How the story transforms the teller | Donald Davis | TEDxCharlottesville

To live this experience. Then again: “Now tell the

story

and tell me what your father and I have learned from this experience.” Until it was time: "Tell the

story

and then say what you think the doctors in Atlanta learned from living that experience with you." And it went on like that, until one day she said, "Now, Joe, if you don't do it." If you don't tell this story enough, you'll be 50 years old and you'll see... Your man, it'll be like you're five years old and you'll be pathetic. Because when something happens to you, my grandmother said, "It's like a stone has been placed on top of you.

And if you never tell the story, that stone will stay on top of you forever. But when you start telling your story, then it's like "You were going to come out from under that rock and eventually sit on top of it." My father said, "One day, she said, 'Joe, tell the story today and then tell me what things you're allowed to do that your brothers aren't allowed to do.'" Then my father said, "I told the story and suddenly I was smiling because I realized they were allowing me to stay." At home and reading while my brothers work on the farm. (Laughs) My mother made me repeat the story over and over again, until I was 15 and she told me that amputating my kneecap was the best thing I ever did in my life. (laughs) I suddenly realized that he was right!

History cannot change what happened, but it has the power to completely change our relationship with what happened.” This part of the story would have escaped me. I realize that I have degrees from two respected institutes that I should mention. this audience because both institutes are in North Carolina ((Laughs) But still, what I learned about my job, which is helping people discover the stories that lie above them like a rock so they can crawl underneath , it was more listening to my grandmother's story than studying (Applause).