The Power of Positive Thinking by Helen Peterson


Sometimes life can throw us curve balls, sometimes a day can take a turn that was impossible to see coming. This is life. This talk looks at how we can meet these hurdles head on and come out stronger than ever

Helen Peterson is a professor of interior design at Prince Mohammed University. Her experiences both in and out of Saudi have given her a unique perspective on life and what it has to offer.

The Power of Positive Thinking | Helen Peterson

Transcripts of the Video:


00:10
thank you very much when I was first
00:14
considering whether I should accept the
00:17
opportunity to give a TEDx talk I spoke
00:20
with a friend about how I was surprised
00:22
to be asked after all I’m not globally
00:26
influential I’m not famous
00:28
I really just an ordinary unremarkable
00:31
person and to my surprise he became
00:35
quite angry with me and spent quite a
00:38
bit of time telling me just how foolish
00:40
I was to be thinking that way however I
00:45
was still stymied by what I had to say
00:48
the rest of the world needed to hear and
00:52
it wasn’t until about three o’clock one
00:54
morning when I realized I was thinking
00:56
about it all wrong that given the
00:59
opportunity what would I tell my three
01:02
young adult children and my students
01:05
what would I what would I want to
01:07
describe to them that would improve

01:11
their lives and after that it became
01:14
very simple and very easy and devious
01:18
really because ordinarily they wouldn’t
01:20
listen to me but they’d have to watch my
01:23
TEDx talk so what I want to say one of
01:28
what Todd talked about today and
01:29
everything I say will tie back into this
01:32
is that it is important to recognize the
01:36
power of positivity about 10 years ago
01:42
our family experienced a health health
01:47
problem that changed life for the worse
01:51
really as my husband and I and my
01:54
children knew it and I was really a very
01:58
difficult situation and for me was
02:01
personally devastating and to me
02:03
everything had changed for the worse or
02:05
so it seemed and so I found I was faced
02:09
with a choice I could sit around and
02:12
complain about how bad things were or I
02:15
could put the most positive spin
02:17
on what was a difficult situation and I
02:22
realized that people who complain end up
02:28
making themselves and everybody around
02:30
the miserable and so I chose to select
02:34
and and work with the positives that I
02:38
could find and build rebuild my life
02:41
based on that one of my brothers who
02:47
knew of my situation commented it on how
02:50
we’ve mired my coping skills and I told
02:53
him at that point of my decision and he
02:56
said Wow took me years of therapy to
02:59
realize that to me it is seem pretty
03:03
simple and I apply it everyday to my
03:07
life this is my third year in Saudi
03:10
Arabia and I’d like to use a few
03:13
examples of my experiences here to
03:16
illustrate what I mean I’m one of my
03:19
favorite quotes and has been very
03:22
helpful here in Saudi Arabia is by Wayne
03:24
Dyer and it says if you change the way
03:29
you look at things the things you look
03:31
at change good example our compound
03:36
quite often would we get up in the
03:41
morning to try to go to work and there
03:43
would be no water and we were getting
03:48
pretty tired of having to heat water you
03:51
every other morning or so to get ready
03:53
for work and there are a lot of
03:55
complaints on the bus about that time I
03:59
was researching water conservation for
04:03
my design sustainability class and came
04:07
across the statistic that many people in
04:11
Africa exist on the average of 3 liters
04:15
of water a day and that’s for everything
04:19
double-checking that statistic for this
04:21
talk I found that the number might be
04:23
higher but not by much
04:25
so so what we use what we can use for
04:31
one toilet flush is what some people are
04:34
existing on for all the water needs that
04:37
includes drinking cooking bathing
04:39
washing clothes sanitary necessity so
04:44
thinking about that the next time the
04:47
water run off I got up that morning and
04:49
I said I’m going to take a shower in
04:51
three liters of water I want to see if I
04:53
can do that because we look like
04:55
ordinarily been using quite a bit more
04:56
and and tried and found that it’s
05:01
actually very difficult it was so cleft
05:03
and what do you do and you I I you and
05:07
it was just a shower and I realized how
05:11
fortunate I was because I had the
05:14
expectation that the water would come
05:17
back on at some point and that there
05:19
would be plenty of it many many people
05:22
in this world do not and so since then
05:27
and because I know that just about every
05:30
drop of water that we use here is
05:32
manufactured I have been trying to
05:36
conserve water as much as possible so
05:40
when you change your perception of
05:43
things that appear to be negatives and
05:45
turn them into positives you not only
05:48
change yourself
05:49
but possibly change the people around
05:51
you the people on the bus didn’t
05:53
appreciate my comments and maybe even
05:57
the entire world so there’s that another
06:02
component to positive outlook is humor
06:06
laugh laugh with people make people
06:10
laugh laugh at yourself even the most
06:14
miserable situations can be helped by
06:18
using a little humor a little over a
06:23
year ago I was deported from Saudi
06:25
Arabia me and they still asked me here
06:29
to talk today
06:32
actually was it was it was over a visa
06:35
misunderstanding and I was lucky enough
06:38
that the wonderful father of the lovely
06:41
co-worker who had been travelling with
06:43
me managed to convince the Saudi Arabian
06:45
officials that it was okay to deport me
06:47
to behine which is nearby
06:50
thank goodness Brandon back to Europe I
06:53
was assured by my employer that it would
06:56
only be a matter of hours and they would
06:58
have me another visa and they’d get me
07:02
back into the country so I went to
07:05
Bahrain and got a transit visa which is
07:08
feel good for about 24 hours should have
07:12
known better
07:14
Saudi Arabia like many countries in the
07:16
world things take a little longer than
07:19
you would expect I was standing in
07:21
Bahrain for almost a week at the time I
07:25
had very little humor about it but I was
07:28
fortunate and that I had two friends who
07:30
called me and check on me every day to
07:33
make sure I was okay and that really did
07:35
help within a day of course my BOB Dania
07:39
and visa expired four days later when my
07:44
university kindly sent somebody to
07:46
rescue me and take me back to Saudi
07:49
Arabia I noticed as we were headed
07:53
towards the border that the visa
07:54
documentation that I had listed my my
08:00
occupation as escort ordinary enough
08:05
word except that in the United States
08:08
it means sex worker so I looked at that
08:12
and I looked at the young man who was
08:15
about the age of my youngest son
08:17
extremely handsome charming young men I
08:19
looked at that I looked at him and I
08:22
went I’ll take it so in the course of a
08:26
week I was a deportee an illegal alien
08:30
and an escort and when I told my mother
08:35
she was so proud
08:37
um pretty funny right actually it was a
08:44
very expensive painful experience but
08:48
what would you rather hear how
08:51
frightening it was or the story I just
08:53
told find the humor another facet
08:58
deposit that look is to smile get up
09:02
smiling smile let people smile just for
09:06
the pure power that a smile carries
09:09
while the Teresa is credited with saying
09:12
peace begins with a smile and she also
09:16
said that we shall never know all the
09:20
good a simple smile can do and I tend to
09:24
agree with her in this country I have
09:26
had the chance and the opportunity to
09:29
connect with people just by virtue of a
09:31
smile and oh hello it’s been a really
09:34
really great experiences and I’ve also
09:39
been fortunate enough to have been told
09:41
just how good just much good my smile
09:45
has done here in Saudi Arabia women
09:48
don’t drive and that’s fine I’m good
09:51
with that actually where we use drivers
09:54
and cabs to get around works out pretty
09:56
well except on one day not too long ago
10:01
my regular driver was out of the country
10:03
my substitute driver got stuck in a
10:06
sandstorm and so I was forced to flag
10:10
down one of the many white cabs that are
10:12
here around town having had several bad
10:16
experiences doing that alone in the past
10:18
I typically don’t do it but this time I
10:22
had no choice
10:23
so I flagged down a cab and get in and
10:25
the cab driver turns around says I’m
10:27
glad to see you again I went oh no it’s
10:31
gonna be bad I know it’s gonna be bad I
10:33
was wrong it turned out to be really
10:35
good I as it happened my friend and I
10:39
had
10:40
use the exact same cabdriver a week
10:42
before and he said we had changed his
10:46
day and I said really you said yes you
10:50
said you were the first people in a long
10:52
time that had gotten into my cab smiling
10:56
and happy he said it made me feel good
10:59
that and changed my day that I knew that
11:04
they were still happy people left in
11:06
this world so something that I barely
11:10
remembered had had a profound effect on
11:13
him and so so often we just do not
11:18
realize as we go about our daily lives
11:21
just how much we can improve people’s
11:26
lives just with a smile one thing I have
11:31
learned however is that of smiling in
11:35
some cultures my smiling at men implies
11:40
that I want a deeper relationship than
11:41
just a trade of smiles so I’ve learned
11:44
to use good judgment on that one I get
11:49
another part of positive outlook is to
11:51
embrace diversity everyone is important
11:55
no matter what country of origin race
12:00
religion age gender sexual preference
12:08
financial and educational status height
12:11
weight color of eyes whether we have
12:15
eyebrows or not
12:16
all right so silly right but it just
12:19
goes to show that is ridiculous define
12:23
people by what they are rather than who
12:27
they are take time and get to know
12:31
people that are different from your own
12:34
experience a couple of the people that I
12:40
respect most in Saudi Arabia for their
12:44
intelligence are people who work in what
12:46
here are considered menial jobs
12:51
they have had limited educational
12:52
opportunities and yet in many many ways
12:56
are smarter than I with half the
12:59
alphabet behind my name and so I learned
13:03
that you know we have to appreciate
13:05
people for who they are a friend of mine
13:10
and I’m going to generalize his idea
13:11
sorry is he told me that the world is
13:17
like a cake where basically we agree on
13:22
the cake part the bread part every human
13:26
pretty much wants the same thing safety
13:29
security happiness love you raising our
13:35
children well I mean we all as humans
13:38
agree on these same basic principles
13:41
what we fight about we sometimes even go
13:45
to war over is the type of icing we put
13:48
on the cake sounds simplified yes it is
13:53
but think about it it actually kind of
13:57
makes sense so following that idea it’s
14:02
okay if you like lemon icing and I
14:06
prefer cream cheese that’s okay it’s
14:09
good what’s not okay is if I feel that
14:14
cream cheese is the best and I insist
14:17
that you eat it too that is not okay I
14:21
should be open to listening to your your
14:25
excitement about lemon icing and how
14:29
good it tastes I should be open to
14:30
trying it I still may not prefer it but
14:34
I can appreciate the fact that you do so
14:40
I have found in my experiences that
14:42
embracing diversity has really opened up
14:46
a wide world to me and I have better
14:50
understandings and isn’t improved my
14:54
positive outlook on life now obviously
14:57
it is not possible to always be positive
15:00
my life is not perfect there are things
15:04
in my life that are not positive there
15:06
are things in my life that are downright
15:07
negative and you know while I love my
15:15
job and I’ve got classrooms of students
15:18
who are intelligent wonderful young
15:21
women and I’d like to thank them for
15:23
their care and respect it has made my
15:25
job so much fun the Saudi Arabian people
15:28
that I have met are generous and also
15:33
caring and will stop and help anytime
15:38
they feel like you are in trouble they
15:41
also are open to talking with American
15:46
women who are curious about their lives
15:48
which is which I do appreciate
15:51
the mix of international people who work
15:56
here and live here is fascinating and
15:59
their histories are just unbelievable
16:03
but and like many people here I live
16:09
13,000 kilometers away from my family
16:15
and I miss them every day terribly so um
16:21
my friends and family will tell you I do
16:23
have my deep and dark days find your way
16:28
back to the positive look at the beauty
16:30
in this world
16:31
um do what it takes to to get back to a
16:36
positive place whether it’s reading a
16:39
book watching a funny movie spending
16:42
time with friends taking a walk get a
16:45
good hobby or all of it you know
16:47
whatever whatever you can do come back
16:50
to that positive place this world is an
16:53
amazing place to be this is all I have
16:58
time to say there’s so much more that
17:01
would love to communicate to my students
17:04
in my my children things like love
17:07
wholeheartedly every change you get in
17:09
spite of the risk of being her
17:14
work work hard and a job that you
17:17
enjoyed give whenever you can there are
17:21
so many other TED talks by people who
17:23
are far more qualified to that you’ll
17:26
speak to those topics that I think you
17:30
know I’ll let them do that so what what
17:35
I’m hoping is that my experiences have
17:39
helped you to recognize and understand
17:42
the importance and the power of being
17:46
positive thank you

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *