As I appear before you, start to notice what impressions begin to form. What does my attire say about me? The sound of my voice, my stature, my skin color? My name is Nadine McNeil. I'm from Jamaica, where I lived until I was sixteen years old. In 1982 I headed off to Ontario, Canada - first time leaving Jamaica - where I would join a private all-girls Catholic school, Holy Name of Mary High School. There were 325 students. Three were black. Tracey, who was born in Canada, who ran track and field, myself, and my Caribbean sister Jackie from Grenada. And we got teased because we had this singsongy voice. Anyway, our fellow students would often ask us, "Did you live in a hut in Jamaica?" or "Did you wear grass skirts?" A couple of years later, I'm living in New York City. Anyone here from New York? Yeah.So it's rush hour. I'm on the D train, and the train is packed, and we're all like this, and we're right up against each other. And I said something to the woman standing next to me, and she goes, "Bitch get off me. Go back to your country where you came on your banana boat." And I went, "Oh shit." Now what was interesting was that woman and I shared a skin color. So, then I began to understand what the term racialism means. Racialism is essentially a softer version of racism, but there are more nuances that are mixed up in it. And so began my story of internalizing, silencing stereotypes, labels, identity. This would continue throughout my life. And even when I worked at the United Nations, an organization whose premise is founded on equality and inclusion, I would meet these statements and these stereotypes and these limiting beliefs.And then, when I would try to share with my colleagues my experience, I'd get about three responses. One would be, "Are you sure you heard correctly?" The other one would be, "Nah, that's not what they meant." The third one would be, "They must have been joking." So I was gaslit up the yin yang.You know, coming from Jamaica - I'm an only child - I was raised by two married parents. And up until that point, moving to Canada and then New York, I identified with my high school where I lived. The values my parents instilled in me were study hard, work hard, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And for God's sakes, don't get pregnant out of wedlock.So, here we are, 2020 living while black, and we're still having these conversations. There's a tendency to be uncomfortable about having the conversations, but how do we defy, dismantle the stereotypes without the conversations? Yes, I am a Black woman. Sometimes I'm angry. Other times I'm sad. My heart breaks that we're still having this conversation one hundred years after the abolition of slavery . . . or more.So my call to action standing here before you is that we start to pause. Think about the labels that we identify ourselves with, the assumptions we make based on what people look like. Nadine McNeil educated in Canada, the United States, and Europe. My CV arrives across your desk. And then I come through the door. "Oh shit. How do I put these two things together?" This is what happens when we fall into the danger of a single story. A Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie, talks about this. And she says the danger of the single story is not so much that it's inaccurate. It's the fact that it's incomplete. So we see someone, we make some decisions and assumptions about that person. We treat that person on that basis, and we've lost a whole opportunity to learn so much more.My repeated experience, no matter where I've lived in the world, is that ultimately we all want to be seen, heard, and loved. Thank you very much.
"Mommy? Can you tell me a story?" My head just hit the pillow when my six-year-old daughter asked me the same question every single night. I was so sleepy. All that I could think of was bed. So I told her, "Okay, I'm gonna tell you five stories of my life that happens on five beds."The first story, the first bed, is my childhood bed. It's the bed where my mom and I would cuddle every night, and she would tell me bedtime stories. But my mom was always so exhausted after a long working day that she would always tell me incoherent stories. And I was always correcting her. "Hey, Mommy, it's not right. The person you talk about now already died. How come she came back to life?" Little did I know at the time that people we thought were gone can and do come back.The second bed was a death bed. Nineteen-year-old me was lying on an operation bed, legs wide open. "It's done. You can get up and go now," the doctor said. One month before this, I was a sophomore at the top university in China. And I had just been elected as the president for the biggest association in college. I also started my first love affair ever with an English lawyer. For the first time in my life, I invited a man between my legs and had wild ecstatic sex in the heat of which I unconsciously created a baby. This man, who asked me to marry him few weeks ago, never saw me again since he knew I was pregnant. I stumbled out of the operation room into the arms of my mom, who was trying to hold her tears back. I knew something between my legs has changed forever. I went from top student to scandal. A shame for my family and my community.However, as my good girl mask got torn up with my yoni that got torn in the abortion, the old me died with my baby, and the new me was coming into being. So I ran away from classrooms into the wild, into my wildness to find myself and to heal. I started doing yoga and qigong daily. I went to nature adventure clubs. I became a vegan. I left my promising career opportunities in China and went to Europe in search of a new landscape, a new lifestyle, a new identity. People said, "Sometimes you have to leave in order to come back."After five years of world travel, I came back to China, the land where I was born, and I found myself on the third bed. Twenty-four-year-old me lying on the small bed at home, legs wide open again. Only this time to give birth to my baby girl. It's seven long hours after my water broke. I've done everything the midwife told me to do. I held onto the thigh of my husband and the bed. I groaned. I pushed. I was exhausted. My baby was not coming. My husband and my friends, who had been cheering me on for the last seven hours, had now become quiet. "It's too long. She needs to be taken to the hospital," the midwife said. All my life, I've shut myself down, swallowed, digested, and accepted everything. But at this moment, I knew if I don't speak up, there's no way I can birth this baby. I would die in the hospital.So I finally had the courage to say, "I don't think the midwife's way works for me." A woman came to my ears, and she said, "If so, just do it your way." I felt blood rush back to my veins again while I felt still weak. So I asked with the last ounce of energy I still had, "Could you please gimme some encouragement?" And now they all went, "You are doing great. You're amazing. I can see the baby's hand already!" I took a long deep breath and one last roar. It felt like the biggest poop of my life just got squeezed out of my yoni. And there was my baby—only she's shining like gold, and she smells great.I'm so happy that I gave a much better birth to my baby than my mom to me. My mom had such a traumatic birth experience with me that she thought I would go through exactly the same. Looks like I defied her prophecy.Soon I realized I was married to a man who was exactly like my dad—abusive, violent, dependent on me for money, gave me sexual trauma. And that made me feel worse than a prostitute in my own marriage. I was determined not to repeat the history of my mom. So I left my husband, my job, my house, everything I had in China again and went to Europe to heal myself. In the worst days in Europe, I was picking up horse shit for $10 per hour—one arm with my baby sucking my breast. And I remember five years ago, I was the top student in Cambridge, hanging out with Oxford and Harvard friends who got $1 million job offers right after graduation. And now here I was—jobless, penniless, homeless, a single mom. I was the most unattractive woman I knew.Until I met Barack. I was pouring my heart out desperately on the piano in the museum when Barack, a single dad from Turkey, walked in with his son and saw me. Two months later, we were in bed in his flat, having the most epic savage cathartic sex of our lives. I was having mind-blowing heart and ass opening, bed rattling, neighbors complaining, and soul stretching liquid explosions of orgasms of my life.In that worst period of my life, outside of that bed of orgasm, I felt totally worthless—ugly, the smelliest piece of shit. But Barack? He fucked the shit out of me. He penetrated me to the core and unleashed that lioness that'd been sleeping there all along. And he told me, "You gave me the best sex in my life." And later, only later, I knew from friends that actually every man says that to every woman, but I chose to believe him. And I thought, maybe I'm really good at this. So I got out of bed, went to my desk, and wrote down every single detail of the orgasms and pains of my yoni. And I shared it on social media.Now, this is such a taboo in China that it went viral very soon. So I created my holistic sexuality course for women in China. And in one year, I went from zero to my first one thousand clients. From zero to my first six figures. I got on TV, in newspapers, magazines. My business was growing wild, like my baby, but my relationship with men is—I wouldn't say a contrast to my business success—but it's like sex. It's in, out in out. I really wanna stay in longer, but I'm mostly out.And one night after yet another devastating breakup, instead of just looking on Tinder for another guy to give me some love, I called my mom. "Mom, can you tell me your story of your yoni?" My mom told me everything—her yoni, her mom's yoni, her love stories, her pains—with tears and a lot of joy because finally, someone cares. We became friends again. I taught her yoga, dance, couch surfing, and BDSM. She came to my tantric classes in a women's temple. And with my help, ten years after the day she was almost bitten to death by my dad, she found the love of her life, who was a Danish hippie. And they just celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary.My last bed is the bed at the very beginning of my talk, where my daughter and I would cuddle and tell bedtime stories. So she asked me to tell her a story, and I told her the story I told you tonight. And when she heard the part about my first baby who died in the abortion, guess what she said. "Mommy, that was me." So twenty-five years after the incoherent bedtime stories of my mom, I finally realized that people that we thought were gone can and do come back.My yoni, which has been the greatest source of shame and pain in my life, has now become the greatest source of power that created a baby, created a six-figure income, a business that gets a lot of yonis well fucked by life and a time location free life here in paradise Bali, which is exactly the life I dreamed of five years ago when I was picking up horse shit. So my shit has become my gold. My greatest pain has become my greatest power. So can yours.
Three-point-two billion dollars. That is the amount my friend's company was just acquired for. Now I, having worked there for a couple of years, stood to make a little fortune from it. Excitedly I took out my phone. I was gonna text him, but I paused. I hesitated. What would I even say? "Congratulations?" That's so cliché. "What happened? I thought we were gonna go public? Wink." Ugh. Who says that? It's gonna so backfire. You know what? You have to just schedule an email to send later. Come on. I mean, he's getting plenty of messages anyway. Doesn't need another one from me, but this is pretty big news. I mean, a couple of billion dollars is worth a text message. I don't even text him that often but wait a second.Only friends text each other. Are we still friends anymore? I mean, after all, we started at the same place eight years ago. I used to sleep on their couches, and now they're practically at the top of the start of Mount Everest. And here I am, three failed companies later, still struggling in obscurity in the big game of entrepreneurship.It was 11.00 p.m. I was standing alone in my room in a 7,000 square foot place with five bathrooms all to myself. Dripping wet from the shower, I had no towel. Where the fuck was the towel? So angry beyond anything I realized. "God damn it, it's in the other room." You see, this normally wouldn't be a problem. Except on that day, my left foot was swollen up like a basketball, and I could hardly move. That very morning I just beat my personal best record at the gym. But by evening, for reasons I didn't understand, every step felt like I was going to trip and crack my head open on the concrete floor. I sat down on the toilet seat, burying my head in my hands. I wished my girlfriend was there. She took care of me the last time I was sick. But we broke up. We were together for three years. I haven't cried about that yet. She used to tell me I was always working.I remembered my mom. She used to help me. She told me I don't call her. And when she calls me, I'm either in a meeting or just about to leave the house. For some reason, I remember this kind lady who gave me a quarter to take the bus home when I ran away from home at ten years old. My grandparents—whose house I was running to on foot along the railroad track, a thousand miles away—they all passed away while I was in college. I didn't get to say goodbye to any of them. I was too busy. Too busy studying. Too busy to go back for their funerals. Is this my life?Just before I turned sixteen, I moved to Vancouver, Canada from China with my parents. First day of school, I desperately wanted to fit in, but I couldn't understand a thing. Luckily, there was this Chinese kid. He was telling me how he'd been there for six years and how the school worked. Then the teacher called him to speak in front of the room. Even I could tell he was stumbling, not at all colloquial. In fact, in his mumbling words and heavy accent, he kind of sounded like a buffoon. He's been here for six years, I thought to myself. What a failure. I am never going to be like him. In that moment, I made the decision to not speak Chinese, only speak English, and disconnect myself from everything that I thought was a failure.I'm going to master the English language by the time I graduate high school, I thought to myself. It served me well. I spent that entire summer reading To Kill a Mockingbird page to page, looking up the dictionary twenty times for every page. Within two years, I became the school's debate captain. People told me that I had no accent. Oh my God. That was my ... boy, was I proud. There's just one problem. It didn't really help me with girls. I still didn't know how to talk to them. You see, my way of confessing my crush—she played the trumpet—was to tell the band teacher to move me from trombone, which was on the opposite side of the school band, let me remind you, to playing trumpet just so I could sit next to her and tell her ... exactly nothing. She didn't notice me. Yeah, she didn't notice me. So I thought I just gotta be more successful.You see, college mission was right around the corner. So I made it to Princeton. And in case you don't know what Princeton is, we beat out Harvard eighteen out of the last twenty years as the number one ranked school in America, which means the number one ranked school in the world, right?That didn't work either. So what's next? Well, how about entrepreneurship? Oh, that's where I got really hooked. As a freshman, I won the entrepreneurship competition taking home a big check, beating out all the seniors. And before I graduated college, I was worth eight million dollars funded by the best investor in Silicon Valley Y Combinator behind legendary companies like Airbnb and Dropbox. "I'm gonna get you a Ferrari for your twenty-fifth birthday," I told my first girlfriend, bless her heart. And that is until I started failing company after company while everyone around me seemed to be having these multi-billion-dollar successes."You are not your company." I found myself at my first session in the Founders Support Group. The truth in their words echoed deep inside me. You see, on the days that the company was doing well, I was on top of the world. I could walk into any bar and to any sexy woman and say, "How you doing?" Until she turned me down anyway, and then I would kick myself in the foot, "I just gotta be more successful, right?" And on days the company wasn't doing well, I didn't wanna get outta bed. The truth is, no matter how it looked on the outside, I was living a permanent baseline experience of failure.What I hate to admit is that being brought to my knees in the game of entrepreneurship is perhaps the greatest gift for me early in life. You see, life seems to have a habit of teaching me the same lesson over and over and over again until I really, really get it. In the moments that I felt like an utter and complete failure, I gathered just enough humility to discover what else is out there. I went to the Founders Support Group. I read the books, did the workshops and yoga, meditating on death, you know, spirituality, coaching, everything that people do when they're finding themselves unfulfilled and unhappy. I wish I could tell you it was an overnight transformation, but the truth is it took years and years and continues to be an ongoing process. But when I finally got it in my heart and my body, not just at the top of my head, that I am not my company, things started to shift.I was able to move out of living with coworkers into my own place. I could tell my mom. I'd call her and tell her I love her. I gave myself the permission to be nurtured by Mother Bali just during this global pandemic rather than rush home to San Francisco cos that's where the successful people live! You know, a dear friend and teammate asked me, "Does this mean you're going to quit your company now and become a new musician acrobat?" 'Cause he saw me finding time for myself to learn to play the guitar and dangle women off my bare feet in the amazing practice of acro-yoga, of course. I chuckled at that. I hoped he was not worried about his job.You see, I'm incredibly fortunate to have a genuine passion in entrepreneurship, that I'd discovered, and in moments that I'm not my company, the natural state of being is to create from a place of love and authenticity rather than strive from a place of fear of unacceptance. When I'm not my company, I get to come to work each day, being inspired by our mission of transforming people's relationship with money rather than burnt out by the anxiety that we may never succeed no matter how hard we try. You see, when I'm not my company, success changes from something that is always in the future permanently doomed to be out of reach to something that is available in the present.Every moment I live my values of love, growth, authenticity, discipline, and contribution, I get to experience success. And when I'm not my company, I get to have the distinct pleasure of picking up the phone and telling my friends, my dear friends, "Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. I'm so grateful to be on your path."Thank you very much.
Suma: Hello all.Devi: Hello.Suma: My name is Suma. I come from Ubud, but I grew up in Denpasar.Devi: Hi, all. My name is Devi. I'm from Denpasar, but I really love the atmosphere here in Ubud.Suma: I'm a man and Devi?Devi: I'm a woman.Suma: I'm sorry because I just speak a little English.Devi: No need to worry about me. In my daily life, I'm an English teacher. I teach from home to primary school. I teach from one private lesson to another private lesson house-to-house from one private course to another private course. So for me in my journey as a teacher, the street played a very important role to express myself and my English.Suma: I had learned English at school. However, I can only remember a bit. I learned English from my uncle, whose job was a tour guide. He picked up words from one street to the other street. Then he composed them into his own sentences at his will. Like I do now. The streets united my uncle and me with various languages to find words and use them as street English.Devi: Every time I wanted to go out to the street, my mom would be very angry. She would say a girl shouldn't be on the street. A girl should be playing at home with a doll, cooking, playing anything that won't hurt because the street is a line that can draw scars to your body as a girl.Suma: As a man, scars are fun. Line by line made of scars is a symbol of adventure. The streets serve us with so many scratches of adventure. Running to each other on the open street, playing hide and seek in the alleys and word games on the roadside. We could do everything on the street.Devi: At the time, the street became a very strange thing to me. How could it not when I was never given a chance to sense the street with my own body? Whenever I went outside to the street, my mom would hold my hand tightly. She led my way as if her daughter would be gone somewhere unknown.Suma: The streets I had been walking through were increasing in number as I grew older. The streets were getting longer and further. From southern Bali, I moved to northern Bali to study at university in Singaraja. And then the street flung out my future, as well as my vision, my ambition, and my hope.Devi: On the street I found many encounters. Many farewells but, between the farewells and the encounters, the street always led me back home. Back home to my parents—to my mom and dad, to my beloved love, home to his mom and dad, where I was introduced. And I would call his house my home as well. And then, for women, the street would always be a way and a reason to go back home.Suma: For a man, roads are the reason to leave.Devi: A way back home.Suma: A way to go.Devi: To be brought home.Suma: To live away.Devi: Go back home, my dear daughter, because going out at night for a girl is a very bad idea.Suma: Go, go away, my son. Bring home as many stories from wherever—everywhere.Devi: A way back home.Suma: A way to go.Devi: Hmm, a man's road.Suma: A woman's road.Devi: Men and women on the road.Suma: What's the difference?Devi: What's the difference?Suma: Can't the street be a place for everyone?Devi: Can't the street be a place for everyone?Suma: We feel the streets as an alliance.Devi: That over secrets, miracles, and unpredictability?Suma: Without taking into account which men and which women along the way.Devi: Without taking into account which men and which women along the way.Thank you.Suma: Thank you.
There's a knock on the window. Joshua, the tallest boy in my class, comes through it. First, his long blond hair followed by a Metallica T-shirt, ripped jeans, and combat boots. He's late. And if he comes in through the main entrance, he'll get detention. The thing is, he didn't oversleep. He works an early newspaper round to financially support his family. We all know it. And it's actually the teacher that opened the window for him because what he and I understand is that the rules are made up. Some other teachers—they don't get this.And I often verbally disagree with how they run things. You know, I'm not the quiet type. "Sandra, another zero." My German teacher would crinkle her nose when giving me back a vocabulary test. You see, I inherited my mother's wicked way with words and my father's wicked brain, but somehow their desire for education escaped me entirely. I was bored.I'm eight years old—in more pain than I've ever been in. My mother wasn't home. She was working late at a convention. My dad is lying on a couch with me. He's holding my head. He's crying. "Please give me your pain. Please give me your pain." The thing is, I've got an ear infection, but he's too drunk to get up and get me ear drops.I'm seventeen and in the final year of high school. Even though it is a school night, all my closest friends are sitting on this huge circular couch that my mother and I picked out together. We talk about what teacher made a stupid joke and who's crushing on who. No one really wants to talk about what happened earlier that day.Earlier that day, I'm sitting in the second to last row in a nondescript classroom. You know, the row where the average troublemaker usually sits. The door opens, and the head of my department walks in. He looks straight at me, and I laugh a little guiltily because what happened was I skipped some classes the week before. He and I, we had this fantastic system. I would write a note pretending it was my mom's saying that I was sick. He would accept my note and pretend to believe me. He asked me to follow him into the hallway. And I think Uh oh, I've been to the dentist one too many times this year. Instead, in the hallway, my mother is there. "Your father passed away earlier this morning," she says.I'm six years old, and I'm learning to write. And it turns out I'm ambidextrous. I sit on my dad's knee in his tiny home office. It still smells like the cigar he just finished smoking. "Daddy," I say to him. "I can learn to write with my right hand or my left. Just like you." He swallows and looks at me solemnly. "When I was in the orphanage, they would hit my left hand with a ruler every single day because I couldn't write with the right hand."After high school, I enroll in the Bachelor of Economics. Now I really wanted to study something way more unemployable and interesting. But after my parents got divorced, the once or twice my dad and I spoke, we could only talk about school. And I remember telling him, "Dad, I'm doing actually pretty well in economics." And he joked how I would end up as a fancy business lady in an expensive SUV instead of a muddy 4x4 that he would prefer. So when my mother suggested maybe I study something useful first, that's exactly what I did.It's the first Monday of university. I am ready for a fresh start. A place where no one knows who I am and where I can be anyone other than the girl whose dad just died. However, after three days of math classes, I am utterly befuddled. "Why would anyone want to learn math that has both the regular alphabet and the Greek alphabet mixed in?" We're in the kitchen. My mom's on one side of the dining table, and I'm on the other. By then, I am so angry. Tears are coming down my face, and I'm screaming. "I don't get it. This was supposed to be fun. It's just math." She takes a deep breath and sniffs back at me. "So quit. I don't want you living in my house if you're gonna be like this."It's the second Monday of university. I'm in a small room with only forty students. A small lady is in the front. She's got this ramrod straight spine and short dark hair. There's gray in it and pain in her eyes. She's lecturing under the early beginnings of Judaism. And she carries the history of her people with her every single day. For the very first time in my life, I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not the smartest person in the room after all.You know, there's this thing that students always need more of, and I'm sure you can guess it's money. So what happens is I end up working in the Amsterdam airport and, if you've worked in hospitality, you know about this, we don't have clients or customers. No, we have guests. I'm not sure what kind of guests would leave their croissant crumbs all over your house and yell at you when their flight is delayed. It's more like feeding an army of angry two-year-olds.And in this job, my female managers—they don't like me much. I don't know. Young, pretty, smart-mouthed—not everyone's cup of tea. Clang! I'm in the back slicing tomatoes. The cute dishwasher tells me about his weekend, and I'm relieved to be away from our guests. There's three managers huddled behind a computer. My favorite male manager speaks. "We need to order Mountain Dew." The nicest female manager that stole three bar shifts from me the week before after we had a disagreement speaks next. "Um, Mountain Dew. Do you spell that with M O U or M A U?" That's when I decide I never want to work for someone who's dumber than me ever again.It's 23rd August 2017. By then, I've finished seven years of university. I'm officially an engineer. I've helped neuroscientists figure out where God lives in the brain. I've done research about tourism in India. I've presented on people going on pilgrimages to Elvis Presley's house. Surprisingly, I can't find a job. So what happens is that I enroll as an entrepreneur at the Chamber of Commerce.For the first time in my life, I feel like my dad and I have something in common after all. You see, when he was sober, he was working, building, selling, inventing, tinkering. And actually, by the time I was nine, our family home was paid off. And it's this thing where we share maybe a hunger to decide what we do with our time. A hunger that did not have to listen to what anyone else wants for us and a desire to get paid for the stuff our brain comes out with. I'm utterly clueless as to what I'm doing. And although my dad would've known nothing about online marketing, for the first time in my life, I miss him. And I wanna tell him, "Dad, even though I didn't end up writing with my left hand after that little speech of yours, maybe we're the same—you and I.It's 27th February 2021. And in the past three and a half years, I've signed clients, and I've lost clients. I've left friends behind, and I found a new family here. I've messed up more than I can count, but I've also done really well for myself. Most days, I still have no clue what I'm doing, but I do know this. No one else chose my life for me.Thank you.
I was a boy during the 1995 Galungan ceremony. I think it's the biggest ceremony in Bali. It's an exciting moment for a boy because he knows a lot of food will be there! Sometimes your father will give you new clothes. I was just excited. But before that, I had a responsibility. I needed to dress up my temple. So I walk to my temple. I prepared my temple. Just a sad moment coming. In Bali, our temple is the one thing to be proud of. Without coming into your house, everyone can see it from outside. When I put the last touch to my temple, all the time, it's falling down because all the wood is broken. I looked down at the middle of my temple. I was like just a young boy at that time. "One day, when I have a good job, I will fix you. I promise." My father actually is a builder. When I was a kid, I still remember because my body was not like a Balinese - big enough to help him to work. I didn't have my Sundays free. Every Sunday morning, my mom packed food for us. I was like, "No, Mom, I wanna stay home. I wanna play with my friend. "No, son, go help your dad."So every Sunday, I go to help, but the question keeps coming. I help my father build everyone's house. Why doesn't he rebuild my house? What's wrong with him? And I have an uncle. He joined the army, and he's the youngest in the family, and he's supposed to have the responsibility to fix the temple because, in Bali, the youngest one has the responsibility to continue helping the family. As he is in the army, he has duty in Jakarta. Every time he comes home, he promises, "Next Galungan, we will have a new temple." I'm excited again. We have hope. "Galungan coming, Galungan coming, Galungan coming." We never had a new temple. So sad.And then one day I finish college in 2003. I have an interview in one of the resorts in Ushawada. The question they ask me is, "What is your goal?" "I want to fix my temple." Everyone was laughing at me. "It's not about that. What is your career plan? What do you want to be? Do you want to be a chef? You want to be a . . ." "No, no, no, no. I want to fix my temple." "Okay. It's up to you." In 2005, I got the opportunity to go to the US, thank God. To find a job. I needed to borrow money - about US$4,000. The first three months I worked in the US, I worked so hard. I did everything. I told my manager, "Give me a job. If you put me in the dormitory, I will cry every day. I miss my home. Give me a job." Three months later, I repaid all the money I borrowed to go to the US. One day, I called my dad. "Dad, be ready to fix the temple. I will send you the money." "Okay, we will do it." Why did he answer so fast on that day? On that day, I realized why my dad didn't fix the house, didn't fix the temple before. He wanted to build me first. He wanted to build me, to become the man of the house. Phew.In 2006 I was about one year in the US. Every single month I sent all my money home. Finally, in August 2006, they sent me a picture of the new temple. I was so proud of myself. And I realized again everyone is waiting. So I needed to jump in to lead the action.To be the leader, there's no need to be the oldest one, no need to be the youngest one, but anyone can jump in and start to do it. And, finally, my uncle's coming to help. My grandpa is coming to help. Everyone's coming together, and they built the temple together. And from that spirit, it brings us to today in our village and becoming the leaders of the village. And the spirit of togetherness is coming to us again. We are together. We can do more, but without somebody starting, everyone will wait, and the time will never come. So don't worry. You need to start. When you start, even if it's wrong, even if it fails, don't care. The results will come in the end. I never dreamed to be standing here today to speak about my story and stand with all the experts that live in Bali.
And again, COVID-19 teaches us Balinese a lot now. Being together in the fields, helping each other. Just as we do now. As you know, stories are important in Bali. And we have, in fact, the most stories in Indonesia. I think because we place our lives too much on tourism, we forget what was sustainable before. Today everything is coming back to bring us a new hope, new spirit. As a leader as well, the question's coming "What do you think is sustainable?" One day it's stories coming back, and everyone goes back to their jobs. Don't worry about it. At least what has been asleep for twenty-five years is awake now. Someone who has never experienced this before knows it now. The new generation understands about the spirit that's been built in our village for a very long time, and they had forgotten about it. So, together we can bring the spirit up. Togetherness happens in Bali. Thank you. Thank you for listening to me. I'm Made Astawa. Goodnight.
I didn't write one speech for today. I didn't write two speeches. I didn't write three. I wrote four speeches. The last speech was thrown out this afternoon. This speech that I'm speaking to you has been written in the last hour or two.Basically, this piece is an accumulation of me and where I am at now. It's me. It's me being in the soup. The soup is about one meter, sixty-two high, and it's thirty-six and a half years old. It's been simmering for thirty-six and a half years. It's the story of me not being ready. It's the story of how are we ever really ready in life. And it's the story of how we came to be here. It's a story of who I am. Who I am. I'm Australian—far out! I've been told I have to say that at least.I arrived here right before COVID-19 hit. I was here for five weeks, and I left for two weeks, and I came back, and COVID hit. It's been a pretty insane journey since and a journey that I haven't been ready for. I come from a working-class family. I come from a family with two kids, two adults, a house that my dad built. I'm a Libra. I'm a vada/petar. There's a lot of air going on in here. I dance. I am a social worker by background. I'm an A+ blood type.I'm here, and I'm figuring out every single day. I come from a lineage of women who have experienced quite significant mental health issues. My mom was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was fifteen years old. And at the time, we had lots of social workers coming to visit our family. I watched what they were doing. They would come, and they would sit in with our family, and they would drink cups of tea. I looked at them, and I thought, Wouldn't that actually be really fun to just drive around all day, visit people, drink cups of tea, and help them feel better.So fast forward a few years. I'm twenty-two, and I'm knocking on the door of a family's home. I don't know what I'm walking into. A man opens the door—a man I've been working with for a little while. He's yelling and screaming at me, holding a cup of coffee that he's shaking like this. And the coffee's almost splattering everywhere. His child, the ten-year-old, is screaming in the hallway. And I walk in with my pile of paperwork. With the paperwork that's already filled out saying that I'm removing that child. I sit down in the living room with the dad beside me and the paperwork between us. I say to him, "This is what's going on." And he bursts out into tears. He says to me, "I'm trying the best that I can, and I don't know what to do anymore." And I say to him, "Is there a way that we can work together?"I wasn't ready for that conversation. And I wasn't ready for any of the conversations that happened like that, that continued on from that time. My mom, for over twenty years, my whole adult life, has been in and out of mental health facilities. We have spent Christmases and Mother's Days visiting her in mental health facilities. And I haven't been ready for any of that or any of the conversations that have come with that.Fifteen years fast forward. My cousin is now graduated as a social worker. And she says to me, "I don't know if I'm cut out for this." I say to her, "You know what? None of us are. Basically, all we can do is look at what's in front of us and take the humanity from it and find a way to turn it into some kind of magic and to create something better with it. We can't be ready for this."Fast forward another couple of years. And I'm at work. I'm sitting at my desk. A young person calls, and his debutante partner for that day has pulled out as a deb. She's not doing it. He's like, "That's it. I don't care. I'm not doing it." This is something that matters to this young person more than anything else. He has spoken to the children's commissioner and said, "This needs to happen for young people like us." My boss gets off the phone, and she says, "What are we gonna do?" I put a post on Facebook. And I say, "Who do I know who has a white dress in this size and can get it to me within three hours." A girl contacts me straightaway and says, "I not only have a dress, I have a tiara, and I have jewelry. I'll have it to you." Within three hours, I'm at a venue surrounded by all these teenage girls with white fluffy things everywhere. And I'm getting my hair and makeup done, watching a video on my phone of how to learn these dances. I wasn't ready to be a debutante at thirty-three years of age. And I wasn't ready to be a debutante that day.A couple of years later, I'm with a group of young people, and we're preparing for a massive event. I've got young people, a row full of young people, who are preparing to share their personal stories. The people in the audience are ministers. They're commissioners. They're politicians. One of my young people, she runs out of the room. I run after her. I stand in front of a toilet cubicle, and she's behind the door. I hear sobbing. I ask her if she's okay. She says to me, "There is no way that I'm going out there. There is no way that I'm sharing my story. There is no way that those people in that audience are gonna listen. And this matters to me more than anything. And I can't deal with the fact that they might not hear what I've got to say." I take this in, and I go, "Hmm. They're not gonna hear you from behind a toilet door."I hear the click of the lock, and the door opens. She stands there in front of me. And she's like, "How's my makeup? Are my eyes okay?" I hand her a tissue, and I'm like, "We can sort this out." She's like, "I have no idea what I'm gonna say. Like, what do I do?" I'm like, "We can sort that out. Fix your makeup. We'll be right." And she comes out. I ask her what she's most passionate about, and straightaway, I know that she's ready because the fire in her heart is what's going to deliver the message that she needs delivered. Anything else is a bonus on that.When we started this, Colleen asked us, "What is the story that you are most afraid to tell?" The story in this that I'm the most afraid to tell is the story of what comes next. It's the unwritten story. It's the story that I'm not prepared for and the story that I'm not ready for. It's the story that I don't have the answers for. And I can only prepare myself for that so much. And I don't know if all of these experiences and all of this life journey has prepared me enough for that. And there's nothing that I can do about that but just keep taking another step, knowing that I'm not ready for that. The story that I'm not ready for is the one that I will one day tell when this woman sweeps herself off her own feet and carries herself away in a way that she could not even imagine. And that all starts by being here.Thank you.
In a modest office with no air conditioning, I sat behind the desk, and there he was walking into the room. He made no eye contact as I ushered him to a seat, but I noticed something on the other side of the desk, something familiar. It was pain, but with a mix of shame. "My name is Georges. I'm here to help and to talk about what happened." Like a punch in the gut. He couldn't breathe, and he grimaced out of an excruciating pain. He turned, and no words could come out. I took a deep breath just to give him time to recollect.Well, he was twenty-five years old, and he had been sexually abused since he was seven years old for a period of ten years by a male missionary who was supposed to be his savior. He was not alone. There were another hundred children, male victims, who were hurt by the same man.You see, their story changed me, and it all began in Miami, Florida, where I worked for a great company as a psychotherapist. I worked in my downtown office in Miami with air conditioning, a beautiful desk. And I walked down the hall to meet her for the first time. She was fourteen years old, a beautiful young girl. Best practice recommends that I introduce myself. And this same uncomfortable question resurfaced. "Tell me what happened." But this time, there was a glacial silence in the room. I took time and asked the same question again, but no words would come out.And that continued for three months until I decided to change the strategies and apply some of the techniques that I'd learned in my multiple trainings. I left the room. I took her to a more child-friendly environment. And at that time, I did not sit in front of her behind a desk. I sat next to her. I faced the wall, and I started to talk. "You don't need to say anything today. You don't need to speak at all. I just want you to know that I understand it's not your fault. You did not do anything wrong. I know that many people don't believe you, even your own mother, but I want you to know that I believe you. You are a brave and strong young girl, and I respect your strength."While I was talking, I glanced at her from the corner of my eyes, and I noticed a tear running down her cheek. And she turned and said, "Can you help me?" In turn, I said, "Yes, if you let me." That was one of my most joyful moments as a professional. After this great breakthrough, intervention, I ran down the hall, and I started screaming. "She speaks, she speaks, she speaks" like I was crazy.And at that moment, I knew her life had changed for the better, but I had no idea that mine was going to change forever. Well, she was not alone. My journey continued as they referred more and more children who had been sexually abused to me. Many of them have been hurt by people they've trusted. People they knew—a father, an uncle, a cousin, clergy, a friend of the family, et cetera. But there's one who stood alone. She was about to celebrate her fifteenth birthday. As she worked in the therapeutic room, I noticed that she might have something unusual to share with me today.But the truth is I had something that I wanted to share with her, but before she started to talk. And I said, "I need to share something with you. See, today is one of our last sessions because I have to leave this agency. She looked at me. She was like, "Is that because of a Word and Action thing?” (Word and Action is the name of my organization). And I said, "Yes," perplexed. I said, "How do you know about that?" She said, "Well, I went on the internet, and I searched you. And I saw your picture and what you are doing for children in the community. When I grow up, I want to be just like you.""Really? You want to study psychology and become a psychotherapist just like me?""Yes, but I want to give life to children."That time I took another deep breath, but to hold my tears because you don't wanna cry in front of your clients, especially a young kid. "Well," I said, "thank you. I am honored to have been able to work with you, and you and the other children have inspired me. You guys are my heroes. Thank you."She said, "Well, in that case, you could leave." There she gave me permission to speak on behalf of the children who were hurt, on behalf of those voiceless, those innocent, gentle souls. See, the gift that we shared is what fuels me to do what I do every day. That gift is what would take me back home to Haiti to evaluate those twenty-four young men. After ten years of being sexually abused, for the first time, they'll talk to a professional who validated their feelings. For the first time, they've learned that they were not at fault. For the first time, they know they are not alone. For the first time, they could share their story without fear. For the first time, they receive a hug, not out of deceit, but out of compassion and empathy.Their stories is what moved me. After I've seen every single one of them for one hour, for a one-year period, the very last day of my intervention, I closed my door, sat on my desk, and cried like a baby. For the first time, I intervened and evaluated children in my own language. Those young men, they were all born close to the town that I was born in. I looked at them, I saw myself. I said, "God, that could have been me." I was inducted in the cases. I was emotionally and psychologically drained. And I've experienced all sorts of emotions—anger, pain, frustration. But at the same time, I felt relieved. I felt empowered. I felt grateful for being entrusted with such a truth.Well, their stories have become mine. You see, I've never been sexually abused before, but all I have is the story of those children, and their story made me the person that I am in the quest of fighting against this disease. I hope, just like me, their stories have become yours because this is the story of millions of people out there. This is the story of your friend, your neighbor, your family member, your spouse, even yourself. You see, that story is not my story. It is a shared story.And I hope this story has become yours as well because if that is true, now we have a shared story. The children are now feeling empowered. They know that they are not alone. They know that they don't have to go through this by themselves. If that's true, if that story has become yours, child sexual abuse has been defeated by the mere fact that you are listening to this tonight. If that's true, we are becoming victorious because you and I are saving lives, and all of the other victims out there are grateful for it.Thank you.
Tonight I'm gonna talk about why togetherness matters. And I wanted to do that by telling you three short stories of journeys in my life and experiences that I've had and why I believe that. So the first of those stories begins in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1980 when I attended a survival gathering of the Lakota - the indigenous people of that area - on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. And this survival gathering was all about people from all over the world, environmentalists, activists, Native American leaders coming together to defend the land of the Lakota. The Lakota had experienced 200 years of colonialism. Four hundred and eighty treaties were made by the government, and every single one was broken by the government, not by the Lakota. So here they were in this situation. There was uranium under the ground, and that's what the people wanted. So they were there to fight for their lands. And when I was standing there, I was watching on the stage a young Lakota woman dancing, and there were some Lakota elders playing the sacred drum. This was an incredible sound. And this young Lakota woman was dancing, and her long black hair was trailing in the wind. It was one of the most beautiful things I've seen, and I still remember it very clearly today. But as she was dancing, this very scary thing happened.A B-52 bomber flew low over the top of the stage. There was an air force base nearby. And I think it was a deliberate attempt by these people to say, "We're the boss. We're gonna take your land." But I felt with that sense of togetherness with these people from all over the world, with the same passion, with the same desire to work together, to protect their land, that it was possible.I want to go forward about ten years to 1990. We'd just come through ten years or more of, I guess, the Cold War or America pointing nuclear missiles at Russia. And I was taught growing up that Russians were the enemy. And I could never quite understand that. I'd never met a Russian person. And I was always wondering "Why are they the enemy? What's so bad about these Russians. Why do they want to destroy us? Why do they want to blow us up and destroy our way of life and everything else?" But I realized that I had to go there to find out for myself.So I was able to organize a private invitation to visit the Ukraine, which was part of Russia at that time. And I was invited by a woman by the name of Mira. Mira means peace. And she was head of the People's Diplomacy club in this town. But before I went to Krivoy Rog, I had this crazy idea with my wife Steph, who's sitting down here tonight, to cycle from Europe to Russia and carry an Earth flag, which represents the Earth and oneness - that we only have one planet and together we must protect it. So we cycled through Europe and Eastern Europe, and we got to Russia. And then we took a train to Red Square in Moscow, and we unfurled the Earth flag. All these people looked at us kind of strange. "What are you doing?" "What's all this about?" So we explained that we had some media coverage.And then we went down to Krivoy Rog, and we met the family, the Russians, and we spent ten days with Mira, her family, her friends, and every day we got into these incredible conversations, explaining about our life, how we lived in the West. They told us all about life and Russia, all the difficulties they had, their dreams, their loves - all that was important to them. And we told them what ours were. And on the last day, they put on this lunch for us, and there were Cossacks, and there were World War II veterans. And there were young Russian people - Ukrainians - and teenagers. And we had this incredible experience. And when we went to leave, when we finished that lunch - we were leaving the next day - we embraced with the most incredible love and feeling and devotion and respect - respect for each other. And again, at that moment, I realized that togetherness really matters.And the third story is an experience in Indonesia about eight years ago. And I was traveling with six Australian men up the rivers of Borneo in North Kalimantan. We were traveling on canoes up this river with engines on the back. And we were going up to this village called Setulang up in the original rainforest of Kalimantan. 130 million years old, the oldest rainforest on the planet. So we were going to this village for the first time. We were gonna spend a few days with the Dayak people, with the indigenous tribes of that area. And as we were traveling up this river, and I want you to just kinda come with me on this part of the journey. So we're traveling up on these boats, the sun setting coming down through the trees, two hornbills, which are the sacred birds of the Dayak, flew in front of us, in front of our path, which is a very good omen.And then we came around the bend in the river, as we entered into the village. And there was about fifty of the Dayaks all lined up waiting for us in their traditional costumes. So happy to welcome us. These strangers from a country, Australia, New Zealand, whatever, they'd probably never heard of, but they were there to welcome us. And they were so honored that we'd come to their village. And then, for the next six days, they took us into the forest. We stayed in the forest. They danced. They sang. So much joy, so much connectedness, so much togetherness over those few days. And we got to understand about the way that they live their spiritual connection with the forest. And, of course, we tell them about our lives. And this was an incredible experience. And again, when we went to leave, we were like family. We were family.But we left with some sense of sadness because what future do they have? You know, palm oil. I'm sure you know all about that. It's coming into those areas. But I really felt then, and I certainly believe it now that together we can make a difference. Together we can save those forests. We can help them preserve their culture. So coming to today, I decided to sort of put all this together. And what do we do with togetherness? How can we make it really impactful? So I decided to start a project called The Togetherness Project. And part of the reason why we're here tonight, The Togetherness Project is all about working together with people from different countries, nationalities, cultures, Balinese, Indonesians, Bule, foreigners from many different countries like you all are tonight.And I really believe that if we can put our minds together, our creativity, our passion, our beliefs, we can do wonderful things. I think on this island in particular, during this time, it's such an incredible opportunity to do that, to forge a really powerful sustainable future on this island. And I think of what we've done so far with The Togetherness Project bringing back the traditions through the ikat, through the weaving revival, which you've seen tonight. That's probably one good example, where there's twenty-five women now in the community of Pesalakan, and they're employed, that stopped doing the ikat weaving twenty-five years ago, but have now brought it back and created some income during this time. The honey farm up in Karangasem. The traditional coffee in Munduk. We're supporting organic farmers here - indigenous farmers in Bali. If anybody wants to have their land turned into an organic farm, we're providing that service and supporting the local people as well. We're organizing events. The first one's gonna be next month in October.So I really, really hope that all of you can get involved in some way. I mean, just tonight, you can buy a Bag of Hope if you wish. These sell for 850,000, and all that money goes to support the communities.So I really believe that togetherness does matter and we can all play our part. Thank you.
November 2018. I'm sitting in couples therapy with my boyfriend, and the therapist says, "Megan, look, he is afraid of you." And I get defensive. I'm like, "Why is HE afraid of ME? He's the one that won't be loyal. He's the one that's not committing. He's the one that's sleeping around." And she says, "Stop, Megan, you're punishing him." And I pause, and I look in his eyes, and I can see it's true. He is afraid of me cos I've been mean. And you know why I've been mean? Because I've been denying my desire in order to please him. In all these little spots, he said, "I want an open relationship." I said, "Okay, I'll try it." He wanted to live and work at the retreat center. And I said, "Okay, I'll leave LA." In all these little spots, I went with what he wanted to try to please him, keep our relationship.But meanwhile, I was punishing him under the radar. Has anyone ever done that? Okay. I'm glad I'm not alone. In that moment, though, I realized it was a wake-up call for me. I was like, "Where else in my life am I doing this?" I started to see all these little places where I wasn't being honest with myself or others. For example, my job was to sell corporate training at the retreat center. I hadn't sold any because I didn't think that they were ready for it. My other job: I was there to give insights at the retreat center, but I just judged people cos I didn't want to risk my reputation by saying what I actually thought.I felt stagnant and stuck cos I didn't want to admit that I really wanted to travel. Seeing the fear in my boyfriend's eyes was a wake-up call. I didn't like the woman I was becoming. I was being mean, so every day I sat, and I meditated, and I asked, "What do I really want? And what do I need to admit to myself?" For days nothing happened, and then a very clear vision began to form. A few weeks later, I was talking to my friend, Rev. Jo, who is probably the wisest woman I have ever met. She is a native American medicine woman, a shaman, a preacher to Agape, where thousands come to see her every week. Basically, there's no bs-ing in front of this woman. She's been a desire doula for thousands of people, and I was pregnant with a very big, very secret desire. I sat down with her, and I started going into my story as we do. I was saying, "Ugh, I just keep fighting with my partner, and I feel ineffective at the retreat center. Everything feels stuck. Oh, and every time I think about Bali, I cry. And as I said that, tears streamed down my face - my whole body covered in goosebumps.She turned and looked at me, and in her Southern drawl, she said, "Baby, ain't nothing gonna feel right until you follow that. Bali is a calling on your life." It hit me with that thud of incontrovertible truth, something that was undeniable and really uncomfortable. Has anyone had a moment like that? Yeah. I knew she was right, but my mind had a lot of things to say about it. I said, "But Rev. Jo, what about my job and my partner and my community, and what are they gonna do without me?" And da da da. "Megan, do you teach about desire, or do you teach about obligation?"
Fair enough. Right? But still I was scared. I was really scared because if I left and went to Bali, it would mean giving up everything I had created - my friends, my spiritual community, my job, my relationship, my financial security, my family - for some vague vision I had seen in meditation. It felt insane. But with Rev. Jo next to me, I realized maybe I'm not crazy. Maybe this is not insane. So, that night with the little bit of courage I had, I went home, I opened my laptop, and I quickly bought a ticket to Bali. I knew if I sat and thought about it, I wouldn't do it. The fear voices would get far too loud, and I would lose all my courage, and I wouldn't do it. So I bought my ticket and then over the next few weeks, I sat with people as I told them my decision. My boss was angry because I was leaving my new job. I broke up with my boyfriend, and I held him as he cried.I said goodbye to my friends and my family who questioned my decision, cos no one understood. "Why are you going to Bali? You don't know anyone there." And I didn't have a good reason. It was really hard to say goodbye. This is why people don't follow their desire because we can feel intuitively in the short term, people will be hurt. People will be upset. They will be ashamed. They will be angry at you. You'll feel disappointed. And so, it is far easier in the short term to pretend. But what's the alternative? I had seen in myself when I was pushing down my desire and denying it, I was eroding into a lesser version of myself. And then I was blaming people for my unhappiness.So I said my goodbyes over the next few weeks. And then I found myself in Bali, and I felt this little tingling sense of aliveness all over my body. I felt hopeful. I didn't know what was coming. All I saw was 'Do Women's Retreats in Bali.' That was what I saw in my head. It's been magic since. I've had two amazing women's retreats exactly as I had seen in my meditation. I met my husband-to-be at an exotic dance - very Bali! I adopted two dogs. I grew my coaching business past six figures. It has been so beautiful. But beyond any of this external is how I feel inside. I feel more connected to myself, more aligned, more centered than I ever have. But it's not like a one-and-done decision. Following my desire is something I have to practice every single day because the fear voices are there.And the fear voices are really tempting, and the desire is quiet. And it's still. Just this week, for example, we were buying our first home - it's a big desire of mine - and all of a sudden, my fear voices were so loud. It's like, "What are you doing? You're insane to commit to staying in Bali, and everything is uncertain, and there's coronavirus. Why would you do that?" So I called up one of the other wisest people I know, my mom, and she said, "Megan, I have never seen you so happy. You're thriving. You look like you."And in that moment I realized, that's why I cried when I thought about Bali those two years ago. Cos I thought I was just going halfway around the world, but I was really just coming home to myself. There's a few things I know about desire that I wanna leave you with. The first one is there are a million reasons not to follow it. And there's a million voices. Your shoulds, your pros, your cons, your fears, other people's opinions, external influences. And there's only one quiet voice, and it's inside your body. The second thing is I have to admit that I heard it. This is actually the most important. When I'm working with women, I often hear, "I don't know what I want. I just don't know." But when we get down to it, most of the time, they really know what they want. They just know it has consequences.The third one ask for help. I would not be here if it was not for that coach, for Rev. Jo, for my mom, for Colleen. It's like none of us can do this alone, nor are we meant to. We need each other to live into our desires. The fourth one is I have to be willing to feel all of the feelings because when I follow desire, like when I came to Bali, it didn't necessarily feel good. It felt scary and uncertain and nerve-racking, and oh my gosh. And like heartbreaking and difficult, but it felt honest. So my willingness to be with all of the feelings is important. And then the last one I know is my desire is my blueprint to living my soul. And your desire is a hundred percent unique to you. It's how you know what you're here to be and how you know what you're here to do. So, your desire will take you on a totally unique journey. I don't know where your desire is taking you, but I do know that she's a persistent mistress, and she will be knocking on that door asking, "Are you ready to wake up and trust me and in doing so trust yourself?" The question is, will you answer it? Thank you so much.
