I have been in the mirror recently
discovered my first white hair
and thought: Well, I change,
whether I want it or not.
So I did not ask for it to start now.
But it does.
And no matter if I do something or do nothing,
Change happens every moment.
This is such a nondescript sentence
one that could easily be taken for granted.
So: Yes, it is clear anyway: Everything changes.
But for me it is one of the most exciting
and most precious sentences on this earth.
Because: If change always happens anyway,
what possibility do we all have to influence it?
and to enable change that connects rather than separates,
encouraged instead of prevented
and more love allows for even more fear.
I have been dealing with this for 12 years
and I want to share with you today,
what I learned from my great teacher change.
I was born three times.
That’s unusual.
Once from my mom – hello! –
once by my mother-in-law
and once from my daughter.
They all changed my life completely.
My mom grew up as a kid
in very difficult living conditions.
She grew up in an atmosphere
which was characterized by fear and violence.
But my mom is such a cool woman.
She already knew as a child
that life can not be sustained that way
and that there has to be another way.
So she made the courageous decision
her life story, her family history
so not continue.
There she was five years.
She dropped to her knees and she negotiated with God.
She said, “God, when I grow up,
I want a family that loves each other. Please do that!”
She did it.
When my mom told me this story,
I was deeply moved.
She was still a child
and yet she had the opportunity to change her life.
I am the woman – the daughter of a woman,
who has turned her life 180 degrees.
That’s the first thing I learned about change.
I always have the choice:
Do I follow fear or love?
That’s at home with us. (laugh)
23 years later, I met my mother-in-law.
I grew up in Berlin-Hellersdorf – in the plate.
And as a young girl
I wanted to bring as much distance between me and the plate.
I thought it was so uncool to grow up there.
I had the idea: All right, then I’ll climb up the social ladder.
At that time I had the opportunity to do my doctorate.
And then I met my mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law asked me:
“Elisabeth, what do you really want to do with your precious life?”
That was a very different question than
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Then I considered and thought: Well,
then I would rather not do my doctorate.
(laugh)
How to start now at the beginning of 20,
if you want to change the world?
You start where you are.
With your own talents, with your own wishes
and the problems that touch you deeply.
With the story of my mom in the back
and the pictures of the plate in my heart I knew:
I want to work in education. With teenagers,
where no such stable launch pad has been set up yet.
That’s the second thing that taught me the change:
Start where you are.
How do you start your journey now?
How to dare the jump
and whiz away the classic career opportunities?
That’s the third story.
I held our 3 month old daughter in her arms.
Suddenly a realization passed through me, such a
which is so powerful that you can not ignore it.
Some want to ignore, but they did not work.
She did not go away either. (laugh)
A realization that probably every mom and dad
do it once in your life.
I suddenly knew: Okay, you will be later
not so much remembering what I tell you
but more will you remember how I live.
And I knew that I want for her,
that she can be herself
and that she lives her dreams.
If I do not do that,
then I’m not such a credible role model.
So we taught our daughter at 3 months:
Handle. Be effective in the world
instead of only in your imagination.
My mom, my mother-in-law and my daughter
are my mentors.
They changed my life.
Out of all these stories and experiences
Germany’s largest mentoring program was created
“ROCK YOUR LIFE!”
With ROCK YOUR LIFE! we bring together separate worlds:
the university and the secondary school.
We encourage young people from social and
economically disadvantaged milieus,
that they are rocking their lives,
that they take their lives in their hands
and that they reach their dreams.
We do it through mentoring.
We train students as mentors
then with a student one-to-one
work over two years.
It’s about finding out:
Who am I, what do I want, what can I do?
And it works, then with the students
really step by step this way
and to accompany them to grow up,
to come to the secondary school or to the education.
Educational success still depends in Germany
strongly dependent on social background.
And I knew, it’s not the record that holds you back.
It’s the stories
which we tell ourselves in the record as elsewhere.
Stories of impossibilities instead of possibilities
Stories of being too stupid and not being good enough
Stories of ‘Life is unfair’.
My friends, Stefan, Christina and me,
we asked ourselves again and again:
Why did we actually land at such a great university?
If you wonder who I am –
I am the one who looks like Miranda from “Sex and the City”.
(laugh)
With the short hair.
(laugh)
We studied a lot –
Educational Biography and Pisa Studies, OECD and all that,
but ultimately we have
always found an answer,
why we made it to the university
Because there was someone who believed in us more than us.
In my case, because there were more people at some point,
who believed in me more than myself.
And we wanted to share that.
If a change is ready,
then you can assume 100%
that a thousand other people have heard them too.
So each one of you with some idea in your heart
for a super good change has:
Get out, show yourself!
ROCK YOUR LIFE! has been in the last 8 years
set up by 2,000 students on an honorary basis.
At 50 locations in Germany and Switzerland
Each year our students invest 180,000 hours
honorary commitment. (Applause) Yes!
(Applause)
That’s only 200
and they enable 4000 mentoring relationships
That’s Umut and Tim.
Umut and Tim have been mentoring for 6 years
The two did not stop, kept on going
I was allowed to call Umut and Tim last week
and I was so excited.
I saw an interview from the two on Facebook,
got the number from the two
and I was like that: “Umut!” – That’s Umut.
“I’m so excited, I’m so happy to talk to you.
You are such an inspiration! “
And he: “The founder calls! Wow!
I’ll call you on the phone, wow! “
It was so beautiful! And Umut said to me, “Hey …
Without ROCK YOUR LIFE! I would never have
made my middle school diploma
and would not graduate now. “
And now it comes: “Because Tim is my muse.”
Oh! (Laughter) Wow! (Applause)
(Applause)
And I asked Umut, “Ok, Umut,
what happened in the last 6 years,
that you have changed so much? “
I’ve been waiting for something bombastic
so the formula for change.
Umut thinks and thinks and then he says:
“You, I was 17 and Tim said to me
‘When stress is:
Take a deep breath and take it easy! ‘ (laugh)
That’s it? ‘Yes.’ That’s how I got my middle school maturity,
so now I can do my Abi and then I will study. “
Yes. (Applause) Wow!
I think that’s the big thing I learned from both of them
and from all other mentoring couples.
Let’s just not be too bad
for all the little steps that can go like every day.
Choose love, start where you are, come into action
and then – step by step we make the change.
Thank you! (Applause)
”
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