How to build resilience as your superpower
[Music]
[Applause]
imagine
a nine-year-old little girl left home
all alone
no cable no cell phone
scared to death every time there’s a
noise outside
she’s wondering if a stranger is looking
to break into her home
with every walk past the window her
heart
would stop and she would be scared
to go to sleep because she didn’t know
when her parents
would return home
well this little girl was me
this was how i started building my
resilience
i built it by facing my fears
even though i was in a dark scared place
as a child
i built my confidence by not letting my
circumstances
keep me there this became
my superpower today i want to share with
you
my story so i can help you discover
how you can build resilience into your
life
building confidence and beliefs in you
in order to build this superpower within
you
but what does it mean to be truly
resilient
i believe that resilience is the
capacity
to recover from adversity to bounce back
from challenging life situations or when
things
don’t go as planned when things are
stressful
and challenging and overwhelming it
means being calm
clear and stable the question is
how do you choose to face these
challenges
let me tell you about how i started my
journey
on building my resilience
my mom is resilient she was a refugee
from vietnam
she risked her life with her younger
sister to escape
her country on a boat they were stranded
for four days
they were raided by pirates not once
but twice sadly her sister died on the
boat
but my mom she survived after 15
treacherous days she arrived at an
indonesian refugee camp
she was one of the lucky ones sent to
canada
my mom had me at the age of 40. she was
a single mom
on welfare i grew up in chinatown
and as a child i remember lining up at
the food bank
and having christmas dinner at the union
gospel mission
and getting clothes and toys donated
from the salvation army
looking back i don’t regret growing up
the way i did
it taught me many valuable lessons in my
life
like being grateful every single day
for everything that i have when you come
from rock bottom
you truly appreciate everything life has
to offer
you never ever take anything for granted
because you know the value of the
simplest things in life
i’ve never met my biological father
my stepdad my real dad came into my life
when i was eight
what i remember most was that he worked
six days a week
12 hours a day to provide a better life
for me and my mom
with his minimum wage job he made sure
there was food on the table
a roof over our heads and provided the
basics
of life for us his
resilience created a deep-rooted
resilience
inside me thank you dad
for instilling a hard work ethic in me
and for showing me unconditional love
i started working in grade four at the
tender age of ten
every saturday i would wake up at five
a.m
when it was pitch dark outside with my
mom
and we would take transit for two hours
to make sandwiches
on a conveyor belt
the first day i got paid my boss handed
me
50 it wasn’t much money
but to me as a 10 year old little girl
it was the most money i’ve ever seen my
entire life
that day something shifted for me
seeing those dollar bills in the palms
of my hand
created a desire in me and i made a
promise to myself
and i vowed from that day forward
i was going to step into my independence
some may say why would my mom let me
work at such a young age
to them i say thank you mom
thank you for teaching me independence
the value of money and responsibility
i put myself through university working
minimum wage jobs
i was an average student but despite
that
i worked for two fortune 500 companies
one day i had lunch with the ceo and i
shared with him
that i didn’t think the corporate world
was for me
i knew i was an entrepreneur at heart
he suggested i get into real estate my
first thought that came into my head was
who’s going to trust this 24 year old
with their property
i didn’t have the confidence in me just
yet
my confidence grew when i entered a
contest
selling ad space to a newsletter the
winning team would win a trip anywhere
around the world my friend and i entered
and we set up appointments to pitch to
realtors
but the night before we began my friend
bailed on me my heart
dropped and all these doubts and
insecurities came rushing through my
head
long story short i ended up winning the
contest on my own
this gave me the confidence to know that
i could sell
after proving to myself that i could do
it i
am enough shortly after i got my real
estate license in 2010.
by 2015 i’m proud to say
i became a top 1 realtor
i placed 32nd out of 14 000 agents
my friend who bailed on me provided me
with a great learning opportunity
to face my fears and conquer my doubts
and insecurities
i am thankful for her because of her i
created a strong and unbreakable
belief within myself to know that
anything
and everything is possible
resilience what an amazing superpower
it can be taught and is a skill that can
be learned
and cultivated over time it’s like a
muscle
that can be strengthened through
exercise
resilience is a habit-forming skill
the more goals you accomplish the more
resilient you become
resilience is also much more than a
skill
it’s an adaptation a journey
that begins early on in childhood and
continues the rest of your life
so how do you build this magic
superpower
let me share with you three ways
first change your perspective
are you a victim of your circumstance
or do you use your circumstance to fuel
your motivation
for success when you adjust your
perspective
you can see things from another angle
you can see
opportunities when there were obstacles
this is a way to reframe the picture
ask yourself when faced with these
issues
what are your options what
can you learn from this and what may be
your opportunities
these questions turn you away from the
blame game and allow
you to focus on the positive
the second way to build resilience is
choose
your response in times of difficulties
we can panic and react negatively
or we can remain calm logical to find a
solution
how we react can change our outcome
when i was faced with a decision to move
forward with those meetings
or give up on the contests this led me
to a path of opportunity that i embraced
and becoming the realtor i am today
your reaction and action is always
up to you the third way
to building resilience is finding a
sense of purpose
growing up poor and seeing my parents go
through hardship
gave me the strength of purpose to
achieve
success it allowed me to give back to my
parents
to whom i’m grateful for for bringing me
up in this world
we cannot protect ourselves from all the
hardships of life
what we can do is protect our own
self-protection
the capacity to endure hardships
and bounce back more quickly and most
importantly to know and to have
confidence and belief
that it is always possible to overcome
adversity no matter where you stand as a
society
adversity will come i learned to be
resilient
by looking at how my parents fought
through their challenges
and came out stronger i grew up not
having the things i wanted
that motivated me to pursue my dreams
if you are resilient and you be sure
you’re going to arrive at your
destination don’t
give up now one moment
one decision one choice
can change your life forever
it can bring you closer to your goals
and your dreams
the distance where you are right now and
where you want to be
is action before taking action
you have to make a choice so stop
procrastinating on that dream
just make the right decision today
this little girl from chinatown built on
herself
the superpower of resilience i challenge
you
to build this within yourself don’t
waste another second
cause you can have everything that
you’ve ever dreamed of
now thank you