Unthinkable Leadership: Joseph Oubelkas at TEDxHanzeUniversity

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Wow thanks so much for being here I think I'm feeling so privileged that I can share my story with you guys and you know amongst all these beautiful all the stories I'm really really feeling privileged that I can stand here and just share my experience with you guys it's it's really amazing it's also made to be here in the cloning and cloning because last year I actually spent a whole weekend in Groningen yeah I mean who doesn't know Groningen it's like the city I'm from who doesn't know housing Smith raise your hands if you know ramzan sphere three people for six people well that's not too bad you know because I was born and raised in the hemisphere and it's it's it's in problems and I have a Moroccan dad and I have a Dutch mom people always like to know you you have this calling where you're from so that's my father for Morocco my mom from Howard yeah I should say in the correct way and I was born and raised in Hong Kong sphere and I actually had a beautiful life I had a wonderful youth and I didn't know any setback I didn't know any misfortune whatsoever and until that one day Thursday the 23rd of December 2004 when my life took a bizarre turn and it all got upside-down and I'm sure that positive that everyone here in this room has this day you can remember like today as it was yesterday I'm sure that everyone here has his own story like teen already said everyone has his own story and my story I always start my own story with one of the letters I got from my mom when I was in a certain situation and it's too small to read here but you know she said life my child has many barriers you must cross most of the time you will be warned but every one stone was once-in-a-lifetime on an invisible barrier then my son you stand up and move on and you will see a heaven in blue between the darkest clouds and flowers blooming in your Beauty lots of love mom and I'm so thrilled that I can every time I can read these words out loud because the first time I read those words I was handcuffed I was in a cage of a prison bus being transferred from one prison to another prison in the country of my dad Morocco so as I was saying what really happened well I cannot explain thoroughly what really happened to me but I was grown here you can see the skyline of Hong Kong sphere I saw the throne it also has beautiful skyline there really working on it then was my skyline comes fear was a little village and I grew up there I had a wonderful youth I had a lot of friends and I went to college I studied informatics advanced informatics at 20 years old I was one of the youngest IT engineers of Holland and furious later I started my own IT company and everything went perfectly well in my life study work love everything went great and I have my own auntie company one of my clients send me out to the country of my dad Morocco would you like to work for us in Morocco IOC yeah why not so I went there I worked out a year I was trained three years old I worked out a year long and I had a lot of fun beautiful country beautiful people up until today it's a beautiful country I really loved that country and I had to check up on all these companies and one day I started my routine again and I checked up on one company and I saw people with guns people shouting people crying I was like wow what's going on and I wanted to know for my client so I got out of the car I went to the gate and I asked what was going on and it was this guy he was a customs officer he went up to my place and he said who are you and what do you want he said any Moroccan I couldn't understand it so I replied to him in French because I was brought up with Dutson friends and I said my name is Joseph I'm from Holland and I'm here for my work and he said come with me and he showed me two vans parked on the lot of that company and he opened those vans and I saw all these brown packages it was all full stacked and he said Wow there's 8,000 kilos of drugs of her she's here in these cars and I was like whoa that's a lot so police came and they heard that I was from Holland I had to go I had to come down to the station and they questioned me and I was really not well I was pretty excited like an NCIS and CSI me I mean what's the oh yeah I'm gonna give you all my answers and by the end of the night I thought I'd be going home just before Christmas I was planning to take the plane and go home back to my mom to have presents and eat and but then the commander of this police station he came up to me with my passport in his hand and he said Joseph it was this passport and no those aren't bullet holes once a little old lady are those bullet no it's just perforated because it's not valid anymore but this past when he said Joseph mr. Ibaka's he said I'm sorry but you have to stay here would you please give us your shoelaces and your belt because you find it really suspicious that you have this many stamps in your passport and that's how my nightmare got sterile but he said to me don't worry because tomorrow you believe in home don't worry it will all be fine but I didn't go home and days all of the sudden turn into weeks and weeks turned into months and I was all I was imprisoned in this world of sirens and of noises and of big high walls with barbed wire and bars and a world I only knew from the movies this could not happen to me not not me come on what I thought everything will be fine that's what he said to me everything will be fine until that day a few months later that I got my conviction and then I was judged to ten years imprisonment and I was standing there convinced that I'll be going home but they said no you have to stay here until the 23rd of December 2014 and then I knew a kind of sadness a kind of emotion that I never experienced before in my young life I was just I just turned 24 and I really didn't hope I really hope that no one will ever experience such a sadness that I had and even though that's a government because I say all right I mean it's you know a lot of people say yeah I mean it's a medicine my mom knew I knew my mom knew my friends knew but luckily also the Dutch government they meddled in the case with her own lawyer and he said this is unreal I don't know why this young man is over here but he doesn't even earn a ticket find a parking fine that's what the independent trust lawyer said of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here in Holland and then later also explained to the newspapers that I should not have been convicted and I was so relief I thought everything's gonna be fine now but it wasn't and that's how real prison life to me started and I always say I write it literally in my book that I don't have words to explain the world the underworld that we lived in all those people how we lived over there you have to see it on images you have to see how all these people were you know like stacked up together and we had to save up room so we slept like fish in cans that's what they say like sardines and I can so I slept there with in here a pair of feet here a pair feet there are people there are people such a small space and it got so crowded that even people lay down blankets on the toilet so people could sleep on the toilet and you know what I can talk and go on and hours and hours on talking about this life but I'm not gonna do that because people always wonder how do you survive this how come you're standing over there and apparently you're doing fine yes I'm doing fine I'm doing even more than fine because I chose to be fine I always say you have this inner strength character you have just take it from me you're stronger than you think that's what I want to say but in my case what helped me through all these years was that my mom wrote me letters not one not two no 400 letters she wrote me and of course he wrote me kid we think of you son we love you and you have to maintain you have to go on you have to hold on do not for yourself but also for us of course he wrote that to me but she also wrote me focus take responsibility determine goals I reach them and I was like wow how can i determine goals in a environment like this how can I do this but she said she said if you want to succeed you will that's what she wrote to me if you want to succeed you will and then another thing she said and that was the truth it was like a blow in my face and I got tears when I read it but it was the truth because she said to me kid you have to do it yourself you have to do it yourself my son and I was thinking wow and she's right I have to do it myself because she said to me no one can get you out of prison right now the only thing we can do is how you maintain it how you hold on to this situation right now and all of a sudden I started realizing started doing entrepreneurship within the walls is how I'd like to call it so I wasn't my own intrapreneur of my own life and I saw the little things I started realizing what I really had alright I didn't have my freedom but what I really had I started seeing those little things and I always talked about the birds and the storks coming over every year I all of the sudden saw the blue skies turning from blue into orange into black and then the stars came up I started seeing those little things and started determining goals my first goal my first goal was I'm gonna learn Moroccan I'm gonna learn Arabic right read it are there any walkins here in this room don't be afraid I'm half so you can tell groningen doesn't have any Moroccan people no well that's the same because then I could prove to you guys that I actually speak Moroccan fluid me right now is a hard language but I maintained and all of the sudden I started I started doing things that I didn't ever think of a kind of unthinkable leadership how I would like to call it on thinkable leadership because I started working in a shop this big prison like five to six thousand people were incarcerated over there and they had a little shop and every Wednesday it was our turn our department to go and get stuff we needed you know like rice or water or whatsoever so everyone's that we were standing there and I was standing and I was a big lines like a couple hundred people I was standing there and there was someone standing next to me and here standing next to me as well and they were like aw man this is taking a lot of time can they hurry open it and I was standing there I was like yeah you guys you know do you have song something to do afterwards so do you have some appointment or where are you going and they were like oh yeah yeah true yeah true so it's so easy to complain you know that's the most easy thing to do the easiest thing to do stupid is to complain so it was my turn and a guard he was standing in front of the guard of this shop and he was in sweating who's working he was like what do you want I was like shall I help you it was help me yeah help you and I'm unpacking things for you I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna give it to you and you can work the line a little faster it was like okay so I helped him from that day on every Wednesday and it all went a little faster and it was this guy coming up to me there's Moroccan guy he said wow you speaking stone John I said yeah I speak him he's a little not that good but I mean I hope you guys understand me what I'm saying now so he came up to me would you be able to teach me English and I was yeah I will and he sat next to me with all these pieces of paper and they I mean and we start like I am you already know just the basics and other people saw that other inmates my fellow image said well we want that too and I got a key from a guard it wasn't the front key no no there was a little classroom like and I saw all these little chairs and and a blackboard with all these crayons cranes to call him don't you and I started teach him that English 15 to 20 criminal I mean my my students they were sitting there yeah and my mom every month she sent me a parcel with stuff oh wow I'm already talking for twenty twelve and a half minutes already so I'm gonna pace it up a little you guys you didn't know I was already talking for 12 1/2 minutes did you Wow so but but we have time don't worry all right sir so my mom every every month she sent me a parcel with two heart peas peas harpy's and in a letter she wrote put them in a jar with water and see what happens so I did as he told me I did and little green plants grew out of it and I liked it and the guard came up to me and he said in the cell because we were like 30 40 50 people in this little room I said who's dead and I was like oh it's mine and he came up to me you say Oh cute nice nice yeah so I explained to him the story that my mom sent me all these flower seats and he asked me could you please ask your mom if she would send me some flower seeds as well and I said mom and she did and he planted all those flowers see some beautiful flowers came came out and he asked me which allowed to have a prison garden here in prison so I started gardening from that day on yeah you know this commercial from Hama yeah alright so and I also started giving sports class and I started learning learning language next to friends and Dutson English I already spoke little German as well and Moroccan I also started learning Spanish and I had to work as a translator for the principal for the warden and I managed to create this own little world of freedom within these high walls that's the choice I made at that time and that's the one I want to say that somebody says humanity you used as weapon or a shield how you would like to call not by fighting or with fighting and now I just stayed myself and I'd like to help people and that's how I got to raise my stairs status within these walls luckily and then I always say from weakness to strength make this weakness embrace it and make it part of your life and that's why these days I'm getting invited by big companies and they say well could you please talk for our employees with themes like dealing with change and dealing with adversity and leadership just by telling my story yeah just by stem by telling your story okay and I like it I really love it I'm really enjoying this moment right now and I just want to go to the five pillars normally I'll talk about the three pillars health love and freedom those three things if you have those three you can build your own personal luck around it then then you're a real real real rich person health love and freedom and if you miss one of these three things please see and enjoy what you do have I didn't have my freedom at that time but I still have my health and I still had the love not the touchable love which I really miss just a hug for my mom or my dad or but the in touchable of through those letters I saw I realized what I really had and I want to add two more believe in yourself always remember that they take care can take away everything from you except for who you are because you are unique who you are don't ever ever let them take it away from you and perseverance you have to go on that's what my mom said you have to go on keep breathing keep going on I just want to share that with you guys and I know be the leader of your own life and I know that everyone everyone you guys experiences on one day or maybe you already experienced it it something intense or dramatic but be the leader of your own life just know how you want to be the leader of the of your own life I just want to end this with saying that I'm so proud of what I have here you know don't don't worry the guns not some it's just this Christmas card which I want to show to you guys because my mom every month she sent me all Christmas cards and it's not just a Christmas card she made it by hand she made it by hand not only this one but 200 other Christmas cards for my fellow inmates because my mom said just to make sure that your fellow inmates are not forgotten the worst thing that can happen to you in life is that they're being forgotten and she made and I will never never forget that day that all these cards on my department were just hanging there behind the bars just in the wind and I want to end with one of the stories of my mom because I'm so proud of her and I'm so privileged to have a mom because I don't I know now that I don't take it for granted that I have this beautiful mom because before I said yeah I had this beautiful mama and yeah yeah but not everyone has a mom like I have and I always hope if you don't have a mom like mine I really sincerely hope that you they dad or a brother or sister or partner or someone in your life that also supports you and just want to end with these words from my mom be brave and never become resentful you only have yourself and others will eventually turn away from you don't be nervous for the kind of tasks you will have in life whatever that may be experience your life as a strong man I will do the same as a strong woman nettle I've come to you like waves running in Shore and this is my mom that's my mom you can mom look look look look at all these people I'm so proud of my mom and I just want to thank you all just for listening to my story thank you marks thing and thank you everybody for being here thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 114,686

Keywords: TEDxHanzeUniversity, tedx talk, Hanze, Drama, tedx, ted talks, TEDxHanze, Morocco, The Netherlands, ted talk, Groningen, Hanze University, tedx talks, Inspiration, ted x, Hanzehogeschool Groningen, English, ted, Hanzehogeschool, Prison

Id: oWHkcqhVv9M

Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 03 2012