1
00:00:14,884 --> 00:00:18,395
I would like everyone here
to take a moment, right now,

2
00:00:18,395 --> 00:00:19,819
and close your eyes.

3
00:00:20,615 --> 00:00:22,577
Go ahead. Close your eyes, please.

4
00:00:23,846 --> 00:00:27,628
Now, I want you to imagine
that you are 11 years old.

5
00:00:28,228 --> 00:00:30,010
It’s the holidays ...

6
00:00:30,010 --> 00:00:33,456
You are asleep in your bed,
dreaming away.

7
00:00:34,095 --> 00:00:35,305
Okay?

8
00:00:43,154 --> 00:00:44,569
Now open your eyes.

9
00:00:47,188 --> 00:00:50,478
Those two sounds, those thuds,

10
00:00:50,478 --> 00:00:54,857
are what woke me up
on the morning of December 31, 1989,

11
00:00:55,337 --> 00:00:59,309
and those sounds were
my mother’s skull being smashed in

12
00:00:59,309 --> 00:01:01,432
while she was being suffocated,

13
00:01:02,721 --> 00:01:04,972
15 feet away from my bedroom.

14
00:01:07,610 --> 00:01:09,950
I then counted 12 footsteps

15
00:01:10,820 --> 00:01:14,186
as they slowly walked down the hallway,

16
00:01:15,846 --> 00:01:17,782
and then they stopped at my door.

17
00:01:19,242 --> 00:01:22,814
I knew at that moment
that if I had looked up,

18
00:01:25,134 --> 00:01:26,872
I wouldn’t be standing here today.

19
00:01:28,561 --> 00:01:30,157
Twenty-five days later,

20
00:01:30,157 --> 00:01:33,524
police exhumed my mother’s body
from underneath my father’s new home

21
00:01:33,524 --> 00:01:35,850
in our neighboring state of Pennsylvania.

22
00:01:37,990 --> 00:01:40,097
Little did I know at that moment

23
00:01:41,567 --> 00:01:44,366
that I was about ready
to embark on a journey

24
00:01:44,366 --> 00:01:46,773
to discover what resilience is,

25
00:01:47,293 --> 00:01:49,863
to turn my “why” into “what now?”

26
00:01:49,863 --> 00:01:53,057
and to realize that sometimes
the answer that you seek

27
00:01:53,057 --> 00:01:55,484
is not necessarily
the answer that you need.

28
00:02:00,371 --> 00:02:02,871
My father murdered my mother,

29
00:02:03,921 --> 00:02:06,792
and my life was changed forever.

30
00:02:10,531 --> 00:02:15,348
Just as my mother’s skull was smashed in,
so was the innocence of my youth.

31
00:02:17,446 --> 00:02:21,240
Now, instead of deciding which video game
I was going to play with my friends,

32
00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:24,800
or which action figure
I was going to get at the toy store,

33
00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:27,844
I was faced with
a different set of questions.

34
00:02:29,142 --> 00:02:33,572
Being torn from my home, my dog
and my whole way of life,

35
00:02:33,572 --> 00:02:37,062
I was wondering,
“Where am I going to live?

36
00:02:37,062 --> 00:02:39,191
Will I get a new mommy and daddy?

37
00:02:40,011 --> 00:02:41,990
What the hell is foster care?”

38
00:02:42,694 --> 00:02:44,289
And most importantly,

39
00:02:46,350 --> 00:02:47,807
“How did I get here?”

40
00:02:59,181 --> 00:03:01,439
My father’s selfish act

41
00:03:01,439 --> 00:03:04,533
turned not only
my own life upside down,

42
00:03:06,023 --> 00:03:09,380
but affected an entire community,

43
00:03:09,964 --> 00:03:11,541
the community of Mansfield, Ohio,

44
00:03:11,541 --> 00:03:14,263
the audience that sits
here before me right now.

45
00:03:15,909 --> 00:03:19,827
And little did we know that our tiny town
of 25,000 people at that time

46
00:03:19,827 --> 00:03:23,032
was going to be thrust
into the national spotlight

47
00:03:23,032 --> 00:03:27,831
for a trial that was
so horrific in its nature.

48
00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:37,110
I testified at trial for two and half days

49
00:03:37,110 --> 00:03:38,516
against my father,

50
00:03:38,516 --> 00:03:40,383
as the key witness for the prosecution,

51
00:03:40,383 --> 00:03:42,172
because I heard the murder happen.

52
00:03:42,832 --> 00:03:48,338
And I worked with them
because I was angry, I was hurt,

53
00:03:48,798 --> 00:03:50,471
but I was determined.

54
00:03:51,351 --> 00:03:55,522
I was determined to put my father
in the one place that he belonged:

55
00:03:58,472 --> 00:04:00,019
in prison for life.

56
00:04:02,624 --> 00:04:05,983
Little did I realize
that when I testified at trial,

57
00:04:05,983 --> 00:04:09,299
I was actually working through
my own trauma,

58
00:04:09,299 --> 00:04:11,533
because I was going through an action -

59
00:04:11,853 --> 00:04:13,994
because at that point in my life,

60
00:04:13,994 --> 00:04:16,854
I felt like I had no control
over anything.

61
00:04:16,854 --> 00:04:18,859
I had no say in where
I was going to live,

62
00:04:18,859 --> 00:04:21,591
I was stuck in a foster care home
I didn’t want to be in,

63
00:04:21,591 --> 00:04:24,947
I was separated from my family
and I was abandoned by my family.

64
00:04:25,637 --> 00:04:29,403
But the one thing that I could do,
that I could make a difference in,

65
00:04:30,262 --> 00:04:31,779
is testifying.

66
00:04:36,877 --> 00:04:39,057
But one thing always evaded me,

67
00:04:39,057 --> 00:04:42,230
and it continued to evade me
the rest of my life:

68
00:04:43,350 --> 00:04:44,582
Why?

69
00:04:46,662 --> 00:04:48,388
Why did my father,

70
00:04:49,473 --> 00:04:51,283
my own flesh and blood,

71
00:04:51,883 --> 00:04:55,546
commit such a horrific and heinous act?

72
00:04:58,137 --> 00:05:03,073
And how could he so selfishly
turn not only his own life upside down,

73
00:05:03,073 --> 00:05:04,441
destroy my mother’s life,

74
00:05:04,441 --> 00:05:07,559
but destroy and affect
an entire community

75
00:05:07,559 --> 00:05:10,737
that was so connected to this trial?

76
00:05:16,064 --> 00:05:20,039
I struggled for the next 25 years
with this question,

77
00:05:20,839 --> 00:05:25,561
so much so that I took myself
to Los Angeles, California,

78
00:05:25,561 --> 00:05:28,576
after getting out of music school,

79
00:05:29,366 --> 00:05:32,799
because I wanted
to do something with this story.

80
00:05:32,799 --> 00:05:35,082
I had to do something positive with this,

81
00:05:35,082 --> 00:05:37,743
because I was not going
to let this define me.

82
00:05:39,573 --> 00:05:43,159
I went as far as to creating a film

83
00:05:44,539 --> 00:05:47,184
with a two-time Academy Award winner,

84
00:05:47,184 --> 00:05:48,667
and the result

85
00:05:49,737 --> 00:05:51,561
was “A Murder in Mansfield.”

86
00:05:54,490 --> 00:05:56,276
Now, I want to take a moment

87
00:05:57,246 --> 00:05:59,955
to say that over that 25 years,

88
00:06:00,475 --> 00:06:04,767
my father manipulated, deceived,

89
00:06:05,607 --> 00:06:10,065
did everything he could in his power
to have me rescind my testimony,

90
00:06:10,065 --> 00:06:12,809
to have me represent him
at the parole board

91
00:06:12,809 --> 00:06:14,141
to help him get out,

92
00:06:14,141 --> 00:06:17,215
anything that this man could do
to manipulate me,

93
00:06:17,215 --> 00:06:21,025
and I always just wanted
my father’s love, right?

94
00:06:21,025 --> 00:06:23,077
Because I had already lost one parent,

95
00:06:23,077 --> 00:06:26,437
and despite as gruesome as everything was,

96
00:06:26,437 --> 00:06:28,953
I wasn’t prepared to lose another.

97
00:06:31,872 --> 00:06:33,866
Now, in the film’s final scene,

98
00:06:34,556 --> 00:06:37,311
I confront my incarcerated
father in prison.

99
00:06:37,779 --> 00:06:40,478
And finally, finally,

100
00:06:40,478 --> 00:06:42,545
I’m going to get that moment,

101
00:06:42,545 --> 00:06:46,319
I’m going to have that moment
where I can ask this man,

102
00:06:46,319 --> 00:06:47,605
“Why?

103
00:06:47,605 --> 00:06:48,885
Why, Dad?

104
00:06:48,885 --> 00:06:50,757
Why did you do this?”

105
00:06:54,613 --> 00:06:55,989
You know what?

106
00:06:57,809 --> 00:07:00,806
In what is definitely
a very heartbreaking scene,

107
00:07:02,125 --> 00:07:05,181
my father is unable to answer.

108
00:07:06,018 --> 00:07:10,559
Hidden below the depths
of narcissism and self-protection,

109
00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:12,769
he denies any wrongdoing.

110
00:07:16,727 --> 00:07:19,881
It was at that moment that I realized

111
00:07:19,881 --> 00:07:23,296
that I had taken back
the power in that room

112
00:07:23,296 --> 00:07:25,808
by confronting my father
finally, and saying,

113
00:07:25,808 --> 00:07:28,162
“You did this. I want to know why.”

114
00:07:29,973 --> 00:07:32,188
But I never got the answer to my question.

115
00:07:34,970 --> 00:07:36,357
So you know what?

116
00:07:36,767 --> 00:07:38,165
I was a failure.

117
00:07:39,428 --> 00:07:40,924
I failed as filmmaker,

118
00:07:40,924 --> 00:07:42,609
I failed as a human being -

119
00:07:43,420 --> 00:07:46,629
I never got the answer
to the one question that I wanted!

120
00:07:49,252 --> 00:07:52,667
Then I realized something,
because like most things in life,

121
00:07:52,667 --> 00:07:54,936
failure often disguises as success.

122
00:07:55,994 --> 00:07:59,627
I realized that: what if
the answer that I was seeking

123
00:07:59,627 --> 00:08:01,702
wasn’t really the answer that I needed?

124
00:08:03,846 --> 00:08:06,409
Hmm, it’s an interesting concept, right?

125
00:08:07,922 --> 00:08:10,511
You see, life will never ever
really give us the answer

126
00:08:10,511 --> 00:08:12,381
to the whys that we want, right?

127
00:08:12,741 --> 00:08:15,233
It just doesn’t.
Life doesn’t work that way.

128
00:08:16,373 --> 00:08:19,620
So I thought, “Well, there’s got
to be something to this, right?”

129
00:08:19,900 --> 00:08:21,426
And I thought, well -

130
00:08:22,346 --> 00:08:24,393
When we go through a traumatic event,

131
00:08:25,143 --> 00:08:27,414
human beings are natural empaths.

132
00:08:27,414 --> 00:08:30,082
We want to know why, “Why? Why?”

133
00:08:30,082 --> 00:08:34,345
Why did the gunman walk into a school
and shoot up a bunch of children?

134
00:08:34,345 --> 00:08:37,565
Why did terrorists fly planes
into two towers in New York City

135
00:08:37,565 --> 00:08:39,726
and kill 3,000 people?

136
00:08:40,437 --> 00:08:43,966
Why did a husband
selfishly murder his wife?

137
00:08:46,157 --> 00:08:48,116
So I did a little bit of a deep dive,

138
00:08:48,116 --> 00:08:50,670
and I discovered what researchers call

139
00:08:51,676 --> 00:08:53,676
the mirror-neuron system.

140
00:08:53,676 --> 00:08:57,754
Now, researchers classify
the mirror-neuron system

141
00:08:57,754 --> 00:09:02,275
as this group of cells in our brain
that lies in our limbic system

142
00:09:03,455 --> 00:09:06,633
that is responsible for compassion.

143
00:09:06,633 --> 00:09:08,594
It’s how we relate to one another.

144
00:09:09,354 --> 00:09:12,540
So I thought, “Okay, so there’s
a little bit of science behind this.

145
00:09:12,540 --> 00:09:14,916
So I’m not too far off base here.”

146
00:09:16,723 --> 00:09:18,785
And then I come back to my why -

147
00:09:18,785 --> 00:09:20,460
my why, my why ...

148
00:09:20,460 --> 00:09:22,080
I just want to know why.

149
00:09:22,640 --> 00:09:24,739
And then I really realized something.

150
00:09:26,063 --> 00:09:29,845
“Why?” looks into the past,

151
00:09:31,467 --> 00:09:33,238
but “what now?” ...

152
00:09:34,068 --> 00:09:35,947
“What now?” looks to the future.

153
00:09:36,886 --> 00:09:41,662
So, what if our approach
to trauma is all wrong?

154
00:09:41,994 --> 00:09:44,713
What if instead of saying
“Why? Why? Why?”

155
00:09:44,713 --> 00:09:47,970
and trying to understand
and justify in our heads

156
00:09:47,970 --> 00:09:49,949
why these horrible things happen,

157
00:09:50,429 --> 00:09:54,664
we instead say, “What now?
What are we going to do about it?

158
00:09:55,474 --> 00:09:58,422
What can push us forward
and lead us through the trauma?”

159
00:09:58,422 --> 00:10:01,517
And I argue that that is being of service.

160
00:10:01,517 --> 00:10:04,389
That is doing something
that helps the greater good.

161
00:10:04,389 --> 00:10:07,896
For me, creating my film,
when I set out,

162
00:10:07,896 --> 00:10:10,926
I wanted to heal myself
and help one person,

163
00:10:10,926 --> 00:10:13,145
because I could show in the film,

164
00:10:14,235 --> 00:10:17,756
as plain as day, and be as honest
and open as I can for the camera

165
00:10:17,756 --> 00:10:20,253
to show everything that’s going on

166
00:10:20,253 --> 00:10:22,797
and to show that you can
really work through trauma.

167
00:10:22,797 --> 00:10:26,244
That was my way of giving back
because I know that people would see this.

168
00:10:26,244 --> 00:10:27,738
I had hoped to change one life,

169
00:10:27,738 --> 00:10:31,171
and in fact I ended up
changing thousands of lives,

170
00:10:32,168 --> 00:10:33,759
which is a really cool thing.

171
00:10:33,759 --> 00:10:36,837
So anyways, back to this:
what if in our approach to trauma,

172
00:10:36,837 --> 00:10:38,820
we lead ourselves through service

173
00:10:38,820 --> 00:10:41,993
and that ends up pushing us
through the trauma?

174
00:10:41,993 --> 00:10:48,255
See, I realized that my “what now” began
on the morning of December 31, 1989,

175
00:10:48,255 --> 00:10:50,445
because I knew that my mother was dead,

176
00:10:52,015 --> 00:10:54,042
but I knew I had to do something about it.

177
00:10:54,521 --> 00:10:56,640
I worked with investigators,

178
00:10:56,640 --> 00:10:58,568
I got into the courtroom, I testified,

179
00:10:58,568 --> 00:11:01,395
and I had a whole wonderful community -

180
00:11:01,395 --> 00:11:04,016
some of these individuals
are sitting in this audience -

181
00:11:04,016 --> 00:11:05,649
that pillared me up,

182
00:11:05,649 --> 00:11:07,567
that brought to me the resilience.

183
00:11:07,567 --> 00:11:10,430
And my quest for resilience
continued then.

184
00:11:10,430 --> 00:11:14,046
I was in high school,
I dove head-on into the arts,

185
00:11:14,046 --> 00:11:16,746
because as a child,
growing up in this community,

186
00:11:16,746 --> 00:11:19,509
we have always had wonderful art programs.

187
00:11:19,509 --> 00:11:22,360
And art is what lead me through my trauma.

188
00:11:23,230 --> 00:11:25,257
It lead me to create,

189
00:11:25,647 --> 00:11:28,106
which helped me get to my “what now”

190
00:11:30,373 --> 00:11:32,245
It’s a really wonderful place to be.

191
00:11:32,695 --> 00:11:38,928
And that community continues to be with me
as I work in Los Angeles as a filmmaker,

192
00:11:39,288 --> 00:11:41,546
because I have a different
group of friends now,

193
00:11:41,546 --> 00:11:44,862
and a different community,
a more expanded community,

194
00:11:44,862 --> 00:11:46,742
that also supports resilience

195
00:11:46,742 --> 00:11:50,811
and that also understands
the “what now” of the world.

196
00:11:53,542 --> 00:11:55,225
But don’t just take my word for it

197
00:11:55,225 --> 00:11:58,651
because when you go through
these types of things,

198
00:11:58,651 --> 00:12:00,555
you end up making other friends.

199
00:12:03,864 --> 00:12:07,585
This is my friend James Gribble -
or Gribbs, as he likes to be called.

200
00:12:08,603 --> 00:12:09,863
In 2008,

201
00:12:09,863 --> 00:12:14,980
James set off on a life-changing journey
to travel the world for two years.

202
00:12:14,980 --> 00:12:18,018
His first stop was
the African nation of Zambia,

203
00:12:18,398 --> 00:12:21,438
where he was going to fish

204
00:12:22,028 --> 00:12:25,369
for one the world’s rarest
and most prized fish to catch:

205
00:12:25,369 --> 00:12:26,891
a tiger fish.

206
00:12:28,879 --> 00:12:32,122
James arrived at this remote island
on the Zambezi River,

207
00:12:32,632 --> 00:12:35,414
sat down on a stool and was dehydrated,

208
00:12:35,414 --> 00:12:37,202
fainted onto sand

209
00:12:37,762 --> 00:12:40,892
and broke his C4 and C5 vertebrae

210
00:12:40,892 --> 00:12:44,333
and became a quadriplegic immediately.

211
00:12:46,710 --> 00:12:48,197
But Gribbs didn’t …

212
00:12:49,427 --> 00:12:51,104
didn’t say, “Why? Why?”

213
00:12:51,104 --> 00:12:53,380
In fact, his father was a rugby coach,

214
00:12:53,380 --> 00:12:57,636
took to his immediate rehabilitation,

215
00:12:57,636 --> 00:12:59,505
his whole family rallied around him,

216
00:12:59,505 --> 00:13:01,510
and James often said,

217
00:13:01,510 --> 00:13:04,458
“You can’t feel sorry for me
because I don’t feel sorry for me.

218
00:13:04,458 --> 00:13:06,368
I’m on my journey.”

219
00:13:06,368 --> 00:13:08,694
And through doing that,

220
00:13:08,694 --> 00:13:11,804
James had a passion, which was golf,

221
00:13:11,804 --> 00:13:14,141
and James was determined
to get back on the links,

222
00:13:14,141 --> 00:13:16,265
determined to rehabilitate himself.

223
00:13:16,265 --> 00:13:19,499
So [after] tens of thousands
of hours of rehabilitation,

224
00:13:20,029 --> 00:13:23,366
James partnered with a company in Germany,

225
00:13:23,716 --> 00:13:27,164
and helped to bring to market 
a device called

226
00:13:28,774 --> 00:13:30,144
the ParaGolfer,

227
00:13:31,124 --> 00:13:32,772
which put James back on the links.

228
00:13:32,772 --> 00:13:35,232
Now, the ParaGolfer is designed

229
00:13:35,232 --> 00:13:39,500
to help spinal cord victims,
stroke victims, get back and play sport.

230
00:13:41,042 --> 00:13:45,643
James is also someone
who took his why, put it in the past

231
00:13:46,133 --> 00:13:47,736
and faced the “what now.”

232
00:13:47,736 --> 00:13:51,393
And the work that he has done
has been adopted by doctors and clinicians

233
00:13:51,393 --> 00:13:53,801
in his native country of Australia

234
00:13:53,801 --> 00:13:56,092
to treat spinal cord injury.

235
00:14:02,253 --> 00:14:04,563
So when it comes to resilience,

236
00:14:05,833 --> 00:14:07,718
it really is a team sport.

237
00:14:08,478 --> 00:14:11,722
I wouldn’t be standing here
if it wasn’t for members of this audience

238
00:14:11,722 --> 00:14:13,532
and the community that pillared me up.

239
00:14:13,532 --> 00:14:16,870
I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t
for the resilience of the arts

240
00:14:16,870 --> 00:14:18,401
and me diving into that.

241
00:14:19,991 --> 00:14:22,255
When I was a freshman at music school,

242
00:14:23,245 --> 00:14:25,219
I heard a great quote,

243
00:14:25,219 --> 00:14:26,515
and it was by Aristotle.

244
00:14:26,515 --> 00:14:30,088
It says, “We are what we repeatedly do.

245
00:14:31,048 --> 00:14:34,870
Excellence, therefore,
is not an act, but a habit."

246
00:14:36,710 --> 00:14:38,171
Well, so is resilience.

247
00:14:44,438 --> 00:14:46,255
I’m here to say ...

248
00:14:48,306 --> 00:14:51,566
biography is not destiny.

249
00:14:54,441 --> 00:14:59,339
You can be both the author
and the audience of your life.

250
00:15:01,137 --> 00:15:02,596
Thank you.

251
00:15:02,596 --> 00:15:04,419
(Applause)