Watch as Jamie tells the story of TWLOHA’s surprising beginning, and how, when it comes to the story of our lives as individuals, that story requires a few other characters. Our stories don’t work when we try to go alone, and our stories don’t work when we try to please everyone. A basketball fan, Jamie also reflects on Kevin Durant’s heartfelt MVP speech. In a moment where Durant was being recognized as an extraordinary individual, he chose to focus on the team around him, the few who play significant parts in his life both on and off the basketball court.
Watch the video and let us know what #ThePowerOfFew means to you.
“The Power of Few.” Discussion Guide
Although the theme of TEDxUCSD was “The Power of One, the Power of Many,” our founder Jamie Tworkowski chose to talk about the importance of living a life where we let a few key characters into our stories.
Below are some discussion questions we’ve put together in hopes of sparking conversations in response to Jamie’s talk. We hope you’ll watch the video and then work through these—on your own, with your roommates, during a UChapter meeting, at your work retreat, in your living room. More than anything, we hope you are inspired to begin living your story with a few characters by your side.
1. “And you need to let somebody know you. You need to have a conversation over coffee or over a meal…You need to be honest with someone. You need to let somebody see your questions and your pain and your struggles.”
Who are you truly honest with? What keeps you from being honest about the difficult things in your life?
What steps can you take to begin to be honest?
2. When Kevin Durant gave his MVP acceptance speech, he took the stage along with his entire team. It was as if he was saying, “This is my story. This is my real story. Not the impressive one, not the public one. This isn’t just about me. These are the people – these are the characters in my story.”
Who are the characters in your story? Who would you thank in your MVP speech?
3. “Every good story has a few characters that are trying to figure something out, that are trying to journey through something, work through something, overcome something.”
What does your story look like right now? What are you trying to journey through or overcome?
4. “It’s our belief that you deserve that; you deserve some other people who step in and remind you that your story is not only worth living but worth fighting for.”
Why is your story worth living? Who helps you fight for your story?
5. “We believe there’s such a need for people who remind us that we deserve to be loved, we deserve to be healthy, we deserve whatever help we need. I hope you have that.”
What do you deserve? What can you do to get that?
What do the people in your life deserve? How will you help to remind them?
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We invite you to share your thoughts via #ThePowerOfFew on Twitter & Instagram.
Belynda
I was a teenage mum. At 19, I found out that I was 24 weeks pregnant with a baby boy. I had split up with his father and had moved on, but I had to tell him right away, so I did. When I told him that I was pregnant, he asked me to abort the baby (I was too far along, so that was out of the question even if I was willing to consider it), when I said no, he asked me to put him up for adoption. Again I said no and he moved on to saying that he didn’t want to be a part of the baby’s life. It was at this point I realised that I was very much alone in this pregnancy. The following 3 months were hectic and I was happy to welcome my son into the world. He was my pride and joy. That was, until we hit the 3 month mark. I could feel myself slipping – I wasn’t enjoying motherhood, I would cry myself to sleep every night, I was hearing voices/noises and I just wished I could have some time to myself. I went to my GP who diagnosed me with severe post natal depression with psychotic symptoms and they referred me to a mother and baby unit (Perinatal and Infant Inpatient Unit). I waited a few weeks until I finally got that call and they told me they had a bed for my son and I. Before I went in, I’d had people telling me that I needed to snap out of whatever I was going through and I even had someone say that I deserved to have my son taken away from me. When I went in, I was taken aback by how many people actually wanted to help me. There were nurses there 24/7 and it was in a hospital, so if there were doctors needed, they were there. I was finally getting the help I needed and in 5 weeks, I was discharged and we were able to go home.
What my story has taught me is that, there will be people who will drag you down and you’ll feel like you’re no bigger than a grain of sand, but there are those who genuinely want to help you get better and they are the only ones you need.
One year on and I am one happy mummy with a very healthy baby – sorry, toddler – boy.
Maddelyn
1. I am not truly honest with anyone. I can’t. It’s a habit to lie to everyone, just to make them happy and to not see disappointment. I know my family and friends support and love me. I just need to to start trusting them more.
2. My best friend. She makes me go out of my comfort zone. She supports me. She always makes everything seem positive. My brother. It’s like looking in the mirror. He’s making the same kid takes I made when I was younger. It’s like watching my past. My friend. He brings reality into my life. He lives a life full of pain. And yet he is still very successful. He reminds me that life isn’t all a fairytale.
3. My story right now is a whole lot of confusion. I’m overcoming my anxiety and my depression. I’m starting to except myself for the way I am. I’m more confident and more honest. I’m trying to overcome my fear of failure. It will happen and I must let it. But I can still get back up and keep fighting.
4. My story is worth living because I’m living proof that you can overcome depression and anxiety. I’m proof that just because you have money doesn’t mean you have to be happy all the time. Someone once told me “you can’t be depressed you’re rich, you’re not aloud to be unhappy.” My best friend and my family is worth living for. Even though my family was completely clueless to my depression they still helped a lot once they found out. My best friend has always supported what I do. She keeps me smiling and staying positive.
5. I deserve freedom. I can do this by letting go of all my insecurities and just focusing on my strengths. I can start excepting my flaws and becoming more confident. My friend deserves happiness and no stress. She is always helping everyone. Never insulting or bullying anyone. Yet she still has a stressful life. I can help by being kind to her and helping her out when she needs it.
Eliza
1. The people I’m truly honest with are my three best friends. We all became classmates around 5 months ago and since then, we’ve been eating and talking together everyday. Sometimes I find it difficult to be honest because I’m afraid of judgement. I always try my best to be nice and all that. I think the first step to being honest is having trust. Surround yourself with people who you are comfortable with; people who you can be yourself with.
2. I would thank my three best friends, especially the one who is struggling with depression. She has helped me through all the stress of senior year and I’m so thankful to have her in my life. Even if she has problems, she always tries to make people happy by simply giving them her best smile.
3. Right now I’m struggling through stress. Lately, I haven’t been getting enough sleep because of all the workload the school has given us. I haven’t been eating regularly. I’ve been feeling so stressed and sometimes I can’t even process things correctly. Also, my relationship with my parents hasn’t been at its best lately. My mom and I always fight over the smallest things. I love her a lot but sometimes it just gets too stressful. Lastly, I’ve been dealing with my friendship with my ex-best friend. We used to be inseparable but now we’re just, I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. I’m upset. But recently I’ve been thinking that maybe she doesn’t deserve to be my friend; maybe I deserve so much more.
4. My story is worth living because I believe that my purpose in life is to make people happy. Our class had our retreat a month ago and all my classmates thanked me for making them smile during class. Making people happy makes me happy as well because I really think that being happy is important. Even if I’m having problems myself, I always try to not let those get in the way of making people smile. My three best friends are the ones who are making my story worth fighting for. They are the ones who make me smile when I’m down.
5. I know that I deserve to be happy and that I deserve all the best. All my life I’ve been trying to make people happy by making jokes every once in a while. I will do my best to keep myself happy by doing what I love doing the most: listening to music and watching movies. Music and movies help me cope with all the problems. They are like inhalers to me. The people in my life also deserve to be the happiest. I will always tell them how beautiful and wonderful they are. I will always make them smile.
Ashleigh
1. I don’t think I am completely honest with anyone sometimes not even myself. I try and be as honest as I can with my best friends but it isn’t always easy. I don’t know exactly what it is that keeps me from being completely honest. I don’t fear being judged or laughed at or put down. I know that I will be supported by them and my other friends. It is just hard i guess to express how you really feel at times. I think to become honest you need to practice it. It gets easier every time you are honest to someone and they respond in a supportive way.
2. The characters in my story are my family and friends. I would thank every single one. Even the ones who haven’t been kind to me at times because they have shaped who i am and i am grateful for that.
3. Im trying to journey though university and completing my degree. Im trying to journey through growing up and figuring out who I am, what my beliefs are, what my morals are, figuring out what love is. Im trying to journey though my friends journeys as well. My journey at the moment is looking pretty good and I’m excited for what it brings.
4. Sometimes i don’t know why my journey is worth living. But i have hope that i will figure it out. I know i mean something to other people like my friends and family, although a lot of the time I’m not really sure why.
5. I deserve to be happy and to enjoy life. I deserve to be treated well and to have good loyal friends. I deserve to laugh everyday and feel content. I think i just take each day one at a time and try my best to be happy and laugh. The people in my life deserve all that too. They deserve to feel like they have made the most of every single day and that their story is worth living. I will remind them by telling them whenever i can, and having a positive influence on them being happy and laughing ever day.
Donaven Smith
1. I try to be honest about where I am in life with the people who care about me. Other than that, my goal is to always be honest with God, because He loves to have communication with me and even though He already knows how I’m feeling, He longs to hear me talk His ear off.
When it comes to my battle with bipolar/depression, it can be hard to be honest with people in fear of rejection or in fear of the stigma which surrounds such things to cause people to look down on me. But I’ve learned that by having honest conversations, I can be a voice above the stigma surrounding depression.
I’m already taking the necessary steps to continue to stay honest. When I’m not okay, I let people know. I’m honest with my family, therapist, and with myself.
2. God – I would, however, thank Him for placing some of the most supportive friends I could ever ask for in my life, but He would get all of the glory. He’s loved me unconditionally. No matter how often I fail Him, He hold me in His grace and reminds me that I belong to Him – nothing could EVER take me out of His hands… not depression, self-harm, bipolar, or suicide.
3. I had left the Christian faith for about a month a little while ago. Upon “leaving,” a lot of my Christian friends from the campus ministry I was a part of stopped reaching out to me and it hurt. I felt abandoned and it just added to the bitterness I was already feeling towards the Church.
But, now, as I work on restoring my relationship with Christ, I’m looking for a new campus ministry to get plugged into, but it’s difficult and it’s scary to let MORE people into my life. It took me a good year to open up to the people who just abandoned me. For me to open up again seems foolish, but I know that I’m not meant to do life alone and I know that people WILL fail me. But God won’t. And as long as I continue to walk in absolute faith, I know everything will be okay.
4. My story is one of hope and perfect grace. I’ve battled bipolar/depression, self-harm, binge eating, addiction, and suicide. I’m pretty public about my story and people notice that I’m thriving. People know that I’ve been through some extremely heavy things, yet, they see me living in joy. My story is worth living, because it shows other people that recovery is possible. My story intercedes for hope.
Besides Jesus Christ, my family and friends have fought alongside me through all of my battles and they rejoice with me as I continue to find victory.
5. I deserve a community of people who pour life into me and whom I do the same for. I’m at a a place in my life where I’m going to have become comfortable with being a little uncomfortable – vulnerability is never easy. But if I don’t open up to people and if I don’t put myself out there to connect with new people, I’m going to end up going through my story alone and that is something that I refuse to do.
The people in my life deserve unconditional love. I am constantly encouraging the people God’s placed in my life – reminding them that they are precious and valued and that I appreciate all they do for me. I’ve learned that it’s the little things that matter the most: lunch dates, “I miss you” texts at 2AM, encouraging letters etc.
Anonymous
I am not truly honest with anyone, I’m always scared of being judged or rejected. To be honest, I need to learn to stop worrying about what other people think. The characters in my story are the friends who have stuck with me through thick and thin. Four people who I would for sure thank in my MVP speech are my boyfriend, my roommate, and my two best friends from high school, along with probably a few of my other friends who I met in university. My story is very complex right now. I’m trying to determine my future, where want to go to grad school, what I want to do after that… lots going on, plus of course, work, family and friends. Regardless of all the stresses of life, I love my life, and I get through it with the help of my friends. Everyone, including myself, deserves a support group, and most people do have it, even if they don’t realize it. If not, there are lots of places out there to support those in need. I will always be there for anyone who wants or needs it, regardless of how well I know them!
Hannah Finnegan
1. I am truly honest with my mom, I wish I was truly honest with my friends but it’s hard to be that vulnerable in front of them, it’s hard to know if they want to hear about all of my problems and insecurities, there is so much uncertainty with friends because they don’t have to be my friends, my family will always be my family so it’s easier to open up to them. I think I just need to trust in the friends I have more and start small and build the relationship up to a point where I do feel like I can share with them and hopefully they will share with me also.
2. My mom, my sisters, and 3 of my best friends. Honestly, I would also thank the people who bullied me in school, the people who made growing up harder than it should have been, because that is my story. The good parts and the bad parts but it shows that I am a work in progress and that I can always grow and be stronger than my doubts, fears, and insecurities. It hasn’t been easy but I know myself more now than I would have before and I know that I can overcome struggles in my life and that strength is something I carry with me everyday. I would thank the positive and negative influences in my life in my MVP speech, the negative for giving me the obstacles that I needed to grow and the positive for helping me when I didn’t think I could get through it alone.
3. I am journeying through a stage where I am trying to figure out which general direction I’d like my life to go. I’m in college and need to figure out what to do and how to enjoy my life each and every day in the direction that I choose. I want something rewarding that I love to do but it’s hard to find especially in the middle of school and life and homework and part-time jobs. I just need to take time to myself and figure out what I really want to do in life and then go for it.
4. My story is worth living because of the movie night I had with my friends on Tuesday, or the family vacation last summer, or lunch with a friend yesterday, or going to work and enjoying my time there, or reading a book on a Saturday afternoon. The moments where I am happy make my story worth living. Everyone in the moments I just named and others who are close to me and myself fight for my story, even if some of my friends don’t know it, or don’t know how much it means to me that they want to do things with me, and my family are huge supporters of mine.
5. I deserve to be happy and to be loved, I think everything will fall into place after that, I just need to keep appreciating the little things and not focus on what I don’t have. The people in my life deserve the same thing and I will invite them to do things with me and be a shoulder to cry on and a listening ear when they are struggling and remind them that just as they are is good enough for me and that I will always support them.