line. but there'll be plenty of books and plenty of opportunity for tim to meet everyone and permize your books -- personalize your books. we at the i've i have book shop are really delighted -- ivy book shop are really delighted to and thank the church of the redeemer for being the host tonight. this is first of, hopefully many events that we hope to collaborate with the church, and we thank them for opening their doors to the public. also want to thank the special olympics of maryland, the wonderful work you do and for all the great work you did to let the rest of maryland know about this event. and so we thank you for tweeting and facebooking and letting your friends know about it. let me talk a little bit about tim. of he's graduate of st. alban school. he earned a ba from yale a master's degree from catholic university a ph.d. in education from the university of connecticut. he spent 15 years in public education as a teacher, an activist and a creative force behind a number of important programs. he's been a force as well in the entertainment world. he has co-produced a wide range of films and television programming. he somehow has found enough time and energy to serve on -- as a board member for numerous organizations such as the future project, a young people's empowerment initiative the more than association on intellectual and developmental disability the edison school, the frank porter graham child development center at the university of and the council on foreign relations and many many other important nonprofit organizations and institutions. he holds an honorary degree from loyola university of maryland here in baltimore. he was named the connecticut citizen of the year in 1995 and has received other honors and degree cans too numerous to mention -- degrees too numerous to mention. tim is the chairman of the special olympic founded by with tim's mother, eunice kennedy shriver. for over 40 years, the special olympics has created opportunity for young athletes from all walks of life to discover their inherent strengths abilities and skill and to experience success. the organization supports 80,000 events this year, there are four million special olympic athletes, which is totally amazing. somehow -- and i don't know how, maybe he can answer this question -- tim has managed to find time and energy to write this new book "fully alive: what matters most." the book is a gripping memoir of a man on a mission. mr. shriver's mission is to create opportunities to celebrate the differences in human beings and to teach us to acknowledge that even one of us-- that each one of us possesses powerful capabilities and has the capacity to add value to our communities our families and the world. i'd like to introduce tim shriver. [applause] >> what an amazing introduction. and be there was a lot of things in there that i'd forgotten and i'm not sure are true, but i'm grateful that you -- >> [inaudible] >> you're sure. you're sure? fact checked all that? anyway it sounds very grand and way beyond my -- what i deserve. so thank you very much. i have to also say that i i think this is the first time i've ever had the chance to speak on the altar. [laughter] if any of you have even glanced at the book you'll know i'm a bit obsessive about religion. i was raised catholic so, of course, i have no shot at speaking from a catholic church altar because i'm married and have five chirp. but i'm thinking -- five children. but i'm thinking up here i've got a shot. i could aim for an episcopalian credential. [laughter] i'm grateful to all of you for coming on a friday night in the middle of the holiday season with r rands and gifts -- can errands and gifts to buy and so many things to do to prepare for family and celebrations and all the different religious traditions, for coming out tonight. i'd like to begin by thanking in a special way the special olympics athletes who are here. we got a chance to talk to a few, but maybe i could just ask them all if they wouldn't mind standing just for a moment so that this gathering can celebrate and recognize their gifts. [applause] i don't want to, i don't want to just talk about one or two people but i do want to say if i look nervous, it's because i have a high school senior, a daughter, who's applying to colleges, and she's a nervous wreck. she wrote her college essay about jo well packard who's sitting right here in the front row. joelle, stand again -- [applause] and my daughter, caroline just two hours ago got accepted to tulane university. isn't that exciting? [applause] so yeah with complete honesty and total accuracy joelle told me tonight she got caroline into tulane which is exactly true and, joelle, i thank you for getting my daughter a college acceptance. [laughter] so what is it in life that makes us feel fully alive? some people have said this is a book about disability. it's not a book about disability. some people have said it's a book about the kennedy family. it's also finish at least in my -- at least in my view -- not a book about the kennedy family. i don't want to disappoint you. some of you are big kennedy family fans, but it's not a book about the ten -- about the kennedy family. the publisher says, well, what's the genre? is this a book about education? i said actually no it's not a book about education. it's a book about a search for how to feel, how to become how to access the part of my life the part of my being if you will, that feels fully alive. so being a teacher, i want to start with getting each of you into this conversation a little bit, because i don't want you just to listen, i want you to take a chance. i won't embarrass you, i promise, but i want you to just pause for a moment, and i want you to think of a time in your life -- it could be today, could have been last month, it could have been 20 years ago -- when you felt you were fully alive. there's no definition, there's no check, there's no right or wrong answer. but i want you to pull up into your into your mind into your consciousness now a moment or an experience or a situation and you think back to it or you think of it, and you think i was fully alive then. that made me feel -- i became -- that was my sweet spot. i was fully fully alive. now, if we were a smaller group, i'd make you share stories but i'm not going to do that. i'm going to give you still another second to try to pull that up. i don't want you to shortcut on this. because i want to test the idea that some of us have moments when we are fully alive and, of course, that means that many of us have moments when we're not, when we don't feel fully alive, when we feel like something's missing, when we feel as though we could just have one more thing, we'd be where we wanted to be. if we could just have that extra job or extra friend or a new iphone or a new ipad or a sister who's not annoying, then one more thing, then i'd be fully alive. i'm kind of of close but i'm not quite there. and you think to yourself if there are moments in your lifing as i suspect there are when you don't feel or didn't feel fully alive, you look around and and think, well, what is the culture saying about how i could be fully alive? now imagine another scene. imagine you're looking at the newsstand at the cvs or in an airport or bus station or whenever you go, and just look at what you see in front of you on the magazine stand. and take a snapshot in your head of what it's telling you will help you be fully alive. it's going to be money, it's going to be youth beauty it might be gossip anger, frustration, it might be having your life go off the rails gets you on the coffer of a magazine -- cover of a magazine gets you attention gets you fame gets you fortune. being on a reality tv show that will make you -- the culture seems to be saying if you could just be on tv, if you could just get a little famous, wouldn't you feel a little more fully alive if you were just famous? or just a little richer? or just a little more powerful or just a little bit better job? i wrote this book because, to be honest, i grew up with a lot of that. i grew up with people who were some of them were really famous. i mean famous like you can't believe famous. there was quite a lot of wealth around me. there was quite a lot of access to power and influence. but in a certain age, very young, i realized that that wasn't going to get it done. that wasn't going to make me have the snapshot that i hope you pulled up of feeling fully alive. it wasn't going to come from any of those things. and so i started to press myself even from an early age even from when i was little looking out at the backyard in maryland just 50 or so miles from here where my mother, who was determined to change the world, to make it more fully alive where she had a summer camp and i was only 4 5 6 7 years old and i could see children come in in the mornings in the summer, and they'd get off of yellow school buses. i had no idea where they were coming from. and they'd proceed out and come up to the flag pole, and we'd raise the flag, and a trumpeter would play the trumpet. i'd be looking out my window. i can see, this is one of my scenes like when you were a kid and you just remember a picture? i could see all the campers and i could see them standing around in their t-shirts and shorts and sneakers. i had no idea they were coming from are institutions, no idea many of them were orphans, no idea many of them never went to school. to me, they sang "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands," and we fanned out after that flag was raised and played kickball and rode ponies and swam in swimming races and had a blast. and so one of the first lessons i i had was, well what's going on here? why do these people make my mother look so fully alive? and what is it that makes turns my house into a summer camp? why is it so much fun to be here? of course, i had no idea about the answer. but the clue was there. there had to be some other way that didn't have anything to do with politics and didn't have anything to do with senators or congressmen or supreme court justices or nobel prides winners or professors -- prize winners or professors or fancy titles. it had to do with those kids. those 6, 8 12 14-year-olds. some of them didn't speak. some of them wore helmets many those days. some of them didn't walk the way i walked, but boy, did we have fun. it had to do with seeing the world differently. i think that was the first lesson my mother and father taught me. there has to be a different way of seeing the world, because if these children are being told that they are invalid, that they belong in institutions for idiots or morons, these words are so painful to say imbeciles, then they had to be -- we had to see world differently. we couldn't see the world that way. we couldn't accept the idea that any child, any child didn't deserve the chance to play. one of my favorite scenes from the special olympics movement came in 1995. we had 6,000 athletes down on the playing field at the yale bowl, and the president of the united states came for the first time to the opening ceremonies of the special olympics world summer games. but security wasn't good, so they had to keep him at the top row of the stadium. he couldn't come down in the field or on the stage but down on the field, you have 6,000 athletes all trying to get a look at him way up high. every athlete had a single-use camera, so they're catching snapshots of each other, their extraordinary night. hootie and the blowfish was there, naughty by nature was there, kathy ireland was there, celebrities everywhere, and all the athletes getting pictures of each other and a professional photographer looks other and sees a group of athletes. he thinks they're from an african nation, and he notices they've got their cameras trying to get a picture of the president who's, you know way up high. and he takes a closer look and he sees the cameras are all backwards. the lenses are pointing against the athletes' noses, so he realizes they come from a nation where they're never had those single-use cameras. and he goes over not knowing if they speak english, and he says, you know you're trying to get a picture of the president but you have to turn the camera around and you look through the hole and push the button, and you get a picture of the president. and the athlete says, oh, oh, thank you. but if you look through the viewfinder backwards it works like binoculars, and you can see the president perfectly clearly. [laughter] now, i love that story for two reasons. first, because it reminds me that so often we get it wrong. this was a good man, the photographer. he wasn't a bad guy. he wasn't malicious. he wasn't discriminating. but he judged the book by the cover. he assumed. and don't we all do that? don't we all assume that if we get a bad diagnosis, that if we become in some ways limited ourselves, that the we're no longer capable of speaking the way we speak or walking or talking the way -- that something terrible will befall us, that we'll no longer be valuable no longer will matter? we're afraid of aging, we're afraid of disability, we're afraid of being different, being left out of the circle? so often we look at those who are left out and we think that's sad, that's tragic. what's -- we ask ourselves what's wrong with them? as one sibling told me, you know, he grew up with a brother with downs sip dream, he said -- syndrome, my whole life people asked me what's wrong with your brother? it wasn't until i was 18 that i finally figured the answer nothing is wrong with my brother. we look too often at one another, and too often assume what's wrong with tim what's wrong with harry, what's wrong with george what's wrong with peter, what's wrong with steve? nothing's wrong with any of us. nothing was made wrong in any of us. the arc of this story begins in some ways all the way back, as i dug deeper and deeper it begins with the story of my mother's family into which in the teens of the last century, almost 100 years ago was born rosemary kennedy who was born and diagnosed very early as having mental retardation at a time when there was enormous shame. but her parents, who could have had the wealth to put her in an institution, to remove her from the family as many families did, tragically, can kept her at home. and they had one piece of advice, one piece of direction to their -- to her brothers and sisters, include rosemary. you keep rosemary involved in everything. if you go out, rosemary goes with you. when you play you make sure she's on team. never leave out your sister. at the same time the society wanted nothing to do with someone who was different. no schools. no medical professionals who wanted to care. almost no place to go. but in those relationships in that family of nine, you have three people who almost everyone in this room would recognize as being famous; john f. kennedy, robert f. kennedy edward m. kennedy, president presidential candidate, lifelong senator. big, heroic even if you don't agree with them. if there are any republicans in the room, it's okay. [laughter] you don't have to agree with them. but they had big careers. but right alongside them, brother-sister sister-sister is rosemary. and when i asked my uncle before he died, ted kennedy and my mother, i said, you know, what effect do you think rosemary had on you as a human being? not on public policy or the foundation of big organizations but on you. what effect did she have on you? and my uncle turned to me, and he said well, you know i remember one time when we were younger we were down in palm beach, it was winter time, and all of us were there, and we were invited to a big party. and i went, and jack went and, eunie, you were there, and mother and dad told us take rosemary along and so rosemary came and we were out on a big lawn, and all the young people were there. he took a deep breath, and he said i looked over at one point, and i saw rosemary. and she was seated all by herself on the side over by pool. all alone. and he said, you know and then i looked over, and i saw jack, and he was talking to a lot of a lot of people, and he looked over, and he excused himself he got up and he walked away, and he went over, and he sat down next to rosie. and he put his feet in the pool. and the two of them just sat there alone together. he said, i'll never i'll never forget that. and then he says, you know can somebody get me some dessert, or something like that. it was at a family dinner. he didn't say more. but wherever that took place, one of those two people sitting alone with their legs in the pool 20 some years later would be president of the united states. the most powerful man arguably, on earth. and one would be hidden. one would be almost, would almost be considered one of the most powerless people on earth. but when those brothers of rosemary kennedy got their chance, what they said to the world was we are going to fight relentlessly to include those on the margins. that's what my mother did. when president kennedy stood in 1961 in his inaugural address and said "ask not what the country can do for you," what was he saying? he was saying don't ask what i'm going to give you, ask what you can give. ask what service you can give. ask who you can express solidarity with. ask what you can contribute. and he must have known either intuitively or consciously that when you get asked, you get something beautiful in return. he must have known that he had been asked by his own mother and father to care, to have concern, to have loyalty, to have solidarity, to be an includer and that when he'd been asked, he got thousands of moments like that one with his sister, touched, moved, compassionate happy, joyful. the two of them together. no explanation needed. so go back to your own stories when you were fully alive where you at a moment of great relationship and connection where you had a moment that you would describe as religious, maybe at peace with yourself, at peace with others where you had a moment where you felt like you were connected to something big something creating equality or justice for others, some people identify moments when they were involved in some big enterprise where they felt the world would be better. maybe it's interpersonal. maybe you'd use the language of sigh can cog -- psychology flow purpose full illment. -- fulfillment. in all of those moments what seems to to me come through is that at some level we are no longer afraid of where we are. we are connected. we are no longer worrying about what other people think of us. i don't know if this is true of all your moments. we're no long or worrying about the judgment of others. we are giving ourselves either to one person, to an idea, to nature, to a cause to something that matters and feeling, if it's to a child, if it's to a brother or a sister, a husband or a wife, to a religion to a religious cause, we are feeling free. we are feeling like, oh, my gosh, this is the real me. this is me no longer inhibited or held back. there are moments where judgment yields to the power of the human spirit pushing forward with such trust in what is good within and with such unencumbered confidence that the world can change if we let it out that we feel i think -- maybe once in a while, but if we're good and if we practice maybe all the time, fully alive. we don't have to go to nobel prize winners, and we don't have to look at the cover of the magazines whether the magazine is "forbes" or "vogue," whether it's "sports illustrated" or -- i can't think of of all the rest. often the key to being fully alive is within us. the hard work necessary to draw ourselves inward and be calm despite a very distracted world. sometimes the energy is right next to us. the power to to look and present to someone who's right there next to us. looking at us, waiting for us, trying themselves to feel fully alive. we think well, let's -- but i want to be like lebron james. or i want to be like a great person in my profession, and you know, i went to one psychologist, you know, who studied a great psychologist angela duckworth studying grit, and i said, well, angela who to you study? well she studied ivy league students and nobel laureates and people like that. i said have you ever thought about the kind of grit that occurs when you go to a special olympics event? she said no no, tell me. so i described a story that's in the book donald page. donald page is born to a dairy farmer and his wife in central ireland. and i called their dad to talk to them about the story, and i could hear the cattle in the background when donald was -- when i was talking to the dad. and long story short i won't bore you with all the details they're in the book, but donald gets a series of infections at a very early age, almost loses his life several times at the age of 2 but recovers. and, of course, the dad and the mom commit to raising donald with their other, i think, seven children. he goes to school eventually to a special school meets a special olympics coach who introduces him to motor activities. very simple activities; catching a ball, moving a ball, you know maybe pushing a bowling ball off of a ramp, these kinds of things. and when the world games, the special olympics world games come to dublin, he gets asked to come to dublin and perform his activity. so his mom and dad leave at 4:00 in the morning to make the drive to the big city. donald boards the bus in his wheelchair to go to dublin as well and i get a call that morning from the president of ireland saying she would like to go and watch the special olympics that day and would i accompany her? i said, of course, we'll go to the track, and we'll see these terrific athletes who are almost like doing olympic times, or we can go to the pool and we can see swimmers who are doing all four strokes and swimming great distances. no, her aide says, she'd like to go to the motor activities. now, i'm embarrassed to say i thought, oh dear. the president of ireland and i want to impress her about the great gifts of our athlete community. i want to show off how our athletes can shoot three-pointers and box out in basketball and these kinds of things, and she wants to go watch the motor activities. i said okay, but i was anxious about it. and so we go to the venue and wouldn't you know it, there's a thousand people at the motor activities venue in dublin. it's a room about this size. there's sort of bleachers here and it's packed. i've never enseen this before don't -- never seen this before don't ask me how. and we're sitting in the front row, and donald page gets wheeled in at the age of 18 in his wheelchair, and he's put on a riser and his coach stands back behind him. and in front of him is placed a small ball like a bean bag, and the announcer says, off you go. and his job is to pick up the bean bag and move it across the table. and he looks out, and he takes in the room. and is i'm sitting anxiously with the president thinking are what do i -- thinking what do i say, you know, how do i explain this, this is really terrific you know and not as exciting as -- in my head. my e ego's taken over, my fear has taken over. how am i going to explain what donald's trying to do? just lift of this simple ball. and after donald sort of takes in the room with a kind of a grin on his face, he sets out to lift this thing. and you can watch him trying to move his arm. and it just won't go. and he tries and he tries and it just won't go. he just can't make it go. and about two minutes go by, and you hear a shout in the back room, "come on, lad come on." come on. and he keeps trying. and finally at four minutes -- and four minutes is a long time if you're watching -- he finally gets his hand onto the bag. and a cheer breaks out. "well done, lad well done! " cheering clapping, applauding. and over the next 14 minutes, donald page lifts that bag and moves it two feet. and by the time it's about here, the place is going nuts. [laughter] i mean it's more than university of maryland at a buzzer beater at a winning game over their archest rival. .. if you go to the sporting goods store you buy your kid michael jordan's jersey or tom brady's jersey, or roger clemens jersey or lance armstrong's jersey. no offense. they are great athletes professional sports. many of them terrific human beings too. but all page? you want to do something about great? you want to know about perseverance about trusting your core, about doing what god put you here to do and being unafraid of what anybody thinks? how many of us sitting where we sit today if the flick did with a, god forbid, some kind of disease that rendered us unable to do things you do today, maybe in a chair maybe not speaking any longer the way you speak today, how many of us would say put me in front of 1000 people and let me show them what i can do. how many of us would withdraw and say no, no. or we say it's not a good time to see mom and dad not feeling as well as they used to. why, because we are embarrassed? we do want to be put in situations where don't have our dignity. because we're afraid of weakness and warm abilities. in some ways -- vulnerabilities. in some ways this book is a journey which i hope many of you will take. the teachers and the guys it certainly not me. in some ways i had to tell everybody how embarrassingly off the mark i've been for most of mine life. how when i was younger i thought i would feel fully alive if i did something important and prominent and successful and famous how when i watched donald i thought i knew to showcase somebody stronger or faster. how when i met daniel thompson thought i understood faith until i could see the faith of a man who faced cancer diagnosis without an ounce of fear, and heard him talk about facing death from a dark space, a solitude and solidarity without an ounce of concern. how many times i got it wrong, but how many times people patiently, consistently and repeatedly came back to me to say, there's a way to live fully a life from the inside out fearless, full of happiness with a smile on your face the kind of which no one can wipe off, but you can't do it unless you stop being deceived by the lies that the culture so often tells us. i will close with one last story, because i don't want you to think this is all tears and emotion. in our unified team my wife linda helped start, with our next-door neighbor, some years ago, a local special olympics team, basketball team children with and without intellectual difference point on the team together, not coaching by playing together as teammates. a few years ago we went to practice at school. we played january to march so it's called. i had my boys and my daughters. we split up after practice. catherine is about 10 50 miles from her house. a cold february morning, driving back. i had the boys in my car. my wife took off with the girls and i'm sitting with voice and thinking to myself, here we are it's february, saturday morning. i got out of bed at 830 tonight to get them out of by 9:15. we play in the gym with no bleachers because it's not about spectators. it's a small gym. practice was well-run but the balls like that about an event. and thinking to myself here's a 12 and 14 year old boy. i wonder what they're thinking. i wonder if they're doing this out of guilt. the last thing that is fully alive is killed. at least that's what i think of don't do anything guilt make geeky their initial stage, i guess sometimes it works but to me that's a bad driver of engagement. so i'm thinking to myself, i hope they don't feel that way and we never really talked about special olympics. said to my sons, what do you guys think about this? do you really like doing this unified sports stuff? they said yes. because they are boys and february and the car the radios blasting and have no interest in talking to the father, of course. i said no no. , second time round i would want to hear what you are feeling the what do you think of the special olympics. are you doing it because you have to or because you want to. they said we'd like it. it's fun. i'm like, seriously. so i turn off the radio. why did you turn off the radio? what are you doing? because i want to ask you this question. i want to know what you think about this whole experience. so sam looks at me and he goes, i'll explain it to you this way. if you told me right now that we're going to disney world i would be the happiest kid in the world and we would have such a blast and we would go on all the rides and would have so much fun. he said, there's one problem. when it would be over, when we would have to come home, it would really suck. i'm like what is he talking about? i asked him about the unified sportssports think any site by going to disney world and going on right. he says, he says but when we go to special olympics and we played unified, it's the kind of fun that lasts. he said i answered a question turn the radio back on. [laughter] there is a kind of fun the disney world fun nothing wrong with it. i'm not here to sculpt people who want of a good time doing fun things but there's another kind of fun. there's a kind of fun that lasts. whether they felt in the gym running up and down the court chasing baskets making passes, shooting jump shots not knowing whether it went in or not passing the ball back and forth, no judgment no scorekeeping play without any need to defeat anybody, competiticompetiti on with any need to put anyone down, coaches who had no interest in anything other than elevating each player performance on both teams. somehow at 12 years old he already knew that there was a way to live like that that lasts. they gamble of this book is that we need more teachers like that and that we need to give them the respect and the attention and the time, a bit more time if you will then we so often given. and if we unleash within each of us that side of ourselves that needs a little more time and a little more trust and a little s. judgment and a lot less fear we will have many more moments when we each feel fully alive. so thank you all for coming, and i hope, i hope against hope that there might be either a page or chapter or a moment in this book if you can fight your way through my story where you find a little bit of your own and are reminded of the things that will make you and your families and your lives feel as fully alive as is possible. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. that -- i think if i were getting a homeowner i wouldn't get that much applause, right? but it would probably be shorter, but thank you very much for that kind response. >> we have set up this might make, and anyone who has a question, up and ask tim whatever it is you want to ask. >> or can they use their big -- this young men, young woman's voice and asked from where they said if you would like. [inaudible] >> like kids with disabilities? >> good question. donald in ireland did not go to school with kids who didn't have disabilities because at that time he's about he's almost 30 now. when he was a little boy in ireland all the kids were in special schools. in fact, in ireland most of the kids were even like they were, i said almost completely separate. so even though his mom and dad cared for them, they are very poor. these are people who literally milked cows. they don't make cheese. they don't have a factory. they don't have big production facilities. this is a man who literally takes care of cows and make sure that raw milk goes to gary. they had almost no money. in a special school but was there was just for kids with special needs. today that's change. so if donald were born in ireland today to go to a school with kids who are all ranges of different abilities. i don't like the word even disability more. i think when you grow up i think you would change. why are we using a word that begins with dis to describe a human being? it's all shocking, like if i said what are you weakest at? i'm not a very good artist and a don't have a good voice and i have a bad sense of direction and i can't match to a selected. oki, you can't match colors. you are discolored, that's your label. i'm good at some things. no, no no. you're going to walk around with a label on you. you are bad at matching colors. that's what you're going to wear. it's going to be on your license but it's going to be on your resume. it's going to be under medical diagnosis, bad with colors. discolored or something silly like that. so anyway it's a long answer. i hope someday we get to the point where we recognize there are thousands of forms of intelligence literally thousands of forms of ability literally thousands, and you will find that you have some and both of your sisters have different ones, and nobody will call you dis and nobody will call your sister dis and nobody will call your brother turn for. it doesn't mean i'm good -- we just a need to pigeonhole people. the minute you put dis and somebody, societies and cultures get ag and they say you've got dis so you've got to go separate which is what happened to donald. hopefully in the future we will do much better than that. good question. yes? >> i was wondering where -- >> say again? >> came to camp tim shriver. >> i don't know the answer to that. i know him only through the riding my mother did about him and me and the "saturday evening post." so she wrote an article where she disclosed for the first time publicly that the president of of the united states had a system with an intellectual disability, and it was on the cover, those of you old enough to remember the "saturday evening post," it was a prominent magazine of the day and she would've story about her sister and about the can't. in the course of describing the cam she described her little son timmy who had a friend named wendell and we both through our food and we both didn't clean up after ourselves and we both were very messy but we were apparently very good friends but apart from being a food thrower and messy and not cleaning up well, i don't know very much about wendell or those incidents. >> there are a lot of pioneers in this room, peggy who does all the work with disabilities ministry in washington, peter who works in service in the city of baltimore. steve idol been who has led for a generation there is associations and scholarly pursuits around the area of the disability. i don't want to call on you or pick on any of you but i'm sure the mets -- i'm sure there must be one tough spirit question or inside. would anybody -- yes. before you ask your son going to say, i would love to end if we could with anybody who is willing to share their fully alive moment. maybe we could get one or two of those before we close. >> i'm just wondering if there's a connection between special olympics and the normal olympics and for lack of a better word? >> there is a loose connection but we are authorized by the international olympic committee to use the word olympics so we don't do it illegally. some people you her like say there is a youth on the neighborhood. well, that's not allowed technically by law. we are so we are recognized by international olympic committee and we're allowed to use the term on the back. dionne that not much. core focus is very much on transposing the olympic ideal and making it about the sort of bravery and courage and honesty and joint of the athlete, were as the i see is very much about the olympic ideal being the highest and fastest and strong as human being on earth. nothing wrong with that but we are very we both represent -- we represent to dimension, one very much in danger, if you will, the more human or spiritual side of the olympic ideal. the of the much more the physical site. we do 80,000 events a year and they did one in every two years. last night they make about $15 billion on there is and we spend about 15 billion volunteer hours on hours. we are friendly and they are collegial and respectful but many olympic athletes are the champions of ours. we have terrific support from the olympic athletes. the i see is just basic pashtun i see is just basic respect but it goes both ways, recognition. yes in the back? >> i have a question about your relationship as you deal with people who are nonbelievers. i'm a christian, and when dealing with people who are not spiritually engaged i do find it difficult to be in the conversation about being fully alive about finding life's purpose, because there's just a different foundation. and i'm wondering whether you don't without in the context of what that looked like for you ended with folks who are not spiritually of the same foundation? >> so that's a good question, if you could hear it. do we see differences between people who are in a religious tradition, christian or maybe other religious tradition versus those who are not. so here's what i come out on that. i think all the great religions have basically the same at least one of the same premises, which is that the divine is within everything. christianity the tradition i was born and raised in and practiced in to be the primary and fundamental conviction of christianity is that god is within us, all of us, everybody not just people who worship at this church or the one next door, but everyone to judaism the great call of judaism, the lord our god is one. islam, you know, buddhism the idea of being awake alert, present to the divine, if you will. they don't use that language but in the energy around us and within us. i think there are people who have had that spirit beaten out of them or they have lost that spirit if you will. and it is hard for them to see that the whole array of human experience is good. many of them would say it's not good, and i don't want this and i don't want that. they don't see if you will the sense of transcendence that i think animates many of us to be able to see with our eyes more in my view fold open or i've -- our eyes more fully alive to the full power of the life energy the divine energy. so i do think it's harder when people have lost their belief in themselves, in others, in life. i don't see much difference between christians and jews on muslims or buddhists. people who are in it and open and alive, they did it. now, there are some religious traditions that put a bigger premium on service. so they make their kids serve in a force them out there to other traditions don't as much on that. it's a little easier to organize special olympic activities in schools, for instance, with the headmaster or ministers or principal or rector or dean or whoever this tells all the kids they have to do it. then we can get a ready-made volunteer force and we can hopefully convert them to not doing it because they have to but because they fall in love. the root of the word believe, at least just one explanation believe comes from the germans to be in love. to be a lover if you will, to have fallen in love. and then we think of it like what created to you, are you a baptist or methodist or a catholic or a jew or reformed orthodox, but i love you think of being a believer, just a believer. believers get this. nonbelievers have a harder time. that's been my experience. yes? add i'm going to demand, i'm going to stay here all night until someone will tell is one story of feeling footlocker managing earnings in the gym so i will call on you if you don't help me out. yes, last question may be. >> your family -- you have this cause that you're going after but you're talking about being fully alive for such a great cause that, you know my disability is not seen to my disability is actually social anxiety disorder which is a miracle in church but i'm standing in front of all of you. how is it that you, how is it that you can be fully alive when there is just disgorgement in trying to get your message across with your mission of, you know, in this stigma? >> a really good question because i think it's probably at the root of why anybody isn't fully alive on any given day. because they get discouraged and they don't actually think it's worth trying, or they don't have the courage to trust it again like someone grows up i love x or y or z. and then they get beaten down. they get told no or they get somebody gossips about them or fires them or gives them an f. on a test and they said but i trusted you, i tried, i wonder. they beat me up. scars and wounds all over our body. moments where we felt like we put ourselves out of their and no instead no one cheered. so how do you go out again? you put yourself out in front of the world and no one cheers. in fact,cheers. in fact, maybe someone through a tomato at you, made fun of you humiliated you walked past you didn't see you. i think there's two things. in my life one issue have to have what i would call a practice. you have to find ways to constantly go back. again, the religious traditions council, some traditions would call meditation, others contemplation. to go to a place where you're at your core, not distracted by your head. where your head is a longer telling you, you know, this is the movie of your life. it's lastly last month, your sister brother, uncle that person like you, the person you. your head is telling you all this stuff. and then you get your devices on your television and your ipad and we live distracted but i think part of the practice of having a confidence has to go into a quiet space doing it a lot, like everyday for as long a time as you can possibly fulfill so maybe can get to a moment where you know that without any of that noise you are okay. because that's the space where you go wait a second, even if they didn't say nice things to me, i'm still okay. i'm still okay. i'm still taken care. i can still trust. and then tactically speaking you've got to find outlets, find your team. it doesn't have to be 100 people but i believe we all need a team. and in life if you don't have not just the team at work or at school, not just a team like a sports team led a team like a band, like a little group. the person you called when you get home tonight and say, you can't believe it but i got up in front of a church and asked a question, and i've been running around telling people i have a social anxiety disorder, and there were 100 people in the church and i got up and said my peace. somebody needs to hear that for you because i would like to just, first of all, if the first number on your team to say, well done. i mean how great is that? can i give you -- [applause] and i hope you don't i hope you hear what i'm saying, which is that's not because that's some small thing but because you acknowledged first of all in front of all of us of weakness or a vulnerability it might not even be a weakness but it might be a strength but you said look i struggle with something, i have a challenge. that's the first part of being fully alive not being afraid anymore. you will not be any less valuable in the premise of this book if your roller ball. and being vulnerable means being willing to say i made this terrible mistake, or had this big challenge for a struggle with this particular issue and i'm still okay. it's okay. and then having a team of people who will go yeah, you go girl. that was fantastic. congratulations, let's do it again tomorrow. [inaudible] >> this may not be the fully alive moment you're looking for but i had this amazing experience when i turn on my radio in my car npr radio. and there's this guy talking and it turns out to be you. you were talking about various people in the book and their experiences. [inaudible] i'm thinking to myself very often i hold back. [inaudible] -- the drivers in front of going to slow. the drivers behind me are going to fast. and i started listening to these incredible stories, and the passion in your voice and i have never met you before. and i felt like some light switch -- that i didn't feel anything but wanting to be on the team, wanting to feel somehow connected to the experience that you're describing, that you were describing tonight. and i'm fortunate to be here to listen to you and i am fortunate to be here with all of you. i've got to practice everyday, as you said to get that feeling back. that sounds pretty amazing. so maybe that's not the fully -- >> no, don't -- >> that it is getting to be fully alive and i'm happy to be up to share that with everyone. >> first of all thank you very much but don't underestimate. a moment is a moment. my voicemail been on the radio but something happened for you. there was some click right? so whatever that was don't assume there's something else. that's it. that's it. keep getting it. keep going for it and testing it. and get good teachers. >> i'm 65. i'm an old guy. you guys have your whole lives to practice everyday. well, are there any other questions? i don't want to get anyone off. one other one. >> we're going to get to more because i'm going to ask joe well to give the final comment. before you do, come on. >> i don't have a question. is going to give you my moment. >> please. >> desiree was lucky enough to go to china in 2072 cycle, and i thought is getting selected was just the most, ma we had gone to heaven, it was the most fantastic thing. so she got to china and everything was great and she was cycling the 10-k and she's coming around the last turn and my husband and i were just ending their like, the athletes we saw were sliding as such the with such concentration, we were saying where is desiree? as she got closer, that's a desiree. and then to top it all off when she got the silver medal and it was doug and i looked at her and she was bawling, tears coming down her face. we both look at each other and said they can't get any better than this. >> thank you for sharing that. [applause] >> one of the things, i tried to do this in the book but it couldn't find anything good on this but one of the things i couldn't, i tried to study was why do we cry when we are -- people say tears of joy, that's fine but they are not really like him you don't cry at disney world, when you're having a good time, right? nobody goes oh that roller coaster makes meatball with happiness but it doesn't do that. but there's something about certain kinds of experiences that are not sad that are not really fun just the happy cents, that pull out of a some powerful connection. it pushes this powerful expression. there was one mistake i found the divine tears but didn't really work in the book anyway, i leave that with you to self monitor. i don't know if that language is similar to do but watch yourself, even if you, like most men, they don't like you have anyone see them if they're about to cry like a movie really quickly. monitor yourself and what's going on when you have that moment and you are bawling. why are you really crying? what's happening? my suspicion is that that energy is something close to what makes us feel like divine body matter spirit altogether, boom, explosive, can't hold it in. you know it just comes pouring out of you literally out of your pores. so anyway, i want to -- oh yes. >> it was a time in my life that i go but to a lot, the last five years. the girl sitting next standing next he was in a basketball game that happened to be coaching. we were playing our archrival in the unified development special olympics in the calculate. we had to really talented athletes on our team. david in nature, and these kids could be with any typically developing kid and, in fact, andrew was making three-point shots in cys. and i want to beat this kid -- it was the unified it was the exhibition game. the gym was full. your mom was there and there were 20 seconds left that i said to enter, enter, you and david past it back and forth from one of the guys get to the shop take it and went to david past it to -- there was a high basket behind him and she threw the ball up at us like oh, my gosh i don't want to feel like i called to play for my daughter. she threw the ball up in your. it went higher than the big basket into the little basket. the place erupted. they carried her off on their shoulders to your mom was there but it was euphoric. a couple years later my son made the winning shot in front of a lot of people, it was so nice for both my daughter and son could have that experience. it was really cool. in times of -- in times of stress i've go back to that. i am so proud of you. >> thank you coach. [applause] >> well, i just think that -- >> hold on. >> i just think it is amazing because all you guys are so nice to me. i care about you guys so much. it means a lot that i am here. and second of all, i just have lots of friends at school who really care about me. they don't, they don't disrespect me. they don't push me away. but i've gotten bullied a lot so pretty hard you know? but it stopped because i don't like being bullied just because i have a disability. i know it should be bullied just because they have a disability. everyone is beautiful, no matter, no matter how you're born, how you are or just anything. you guys are all awesome. i love you. >> wow. [applause] let's hear it. [applause] >> oh, my gosh, i'm trying. >> the only bad news, it took me six years and three pages to say what she didn't prepare and send 30 seconds. thank you all for coming tonight. have a great weekend. [applause] [inaudible] ever we can booktv offers programming hocus a nonfiction authors and books. keep watching for more here on c-span2. watch any of our past programs online at booktv.org. >> how did an army officer so associate with george washington's legacy go to war against what we today consider george washington's greatest legacy, the union? it was this question that ultimately drew me to robert e. lee's story. it's that tragic tension at the knowledge, that history could have turned out so much differently. because on the eve of the civil war, leaders on both sides of the potomac, in richmond and in washington sought his services for high command to both about his connection to george washington. that was common knowledge. and both saw tremendous significance in them. they also knew that winfield scott to at the time was the ranking general in the u.s.

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