#TEDxCOS May 2019
A New Beginning
This was our first flagship event at the Ent Center For the Arts.
Our 13 speakers took the stage at 10 AM, and were joined that day by a jazz band and several other performers.
Speakers
Liz Carlile
Liz’s talk about Self Care is amazing inspiration for ways you can live your life that will allow such wonderful synchronicities. Liz’s story not only teaches some simple things you can do, but also illustrates with story after story of people’s whose lives turned around once they started caring for themselves.
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Yonason Goldson
Yonason has quite an interesting story of how he arrived on our stage. In his first 3-minute audition he expressed his frustration at having just presented at another TEDx event that unfortunately completely fell apart. He never got a video delivered or uploaded, and he was incredibly dismayed after having delivered what he thought (and I’m sure many of our attendees agree) is the talk of his life! His message was so polished and had such gravity that he broke our ratings system. He got the highest rating by far in our 3 minute video applications rating system as a result of just having been so prepared to begin with, beating everyone else twice over. Don’t tell our other speakers.
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Peg Shippert
Peg brings the gift of one of these important tools to our stage: how to listen and care effectively. Pegs talk gives us the tools to make talking about rape something we can do with calm, confidence, and care, knowing that we’ll be able to hear, help, support, restore, validate, & understand those that talk with us in confidence about their experiences.
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John Anderson
Johns talk beautifully illustrates the brilliance with which native North American people designed their communities. In his talk you’ll learn more about how the people who came before us navigated, lived, worshipped, and played in our home town up to 14,000 years before any of us ever got here. We are guests in their house, and it is an honor to hear from them. We were lucky enough to host Dr. Jefferson on our stage to deliver one of the very few professionally recorded Ute Prayer Songs in history.
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Allen Rowe
“In March of 2018, I received an unexpected call and found myself sitting in the principal’s office at my step daughter’s elementary school. There I signed court papers that had just been prepared only an hour earlier to grant me custody of my step daughter and daughter.” This was the moment that Allen Rowe realized he would be putting down his bucket list and passing on the baton.
What is a Baton list? “Well it comes from my track running days. Among other things I was on the mile relay. I was one of the runners. Another guy on the team was Jonny Beyers. He was poetry in motion handing off the baton. If, when running baton races, you do this hand-off well, it can make the difference and win the race.”
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Amy Segreti
I believe people need playful and consistent techniques to continue connecting deeply with each other in their most intimate relationships—both with a romantic partner and with themselves. My interest in relationship dynamics has blessed me with fascinating experiences studying under and interviewing people like Esther Perel (TED speaker and author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs), Barbara Carrellas (Urban Tantra), and Kathryn Hendricks (Conscious Loving).⠀⠀
Often we are not equipped enough to do the regeneration required to maintain these connections in our lives—to keep them from falling flat or fading away. We end up not feeling seen and heard as we evolve. As we are fluid humans and always evolving, I want to share tools and techniques for relating as we grow in partnership.
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JJ Thomas
JJ Thomas is a world-renowned Olympic Bronze Medalist, X Games Gold Medalist, and halfpipe champion. Many consider him one of the all-time snowboarding greats, and as if that wasn’t enough, he’s since transformed into one of the world’s premier halfpipe coaches. He was @shaunwhite’s Olympic snowboarding coach for the 2018 Winter Olympics, where Shaun won Gold.
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Arielle Sokoll-Ward
If I can share my experience and be honest about grief, other people may not feel so alone. If you are in pain now, you don’t need to live in that place. I was so broken and destroyed, but I have found resilience. I have seen how others can find it, too.
I have reframed my perception of grief as a tool. It’s a source of power rather than destruction in my life now. I’ve experienced so much grief, both with my own health and in losing people I loved. It’s extraordinarily difficult to be honest with yourself through the grief process. Instead, I have found that expressing my power, rawness, and honesty in my grief shows others they can be brave.
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Rory Gardiner
What would you do if your home was uprooted in a tornado? As a comedian, Rory Gardner used the power of laughter to uplift his neighbors after a disaster hit. ⠀
People often find courage, motivation, and self-realization in times of adversity. I am simply introducing an additional tool that I used to help in my time of need.
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Dr. Monique Walker
Monique Walker M.D. is a survivor of childhood abuse, homelessness, and domestic violence. When she moved to Colorado Springs she found peace and serenity. Now she’ll tell you she conquered medical school while raising 6 kids and she knows she can do anything.⠀
“I didn’t realize for a long time that I was expressing anger in everything I did. Learning to practice forgiveness effectively gave me the courage to share my story in a way that expresses my power and changes lives. Forgiveness may not seem at first glance like the firebrand key topic that could allow me to overcome such trauma and tragedy. Just wait till you hear my story.”
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Heather Younger
Heather wants you to embrace your power. She thinks that the things that are holding you back in life are actually your unique advantages.⠀“This topic might make people a little mad, especially if they are someone who sees themselves as a victim. I used to be someone who saw adversity as an obstacle. Anything that happened “to” me was “holding me back.” It feels strange to hear that you can see roadblocks as opportunities when you come from such a defeatist frame of mind. A person with such an attitude chooses their path. It is a choice.”
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Dr. Aaron Johnson
Dr. Aaron W. Johnson is the Executive Director of the American Institute of Professional Geologists. His personal and professional experiences with natural formations have changed the way he interacts with earth and lives his life.”In many cases, I was completely unaware that my actions made a meaningful difference to someone else. I’ve never heard anyone explicitly talk about how humans change the world around them with every action we take. I know many of us are aware of the big impacts that we make as a species, but too few of us discuss the myriad small ways that we leave traces behind on Earth and the way we leave a marks on other people. I want to generate awareness of the individual traces we leave behind.”
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