’ve seen hundreds of people
literally transformed for me it started
pretty simply with a nice upper-middle
class childhood growing up playing
outside hanging out with friends going
to school just the usual
and then my family decided to move all
the other way to this other side of the
world to America I was really excited
about I mean who wouldn’t be excited
about going to America but once it
happened I find myself isolated not very
well prepared I spoke the language or
not that very well I had a strange
accident
time which did make it easy especially
because I’ve missed my friends and I had
a hard time they can do friends I was 14
it was the beginning of high school not
exactly the easiest time to make friends
anyway in some ways I consider the next
few years of my life as my first active
attempt at transforming what it was into
my new American self so I did what
anybody would do I join the football
team I listen to a lot of pop music and
I practice my accent not bad right
it took a while but it worked and I’ve
got smoother I ended up having friends I
drove a car was a Buick Regal it was a
car I got a girlfriend my life seemed
perfect and then we went away to college
and she broke up with me and it felt
like my life pretty much completely
collapsed
anybody remember new love the beginnings
so I was in college going through that
and I found solace and with all my
friends Austin which was alcohol and we
a lot of alcohol and a lot of weight to
be honest that wasn’t that different
from all my friends but I wouldn’t even
harder as I’d like to do so I found
harder drugs I found cocaine I found
hallucinogens MDMA methamphetamine I did
whatever I could in order to push away
to numb to ignore the pain the
depression the sadness that was
enveloping me in my own version of the
caterpillars Saturday night binge
I mean drugs the center of my universe I
started selling them surrounded myself
with more and more people who were
equally as lost as I was I made a lot of
money used even more drugs and dug
myself deeper and deeper into a hole and
then one day somebody held me up at
gunpoint and I went out and bought my
own gun my transformation had been
complete
get up hands over your head hands in the
air get up I gotta tell you there’s no
better way to wake up in the morning
than have a SWAT team running to your
bedroom at eight o’clock on a Saturday
morning fill your room with cops were
just pointing automatic weapons straight
at your head as you lay in bed I was
facing 18 years in prison for 13 felony
counts and my life seemed pretty much
over at the ripe old age of 25 did you
know that during the process of
metamorphosis
but caterpillar doesn’t become a
butterfly simply by adding on some
beautiful wings and then removal of some
legs I mean it seems like that process
should be easy enough right
that’s why we love using it as a
metaphor for changing however what
actually happens behind closed doors or
you know closed chrysalis is way more
dramatic than we give it credit for
being that caterpillar
has to use the same that just induces it
used to eat all that food before to
literally break down its own body the
resultant cells that can pretty much if
we describe this primordial soup at that
point or goo if you open it up are like
human stem cells that then create a
butterfly essentially from scratch you
see a my next page after the SWAT team
arrests
there was no butterfly actually as I was
working on this and thinking about my
life I couldn’t even figure out exactly
where the butterfly would come in I mean
would it be when maybe it was when I
quit drugs if not then maybe when I got
into graduate school or maybe when I
graduated no not quite yet
maybe when I met my wife or got married
when I had my kids maybe the butterfly
hasn’t even shown up at all yet and
it’ll show up when I get off this darn
red circle or when I finally finished
writing that book I’ve been meaning to
work on for the last 10 years
all of this hit home as I was being
interviewed for a documentary on
addiction and the filmmaker asked me a
pretty simple question she just asked
how did you know back then after
everything that you had been through
that you were gonna be okay I started
tearing as soon as she asked the reality
was I had no idea that I was gonna be
okay
nobody did I mean pretty much everybody
who knew me back then would have been
completely surprised and happy if I
could have just found a way to move
forward through life stay out of prison
the only thing I could figure out at the
time was how to wake up every morning
and put one foot in front of the other
deliberately walking forward trust me
when I tell you that nobody imagined the
15 years later I’d be standing on a
circle like this talking to a crowd like
you back then
I was just trying to get a job and
they’d only get rejected time and time
and time again every single time I saw
the job application and had to check
that box you know that box the one that
asked me if you’ve ever been convicted
of a felony many of you may not have had
to think much about that box before but
for me that box became the seal of death
it was the nail in the coffin to
guarantee that I’m never gonna hear back
from these people and so it went for
months it was only after dozens of these
kinds of job applications and no help
that I finally applied to go back to
school the place I swore by the way I
would never go back to but I was out of
options
couldn’t get a job anywhere had no idea
how to move forward pass this life that
I made for myself
trust me want to tell you that nothing
was safe and nothing was certain
over the past 15 years I’ve had to
recreate her eat the previous version of
myself many times for me probably like
you the process of change is ongoing I
don’t think it’s anywhere near over yet
sure everybody loves the story of the
extra addict who’s made a life for
himself it’s nice and it’s easy to
ignore all the pain the struggle the
effort that went into it when the end
result seems relatively natural as you
see me now it’s even easier to ignore
this stuff you literally don’t see
behind me all the support the help I
needed for my parents my friends my
mentors people without whom trust me
when I tell you there’s no way I’d be
here but everybody wants a simple story
the problem with that is that this myth
we’ve created the real magical
transformation happens only to a select
few or either incredibly successful and
good or incredibly lucky means that the
struggles that all of us end up going
through get interpreted by so many as
failures when they’re anything but
however even in that story of The Very
Hungry Caterpillar contrary to the one
page magical transformation of the
caterpillar goes through a real
caterpillar takes two weeks or more to
transform itself into a butterfly now I
took the liberty of doing a little bit
of calculation for you guys and
translating that into human years it
ends up being about seven to forty years
ago I know that’s a big rate but how
many people think that sounds a little
bit more realistic
you see these magical transformation or
happily-ever-after stories as I call
them that we tell the ones that promise
that real happiness is waiting for all
of us just pass the magical rainbow they
serve us well I learned a lot about my
life and what to expect from the books
that I read I’m sure that you guys did
too and guess what if we teach kids that
life is full of magic and happiness and
free of struggle and that you just meet
somebody and magically live happily ever
after what are they learn to expect
exactly that so many of the clients that
I’ve dealt with in my life over the past
1012 years have spoken with exactly this
problem they expected life to be smooth
and full of beauty and success only to
be confronted with reality sometimes
it’s simple stuff maybe they just didn’t
do as well in school as they thought
that they would or promised that they
would maybe they didn’t end up being as
popular as they want it to be but
sometimes it’s serious
like maybe they struggle with trauma
early on that nobody would ever talk
about him
kind of got brushed under the surface or
maybe they suffered a health setback
that came out of nowhere the bottom line
is they weren’t prepared and when their
real life didn’t match their fantasy
they felt like failures so just like me
they turned their coping strategies
strategies that made easy to move away
from the pain numbing ignore it in the
short term but created even more pain
and suffering in the long term the most
magical transformations that I’ve seen
in these people happen when they
realizes their stripe their struggles
they’re not impossible to overcome
they’re not some magical indicator that
their faulty at heart all they’re an
indication of is that they’re human and
they’re struggling with every day life
resilience is the ability that
positively and effectively adjust to
adversity in life if we want our kids to
be resilient the same way we want it to
be good at math or reading we have to
train them to do so and this isn’t
rocket science I know they’re a lot of
rocket science is here but this isn’t
rocket science we know many of the
factors that end
this is not an exhaustive list look at
some of the things that matter social
support self esteem having an
appropriate cognitive perception and
appraisal of what it is you’re
struggling with having a sense of
control of your world think of all the
things that happen especially in these
second third and fourth points when
you’ve been told your whole life that
relationships are supposed to be easy
life is supposed to be smooth and then
it doesn’t end up being that way what
about the social support the shame the
fear you have that you are a failure and
that you would draw you look for other
ways to deal with the pain and you don’t
turn to other people because their life
is perfect let’s test this here right
now how many people got to be an adult
those of you who are adults how many
people got to be an adult up to this
point in life who is zero struggle
anyone say I anybody become part of a
relationship that was completely free of
fights all you laughs okay let’s let’s
test it the other way around how many
people I have to work really really hard
to get to whatever point it is you’re in
life right now say I how many people are
part of relationships that are amazing
but require ongoing work and effort to
maintain them you see human struggle
it’s not a problem somebody’s gonna
solve one day it’s a reality and if
that’s true and then the one thing we
get to control is how we react to it so
if that’s true let’s stop being afraid
of the pain and the work and the
struggle let’s embrace the real work
that it takes human caterpillars to
become butterflies I mean what are we
trying to hide from ourselves and our
children the truth
wouldn’t be nice if we all relate to the
struggle to just let go that terrible
terrible story do you have to be perfect
just to be good enough let’s teach our
young but the struggles that they are
gonna end up in countering there are in
no way shape or form a sign of failure
but instead they are the path to success
I think we can use hearing that
ourselves sometimes let’s drop this
notion that greatness is safe for us a
few lucky people with the reality that
the vast majority of us can achieve
great things if we just keep working
because you know what everybody deserves
to be proud of who they become and
everybody deserves to be supported
through all the work that it takes them
to get there I know that I wasn’t that’s
why I’m standing in front of you right
now I know you all want to be and that’s
why you made it here today and I know
that’s the story that I’m gonna teach my
kids and I hope you join me thank you
you
you
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