Living because I'm dying | Shani Scott | TEDxMountainViewCollege

Anything that is living will eventually die. How we journey through the life is what matters most. So the question becomes, are you living, because you are dying? This talk points out simple steps to live the only life you are given most effectively.

Shani Scott was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Dallas, Texas. She graduated from David W. Carter High School in 1994 and began her radio career in August of the same year. She has also achieved becoming a published author, actress and spokesperson for various organizations. In June of 2013 she became the first black female programmer of a radio station in the East Texas Market. She is the owner of The Media Room and handles bookings for multiplatinum recording artist Beyonce's father, Mathew Knowles, Lavish Wink & More, Dj Big Bink and various other national artists. She also works with various organizations including the Texas Black Women’s Coalition for HIV/AIDS & The American Stroke Association. Shani Scott is the life partner of Kendal Johnson and they are the proud parents of four children, Carlie, Cailie, Amaria & K.J. Shani believes that with Faith ALL things are possible.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

So I have a question to ask everybody.

Are you living because you're dying?
Or are you dying because you're living?

Have you ever thought about that?

I never really thought about it.

When I did sit down and think about it,
I figured out that I was doing neither.

I was just going through this thing
called life with no real purpose.

There were goals that I had.

There were things that I was accomplishing
but I was just going through life.

Then life really happened.

And when life happened

I realized that I was dying
because I was living.

See, I felt like I had made it
to the top, to what my top was.

I was in management in radio,
something that I've always wanted to do.

I was travelling around the country
to various conferences.

I was able to take my daughters with me;
we were having a really good time.

I was working all kind of hours
accomplishing great things,

getting all kind of accolades.

But all of that was contributing
to me dying because I was living.

See, I wanted my daughters
to have a better life than me.

I wanted to have a better life.

My radio station was number one.
I wanted to keep that.

My time slot that I was in was number one.

I wanted to maintain that.

I actually wanted to be whatever
was over number one,

and I figured out what that was -
that was called the shiny level.

And only certain people
operate at the shiny level.

And I haven't met too many people that
could really operate at the shiny level.

There's a song that I would think of,
you might know, it says:

"I am number one. Two is not a winner.
And three nobody remembers."

Shiny level, only so many
people could get on.

And shiny level caused my heart to fail,

and that contributed to me
dying because I was living.

Then, just when you thought
it couldn't get worse,

something else happened in life
that caused me to stop and think.

And that was causing me to die
because I was living too,

because this time I was introduced
to this pink thing

that torments a lot of people,

shakes up a lot of families,
shakes up a lot of homes.

So,

I'm not saying that you
shouldn't go after your dreams.

Please don't think
that I'm taking you down that road.

I'm not saying that,

but what I am saying
is when you accomplish a dream,

take the time to enjoy the reality
that you've created.

See, for me, when I reach a dream,
when that dream comes true,

I get greedy, and I push, and I push
because I want more.

100 is not enough; it has to be 200.

200 is not enough; so I got to get to 500.

But that very thing, that type of drive

was causing me to die
because I was living.

April 27, 2010,
I gave birth to my baby girl.

Fifteen months prior to that,
I had my first daughter.

Now, while I was in delivery,
I busted a blood vessel in my brain

while trying to push for my now
nine-year-old to be delivered.

They actually had to
stop me from pushing,

and she actually birthed herself -
she came out on her own.

True story.

Okay?

Now, that day that I had her
I was ready to go back home

because, again, 15 months earlier,

I had just had a baby, so we had already
gone through this. I was fine.

"Hey doctor, I'm ready to go home,
I don't need to sit up in this hospital.

I'm ready to go home,
plus we had this fight party planned

because Floyd Mayweather
was fighting Shane Mosley.

And I had already told
all my friends to come over

because I wanted to show off
my beautiful baby girls to everybody.

Okay?

We got home. We had the party.

At the party I'm taking the girls around,

I'm showing them to everybody
because my girls are cute.

They're cuter than your girls.
I'm just saying.

And I wanted everybody
to see my beautiful babies.

Here I am, my baby is only three days old,

and I am socializing, showing her off,

trying to be the hostess
with the mostess with swollen ankles,

swollen legs, swollen hands,
swollen arms, and so much pain.

See, I was dying because I was living.

Okay?

That Sunday after the fight,
that Monday, actually,

I woke up at six am,

I did not know who my daughters were.

I did not know who my damn husband was.

Fortunately, he thought fast,
threw us in the car,

rushed me to the hospital
to find out I was having a stroke.

I had went home bleeding on the brain
from trying to give birth to her.

Just five days earlier.

Two days earlier I'm the socialite,
dying because I was living.

See, I wasn't taking the time to enjoy
the dreams that I had already created.

Because the other thing
that happened at that party,

I was having conversations
about wanting to have twins.

Maybe six months later me and my husband
were going to work on that development.

Okay? But I already had two.

Two dreams that I made come true,
back to back, but it wasn't enough.

Dying because I was living.

Now, with that stroke, I ended up
having to go into rehab

because it caused me to lose my sight.

It affected the left side of my brain.

I could not speak in complete sentences.

I could not identify things.

I couldn't even walk.

I spent Mother's Day in the hospital

with my newborn baby
and my then one-year-old daughter.

So I went to rehab, and in rehab
I had one job. One job.

So, again, I couldn't walk.
I'm in a wheelchair, right?

My job every day was to roll
my wheelchair up to a desk.

At that desk they had a walker.

I was to put my hands on the walker,
push myself up, stand up,

pick a pencil up that
was on right side of the desk

and move it to the left side of the desk.

Simple, huh?

Sound easy?

That was the hardest thing for me to do.

There was so much pain going
from the back of my head

all the way down to my ankles.

My sight came back

because the pressure of the blood -

what was causing me to be blind
was the pressure of the blood on my brain

is what caused the vision
in the left side to go out.

So that came back.

I was really frustrated
doing this exercise every day

because it hurt, number one.

Number two, I'm ready to go home

because every day they would
bring my daughters to see me,

for an hour, my newborn.

My baby girl would scream -

I knew when they were there because
she would scream coming in the door -

she got to the room,
got to me, she was fine.

When it's time to go, and I'm putting her
back in her seat for my dad to take her,

she'd scream all the way out,
so I knew when they were gone.

I said "You know what?

We're gonna go home,
and this wheelchair is staying here,

and this walker is staying here,
it's not going, because I'm too young,

I have two young daughters,
and I want to be able to play with them,

run with them, walk and talk with them."

Eventually I got home.

The wheelchair stayed,
the walker had to come, but that's fine.

As you see I don't have the walker now.

(Applause)

And, as you see, I can speak
in complete sentences

and you understand what I'm saying.

And if you talk to me
I can understand what you're saying,

and I can identify that there are people,
actually human beings,

not trees, cats, and dogs
sitting in the audience.

So we got past that, right?

But I was still dying
because I was living.

After, I went right back to work.

Went to work.

We ended up moving to Tyler.

Now, I'm the Program Director
at an urban radio station.

I am loving it because
I am in complete control

and in charge in a market
that I want to be in.

That wasn't my first time
being Program Director,

that was actually my second time,

and I've also been Operations Manager,

just so you know.

So I get this job,

and in my house there's a radio
that nobody can touch,

because understand this,

as a Program Director my job is
to select the music that we play,

approve the promotions
that are going to go on.

I'm over the air staff, I'm over
everything that happens on this station.

If it goes wrong according
to management, it is my fault.

So nobody could touch this radio.

My mom came to town, turned
my radio off, it was a problem.

This is my house; don't touch nothing.

Leave it the way it is.

With that radio I would listen to
my station all night long.

So if my station went off the air,
I knew it in my sleep.

And when it would go off,

I had my phone next to me,
I'd roll over, call my engineer,

say "Hey, the station's off the air.
You need to get me back up right now."

When I got to work one day he said,

"Listen, you need to get some rest

because all of that calling
in the middle of the night,

I don't understand how you do that.

You work 24 hours a day
listening to the station."

"Well, look, dude, I love my job,
I love my station, and I want it right.

And you got to get it right.

If you can't get it right then
I need to go talk to corporate

so they can get somebody over here
that can get it right for me."

That

was causing me to die
because I was living.

I ended up in the hospital

because I was having these sharp pains
that started in the winter of 2014.

By the summer of 2015,

I'm in the ER because I'm on the air
trying to record my show.

These pains are going on
and all of the sudden

(Sucking sound)
just all the air sucks out of me,

and it goes somewhere, I don't know where.

And this pain is so much.

So I said, Okay, well, you know what?
Let me turn this mic off.

Let me put the mic back. Let me pick up
my keys, put 'em in my purse.

Let me walk to the front,
to the receptionist,

say, "Hey, listen, I'm going to lunch.
If you need me call me. I'll be back."

But what I did, I got in my car,
I drove myself to the ER,

walked in and told them,
"Hey, this is what's going on."

And immediately this swarm of people came,

and they started putting
all these things on me.

They are hooking me up
to an EKG.

So I was having a heart attack.

Still dying because I'm living.

The doctor told me -
I'll never forget this -

he walked up to me, he said,

"Miss Scott,

you're a workaholic,
and you need to stop."

I said, "Nah, you don't understand, see,
because I'm number one,

and we can't fall below -

Do you want to be the number three
surgeon here or whatever it is you are?

'Cause see, that's
not going to work for me."

He said, "Listen, you can
go back to work if you want to,

but you're gonna be right back here,

and I can't guarantee you
that you're gonna go home."

So I took the two weeks off.

And I literally cried
listening to the radio

because things weren't going as I wanted.

I'm calling, saying,"Look,
y'all need to change these -

nobody's touching it."

See, they were living
because they were dying,

but I was still dying
because I was living.

So, we get to my 40th birthday.

November, 2016.

I'm 40. I'm on my way to Vegas.

I'll be covering
the Soul Train Music Awards.

I'm having a good time,
and I find out I have breast cancer.

And in that moment,

that's when I started
living because I was dying.

See, my doctors told me
I had to do 22 rounds of chemo,

14 rounds of radiation,

and if I didn't do it -
because I wasn't a good patient -

if I didn't do it,
in four months I would die.

And I looked at her, I said,
"Listen, okay, I'm not doing all that,

because number one, I've already
had a stroke, a heart attack,

so I'm not doing this,
I'm going to take my chance."

Well, it's past four months, so ...

We beat breast cancer. December, 2017

(Applause)

But,

it was in that moment that I learned
how to live because I was dying.

Now, what's important is spending time
with the two daughters that I have.

Now, what's important
is being good at what I do.

Yes, I have goals to excel,

but to get there as a process
not as a race to be first.

If I get there in 25th place,
it's fine, hey, I got there.

And once you take the time to figure out
what's really important to you,

in that moment you will start
living because you're dying,

and trust me, we are all dying.

So my challenge to you is
to live your life to the fullest.

Take the time to enjoy the things
that mean the most to you.

Cut the stress out, whatever it is,
because it's not worth it.

We don't know when
we'll take our last breath;

we don't know when our last day is.

But the one thing that we can do
and what we can control

is to make sure that we are living
because we are dying.

Thank you.