Embracing life's challenges - Trevor Ncube at TEDxEuston

life is unconventional embrace it I was going to say life is unconventional get used to it life is unconventional get on with it my wife thought embracing it sounds sounds gentle and I'm basically going to tell you the story of my life and in telling you the story of my life I'm going to share with you the lessons that my life has taught me one somebody said the video that was shown that don't call me normal and one thing I agree with that is what is normal life what is a conventional life and looking through my life I realize that life is unconventional and we need to embrace it I was born in Bulawayo Zimbabwe the second largest city I'm the first born in a family of six my parents were domestic workers the work for white people in Zimbabwe cleaning and cooking for them they didn't have any education but they valued the education when it came to to their children they needed to work to send us to school and they couldn't do that with us living with them in the townships of bull away so they sent us into the rural areas to live with our grandparents and life was tough in the rural areas and one thing that are affected me when I was growing up is affected I was a coward I'm still a coward and it's so difficult to be a coward when you are the first born in a family of six when you have siblings looking up to you to defend them so you can imagine what effect that had in my life in terms of humbling me I was the subject of bullying in the rural areas unable to protect myself and unable to protect my siblings my get my grandparents were very poor that means they didn't have donkeys and cattle they had chickens and gods and as you know there's very little you can do in the Royal here as a chickens and god you need donkeys and cattle to be able to to do anything I remember the hunger that we suffered in the rural areas and I'm not dramatizing this we we went four days without food and one thing that I want to share with you we used to use salt would dilute salt in water to use as relish with our Millah meal prop orange we dilute sugar in water to use as relish at - with our millennial porridge we went to school without shoes and I my wife and I visited this at a school that I went to three weeks ago and my parents did happen to get some money and bought me a pair of shoes but because I wasn't used to having shoes I put them under a tree and the next time I went to that tree the shoes had gone somebody had taken it so I was back to being without without without shoes so that roof that house that you see that used to be our bedroom out in the rural areas those those were my humble beginnings in the in the rural areas what are the lessons that that I come a walk away with from from being from that kind of environment I find myself in life betting for the marginalized than the poor betting for the drowned the downtrodden sorry I find myself so consumed by associating with a with a voice voice less Maia bringing taught me humility particle in the rural areas it taught me hard work it taught me the love for people I find myself in my life fighting for justice fighting for fairness fighting for equality transference and accountability and I think this is the that coward in me who feels that he needs to rally around those that are being bullied and late in life I find myself doing this and and she was talking about Manchester United and and and they the English league I think that's the reason why I support a Stanley not much is that my primary education I started primary education in the rural areas like I'd like I told you and and this is the thing that some some people when I told the story don't believe I was as Dali's people come I was absolutely not an intelligent kid as a result teachers hate you they hated me because the teachers hated me because I was dull but there was something there was something that I was consistent in I was consisted in being the number la the last person in class if there were 35 kids when the results came out of being the number 35 if there were 36 I'll be number number 36 that that was me I was very consistent when it came to that I'd a grade one teacher who have not forgotten up to now and as fate would have it three weeks ago when we went to the rural areas I saw this lady and she was presiding over the the function that I'll share with you later on this woman beat me so hard she she bit me so hard because I couldn't read I couldn't write okay and the only way that she thought she could teach me was to beat me and you know Spelling's didn't make sense to me how do you how does B or Y become boy and and one time she beat me so hard she beat me so hard that I was bleeding my backside was so I couldn't see it for a number of days I went home my grandfather was so angry my grandfather wanted to go to the school and deal with assumed and my grandmother protested and said if you do that his life is going to ruin the school stay stay he'll be he'll be all right guess what I later on found out in life that I'm actually dyslexic and I also suffer from malapropism which means bi t and b EI t to me can mean the same thing but I'm sure you know it doesn't or they don't so I confused words and so forth but I can't spell thank you to Microsoft Word I I can now fake it you know I and then I had a teacher in my fourth grade she was pregnant I don't hold anything against pregnant women but then she was pregnant and she hated me with the passion she she she could not stand my face she accused me of being ugly and an accusation which I deny of course and and my wife is there to confirm that care so this is what you do should say to me you guys are sitting facing this side she didn't want to look at me I to face and I sit and face the exact opposite of where the rest of the class was was was sitting and this is what she said she didn't want to give birth to a child who was as ugly as me so so what does this do and this abuse affected me quite a lot it diamond me it affected my Steam and it meant that my education was defective when I when I when I started it meant that during my formative years when I should be taught how to spell how to read and write nobody did that to me and up to this day I do have bouts of acute parts of self-doubt because of the things that my teachers used to tell me and what are the lessons that I've been able to I want to share with you this this is it the words we say to others can build or destroy teachers have a huge impact on who and what we become but what I want to say is that that should never stand in the way of success which you should never do that a sound foundational education is the bedrock of successful people and successful societies I didn't have the education that I should have had during my the four five formative years of my life then I moved into the city life was tough with my parents to do grade six and good five six and seven three square meals were a luxury remember my parents with domestic workers and and those are trying to put through to school six kids it was very tough we used butter to oil our bodies we used cooking oil to oil our hair I don't know how many some of some of you have done that and then Christmases were actually particularly painful because as you know African Christmases are about dressing up and eating chicken and rice and all those those were with foreign things for for us that's how I grew up then my turn around happened when I was in fifth grade and it was because of a teacher called mister fund important for the first time in my life this man said to me you have potential you have potential I see you growing up to become some somebody important in life I couldn't believe it that he was seeing this when nobody else had seen it in in my life all all this all this time alone and after him saying that for two years I started believing that I could become somebody I started believing that my life could become something and these are the lessons that I want to share with you from from that oh that's me there in this little as you can see things are beginning to happen and and that's me there being head boy of my and the lessons of these teachers can build or destroy I found a teacher that builds me we all need someone who believes in us we all need affirmation and we all need to affirm others and again I go to the issue of teachers good teachers are an indispensable part of building strong societies very very important I went to university I wanted to do law I miss low bar one point I had seven points they took eight eight eight points and that was my is my daughter would say the worst year of my life isn't it the case that when we going through tough times sometimes we think that's the worst day of your life but guess what their worst days ahead so it looked like it was the worst day of my life but it wasn't imagined if I'd become a lawyer I'd have made a terrible lawyer thank God I didn't my life as a journalist has been absolutely unconventional I'm not a trained journalist I have never been to journalism school I got into journalism by its cause chance it's the stories it's God's doing it's God wanted me to to get into into into journalism but I got into into journalism because somebody wanted somebody to anchor television program in Zimbabwe without television experience I was picked up and I incurred television programs in bubble for 13 weeks it was hugely successful primetime in Zimbabwe and it launched my journalism and television career it made me a household name in in Zimbabwe and then it was whilst I was doing that program that I got supported by the owners of a newspaper company in Zimbabwe and they approached me to be an assistant editor of their of their newspaper accepted the job I rose in seven years I became the editor-in-chief and then they fired me they fired me because they accused me of being an to MacGyver I didn't like rock with Robert and Gaby they said and the stories with very anti robotic ivy so I found myself on responders in the streets as it were and this is these are the lessons that I want to share from from that that's me at university by the way and that's me in general ISM the lessons comfort zones I got fired I was taken away out of my comfort zone I would not be in front of you today if I had not been fired how many of you are in comfort zones and are so comfortable that you can't think outside those comfort zones sometimes it's important for us to be fired sometimes it's important for us to be divorced and and and I had opportunity to to meet the person that fired me and I had lunch with him and I said thank you for firing you because if you had not fired me I wouldn't be where I am right now so yeah we need to we need to do that I've been arrested by the way our spend time in prison I've read my passport seized I've gone to court to fight for my passport I've had my citizenship withdrawn they have gone to to the High Court to fight for my to fight for my citizenship you know conventional wisdom would say that I'm courageous but what I want to say to you is if those if life becomes unconventional to you what do you do do you run do you hide - you quit - no you're concrete you can't hide you can't run if we want to be effective in life and have an impact in life we got to stand up but this is the point that if those in power persecute cowards like me guess what they do they turn us into Mateus they're ten common people into into into Mateus that's what that's what happens one thing that I'm quite passionate about is is technology and oh yeah the other thing I wanted to share with you is when you get fired the phone doesn't ring by the way nobody calls you and you get to know who are your why your actual friends are that's me by the way she selling newspapers because the government decided that they didn't want our newspapers to be sold on the streets by vendors and I decided I would do it myself this is the coward in me I'm rounding up now I am passionate about technology and this is as I'm sharing you with you that slider a norman of you have seen it this is what's currently happening in Africa around Africa the the digging of undersea fiber-optic cables all across the African continent this is amazing this is changing our industry this is changing the whole of Africa is going to have a huge impact right now as I'm standing in front of you there's close to between 650 million to 720 million Africans with mobile phones or the continent and by 2015 85% of Africa is going to be connected to broadband mobile and that's going to change the way Africans consume technology it's going to change the way Africa is perceived and that kind of stuff and I'm passionate about this this this stuff and this is unconventional who would have thought that would be talking about this kind of stuff but it is it is it is happening oh that's me with cross-balls you know in business by the way another thing I want to share with you I've never been to a business school only went to business school seven years ago to try and deal with the challenges of a growing business right now my time is up right now we in Zimbabwe we now employ over 600 people in South Africa we employ over 120 of 120 people the businesses these are some of huge headlines that have made big news in South Africa we have been so huge in changing the political landscape in South Africa my wife and I went back to the school that I went to 47 years ago and I wish I was coming to you with a different story with there with a good story with good positive feedback but unfortunately spread news things have gone from bad to worse and I think back to the teacher who nearly broke me I think back to the teacher who made me who I am today standing in front of you here and every time I walk past the school and seek school kids dressed in there are beautiful woman uniforms I look at them and wonder what kind of a teacher do they have do they have a teacher who is building them up do they have a teacher was breaking them up do they have a teacher was sharing great words and encouraging encouraging and building up what I want to say to you is that we all have a responsibility when we talk to the people that are younger than us when we talk to our children when we talk to kids and that kind of stuff to build them and not to destroy them let's go out and build through our words thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 50,078

Keywords: tedx talk, ted, africa, ted talk, tedx, zimbabwe, trevor ncube, ted x, tedxeuston, ted talks, tedx talks

Id: q0ss5LW6D_4

Length: 19min 25sec (1165 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2013