[Music]
it is truly an honor to be here with you
this evening at such an amazing event
like TEDx but in fact the last advice
that my mother gave me was if you get
nervous they say just picture everyone
naked and my response to her was whoever
said that their mother probably was not
in that audience you know I truly
believe that I am the sum total of
everyone that I’ve ever known and come
in contact with and I’m truly blessed to
have retained just a little bit of it so
I believe that we are all searching for
fulfilment I believe in the power of
relationships and through relationships
that is the only way through which
change and development and cultivation
can happen and I believe we must
meaningfully find a way to contribute to
the lives of others so that they can
find their fulfillment and in the
process we actually find our true
fulfillment my journey here to Indiana
University actually began in a high
school guidance counselor’s office in
which my guidance counselor called me
and she said hey there’s this
opportunity it’s called junior executive
Institute you spend a week in the
summertime at Indiana University at the
Kelley School of Business I know you’re
interested in potentially majoring in
business this might be a really good
opportunity for you and logically the
only response I had was will there be
ladies all right and she assured me
there would be I think this initiative
is now called meet Kelly and actually
it’s no longer a co-ed experience the
girls come one weekend and the the
gentleman come another week right but it
is interesting how that plays out in a
young man’s mind but it was a great week
we had a really great opportunity to
engage with faculty or fellow students
gain some exposure not only to
university but especially to the Kelley
School of Business and one of the really
interesting things we did is we actually
did a project like I Corps for those of
you that understand or those of you may
be business majors you know what I core
is you would probably say you had a
taste of I Corps and yet you still
decided to enroll at any University in
the university and major in business and
the answer is yes yes I did but at the
end of the great any
that great week I sit down with the Dean
of the Kelley School of Business and the
director of diversity initiatives whose
name was William Lewis I said what would
it take to you take for you to
potentially come here to Indiana
University and my response was this has
been a great week but I’m headed to the
East Coast all right that is that’s my
path they had won something that was
already on the East Coast then I spent a
lot of time out there and they said but
what would it take and I said well you
know would probably take me becoming a
direct admit right out of high school
and I said we’ll probably also take it
would take some money right because
college cost money and I understood that
I was no fool but I probably should ask
for a little bit more right provide long
story short that’s exactly how it worked
out and I decided to enroll at Indiana
University interestingly enough I firmly
believe that mentoring is an extremely
important part of that story and so once
I got to Indiana University dr. William
Lewis took me under his wing all right
he didn’t just give me a scholarship but
he would say hey meet me in my office
let’s take a walk
hey let’s go to dinner hey let’s go to
lunch
and he’d ask me questions about campus
he would ask me about how things were
going academically he would talk about
dating all right let me talk about the
social life and at the time I don’t know
if he knew what he was doing but he was
really mentor right we would have casual
conversations walking around campus him
giving me advice really engaging me and
the way that he impacted my life I hope
that in some way he was able to take
something from it and so oftentimes I
encourage others to mentor someone else
and usually the standard response is
well what is mentor alright I don’t have
it all together myself can I really
engage and contribute to somebody else’s
life what do I have to offer because it
can be a daunting task but I contend
that usually we’re making that
conversation a lot a lot more
complicated than it otherwise needs to
be because mentoring is not complicated
it is really about two things it’s about
making someone feel your love
and you’re selfless concern for their
development and their success think
about someone in your life think about
maybe the first time in your life in
which you felt you know what this person
cares selflessly about my growth my
success in my development they’re not
asking for anything this isn’t a cold
call or somebody says hey I’d like to
talk to you alright this is an
opportunity where someone just says
listen I just want to figure out what I
can do to help for many of us that may
be a teacher right for someone else it
may be a family friend or may have just
been a stranger alright but this is what
leads to better outcomes in others and
also better outcomes and us this in the
process not only makes their life but it
also makes ours in the process until the
story most of us have been part of a
science fair or a science project at
some point in time and so I’m going to
tell you story about a a young woman at
the she was about 13 14 years old she
set out to be part of a science fair she
decided to do her project on water
purification had a series of water
bottles set up obviously the water
bottles went from dirty water and showed
the matriculation to clean one and
talked about how important water for
purification is in our process and to
our society now this has took place in
like the early to mid 90s and so this
wasn’t a time when which you could
research on the Internet with vast
amounts of endless information this was
at a point in time in which you wanted
to know all of knowledge that existed in
man you had an assembly of about 20
some-odd books that a man in a suit drug
around after his full-time job door to
door hoping that someone would buy a set
of these books called encyclopedias
right a little different than we had it
today
and so she consulted the encyclopedia
with the help of her mother to figure
out what she could say about water
purification but she had a best friend
who was also taking part of the science
fair and now her project was actually on
physics
it was on physics and you say may say
huh physics for a 13 or 14 year old is
not something that you’ve been
introduced to but it used an assembly of
wax paper and pulleys set up to shell
friction and the energy that can be
produced fine you may say well how were
13 or 14 year old know that she had a
father who was engineer who was an
engineer she went on to actually place
in the science fair to Cindy’s dismay
she believed that she wasn’t competing
against the classmates she was actually
competing against an engineer this would
be a theme that she would actually go on
to experience on through her education
so she went on to enroll at Princeton
University while at Princeton University
she came to find out that many of her
classmates had their entrance essays
written for them while at Columbia
University working on her master’s
thesis she came to find out that many of
her classmates had their topics and some
research given to them it wasn’t until
this time at Columbia University she was
begin she began to be tutored by a
professor of hers in the field of public
health from that relationship she began
to look more closely at the School of
Public Health she decided to enroll at
Johns Hopkins for her PhD knowing that
her success was tied to those who
potentially could help her and otherwise
wanted nothing in return she began to
learn the lesson of outcomes being
outcomes that are more invested in by
others can obviously be tied to our
success today she’s dr. Cynthia Jones
right she’s an epidemiology though she
swore off science fairs forever
right she actually travels the world
being part of we call sophisticated
science fairs we call them conferences
right all right but what she does is she
educates others on specific disease
states and their various effects on
varied populations now she makes posters
and presentations but it doesn’t stop
there she actually engages with her
colleagues leads a team of fellow
biologists helping them cultivate their
work deciding who’s ready to also be
part of these other science fairs these
conferences and now today she
understands that now in business she has
a group of people that are vested in the
interest of her success because we know
in business where there is money then we
know we want to make sure that those
outcomes are conducive for everyone and
she’s working with disease states in
which people are very active affected by
so we understand mentorship and just how
important mentorship is we know that
those who are mentored are much more
likely to enroll in college even
volunteer regularly right and they’re
more interested in actually becoming a
mentor themselves basically more likely
and more interested to become the things
that you have been exposed to but I
would also like to think that if you
take it a step further we can begin to
see how this correlates and so for those
students that are mentored higher
educational attainment in terms of high
school graduation college enrollment we
also understand that self-esteem and
confidence it goes up in their
relationships get better across the
board with everyone but I contend that
this is not only the results for those
that are being mentored but it gets very
interesting when you also look at those
who are doing the mentor and so we see
that their self-esteem goes up there a
sense of accomplishment right their
leadership skills their patience their
relationships also increase just the
same way that those who are being
mentored do as well and so in my time
with some of my work with others what
I’ve tried to do was also bring some
other people along in this process of
mentor one Saturday morning we’ve
brought in Mayor Joe Hogsett he’s the
mayor of Indianapolis just up the road
students asked some really tough and
hard-hitting questions they asked him
about foreign policy people young men
it’s about a group of 150 young men
talking about foreign policy asking
about his future political aspirations
questions about their community but the
really interesting thing is that at the
end of it the mayor said you know what
this has caused me to look at my
community
a little differently it causes me to
look in identify with the young men that
I serve a little deeper in ways that I
hadn’t before
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police
Department has come in several weekends
and usually when they come in we’ve
really worked to try to foster the gap
that exists between our communities and
our law enforcement departments in the
process students walk through traffic
stops and I think the other really
interesting thing is as they walk
through traffic stops and allowed to ask
free questions sometimes very difficult
questions that they’re asking these
police officers about how they feel
about their safety and when they’re
approached by police officers in the
process students came away and said you
don’t want I began to see these officers
as actually just people in the community
because I understand that they have
families and in turn those officers came
back and said you know what I began to
see myself in these young men extremely
significant so engaging others in the
process is so important a good friend of
mine began doing we began doing
workshops on relationships the last one
we did it was a large workshop is about
220 high school students really
interesting thing usually at the end of
a workshop I try to make sure that I
engage students and give them an
opportunity to how to reward them for
their development and reward them for
being participants and so I would give
out gift card it’s about five dollars on
a gift card you would be surprised what
people do for five dollars to Starbucks
right and five dollars to Starbucks
doesn’t really buy you anything right it
doesn’t actually buy you a drink
it’s more like a coupon right I had one
left over and I couldn’t decide who to
give it to I’d give him to the ladies
and two to the young men and so I
decided you know what I gave a fifth to
a young man and I said hey I want you to
pick a young lady and decide who you
think should get the gift card and so as
he stands up and he’s kind of combing
through the crowd all the young ladies
are standing up there shouting pick me
pick me right and so he gives it to one
young lady who happen to be kind of
quiet and so afterward I brought the two
together and I asked him I said hey why
did you happen to give it to her and he
said well she seemed kind she seemed
respectful she wasn’t loud she wasn’t
jumping up out of her chair
and I thought she had some great answers
and really engaged he said I guess it’s
kind of the way that I would choose to
date somebody it was a very impactful
moment it it reminded me that I don’t
necessarily have to be the one who’s
doing the cultivation I can engage
others in that process dr. Martin Luther
King jr. gave one of my favorite
speeches it was about three dimensions
of a complete life he talks about the
length of life right which is man’s
inward concern for himself he talks
about the breath of life which is man’s
outward concern and reached toward the
welfare of others and then he talks
about the height of life which is man’s
upward reach toward God and in the same
speech he contends that man’s most
persistent and urgent question is what
are you doing for others oftentimes we
ask others what’s your major what do you
do for a living all right what did you
study we asked questions about how to
how what they’re doing to make a living
right but I would contend that what we
should be doing is asking them what do
they do for others because in that that
tells us how they are making a lot and
so I say to you that by selflessly
sowing seeds of energy love attention
and belief into others we will not only
help others find their fulfillment and
help them make their life but in the
process we will find out fulfilment and
we will make a life thank you [Music]
it is truly an honor to be here with you
this evening at such an amazing event
like TEDx but in fact the last advice
that my mother gave me was if you get
nervous they say just picture everyone
naked and my response to her was whoever
said that their mother probably was not
in that audience you know I truly
believe that I am the sum total of
everyone that I’ve ever known and come
in contact with and I’m truly blessed to
have retained just a little bit of it so
I believe that we are all searching for
fulfilment I believe in the power of
relationships and through relationships
that is the only way through which
change and development and cultivation
can happen and I believe we must
meaningfully find a way to contribute to
the lives of others so that they can
find their fulfillment and in the
process we actually find our true
fulfillment my journey here to Indiana
University actually began in a high
school guidance counselor’s office in
which my guidance counselor called me
and she said hey there’s this
opportunity it’s called junior executive
Institute you spend a week in the
summertime at Indiana University at the
Kelley School of Business I know you’re
interested in potentially majoring in
business this might be a really good
opportunity for you and logically the
only response I had was will there be
ladies all right and she assured me
there would be I think this initiative
is now called meet Kelly and actually
it’s no longer a co-ed experience the
girls come one weekend and the the
gentleman come another week right but it
is interesting how that plays out in a
young man’s mind but it was a great week
we had a really great opportunity to
engage with faculty or fellow students
gain some exposure not only to
university but especially to the Kelley
School of Business and one of the really
interesting things we did is we actually
did a project like I Corps for those of
you that understand or those of you may
be business majors you know what I core
is you would probably say you had a
taste of I Corps and yet you still
decided to enroll at any University in
the university and major in business and
the answer is yes yes I did but at the
end of the great any
that great week I sit down with the Dean
of the Kelley School of Business and the
director of diversity initiatives whose
name was William Lewis I said what would
it take to you take for you to
potentially come here to Indiana
University and my response was this has
been a great week but I’m headed to the
East Coast all right that is that’s my
path they had won something that was
already on the East Coast then I spent a
lot of time out there and they said but
what would it take and I said well you
know would probably take me becoming a
direct admit right out of high school
and I said we’ll probably also take it
would take some money right because
college cost money and I understood that
I was no fool but I probably should ask
for a little bit more right provide long
story short that’s exactly how it worked
out and I decided to enroll at Indiana
University interestingly enough I firmly
believe that mentoring is an extremely
important part of that story and so once
I got to Indiana University dr. William
Lewis took me under his wing all right
he didn’t just give me a scholarship but
he would say hey meet me in my office
let’s take a walk
hey let’s go to dinner hey let’s go to
lunch
and he’d ask me questions about campus
he would ask me about how things were
going academically he would talk about
dating all right let me talk about the
social life and at the time I don’t know
if he knew what he was doing but he was
really mentor right we would have casual
conversations walking around campus him
giving me advice really engaging me and
the way that he impacted my life I hope
that in some way he was able to take
something from it and so oftentimes I
encourage others to mentor someone else
and usually the standard response is
well what is mentor alright I don’t have
it all together myself can I really
engage and contribute to somebody else’s
life what do I have to offer because it
can be a daunting task but I contend
that usually we’re making that
conversation a lot a lot more
complicated than it otherwise needs to
be because mentoring is not complicated
it is really about two things it’s about
making someone feel your love
and you’re selfless concern for their
development and their success think
about someone in your life think about
maybe the first time in your life in
which you felt you know what this person
cares selflessly about my growth my
success in my development they’re not
asking for anything this isn’t a cold
call or somebody says hey I’d like to
talk to you alright this is an
opportunity where someone just says
listen I just want to figure out what I
can do to help for many of us that may
be a teacher right for someone else it
may be a family friend or may have just
been a stranger alright but this is what
leads to better outcomes in others and
also better outcomes and us this in the
process not only makes their life but it
also makes ours in the process until the
story most of us have been part of a
science fair or a science project at
some point in time and so I’m going to
tell you story about a a young woman at
the she was about 13 14 years old she
set out to be part of a science fair she
decided to do her project on water
purification had a series of water
bottles set up obviously the water
bottles went from dirty water and showed
the matriculation to clean one and
talked about how important water for
purification is in our process and to
our society now this has took place in
like the early to mid 90s and so this
wasn’t a time when which you could
research on the Internet with vast
amounts of endless information this was
at a point in time in which you wanted
to know all of knowledge that existed in
man you had an assembly of about 20
some-odd books that a man in a suit drug
around after his full-time job door to
door hoping that someone would buy a set
of these books called encyclopedias
right a little different than we had it
today
and so she consulted the encyclopedia
with the help of her mother to figure
out what she could say about water
purification but she had a best friend
who was also taking part of the science
fair and now her project was actually on
physics
it was on physics and you say may say
huh physics for a 13 or 14 year old is
not something that you’ve been
introduced to but it used an assembly of
wax paper and pulleys set up to shell
friction and the energy that can be
produced fine you may say well how were
13 or 14 year old know that she had a
father who was engineer who was an
engineer she went on to actually place
in the science fair to Cindy’s dismay
she believed that she wasn’t competing
against the classmates she was actually
competing against an engineer this would
be a theme that she would actually go on
to experience on through her education
so she went on to enroll at Princeton
University while at Princeton University
she came to find out that many of her
classmates had their entrance essays
written for them while at Columbia
University working on her master’s
thesis she came to find out that many of
her classmates had their topics and some
research given to them it wasn’t until
this time at Columbia University she was
begin she began to be tutored by a
professor of hers in the field of public
health from that relationship she began
to look more closely at the School of
Public Health she decided to enroll at
Johns Hopkins for her PhD knowing that
her success was tied to those who
potentially could help her and otherwise
wanted nothing in return she began to
learn the lesson of outcomes being
outcomes that are more invested in by
others can obviously be tied to our
success today she’s dr. Cynthia Jones
right she’s an epidemiology though she
swore off science fairs forever
right she actually travels the world
being part of we call sophisticated
science fairs we call them conferences
right all right but what she does is she
educates others on specific disease
states and their various effects on
varied populations now she makes posters
and presentations but it doesn’t stop
there she actually engages with her
colleagues leads a team of fellow
biologists helping them cultivate their
work deciding who’s ready to also be
part of these other science fairs these
conferences and now today she
understands that now in business she has
a group of people that are vested in the
interest of her success because we know
in business where there is money then we
know we want to make sure that those
outcomes are conducive for everyone and
she’s working with disease states in
which people are very active affected by
so we understand mentorship and just how
important mentorship is we know that
those who are mentored are much more
likely to enroll in college even
volunteer regularly right and they’re
more interested in actually becoming a
mentor themselves basically more likely
and more interested to become the things
that you have been exposed to but I
would also like to think that if you
take it a step further we can begin to
see how this correlates and so for those
students that are mentored higher
educational attainment in terms of high
school graduation college enrollment we
also understand that self-esteem and
confidence it goes up in their
relationships get better across the
board with everyone but I contend that
this is not only the results for those
that are being mentored but it gets very
interesting when you also look at those
who are doing the mentor and so we see
that their self-esteem goes up there a
sense of accomplishment right their
leadership skills their patience their
relationships also increase just the
same way that those who are being
mentored do as well and so in my time
with some of my work with others what
I’ve tried to do was also bring some
other people along in this process of
mentor one Saturday morning we’ve
brought in Mayor Joe Hogsett he’s the
mayor of Indianapolis just up the road
students asked some really tough and
hard-hitting questions they asked him
about foreign policy people young men
it’s about a group of 150 young men
talking about foreign policy asking
about his future political aspirations
questions about their community but the
really interesting thing is that at the
end of it the mayor said you know what
this has caused me to look at my
community
a little differently it causes me to
look in identify with the young men that
I serve a little deeper in ways that I
hadn’t before
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police
Department has come in several weekends
and usually when they come in we’ve
really worked to try to foster the gap
that exists between our communities and
our law enforcement departments in the
process students walk through traffic
stops and I think the other really
interesting thing is as they walk
through traffic stops and allowed to ask
free questions sometimes very difficult
questions that they’re asking these
police officers about how they feel
about their safety and when they’re
approached by police officers in the
process students came away and said you
don’t want I began to see these officers
as actually just people in the community
because I understand that they have
families and in turn those officers came
back and said you know what I began to
see myself in these young men extremely
significant so engaging others in the
process is so important a good friend of
mine began doing we began doing
workshops on relationships the last one
we did it was a large workshop is about
220 high school students really
interesting thing usually at the end of
a workshop I try to make sure that I
engage students and give them an
opportunity to how to reward them for
their development and reward them for
being participants and so I would give
out gift card it’s about five dollars on
a gift card you would be surprised what
people do for five dollars to Starbucks
right and five dollars to Starbucks
doesn’t really buy you anything right it
doesn’t actually buy you a drink
it’s more like a coupon right I had one
left over and I couldn’t decide who to
give it to I’d give him to the ladies
and two to the young men and so I
decided you know what I gave a fifth to
a young man and I said hey I want you to
pick a young lady and decide who you
think should get the gift card and so as
he stands up and he’s kind of combing
through the crowd all the young ladies
are standing up there shouting pick me
pick me right and so he gives it to one
young lady who happen to be kind of
quiet and so afterward I brought the two
together and I asked him I said hey why
did you happen to give it to her and he
said well she seemed kind she seemed
respectful she wasn’t loud she wasn’t
jumping up out of her chair
and I thought she had some great answers
and really engaged he said I guess it’s
kind of the way that I would choose to
date somebody it was a very impactful
moment it it reminded me that I don’t
necessarily have to be the one who’s
doing the cultivation I can engage
others in that process dr. Martin Luther
King jr. gave one of my favorite
speeches it was about three dimensions
of a complete life he talks about the
length of life right which is man’s
inward concern for himself he talks
about the breath of life which is man’s
outward concern and reached toward the
welfare of others and then he talks
about the height of life which is man’s
upward reach toward God and in the same
speech he contends that man’s most
persistent and urgent question is what
are you doing for others oftentimes we
ask others what’s your major what do you
do for a living all right what did you
study we asked questions about how to
how what they’re doing to make a living
right but I would contend that what we
should be doing is asking them what do
they do for others because in that that
tells us how they are making a lot and
so I say to you that by selflessly
sowing seeds of energy love attention
and belief into others we will not only
help others find their fulfillment and
help them make their life but in the
process we will find out fulfilment and
we will make a life thank you [Music]
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