What is your polygamy? | Lance Allred | TEDxSaltLakeCity

Lance Allred, the first deaf player in NBA history, challenges his audience to identify their self-limiting beliefs by sharing how his experience of growing up in a polygamist culture created his own constricting psychological boundaries, and how he eventually was able to break free.

Born and raised in a polygamist commune in rural Montana, Lance Allred escaped at the age of 13. He was the first legally deaf player in NBA history, with 80% hearing loss, when he played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2008. A conversation with Lance will challenge your perceptions and invite you to look deeper at the psychological boundaries that shape your reality.

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

"Wow, you're really tall.

How tall are you?

Do you play basketball?"

"You played in the NBA with Lebron James?

What was that like?"

It was fun; we got along well.

(Laughter)

Lebron, the inner city kid from Ohio,

and me, the deaf
polygamist kid from Montana.

(Laughter)

Poof!

"What?!

You grew up in polygamy?
What was that like?

I don't get it.
Why would people do that?

Why would they stay?
I could never be a second or third wife."

Not that complicated really.

It's what they know.

It's the world they grew up in.

They know what the boundaries
and the rules are.

And they're told to stay
inside those boundaries,

the physical boundaries of the commune

and furthermore the mental
and emotional boundaries.

Stay inside those boundaries
and you will always be safe.

Safe from pain.

Most people will choose a familiar hell

over an unfamiliar heaven.

So, now I ask you,

what is your polygamy?

What are the thought patterns
you have inherited from your childhood?

From your parents,
your grandparents, your community,

that you've taken with you
into your adult life.

What are the stories
and perceived truths that still linger,

and that may be sabotaging
your adult experience?

What are the boundaries
and comfort zones you have settled in?

Never daring to take risk.

Physically escaping from polygamy
at the age of 13, for me,

was the easy part.

Mentally and emotionally escaping?

Far different story.

My grandfather was Rulon Allred,

the prophet and founder
of the Apostolic United Brethren.

I never knew him,

as he was assassinated
four years before I was born,

by the wife of a rival polygamous leader.

But I was raised in his Utopian dream,

at Pinesdale, Montana.

My childhood was a world
of wonder and mysticism,

solidified by black and white absolutes.

Absolutes that said that we were special;

that we were God's chosen people;

that we hade the one True Church,

with a capital "T."

And that my grandfather
was up in heaven, waiting for me.

The nature and appeal of absolutes
is that they provide certainty

in an uncertain world.

And most people will do anything,
anything they can, to protect that.

(Video) Interviewer:
Could you become a God?

Vance Allred: Yes.

Interviewer: How far
would you be willing to go

to defend the principle of polygamy?

VA: I was raised for it,
I was born for it, reared for it,

trained for it, all my life.

Interviewer: Would you die for it?

Rulon Allred: We are trying to keep
all the commandments of God.

Presentator:
Early today, Rulon Allred,

fundamentalist leader
of the Apostolic United Brethen,

was found shot dead in his medical office.

Witnesses noticed two unidentified
females leaving the scene.

Lance Allred: So again, I ask you,

what is your polygamy?

What are the black and white absolutes
that you hold on to?

That allow you to believe
that you have the truth,

that you are right.

And what relationships
would you sabotage or endure

to hold on to that story.

Maybe you are an expert mental gymnast,

like myself.

You had to be, growing up
in that world of pesky absolutes:

on one hand, you are so special;

yet, on the other,
you're not quite worthy -

you could do better.

(Laughter)

You are loved, unconditionally,
without question -

on the condition you do
everything the prophet says.

And when you speak of the prophet,
you speak very softly, like this.

You are told that lying is a sin.

Yet, if anyone asks you
if your dad is a polygamist,

you have to lie.

What are the mental gymnastics you pull

to stay within your paradigm?

To avoid cutting your losses.

Would you like to see
a polygamist wedding?

Jazz hands!

This is my mother at the age of 16,

being placed in an arranged
marriage with my father.

Now, note: these are not bridesmaids,

these are my mom's sistermoms,
and those are my dad's -

one, two, three, four, five, six...

There is just a lot of women in that room.

Throughout my basketball career,
I've had team mates come up to me

and say, "Hey yo, dawg!
This new club be hoppin'.

There's like a three girls
to one guy ratio,

we gotta go check it."

And I'm like, "I'm good."

(Laughter)

As a boy, growing up in polygamy,
you saw men in power,

the prophets, with multiple wives,

and so you began telling yourself a story
that a woman is how God validates you.

More wives equals more worthy,
equals more power, equals more blessings,

equals more wives, and so on, and so on.

And you're also told that woman
don't need the priesthood

because they're already so spiritual.

So, as a boy, I began
putting woman on pedestals

believing that they were
inherently better than me.

That they somehow had X-ray vision,

and could see right through me,
and determine if I was worthy or not.

A dialogue went like this one day
with my cousin, when I was 12 years old:

Steven Don -

and it's proper etiquette
to use middle names

when you have 400 first cousins
running around the wilderness like smurfs.

(Laughter)

Steven Don, I think I like Lisa.
Do you think she might like me back?

"No, I already claimed her.
I called dibs."

But, you called dibs on Sarah, last week.

"Yeah, so? We're polygamists."

Oh.

Can you imagine how competitive
that world might be?

Polygamy?

Once a girl began to mature,
not only did you like her,

but your brothers,
your cousins, your uncles -

Heck! Even your dad,
theoretically, is your competition.

And you're all playing for keeps.

Because the founders
of the Mormon faith did declare,

you need at least two wives

to get to the highest degree
of glory in heaven.

My fear and anxiety around girls
is only exacerbated

by how difficult
it was for me to hear them,

as they speak on a higher register,

and I was also very self conscious
about how I talked.

And I know you don't really hear it now,

but I was in speech therapy
till I was 15 years old.

I'm going to show you a video,
of me speaking at the age of 11.

Mind you, I've been in speech therapy
for nine years up to this point.

(Video) LA: Yeah, I was goalie
for my soccer team,

now [inaudible] in basketball and stuff,

and I got a [inaudible] right here -

I open up my present,
and that [inaudible] Nintendo game -

[inaudible] about nothing."

(On stage) LA: I've watched
this video over 300 times,

and I still have no idea
what the hell I was saying.

(Laughter)

The greatest challenge of a disability
is not the actual disability itself.

But rather the perceived limitations

that everyone around you,
and eventually yourself,

begin to believe are true.

Maybe that is your polygamy.

Or like me,

it was impressed upon you
as a five-year-old boy

by your Sunday school teacher,

that God has made you deaf
as a form of punishment.

That you have done
something wrong in a pre-life.

And so, for as long
as you can remember, really,

you always believed
you had to earn God's love.

Well, after I escaped polygamy for years,
I believed, deep down, somewhere in here,

that I had to be the first
deaf player in NBA history,

and then God would be proud of me.

Then I'll be worthy of His love.

But not only His love,
but the love of a woman as well.

This was my polygamy.

For years, all throughout my 20s,

I avoided relationships, sabotaged them,

and my first real relationship
occurred when I turned 30,

and that one turned into a marriage.

And can you imagine
the baggage I brought into it?

But I choose clarity now.

I choose to shine a light
on the mental prison that is my polygamy.

If I do not,

then I will have lost
my marriage for nothing.

I choose clarity.

I choose to empower myself
with the accountability of choice.

We spend our lives giving away
our power by how we speak.

"I have to go pick up
my kids from school."

"I need to turn in my quarterly reports."

What if -

What if we began speaking like this?

"I choose to go pick up
my kids from school."

"I choose to turn in
my quarterly reports tomorrow."

"I choose not to color coordinate
family photos this year, mom. Sorry."

(Laughter)

This is far more difficult
than it sounds, when you try it,

because we have been so conditioned
to give away our will and our choice

by how we speak -

"I have to, I need to,
I want to, I could, I should."

I choose.

I choose to empower myself
with the accountability of choice.

I choose to ask myself:
with these thoughts,

is this Lance thinking?

Or is it my polygamous
thought patterns thinking?

Thought patterns that no longer serve me.

I choose to no longer
be a martyr like my grandfather.

I choose the clarity,
that it is mental gymnastics,

to believe that my self-worth
is ever in question.

I choose the clarity,

that love is either unconditional
or it is not love at all.

I choose to be a leader of my own life.

I choose, it is my choice,

it has always been my choice,

just as it has always been your choice.

This is how you escape your polygamy.

Empower yourself
with the accountability of choice.

Be a leader of your own life.

And now, as I say goodbye,

on behalf of the five-year-old boy
from rural Montana,

who could not hear, nor speak very well,

who spent thousands of hours
in speech therapy,

practicing and practicing,

with the hope that one day
he might, just might,

become one of the greatest
communicators in the world.

On behalf of that five-year-old boy:

Thank you,

for allowing him to be heard.

(Applause)