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The Most Embarrassing Moments Are the Funniest | Kelsey Tainsh
TL;DR: At twenty-one, I was walking into my first paid speaking engagement when I spotted a police officer dragging his leg across the sidewalk. I thought I'd found someone just like me. Turns out, he'd just stepped in dog poop. I was twenty-one years old and...
What do people carry into work that you can’t see?
TL;DR: More than you would guess, and most of it never comes up in a meeting. On March 22, 2018, Richard Menneg asked me to bring my heavy backpack on stage at the ATI Super Conference. I thought he meant the bag. He was showing five hundred people what I had carried...
How should you answer a goal that sounds impossible?
TL;DR:Take them to the water After my stroke I told my physical therapist Dave Nitti that I wanted to surf again. He did not tell me it was a lovely goal for someday. He got in the ocean with me, and he was the first person standing there when I stood up on a board. I...
What happens when you email a stranger for help?
TL;DR: Sometimes you get a yes. In August of 2019 I went looking for the highest person I could find at Burton Snowboards, and on the eighth I sent a cold email asking for help with equipment. It turned out I had emailed Jake Burton's assistant. I picked a pretty good...
Should a bad first grade make you drop the class?
TL;DR: No. I got an F on my first college English paper and I cried like it was the end of the world. I stayed in the class anyway. By the end of that semester I had one of the top grades in it, and I had finally learned how to write. English was an elective. I took...
How do you help someone without making it a big deal?
TL;DR: You do it before anybody has to ask, and then you say nothing about it. My first day of adaptive snowboarding, I walked into a packed yurt in Pennsylvania and could not find anywhere to sit. A man with white hair scooted over and made room. That is the whole...
Why does a stroke patient stop talking?
TL;DR: Usually because talking makes us feel stupid, not because we have nothing to say. After my stroke at fifteen I had word-finding trouble. I could look straight at an object, know exactly what it was, and never reach the word for it. So I went quiet at the...
Why do nurses remember what a patient is most afraid of?
TL;DR: Because somebody asks, and somebody else carries it. I was fifteen, a few months out from my second brain surgery, and I told my doctors the thing I feared most was losing my hair. I woke up with most of it still there. My nurses did that, and I did not learn...
What Does Real Support Look Like
TL;DR:You find one person willing to be your hands. After brain surgery left me foggy, I couldn't get through the SAT alone. Holly Camorata sat with me on weekends, reading each question aloud as many times as I needed, and filling in the bubbles with a #2 pencil. I...
Does rehab feel hopeless when you start?
TL;DR: Often, yes, and the feeling lies. I rolled into the Shepherd Center at six in the evening, stared at the sunset, and thought I'd be in a wheelchair forever. I was fifteen and completely sure of it.I was also completely wrong, and the next morning the work began...
Should you let people see what you carry?
TL;DR: Yes, when you choose the moment. At the ATI Super Conference in 2018, Richard Menneg who hired me to speak asked me to carry my heavy backpack on stage. I thought it was just my bag. He was showing a whole room what I'd hauled around for years, long before I...
How do you learn to run again after a stroke?
TL;DR: You start on a treadmill with a harness holding most of your weight, and a therapist who decides today is the day. I had a stroke at fifteen and forgot how to run. When I was strong enough my physical therapist said we'd try anyway. I told her I didn't remember...
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