How do you live your life with purpose?

For me, living with purpose has everything to do with other people. That’s the motivation behind my most recent TEDx talk that I’d like to share with you today. Of course, though, no good HESONWHEELS blog post comes without the story behind it. So, here we go. It’s a long one – I hope you read it.

Rewind a few years to April 2013. I was a tour guide in college. One of the guests that I had on a tour was a girl named Hadley C. Thankfully, Hadley enjoyed the tour I gave her of Virginia Tech – so much so that her mom wrote me to let me know following the tour. That was definitely one of the best parts of being a college tour guide – receiving notes of gratitude from guests.

Little did either of us know this would be the beginning of something way more special than to be casually expected. Hadley, her mom, and I kept in touch somewhat over the course of the year, and she ended up choosing Virginia Tech. I was so very happy that she did – she really left an impression on me, regardless of the many, many tours I had given over the years.

Towards the end of her freshman year, Hadley’s mom actually sent me the link to a different blog post she had written, and I was practically immediately smitten. I decided to put on my creeper mask and just send her a cold-Facebook-message … no real introduction besides “Hey, I think your blog is awesome!” I remember being so grateful and happy that there are Hokies like her who just keep the Hokie spirit alive and especially the Ut Prosim spirit alive and well in Blacksburg, and I wanted to let her know – I think it’s very important to share praise with people. Even if it would come off kind of…weird haha.[pullquote] I legitimately consider Hadley one of the best, most service-minded, honest, and interesting Hokies and “1 new person everyday” people that I have ever had the opportunity to truly, legitimately befriend.[/pullquote]

We ended up getting coffee and becoming friends a few months later. Fast forward a few years to the fall of 2015, back at Hadley’s home in Richmond, a friend of hers from high school was organizing a TEDx event through her  alma mater. Having become familiar with HESONWHEELS and my first TEDx talk, Hadley (unbeknownst to me!) casually mentioned that I may be a good candidate to speak at their event.

How grateful am I for that recommendation!

Hadley’s friend, Caroline S. reached out to me and invited me to be a speaker at their event, TEDxYouth@RVA. For those outside the Commonwealth, RVA stands for Richmond, Virginia. I had been very involved the year prior, when I lived in Fredericksburg, at my former middle school’s innaguaral TEDx event, TEDxDrewMiddleSchool, so I was very familiar with with the TEDxYouthDay movement. Little did I know that what they were doing with this particular event, though, was even more amazing and inspiring. 

Through their schools, the students who put on TEDxYouth@RVA had an amazing opportunity to use their entire class time to collaborate with students from other schools to put on this event. They took everything very seriously and it culminated in one of the best TEDx events I’ve ever seen live. I also want to give a special shout-out to Caroline S., for being my speaker point-of-contact for the event and doing such a great job of managing me! I was a little all over the place as we prepared for the event, and Caroline was so very patient and made my life so incredibly easy. There’s nothing more that a speaker can ask for!

You can check out the Twitter feed for TEDxYouth@RVA here.

Now that you have that part of the story, you might be asking yourself – why the long buildup to sharing the talk? Well, because, the way I look at it – had I never befriended Hadley, I likely wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work with these folks in Richmond. Let me break it down for you.

Back in April 2013 we began the campus tour, the guests were somewhat arbitrarily divided up. Hadley had taken other tours of VT, but this was finally the time that she would be on my tour. The tour, I guess, was a good one that day and therefore her Mom decided to reach out afterward. [pullquote]That coincidence, that beautiful web of connection, that opportunity that arose from her mom simply e-mailing me and me simply messaging her – that is from where I derive my purpose in life.[/pullquote]Had her mom not reached out, Hadley potentially would have still chosen VT, but I would never have felt compelled to reach out to her directly. Had I not reached out to her, and we decided to get together for coffee, maybe I wouldn’t have been in her thoughts when she suggested me as a speaker to Caroline. Not to mention – had I never had the opportunity to give that TEDx talk back in 2012 at VT, none of this would have ever happened! Do you see how many things had to fall into place for this to end up happening?

Now that you have the background to the story of how I was lucky enough to become a part of this TEDxYouth@RVA event, I’d love to share the talk with you here.

Now that you’ve given me another 9 minutes of your life – first, I want to say thank you for watching. Second, I want to share with you a few take-aways that are very important to me, and the main messages from the talk.

First, the main message is obviously all about connecting with other people. I tried to do that through my talk, and I do feel like I was successful. I was lucky enough to kick-off the event, and therefore hopefully inspired the audience to connect with others throughout the breaks in the event. 

“As I got older and I began to own my disability, I realized that engaging with other people was the most important thing I could possibly do.” | This. is. life.

“When I meet people, I try to take nuggets from what they share with me about their lives and compact them into a narrative.” | This is literally how I do my best to remember the names, stories, and interesting facts about the many people that I meet. Now you know the secret. :)

I look at the world as a human library. What if you treated your daily interactions as if you were in a library, looking for a new, interesting book to engage with? Don’t you think it would be so much more interesting? I know that my own life is much more rewarding for approaching my everyday in this way.

“That’s the purpose of the ‘human library.’ Is being as engaged and as committed to seeing other people for who they are. A prosperous future for all of us will depend on authentic, legitimate human connection.”

Finally you can also view a playlist of the other speakers from the day here!