Wednesday the 13th of February, John Hope Bryant was supposed to talk about social entrepreneurship. Instead, he gave Storsalen a speech the room has never heard the likes of before.
Rainbows and Storms
He started the speech with the allegory “You cannot have a rainbow without having a storm first”. With this he wanted to tell us that we would see no results from our hard labour before we have gone through a few trials. This he followed up with the encouraging statement “Success is going from misery to misery without losing enthusiasm.” Hope Bryant has himself been homeless for six months, and yet also experienced great success. He has brought exactly this enthusiasm with him in his role as a motivator and a speaker. This is what keeps us humans going, according to Hope Bryant, and it is this enthusiasm that can be a part of the change we need to see in the world.
But what can we do, has history not already been written for us? No, because as Hope Bryant said, “We are living in a moment of history right now”, and precisely because of this we have to “come up with a new vision”. The world needs to see that change is possible, and only by starting with ourselves can we achieve this. To put it with Hope Bryant’s words: live life with both feet and both hands. “Don’t you want to leave a legacy? Don’t you want to know that the world knew you were here?”
High class problems
It is easy to answer these questions by saying that you have your own issues, but as Hope Bryant said, all of us in Storsalen tonight—from a manifold of different nations—all of us have ”high class problems”. This is something we must rise above, and instead answer to the more pressing question, which he asked: what kind of bird do you want to be? Is it the eagle that never flies in a crowd, but still flies the highest? The crows that only make noise, but never actually do anything or the turkeys that have wings, but cannot fly with them at all? He then asked Storsalen, which of these birds do you all want to be?”, “The eagle!” was the answer coming in unison from a gathering that was truly united—united by the hope of John Hope Bryant’s positive words, in which he encouraged each and every one of us to be the change that we want to see in the world.
22 February 2013
