ABLE Welcomes Hill Harper To Zimmer Biomet For ‘Authentic’ Talk
February 25, 2023 at 12:30 a.m.
ABLE Welcomes Hill Harper To Zimmer Biomet For ‘Authentic’ Talk
By David [email protected]
Actor and best-selling author Hill Harper brought his, along with a sense of humor, to Zimmer Biomet employees in Warsaw on Friday to discuss “Harnessing the Power of the Authentic You.”
ABLE (African and Black Leadership for Excellence), an employee resource group at the orthopedic company, hosted Harper’s visit as part of Black History Month.
Starting his comments with a bit of humor, Harper said, “ZB, I’m kind of mad at you guys, I just want to start with that. I’ll be honest, because I was out there on the side and I saw how many people were at the lunch. People came for the free food more than they came to see Hill Harper! I see it.”
He pointed out that the livestreaming was happening, and with 20,000 ZB employees across the world, “let’s give it up for those 20,000 watching us right now.”
Walking around the amphitheater in ZB’s Building 5, Harper said he wanted to start talking about the future.
“And, for the purpose of this discussion, the future refers to what happens after we walk out of this room,” he said. “... In other words, the future is what’s next. What does next look like? And how can we actually build a better next than what’s happened previous.”
To frame the discussion, he quoted Bobby Kennedy, who said, “The future does not belong to those who are fearful of bold projects or new ideas, but rather the future belongs to those who can blend passion, reason and courage into a personal commitment to great ideas and enterprises of American society.”
Harper said the quote has in it a word that isn’t used much anymore - reason.
“When is the last time someone said, ‘use your reasoning skills’? Or use the word reason. Reason, we don’t use it enough anymore, you guys. We don’t. Reason is simply having a blueprint or plan and then executing. Those other two words we’re going to get into - which are passion and courage that surround reason - I want to talk about reason first,” he said.
A person can’t do anything unless they initially have a plan, he stated.
“In many of my books, I write about this idea that we’re all active architects for our own life,” Harper said, then asking who had read one of his books. No one raised their hand. “That’s fantastic. This is great,” he said, eliciting laughter from the audience.
“If you had read one of my New York Times best-selling books, you would know that when I talk about the idea of being active architects of your own life, it is a simple concept of thinking about the fact that we can build whatever life we want. That you have the power and ability to build whatever future you want. And certainly, collectively, we can build the better community we want, we can build whatever state we want, whatever country we want, whatever world we want. We have the ability to be active architects for our own life in our own worlds. But it has to start with reasoning skills. Having the blueprint or plan to execute,” Harper said.
Most of us, he said, have gotten away from creating that blueprint for our life. “What happens is we end up being very reactionary rather than pro-active or reactive,” he said.
Everyone has goals and dreams, but many people as they graduate through their lives and work life, get away from the idea of creating new blueprints. Referring back to the Kennedy quote, he said whatever problem and solution we’re addressing, the future does not belong to those who are afraid of bold projects and new ideas.
“Innovation. Innovation. Innovation,” Harper said.
Looking at the word “passion” in the quote, he said to him that word simply means energy.
“To me, when we think about our lives, oftentimes just living our lives, the ‘e’ kind of gets sucked out of us sometimes. We end up sometimes living with too little energy because we’re getting pulled here, we’re getting pulled there, we’re getting pulled in all these different directions. So being mindful of our energy, to get back to what we’re actually passionate about, what makes our heart beat faster, what do you want to lean into? Where do you want to see a difference? How do you want to manifest a life as you want? What did you think about when you were younger when you talked about what kind of life do I want to live? How might I have an impact on the world, and how do I want to show up for myself, my family and my community? That’s what ‘e’ is fundamentally - passion. What are you passionate about?” Harper said.
If we want to change something in our life, community, family and world, “we have to raise our amplitude of energy,” he continued.
“Passion, which is energy, I would suggest to you that the vast majority of us live with too little ‘e,’ or energy, to actually manifest change and make a difference,” Harper said. “What we do is we show up with too little, but we have an idea of what we want to manifest or change, but the energy we’re showing up with isn’t enough. And also what starts to happen is when you meet people who show up with more energy, sometimes you try to pull them back to the mean. ... Why do we want to pull people back? Usually, those are the changemakers. Those are the people who are trying to force people to think about things a little differently, but we want to mute them because sometimes they challenge notions of ourselves because they make us look in the mirror and say, ‘Am I really showing up?’”
Harper said we need to get out of the mentality of just skating by.
“Life is so short and so precious, that we can’t skate. So, if you are a true active architect of your own life, you start with a plan or a blueprint or an idea, knowing that you’re going to modify it as you get new ideas and information. You’re going to amass the level of energy that’s required to manifest whatever the outcome you want needs to be,” he said, moving on to the third word of the Kennedy quote, which is courage.
“Now courage is my favorite word in the English language,” he said. “... Courage is simply getting into your heart, getting out of your head and into your heart and figuring out what makes your heart beat faster.”
Talking about things that get his heart racing, Harper mentioned a movie he executive produced titled “Drowning In Silence.” The child of a friend of his drowned while there was a party going on at their home and the father was having a conversation at the other end of the pool. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late for his friend’s child. Drowning is the No. 2 cause of death and brain trauma for children.
“It made me reevaluate completely about how I send my son to summer camps. How I send my son to public pools. We would never think of putting my son without a seatbelt in a carseat, yet we’ll send kids out into the water without no life preserver or things like that,” Harper said.
That started making his heart beat faster, so he had to start leaning into the issue and had to make something that was important to him.
“And I would suggest, as we live our lives, keep searching for those things that light you up because we need you to show up to make this world better. Too many of us aren’t showing up. And not everyone has to have the same issue, and that’s OK. But show up for something. Be an architect for something. Because if we’re not, if we don’t do this together, we’re going to continue to see the same kind of results we’ve been seeing, and that’s not acceptable. It’s not,” he pleaded.
It’s about saving lives, he said, because most of the issues people care about are life-and-death situations.
“If we can deal with healthcare disparities, we save lives. If we can deal with the wealth gap, we save lives. If we can help people earn a living wage, we save lives. If we an improve the quality of our public education system, we actually save lives. There’s a direct correlation, for instance, between literacy rates and incarceration rates in communities. Direct correlation! So why don’t we solve the literacy problem, then we solve this problem. None of this stuff is rocket science, it just takes passion, reason and courage,” he said.
After his approximately hour-long talk, there was a question-and-answer session and Harper posed for photos with Zimmer Biomet employees.
Harper stars in ABC's No. 1 television drama, “The Good Doctor,” and has starred in numerous television and film projects including “CSI:NY,” “He Got Game” and “Lackawanna Blues.” An author of four books, he is the founder and chairman of The Black Wall Street App and Digital Wallet; on the Board of Directors of National Black Bank Fund; honorary national co-chair of the Redevelopment of Black Wall Street, Greenwood Chamber of Commerce; and served on the President's Cancer Panel, having been appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011.
Actor and best-selling author Hill Harper brought his, along with a sense of humor, to Zimmer Biomet employees in Warsaw on Friday to discuss “Harnessing the Power of the Authentic You.”
ABLE (African and Black Leadership for Excellence), an employee resource group at the orthopedic company, hosted Harper’s visit as part of Black History Month.
Starting his comments with a bit of humor, Harper said, “ZB, I’m kind of mad at you guys, I just want to start with that. I’ll be honest, because I was out there on the side and I saw how many people were at the lunch. People came for the free food more than they came to see Hill Harper! I see it.”
He pointed out that the livestreaming was happening, and with 20,000 ZB employees across the world, “let’s give it up for those 20,000 watching us right now.”
Walking around the amphitheater in ZB’s Building 5, Harper said he wanted to start talking about the future.
“And, for the purpose of this discussion, the future refers to what happens after we walk out of this room,” he said. “... In other words, the future is what’s next. What does next look like? And how can we actually build a better next than what’s happened previous.”
To frame the discussion, he quoted Bobby Kennedy, who said, “The future does not belong to those who are fearful of bold projects or new ideas, but rather the future belongs to those who can blend passion, reason and courage into a personal commitment to great ideas and enterprises of American society.”
Harper said the quote has in it a word that isn’t used much anymore - reason.
“When is the last time someone said, ‘use your reasoning skills’? Or use the word reason. Reason, we don’t use it enough anymore, you guys. We don’t. Reason is simply having a blueprint or plan and then executing. Those other two words we’re going to get into - which are passion and courage that surround reason - I want to talk about reason first,” he said.
A person can’t do anything unless they initially have a plan, he stated.
“In many of my books, I write about this idea that we’re all active architects for our own life,” Harper said, then asking who had read one of his books. No one raised their hand. “That’s fantastic. This is great,” he said, eliciting laughter from the audience.
“If you had read one of my New York Times best-selling books, you would know that when I talk about the idea of being active architects of your own life, it is a simple concept of thinking about the fact that we can build whatever life we want. That you have the power and ability to build whatever future you want. And certainly, collectively, we can build the better community we want, we can build whatever state we want, whatever country we want, whatever world we want. We have the ability to be active architects for our own life in our own worlds. But it has to start with reasoning skills. Having the blueprint or plan to execute,” Harper said.
Most of us, he said, have gotten away from creating that blueprint for our life. “What happens is we end up being very reactionary rather than pro-active or reactive,” he said.
Everyone has goals and dreams, but many people as they graduate through their lives and work life, get away from the idea of creating new blueprints. Referring back to the Kennedy quote, he said whatever problem and solution we’re addressing, the future does not belong to those who are afraid of bold projects and new ideas.
“Innovation. Innovation. Innovation,” Harper said.
Looking at the word “passion” in the quote, he said to him that word simply means energy.
“To me, when we think about our lives, oftentimes just living our lives, the ‘e’ kind of gets sucked out of us sometimes. We end up sometimes living with too little energy because we’re getting pulled here, we’re getting pulled there, we’re getting pulled in all these different directions. So being mindful of our energy, to get back to what we’re actually passionate about, what makes our heart beat faster, what do you want to lean into? Where do you want to see a difference? How do you want to manifest a life as you want? What did you think about when you were younger when you talked about what kind of life do I want to live? How might I have an impact on the world, and how do I want to show up for myself, my family and my community? That’s what ‘e’ is fundamentally - passion. What are you passionate about?” Harper said.
If we want to change something in our life, community, family and world, “we have to raise our amplitude of energy,” he continued.
“Passion, which is energy, I would suggest to you that the vast majority of us live with too little ‘e,’ or energy, to actually manifest change and make a difference,” Harper said. “What we do is we show up with too little, but we have an idea of what we want to manifest or change, but the energy we’re showing up with isn’t enough. And also what starts to happen is when you meet people who show up with more energy, sometimes you try to pull them back to the mean. ... Why do we want to pull people back? Usually, those are the changemakers. Those are the people who are trying to force people to think about things a little differently, but we want to mute them because sometimes they challenge notions of ourselves because they make us look in the mirror and say, ‘Am I really showing up?’”
Harper said we need to get out of the mentality of just skating by.
“Life is so short and so precious, that we can’t skate. So, if you are a true active architect of your own life, you start with a plan or a blueprint or an idea, knowing that you’re going to modify it as you get new ideas and information. You’re going to amass the level of energy that’s required to manifest whatever the outcome you want needs to be,” he said, moving on to the third word of the Kennedy quote, which is courage.
“Now courage is my favorite word in the English language,” he said. “... Courage is simply getting into your heart, getting out of your head and into your heart and figuring out what makes your heart beat faster.”
Talking about things that get his heart racing, Harper mentioned a movie he executive produced titled “Drowning In Silence.” The child of a friend of his drowned while there was a party going on at their home and the father was having a conversation at the other end of the pool. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late for his friend’s child. Drowning is the No. 2 cause of death and brain trauma for children.
“It made me reevaluate completely about how I send my son to summer camps. How I send my son to public pools. We would never think of putting my son without a seatbelt in a carseat, yet we’ll send kids out into the water without no life preserver or things like that,” Harper said.
That started making his heart beat faster, so he had to start leaning into the issue and had to make something that was important to him.
“And I would suggest, as we live our lives, keep searching for those things that light you up because we need you to show up to make this world better. Too many of us aren’t showing up. And not everyone has to have the same issue, and that’s OK. But show up for something. Be an architect for something. Because if we’re not, if we don’t do this together, we’re going to continue to see the same kind of results we’ve been seeing, and that’s not acceptable. It’s not,” he pleaded.
It’s about saving lives, he said, because most of the issues people care about are life-and-death situations.
“If we can deal with healthcare disparities, we save lives. If we can deal with the wealth gap, we save lives. If we can help people earn a living wage, we save lives. If we an improve the quality of our public education system, we actually save lives. There’s a direct correlation, for instance, between literacy rates and incarceration rates in communities. Direct correlation! So why don’t we solve the literacy problem, then we solve this problem. None of this stuff is rocket science, it just takes passion, reason and courage,” he said.
After his approximately hour-long talk, there was a question-and-answer session and Harper posed for photos with Zimmer Biomet employees.
Harper stars in ABC's No. 1 television drama, “The Good Doctor,” and has starred in numerous television and film projects including “CSI:NY,” “He Got Game” and “Lackawanna Blues.” An author of four books, he is the founder and chairman of The Black Wall Street App and Digital Wallet; on the Board of Directors of National Black Bank Fund; honorary national co-chair of the Redevelopment of Black Wall Street, Greenwood Chamber of Commerce; and served on the President's Cancer Panel, having been appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011.
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