Emma González's Secret for Surviving Tough Speeche
Emma González is a teenager, but she's already given speeches so powerful that people all over the country had to stop and listen. Her effect is clearly demonstrated: Americans stopped and listened, sure, but they then cried, shared the videos of her speeches thousands of times, and were moved to action - whether it was registering to vote, walking out of their classrooms, or marching in cities around the nation.
How does a high-school senior find the strength to address a crowd of 200,000 people? González answered that question and more in a live TED video chat with Diane Wolk-Rogers, one of her teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
In their half-hour chat, which you can watch below, González explained what was going through her head during the painfully somber six minutes of silence she maintained during her speech at the March for Our Lives. It represented the total length of the mass shooting at her school. It only took six minutes to kill 17 people.
For that moment of silence, González focused on her D.C. surroundings. "There was a convergence at the end of the street; there was like a mountain at the top. Which is weird, because we don't have mountains in Florida!" she laughed. "So I saw a mountain, and I zeroed in on it with my eyes and I just stood there ... and I stood there."
The focal point helped her composure, as did learning creative writing at Douglas. "It's such a cool class, and it helped me understand and comprehend and control my emotions, in terms of - you've gotta embrace your emotions," she explained. "Otherwise you'll fall to pieces."
See more of González's wisdom for finding strength to keep fighting, and dealing with Twitter trolls, in the talk below.
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