Become the Person You Can't Imagine | Norman Bacal | TEDxRyersonU

over the next few minutes i don't plan to change the blueprint of your life your career or even your tomorrow but i do plan to challenge what you think about it because what i've learned has changed my tomorrow's my career and my life but before i start i want to introduce you to someone who's here with me today this is uncle harry oh you can't see him oh then picture this uncle harry's a little shorter than me a lot grayer he has this bushy mustache wears a white lab coat with a blast stethoscope around his neck and always has this unlit cigarette dangling out of his mouth he served with distinction in the canadian navy in world war ii and went on to become one of montreal's most beloved pediatricians all his little patients called him uncle harry in fact many of them still do so i'm 19 years old just returned from a european vacation with a great tan a bushy haircut and a long beard ready to begin my major in biology at mcgill university headed towards well i'm not sure where i'm headed which is why i go to see uncle harry for advice he being a doctor and all but what he tells me is not what i expect norm he says think of your career as a river and you have a choice you can launch your boat in the raw water and paddle upstream towards a goal you think you want only to find you arrive there exhausted and it isn't what you want or you can steer your boat downstream and find all the bends and turns which provide you opportunities you never could have imagined that's what i did and i've had the most incredible career and one more thing norm whatever it is you do make sure you come to love it wow that was very serious advice so what did i do with it i think i did what most first-year university students would do i gathered together with my buddies and we went to see the rocky horror picture show about 15 times no i never discussed uncle harry's advice with anyone for almost 40 years but it's just a few weeks later i'm standing in my first biology lab at mcgill university it is huge we're in the big leagues there are microscopes all over i'm standing in front of one looking for a fungus and i move my slide up and down back and forth and i see nothing i keep trying and i'm just getting more frustrated and i start to sweat because there's this impatient line growing behind me finally i find that fungus at this point i have another f word for it and then i feel this presence behind me in this little whisper you're never going to love this i bend over pick up my backpack head down the corridor to my course advisor's office barbara how do i get out of this well barbara listens to my rant and being the scientist she is she keeps a very straight face and finally just asks me two questions norm forget about school for a minute what is it you like and what interests you oh well that was easy math logical puzzles argument barbara helps me find a law course being given the next semester to replace the lost lab credit legal problems of the poor it's being given by a young montreal lawyer by the name of bob cooper well you know how it is when you really connect with the teacher bob and i hit it off in fact by the end of semester bob has me convinced to make an application to law school he even writes me the letter of reference that helps me get in bob cooper changed the course of my river but you want to know something else bob cooper didn't love being a lawyer anymore he told me he had this dream of becoming a film producer we'll rule the camera forward 20 years and bob cooper has become the president of hbo pictures in los angeles he then goes on to work for steven spielberg at dreamworks and forms his own film and television production company and becomes one of my clients uncle harry's river but it was way more complicated than that so let me start with the night that i met pierre elliot trudeau he had just shocked the country by announcing he was resigning as prime minister and was going to join a small montreal law firm heenan blakey where i happened to be working as a young lawyer while roy heenan was so excited with the national news that he held a little soiree at his house for all of us to go meet mr trudeau i went but i didn't really want to be there i don't know about you but i wasn't really comfortable in those kind of social environments i'm terrible at small talk i'll you know i'll have to say something to him and he's never going to remember me anyway so as soon as it's feasible i make my excuses head for the door and who should be standing there not that far from me with his coat on yep pierre trudeau well as we head out into the snowy cold i get all climbed up like i know i have to say something and i hear these words coming out of my mouth can i offer you a lift home sir my little hatchback is parked across the street there's a car seat in the back i can't remember when the last time was i cleaned it up oh my god and he says yes like what am i going to say he's maybe the most famous prime minister in canadian history and i'm i'm nobody when we get to the car get in and i have this flash we have one thing in common how are your children i ask well he starts to talk and he doesn't stop talking until we get home i discovered that his oldest child justin is just a young teenager and he's quite disappointed in him when i was a boy he said it was before the days of television i listened to radio for amusement i read the classics but justin all he's interested in is watching reruns of this film called star wars and then he said the words i would never forget i have no idea what is to become of that boy who can possibly judge the course of anyone's river from star wars superfan to high school teacher to the luke skywalker of canada that was his journey but my boat it was going nowhere i felt like i was drifting in fact by my year-end review my boss says to me norm you have a lot of potential but there's something missing and i just can't tell you what it is he couldn't tell me what it was was he serious how could i fix myself if i didn't know what was wrong with me well i went home all depressed and my wife sharon talked to me all night i think i was getting good at listening and finally she said norm i don't think the problem is you but there's a problem with your approach you need to take a little initiative you need to take charge take charge it was like she lit a flame okay it was more like a match to start but enough to illuminate uncle harry he didn't say put your boat in the river he said steer it i was missing a rudder i went back to work the next day angry mostly at myself i'd spent four years waiting for the work to arrive on my desk four years waiting for my career to happen to me well no more from that point on i took charge of everything in my career from what i was doing more important to why i was doing it and most important to how i could distinguish myself i found a very narrow area of canadian tax law to specialize in the financing of movies and television shows the industry was still fairly young and a lot of people thought i should have my head examined because who knew where that was going but producers in toronto began to take notice and that was the interesting thing i didn't notice change so much in me as much as in others people's reactions to me i began to speak with a little more authority my confidence grew cut to the next scene new year's eve 1989. we're sitting at home sharon is pregnant with our fourth child but i feel something growing in me as well something that needs to be born immediately and the words just come bursting out that's it we're moving to toronto that's where our future is well we talked about it all night through the next day i got ready because i had to go meet with the managing partner henan blakey and peter blakey is this big imposing man with a booming voice bacall how can i help you i was a little nervous okay i was a lot nervous but i summoned my courage peter i'd like to open the heenan blakey office in toronto i took charge well six months later the baby is born we pack up the truck we move down the 401 shortly after that we have our opening party in yorkville and who should be there none other than pierre trudeau and we talk so that got me to toronto taking charge was the beginning but it wasn't enough because did i have any idea how to run an office i had no idea no idea how to build an organization but i was about to learn from a very interesting inspirational source my son brian's getting bullied in grade one so we start him in karate and i decide to join him we walk into the dojo and i see this sign on the wall and it says regardless of the number of years of practice you will never advance without single minded determination single-minded determination i understand why it's there so white belts like brian and i will fight through those moments of difficulty the pain when we look at the black belts and we see we can never be that we will stick with it we will be determined we will develop a fighting spirit well spoiler alert i stay with the karate for almost 20 years and it achieved my third degree or sun done in terms of black belt in fact to break the tension i wouldn't mind sparring right now and i gathered justin used to do some boxing so bring it on but he's got enough problems single-minded determination became my mantra it helped me get through those moments of doubt when others doubted me when i doubted myself every consultant i spoke to said there is no way your startup will ever compete with the major firms in toronto not possible and that became my marketing approach we are the underdogs we are determined we will compete cut and fade into the next scene it's almost 25 years later and we have done it we have built this glorious national firm with international dimensions my career is as well has blossomed i've gone from representing small independent producers to becoming an advisor to major hollywood studios i was sitting in the boardroom the day that the decision to produce the hunger games was made how cool was that in fact it was unimaginable and that was my ride but there was one more thing i needed in my boat that helped me get there and it wasn't so much something i learned as something that i had to unlearn and that was that failure was the adversary it's something you'll also have to unlearn failure is not your adversary it is your teacher failure is not the boulder in the river that's going to crush you unless you let your fear of it crush you interesting see as managing partner i learned that one out of every four decisions i made was going to be wrong when in four and it wasn't so much about the successes as what i learned from the mistakes and the failures how we adjusted how we move forward how we were able to compete so i could give you lots of examples of how i overcame fair failure and the mistakes that were made and the rejections that we suffered but i'm only going to give you one seven years ago my boat capsized i was drowning year after i'd stepped down from my leadership position the law firm that i had helped build collapsed boom the shock waves of the tsunami could be felt from coast to coast the greatest failure in canadian law firm history that's the way the national media was reporting it in its final two months i returned to a leadership position in an effort to save it but i failed eleven hundred people out of work the feeling of loss indescribable have you ever lost anything near or dear to you if you haven't eventually you will because it's called life you see uncle harry's river isn't just filled with opportunities it's got rocks and rapids and every once in a while you miss the final turn off before the falls so i had a choice i could give up drown disappear into retirement or i could start over now it's one thing to start when you're in your 20s but is any different when you're in your late 50s i was about to find out i found a day job and i began to write at night i had no intention of writing a book i was pretty certain i could never write a book but i needed to process my feelings my anger i began to write down my stories and i wrote night after night week after week month after month until i discovered i was starting to like it i was exactly where you are right now discovering an interest trying to determine if it might lead to another river there was only one problem i didn't have sufficient skill as a writer and that's when it hit me flash the vignettes of barbara and bob cooper roy heenan pierre trudeau my wife sharon my partners all the mentors along the way i didn't do it myself the first time i needed paddlers in my boat but where to find them i was home alone like so many of us are these days i went online i picked up books on writing by stephen king and others i read my favorite authors i looked up a couple of authors online and asked if they wouldn't mind critiquing my work i got started on my path on my river and seven years later once more i am at this unimaginable point in my life norman bacall author i stay in touch with uncle harry we talk from time to time okay mostly he listens but he was right success is not a ladder it's not a straight line it's filled with bends and turns and falling out of the boat and climbing back in discovering you didn't drown you've just learned how to swim so that's been my journey up until now and it's been a glorious one but it's taken guts and filled me with exhilaration but that's been my choice but what about you what are you going to choose and here are my words of advice launch your boat in your river work on developing your skills take charge of your decisions don't be afraid to make mistakes don't be afraid to fail be determined work through those moments of doubts and never be ashamed to ask for help that is how you can become the person you can't imagine and as for uncle harry well once more he's shuffling off the stage back bent the gowns hanging a little lower that cigarette still dangling out of his mouth as he leaves us he never waves goodbye because really he never leaves this speech has been dedicated to the memory of dr harry lyon bakul member of the order of the british empire in 1946 for distinguished military service may his memory be a blessing and his legacy his words and thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 624,530

Keywords: Education, English, Leadership, Life, Life Development, Motivation, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:46963]

Id: SbyCtcvLRh8

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 26 2022