so I don’t know if you guys still do
this or not but in my day we had to
write letters or get letters of
recommendation to submit to colleges so
in my day we needed three so I asked one
of my teachers Nelson camp to write one
for me and in it he wrote Chris has the
natural ability to connect Chris shows
natural ability for empathy and has the
ability to connect and feel for others
and I had no idea what he meant and in
fact I don’t even think I had heard the
word empathy before but I felt very
honored and it sounded very adult-like
so I took it and I spent the next 30
years trying to figure out what it all
meant but I finally have a handle on it
empathy and by result compassion is the
emotional connection to someone else’s
problem and thereby a drive to find a
solution problem solution
growing up I was always the problem
child in my family one of six middle
child same astrological sign as my
father you get the picture
I was constantly in trouble and it
usually revolved around me doing the
things that my father asked me not to do
on many occasions he’d say just how
stubborn he thought I was hard-headed I
think was the term and then if I
continue down this path I’d have a very
hard life in front of me and well you
guessed it he was right
the misconception about being the
problem child is that you are far from
the problem
the issue is typically about wanting to
be someone other than the role you’ve
been given to play I was acting out
that’s for sure but I wanted to be
noticed for who I was without a clue on
how to get there
I was trying to be someone else and I
didn’t have the tools to know how to do
it
and so as time went on I got more and
more defeated
more and more reserved and more and more
angry
and it all became this sort of
self-fulfilling prophecy
that I was that problem child just now
lost and what I presumed to be depressed
father was a single parent divorced and
raising six kids while running his
hardware store in a small town outside
of New Orleans we were all made to work
there as kids after school and of course
every weekend
we would do our homework on a blackboard
that he had mounted on the staircase
leading up to the warehouse where we’d
use sacks of horse feed as a makeshift
desk
I was a terrible student with a string
of learning disabilities that only
really added to my already mangled
self-esteem
the thing about hardware stores is that
people come there to fix things right a
leak in a pipe or perhaps a link in a
chain a hammer and some nails
fix things because they have value in
meaning and because it gives them a
little sense of accomplishment that they
saved something that was broken
every day in this store there was a
string of characters that would come
through to pick up the odds and ends to
fix whatever it is they were working on
but to also sit and have a coke and
offload the problems of the day money
issues family issues politics
and of course whatever happened at
church on Sunday
it was in these afternoons that I I
discovered the power of empathy not that
I knew what it meant I didn’t but
because I saw it in the way that people
come together to fix one another
this is gonna be a rather boring story
if I continue down this path so there is
a point to all of it so yes I was the
problem child but I was also a dreamer
as a way to escape myself and be the
person who I as new I was
being that I had no other place to go
this hardware store became my playground
and it had so many hiding places that we
used to build forts and dream of being
anyplace else
my brother and I used to sit on the
warehouse dock and talk about building
an airplane it was a two-seater
single-engine because we had just fixed
a lawnmower engine we had out back and
this engine would take us anywhere we
wanted to go
but this hardware store had an unlimited
amount of possibilities right I mean we
could do anything and no tool was ever
off limits as kids we had to be able to
identify a vise grip over a crescent
wrench when to use a particular type of
saw and the difference between a three
penning and a Tenpenny nail but the
tools were everything
when I was late when I graduated high
school my father didn’t hand me bed
sheets and towels to start my college
career he handed me a toolbox because if
I had tools I could fix things from a
problem child to a fixer with I’m not
sure how but enough empathy and
compassion to get noticed so my teacher
said
moving away from a small town you begin
to question and look at things a little
bit differently
uh was I really the problem child I
always was told I was or was I just
trying to figure out who I was
so under the advice of a teacher and
many very dark afternoons I decided to
seek help our College offered three free
therapy sessions with resident
psychology majors and being that my only
experience were these afternoons of my
father’s hardware store with people
unloading their problems I was like this
is easy I should go and I spent the
first hour of this session telling the
therapist exactly how I had everything
sort of figured out
it’s amazing what we tell ourselves
right the self-doubt the apologies we
give or having any sort of feelings or
emotions
after an hour she said well I guess you
don’t need me but I did need her and I
didn’t have anything figured out and it
wasn’t until six years later that I went
back and I found a therapist who was
compassionate and empathetic and he
listened to my problems and gave me
advice or $20 a session as that’s all I
could afford and I saw him every week
for 20 years
and with that
me the tools I needed to become the man
I knew I was but more importantly he
connected those tools to my
understanding of empathy
I was fortunate
reached out I was able to get help
and that ability changed my life
it’s not the same for everyone but there
are people out in the world who haven’t
been so fortunate there’s a stigma that
suggests that only crazy people go to
therapy but the truth is is that getting
healthy is very lonely and and the old
saying goes that if that misery loves
company which it does
although would have said you don’t need
therapy you need to go out get a job and
get to work
he had this belief that we fix our
problems through projects when life gets
down you clean the garage or you build
something
effectively fixing the things that were
in control over and the rest will follow
and so I did I started my own creative
agency called fugitives because I think
of the world a little bit differently
than everyone else and I made a career
of transforming empathy into visual
expressions and so it seemed
right
profit organization reached out and
contacted us to help them with a mental
health project it was to tell the story
of agony and man named Francis now
Francis was and still is a school
teacher in a small town outside of North
Ghana productive and family-oriented man
but he was going through a really tough
time not too dissimilar from my own
and fighting with his wife his kids
people in the town falling into that
rabbit hole of depression
all-too-familiar
he began to self-medicate which made the
problems worse and his fighting became
violent
town healer who did ritualistic
ceremonies and sacrifices but they did
nothing to cure his pain
so the town in looking out for his
better interest and safety locked him in
a small grass hut with a log shackled to
his foot
log
to have these powers that would for an
undetermined amount of time cure him
had been bored out for his foot with two
nails driven on either side to keep him
from pulling it out
he couldn’t move outside of maybe
repositioning himself from one side of
his foot to the other
he was to live sleep eat
everything in one small confining area
conditions were impossible
and would drive anyone crazy
now ghanaians society speaks of mental
illness in a way that perpetuates the
stigma and for those that suffer from it
would rather stay in silence than be
labeled crazy
the stigma continues to the doctors who
might potentially work in the mental
health field leaving a deficit of one
their episteme iliyan people in the city
of ghana some of these mental clinics
are over a day’s journey away impossible
for most of them to get to and
cost-prohibitive with having to leave
work travel by bus stay in a hotel
overnight only to return back again for
continued treatment
according to the World Health
Organization there are more than 300
million people suffering in the world
from depression which is the leading
cause of disability and 260 million are
suffering from an anxiety disorder many
of which are suffering from both
in a recent World Health Organization
lead study estimates that depression and
anxiety disorders cost the global
economy one trillion US dollars in lost
in productivity now as a marketer and
storyteller I knew that we had to create
a visceral reaction to the environment
and conditions he lived so immediately
we began pulling out our toolbox of
options right and virtual reality was
the perfect vehicle up until now virtual
reality had only been used for video
games and cartoon animation rarely a
documentary but the ability to put
someone in his place in that tight close
environment was essential and there’s no
better tool in the world to create
empathy than VR
headset and headphones are isolating
which create a singular experience that
transform your world and give you the
ability to feel what he felt
much like if you walk in a tightrope
across the World Trade Center to
activate your fear of heights or
revisiting a war zone to treat PTSD or
locked in a small Hut as you watch your
family and life disappear to motivate
change
the result is to connect you to someone
else’s problem
and thereby a physical reaction to the
response now virtual reality is only one
part of the puzzle the rest is good
storytelling so if the goal is to create
empathy around Francis’s story I knew I
needed to come up with a visual motif to
help tell that story and knowing a
little bit about what Francis might have
been experiencing we began discussing
this as a journey into darkness
immediately we began discussing this as
a as a light and dark type situation and
then we would also further this
experience by showing you glimpses of
his life before and then take it away
his life stock his kids his wife they
showed in visions in this Hut and then
as time in the place stretched on they
would fade away
all of this is to give you the
opportunity to feel what he felt which
is depression and anxiety Francis spent
two years locked in this Hut and was
ultimately saved
Frances premiered on April 14th 2016 at
the World Bank in combination with the
World Health Organization to effectively
bring mental illness out of the shadows
and onto the world stage we showed our
film to over 500 finance ministers
multilateral and bilateral organization
business leaders technology innovators
and civic leaders the tool we use to
effectively change policy and infuse
funding into organizations like basic
needs and Partners in Health was empathy
the ability to put you in someone else’s
shoes and have you connect with what he
experienced change the world
but this is the most important part
over 10 to
17 this is where we see all of these
tools come together the result is is so
important
10th is mental health day
Mental Health Authority announced that
they would finally start reducing this
shackling ban that had been in place
since 2012 and they would finally be
enforced ending this horrible in he
inhumane treatment
I spent
trying to understand what empathy meant
from my high school letter of
recommendation to my father store
afternoon therapy sessions to
[Music]
man who listen to my problems for $20
and finally to a teacher in Ghana who
was shackled to a Hut I’ve come to this
when we fix others we ultimately fix
ourselves the solution is in helping
others
the value of tools and how to use them
to solve problems
if that now it’s not an old lawnmower
engine that gets me dreaming of the
possibility of light it’s the use of
color and light to escape the world we
know and take a journey into someone
else’s life
all of us
a set of tools we’ve been given
through the years they can evolve change
and grow
some might be swapped out for better
ones while others only become more
precise
attention the tools you have to offer
and never apologize for them you’ll
learn
drive that hammer and tighten that bolt
and soon some of you will discover you
have the ability to lead and organize
teams while some will have the ability
to heal and care for the sick and even
some will have the ability to fund and
and help those in need
tools you have to offer if we use the
tools you have to offer you can change
the world through empathy
so pay attention to your tools and fix
the things that have meaning for you
child growing up
discover that if I could fix things
I could be the man I always knew I was
and today I’m one step closer to that
dream thank you
you
this or not but in my day we had to
write letters or get letters of
recommendation to submit to colleges so
in my day we needed three so I asked one
of my teachers Nelson camp to write one
for me and in it he wrote Chris has the
natural ability to connect Chris shows
natural ability for empathy and has the
ability to connect and feel for others
and I had no idea what he meant and in
fact I don’t even think I had heard the
word empathy before but I felt very
honored and it sounded very adult-like
so I took it and I spent the next 30
years trying to figure out what it all
meant but I finally have a handle on it
empathy and by result compassion is the
emotional connection to someone else’s
problem and thereby a drive to find a
solution problem solution
growing up I was always the problem
child in my family one of six middle
child same astrological sign as my
father you get the picture
I was constantly in trouble and it
usually revolved around me doing the
things that my father asked me not to do
on many occasions he’d say just how
stubborn he thought I was hard-headed I
think was the term and then if I
continue down this path I’d have a very
hard life in front of me and well you
guessed it he was right
the misconception about being the
problem child is that you are far from
the problem
the issue is typically about wanting to
be someone other than the role you’ve
been given to play I was acting out
that’s for sure but I wanted to be
noticed for who I was without a clue on
how to get there
I was trying to be someone else and I
didn’t have the tools to know how to do
it
and so as time went on I got more and
more defeated
more and more reserved and more and more
angry
and it all became this sort of
self-fulfilling prophecy
that I was that problem child just now
lost and what I presumed to be depressed
father was a single parent divorced and
raising six kids while running his
hardware store in a small town outside
of New Orleans we were all made to work
there as kids after school and of course
every weekend
we would do our homework on a blackboard
that he had mounted on the staircase
leading up to the warehouse where we’d
use sacks of horse feed as a makeshift
desk
I was a terrible student with a string
of learning disabilities that only
really added to my already mangled
self-esteem
the thing about hardware stores is that
people come there to fix things right a
leak in a pipe or perhaps a link in a
chain a hammer and some nails
fix things because they have value in
meaning and because it gives them a
little sense of accomplishment that they
saved something that was broken
every day in this store there was a
string of characters that would come
through to pick up the odds and ends to
fix whatever it is they were working on
but to also sit and have a coke and
offload the problems of the day money
issues family issues politics
and of course whatever happened at
church on Sunday
it was in these afternoons that I I
discovered the power of empathy not that
I knew what it meant I didn’t but
because I saw it in the way that people
come together to fix one another
this is gonna be a rather boring story
if I continue down this path so there is
a point to all of it so yes I was the
problem child but I was also a dreamer
as a way to escape myself and be the
person who I as new I was
being that I had no other place to go
this hardware store became my playground
and it had so many hiding places that we
used to build forts and dream of being
anyplace else
my brother and I used to sit on the
warehouse dock and talk about building
an airplane it was a two-seater
single-engine because we had just fixed
a lawnmower engine we had out back and
this engine would take us anywhere we
wanted to go
but this hardware store had an unlimited
amount of possibilities right I mean we
could do anything and no tool was ever
off limits as kids we had to be able to
identify a vise grip over a crescent
wrench when to use a particular type of
saw and the difference between a three
penning and a Tenpenny nail but the
tools were everything
when I was late when I graduated high
school my father didn’t hand me bed
sheets and towels to start my college
career he handed me a toolbox because if
I had tools I could fix things from a
problem child to a fixer with I’m not
sure how but enough empathy and
compassion to get noticed so my teacher
said
moving away from a small town you begin
to question and look at things a little
bit differently
uh was I really the problem child I
always was told I was or was I just
trying to figure out who I was
so under the advice of a teacher and
many very dark afternoons I decided to
seek help our College offered three free
therapy sessions with resident
psychology majors and being that my only
experience were these afternoons of my
father’s hardware store with people
unloading their problems I was like this
is easy I should go and I spent the
first hour of this session telling the
therapist exactly how I had everything
sort of figured out
it’s amazing what we tell ourselves
right the self-doubt the apologies we
give or having any sort of feelings or
emotions
after an hour she said well I guess you
don’t need me but I did need her and I
didn’t have anything figured out and it
wasn’t until six years later that I went
back and I found a therapist who was
compassionate and empathetic and he
listened to my problems and gave me
advice or $20 a session as that’s all I
could afford and I saw him every week
for 20 years
and with that
me the tools I needed to become the man
I knew I was but more importantly he
connected those tools to my
understanding of empathy
I was fortunate
reached out I was able to get help
and that ability changed my life
it’s not the same for everyone but there
are people out in the world who haven’t
been so fortunate there’s a stigma that
suggests that only crazy people go to
therapy but the truth is is that getting
healthy is very lonely and and the old
saying goes that if that misery loves
company which it does
although would have said you don’t need
therapy you need to go out get a job and
get to work
he had this belief that we fix our
problems through projects when life gets
down you clean the garage or you build
something
effectively fixing the things that were
in control over and the rest will follow
and so I did I started my own creative
agency called fugitives because I think
of the world a little bit differently
than everyone else and I made a career
of transforming empathy into visual
expressions and so it seemed
right
profit organization reached out and
contacted us to help them with a mental
health project it was to tell the story
of agony and man named Francis now
Francis was and still is a school
teacher in a small town outside of North
Ghana productive and family-oriented man
but he was going through a really tough
time not too dissimilar from my own
and fighting with his wife his kids
people in the town falling into that
rabbit hole of depression
all-too-familiar
he began to self-medicate which made the
problems worse and his fighting became
violent
town healer who did ritualistic
ceremonies and sacrifices but they did
nothing to cure his pain
so the town in looking out for his
better interest and safety locked him in
a small grass hut with a log shackled to
his foot
log
to have these powers that would for an
undetermined amount of time cure him
had been bored out for his foot with two
nails driven on either side to keep him
from pulling it out
he couldn’t move outside of maybe
repositioning himself from one side of
his foot to the other
he was to live sleep eat
everything in one small confining area
conditions were impossible
and would drive anyone crazy
now ghanaians society speaks of mental
illness in a way that perpetuates the
stigma and for those that suffer from it
would rather stay in silence than be
labeled crazy
the stigma continues to the doctors who
might potentially work in the mental
health field leaving a deficit of one
their episteme iliyan people in the city
of ghana some of these mental clinics
are over a day’s journey away impossible
for most of them to get to and
cost-prohibitive with having to leave
work travel by bus stay in a hotel
overnight only to return back again for
continued treatment
according to the World Health
Organization there are more than 300
million people suffering in the world
from depression which is the leading
cause of disability and 260 million are
suffering from an anxiety disorder many
of which are suffering from both
in a recent World Health Organization
lead study estimates that depression and
anxiety disorders cost the global
economy one trillion US dollars in lost
in productivity now as a marketer and
storyteller I knew that we had to create
a visceral reaction to the environment
and conditions he lived so immediately
we began pulling out our toolbox of
options right and virtual reality was
the perfect vehicle up until now virtual
reality had only been used for video
games and cartoon animation rarely a
documentary but the ability to put
someone in his place in that tight close
environment was essential and there’s no
better tool in the world to create
empathy than VR
headset and headphones are isolating
which create a singular experience that
transform your world and give you the
ability to feel what he felt
much like if you walk in a tightrope
across the World Trade Center to
activate your fear of heights or
revisiting a war zone to treat PTSD or
locked in a small Hut as you watch your
family and life disappear to motivate
change
the result is to connect you to someone
else’s problem
and thereby a physical reaction to the
response now virtual reality is only one
part of the puzzle the rest is good
storytelling so if the goal is to create
empathy around Francis’s story I knew I
needed to come up with a visual motif to
help tell that story and knowing a
little bit about what Francis might have
been experiencing we began discussing
this as a journey into darkness
immediately we began discussing this as
a as a light and dark type situation and
then we would also further this
experience by showing you glimpses of
his life before and then take it away
his life stock his kids his wife they
showed in visions in this Hut and then
as time in the place stretched on they
would fade away
all of this is to give you the
opportunity to feel what he felt which
is depression and anxiety Francis spent
two years locked in this Hut and was
ultimately saved
Frances premiered on April 14th 2016 at
the World Bank in combination with the
World Health Organization to effectively
bring mental illness out of the shadows
and onto the world stage we showed our
film to over 500 finance ministers
multilateral and bilateral organization
business leaders technology innovators
and civic leaders the tool we use to
effectively change policy and infuse
funding into organizations like basic
needs and Partners in Health was empathy
the ability to put you in someone else’s
shoes and have you connect with what he
experienced change the world
but this is the most important part
over 10 to
17 this is where we see all of these
tools come together the result is is so
important
10th is mental health day
Mental Health Authority announced that
they would finally start reducing this
shackling ban that had been in place
since 2012 and they would finally be
enforced ending this horrible in he
inhumane treatment
I spent
trying to understand what empathy meant
from my high school letter of
recommendation to my father store
afternoon therapy sessions to
[Music]
man who listen to my problems for $20
and finally to a teacher in Ghana who
was shackled to a Hut I’ve come to this
when we fix others we ultimately fix
ourselves the solution is in helping
others
the value of tools and how to use them
to solve problems
if that now it’s not an old lawnmower
engine that gets me dreaming of the
possibility of light it’s the use of
color and light to escape the world we
know and take a journey into someone
else’s life
all of us
a set of tools we’ve been given
through the years they can evolve change
and grow
some might be swapped out for better
ones while others only become more
precise
attention the tools you have to offer
and never apologize for them you’ll
learn
drive that hammer and tighten that bolt
and soon some of you will discover you
have the ability to lead and organize
teams while some will have the ability
to heal and care for the sick and even
some will have the ability to fund and
and help those in need
tools you have to offer if we use the
tools you have to offer you can change
the world through empathy
so pay attention to your tools and fix
the things that have meaning for you
child growing up
discover that if I could fix things
I could be the man I always knew I was
and today I’m one step closer to that
dream thank you
you
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