TEDxFort Wayne Recap
Photo courtesy of Spaces Quarterly
This past Saturday, I was privileged with the opportunity to give a TED talk at TEDx Fort Wayne. It was a fantastic opportunity and overall a tremendously, well put together event.
A special thanks to all the volunteers and organizers that spent a LOT of time putting this event together because they believed that our community is full of life and people with something important to share.
The topic of my presentation was a personal one. I shared my personal journey towards sustainability. Over the past 5 years, my wife and I have been trying to figure out how to become more sustainable people not only by consuming less and being more green, but by embracing the “we" that so essential to sustainability and a healthy community. Relationships are the building blocks of community and we believe living harmonious with others is part of sustainability for a lot of reasons.
Here are some key take aways from the day’s event and speakers.
God Is Faithful: The preparation of my talk caused for a lot of personal reflection, which revealed many instances where God proved faithful as I/we put our trust in Him. To choose to stand in the face of local social justice issues and be able to do something about them. To choose a vocational path that required trust and faith that He’ll provide the resources we need to survive. To choose to buy a house in a neighborhood that by first impressions was not what we would have desired for ourselves. There are many more.
Mixing Purpose, Passion & Vocation Is Essential: In many conversations throughout the day after my presentation, it was clear that people are either longing for these to mix or have experienced similar revelations that I have. Doing what you feel called to do matters deeply to our overall sense of purpose and value. It seems that until we find the right mix of those three things, we are constantly longing for something else. I encourage you to keep searching for this balance and take risks to get there. What you may loose in some areas (money, power, influence, etc), you’ll gain ten fold in the areas that matter most to your soul.
Ideas Are Worth Spreading: The tagline of TED is Ideas Worth Spreading and after listening to 16 talks in one day, there are a lot of ideas in our community that need spreading. They need spread because they are deal changing ideas for you, me, and the greater community. We heard ideas that encouraged us to embrace difference, choose our city over others, think about education differently, failing is good and encouraged, and that people matter.
Volunteers Change The World: I’m a strong believer that live is lived when we’re giving the best of us away for the greater good. I’ve seen over the past few months a group of volunteers dedicated to giving their treasures away to put this event together. People fund raising, asking for sponsors, running the technical side of things, organizing people, and carrying out the theme of the event. All items that resulted in a well run event. I could see the sense of purpose exuding from the volunteers all day. It’s that purpose that changes the world.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words: This was truly the theme that stood out through everyone’s presentations and the activities of those involved. It was tremendous to see many of the local presenters presentations to build off of one another in various ways. It seemed that everyone was doing more than just sharing an idea, but sharing an idea that is already working and being done. The testimony of actions in place.
To Craig, Kevin, Don, Jimmy, Nick, Lori, Chris, Son, Martha, and countless other volunteer leaders, thank you! Thank you for the vision and for the hard work.
To all my fellow TEDx Fort Wayne presenters, it was a pleasure to share the platform with you. I’m inspired by you all.
I feel like we’re all in a new club and I like it.
Can’t wait for the next one!
