The Amazing Results of the TEDxTeen Talk

This past weekend, I had the honor of giving a TEDx Talk titled “The InnerKid Philosophy” at TEDxTeen in New York City. The theme this year was “The Wisdom of Not Knowing.” This talk centered around my experiences with Huntington’s and how I created a philosophy that has helped me cope with everything.

While I felt that I messed up a few times and didn’t get my point across as well as I wanted to, the response was outstanding. My Twitter feed blew up with mentions about my talk. People wanted to take their pictures with me. A literary agent gave me her card and said I should write a book. Another man approached me and told me he was going to put me in touch with the Guthrie family. TeenVogue wrote an article about me (check it out on the Press page).

While all of this was incredible, that wasn’t even the best part. I had a middle school girl approach me, saying that she was at risk for a genetic disease. She said that she had been afraid to get tested and her future in general, but after my talk, she was no longer fearful of tackling the unknown. Another teen said that he was also hesitant to take action towards a cause because he felt he wasn’t capable of doing so. Apparently, my talk also changed his attitude and he announced he wasn’t going to wait any more to make a difference in the world.

It was teenagers like these who made all the hours of memorization, rehearsal, and hand-wringing absolutely worth it. Hopefully, my story can continue to help people affected by genetic diseases or hardships in general.

You can check out my talk on www.tedxteen.com next weekend. I’ll post it on the website as well.

Much love.