More Reading: Kelly Corrigan at TEDxSonomaCounty

In 2004, accomplished newspaper columnist Kelly Corrigan was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer. While in chemotherapy, she learned that her father, who had already survived prostate cancer, had late-stage bladder cancer. In her bestselling memoir, The Middle Place, Ms. Corrigan alternates chapters between that difficult year and flashbacks to her childhood, partially for much-needed comic relief and partially to make the point that "you don't really grow up until you learn to live in the world without the people who made it a safe place for you." Her second memoir, LIFT, tells three stories of risk and parenthood, including her daughter's bout of meningitis. She has become an expert in crisis and caretaking. Ms. Corrigan's writing is lauded by the Today Show, Good Housekeeping magazine and millions of readers.

The Huffington Post calls Corrigan the "Poet Laureate of the Ordinary" while O Magazine says Corrigan is "the voice of a generation." Her books The Middle Place and LIFT, reached #2 on the New York Times bestseller list and Corrigan's reading of her essay on the value of friendship was viewed over 5 million times on YouTube. Ms. Corrigan co-founded the Notes and Words benefit for Childrens' Hospital and Research Center Oakland. Her new book, a memoir about her mother called Glitter and Glue, will be published in February, 2014.

In her TEDxTalk, Kelly explores the value of reading, and why we should do more of it. In her down-to-earth, humorous style, she shows us how reading is the foundation upon which we build our vocabulary, which is surprisingly core to who we are, both professionally and personally. Kelly argues that expanding our working vocabulary through reading leads to occupational success, intellectual development and personal connection. Her hope is that individuals, couples, families, workforces, electorates and communities will read at least 30 minutes a day, exposing us to two million words used in context per year, words that will exponentially impact how we think and connect.

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Please welcome to the TEDx
Sonoma County stage Kelly Corrigan

(Applause)

So I have to be honest,

I’m not feeling very good
about my prospects right now.

I don’t have a ukulele player,

I don’t have a beret,

I can’t do that dance that
that guy did from the gospel

and I am the last thing between you
and your five o’clock drink.

(Laughter)

Let me give you five facts.

Thirty-three percent
of high school graduates

never read a book after graduation.

In college the number goes
to forty-two percent.

When the state of Arizona forecasts
how many beds they need for their prisons,

they look to the number of kids
in fourth grade who read well.

The number one cause
of divorce is poor communication.

And the number one predictor
of occupational success is vocabulary.

So my message today for individuals
and couples and families,

for workforces, electorates,
and communities is read more.

(Applause)

Read personal narrative,
read poetry, read op-ed,

read Doris Kearns Goodwin

and Louisa May Alcott
and Captain Underpants.

There are so many good reasons to read,

there’s a whole set
of physiological benefits

similar to what you get from meditation

so there is lowered stress and
deeper sleep and reduced memory loss.

And then there’s the places
that a book can take you

that time and money and
reality sometimes prohibit

like Xerox Park, or Gosford Park,
or Jurassic Park.

And then there are the people you can meet

in the pages of a book.

You know you can walk the jungle
with Coronel Kurtz

or skip to the tea party
with the Mad Hatter

or storm the boardroom waving
a tiny phone with Steve Jobs.

Reading is the ultimate
neurobiological workout.

It is to the brain what exercises is
to the body.

I could stop right there and the case
for reading would be made,

but there’s another reason
that I want to talk about today,

and that is to read for the words.

The consequences
of a robust working vocabulary seem small

but there’re actually many and meaningful.

Before I get to them,

let me just make the link quickly
between reading and vocabulary.

After fourth grade your vocabulary
basically develops exclusively

from reading and that’s because
written language is so much more diverse

than spoken conversation.

If you were to read
for thirty minutes a day for a year,

you would be exposed to two million words
used in context.

And they say conservatively
that five percent of those words

would be new to you or unfamiliar
or rarely used words.

So that’s a hundred thousand such words

that you’re going to see in a year.
Let’s say you only retain a hundred,

but let’s also say that you’re not
one of the thirty-three percent

of the high school graduates
who never read another book again

and let’s also say that you’re getting
ready to go to your 30-year reunion.

That means that you have been exposed
to thousands of new words

and you’ve incorporated them into your own personal arsenal.

That has…that matters.

that adds up.

So as I said at the top,
one of the things it does for us

is predict occupational success.

And it has been proven
that achievement precedes the vocabulary

rather than it being a result of.

And at first it seemed so far-fetched to me
that that would be the case

but then it seemed
so obvious the more I sat with it.

I mean how we communicate
has such a huge influence over

how we are perceived

and how we are perceived has such
a huge influence over how we behave

and how we behave over time
becomes basically who we are,

to our colleagues
and within our profession.

And it all starts with word choice.

Two a strong working vocabulary

is the best defense we have
against manipulation

both commercial and political.

So take for example
the whole ballot measure business.

So you’ve got a team of word Smiths
that are trying to come up

with the perfect exact phrasing
for that ballot measure, then you’ve got

a whole set of media working
to translate that into new language

and there you are the voter in the booth
having to parse those words to made sure

that you can accurately
vote your conscience.

That takes a strong vocabulary.

Take for another example
listening to a debate.

We need to be able to hear
and instantly recognize the motives

behind choosing certain words over others.

For instance affirmative action
over reverse discrimination

or illegal immigrant
over undocumented worker

or disability over difference.

The third reason, as my husband said,

is that language literally
defines our palette of possible thought.

As Helen Keller said,
perhaps more beautifully, no offense Hun

(Laughter)

She said, well first she considered herself
like a wild animal

until she got her hands on words

you know, she first learned braille
and then she learned to sign

and then finally she could vocalize.

And she said language sets thoughts aster

and keeps us in the intellectual
company of man.

And I learned this for myself.

In 1993 I came out to California
from Philadelphia

and I started grad school at night
to get a masters in English Lit.

My first professor was a guy named
Michael Krasny

who you might know – you know –
from public radio

Michael Krasny is a lucid articulate man

and I will tell you that in three months
of those classes

he introduced us to concepts as far
and wide as cognitive dissonance

and schadenfreude
and intentional fallacy,

agnosticism and relativism,

solecism and those concepts
that he drew with an architect’s precision

with that uncanny verbal acumen
of his are now mine.

They are in my palette
of possible thoughts forever.

And fourth, which is my favorite reason,

Having a strong vocabulary
allows you to do the thing

that fifty plus years of social science
tells us is the key to well-being;

make meaningful connections to others.

The strength of our connections,
the quality of our connections

totally hinges on our emotional
intelligence and EQ starts with words.

How accurately and unambiguously
can we identify and distinguish

and convey our feelings to another.

Was the lie insidious or was it shrewd?

Did it make you anxious or cautious?

Language allows for that potent
divine moment between friends

when we both understand
and are understood.

The "Exactly Moment" where I say
“I don’t know it was just,

I was so disappointed,
but it was more than that”

"You were disillusioned."

“Exactly, that’s exactly how I felt”

And so Word Nerds our job is clear.

(Laughter and Applause)

Only in TED do you get a clap
for calling everybody a nerd.

Our job is to go out there and help
our families and our spouses

and ourselves our workplaces,
our electorate, our communities read more,

so that we may be able
to achieve and evaluate

to think and connect

so that we might keep building the bridge

that Ian Forrester said is so essential,

the between the prose in us
and the passion.

Without it he said, we are
meaningless fragments:

half monks, half beasts.

Thank you

(Applause)