Bassam Tarazi is a Change Management Consultant…but he wasn’t always. He has a background in mechanical engineering and started his career as a nuclear engineer working on nuclear submarines in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Born and raised in Connecticut, the 39-year-old now lives in Portland with his wife, Samantha, and dog, Oliver. His hobbies include writing, reading, hiking/trekking, swimming, biking, and watching his beloved Arsenal football club disappoint him. He once convinced Fidel Castro to sign his US passport with a Sharpie, but that’s not the only risky thing he’s done. Bassam has a dynamic list of challenges he’s faced, which he will share more about at TEDxSalem VII.
What was your first TED experience? Simon Sinek’s talk was my first stumble into a TED Talk (at least from what I can remember)
Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impacted your life or perspective? I’d say it’s that same talk. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Simon was one of the first people to really drive home that idea. Ever since, I’ve always tried to tackle my “why” in life and to be sure I bring it across in all that I do.
What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? It’s not about what we want to do in the world, but who we want to be. I think we spend too much time thinking about what we are going to do in life and we forget to lay the foundation of who we are going to become. What do people say about us when we leave the room? When I think of vision, I think about what would go in my eulogy, not on my resume.
What do you feel most grateful for in your life? That I grew up in the relative time of plenty. In the history of humankind, it is only for the slightest sliver of it that we have the freedoms and time to explore our imaginations and this world in the way that we can today. What an incredible gift that is.
What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in life? How did you learn them?
You never know when a smile might save someone’s life. — My mom used to say that to us when we were kids.
“Make every decision the right decision.” When you are left with an either-or choice, just pick one and never look back. If the choice you made doesn’t work out, you can’t look back and say, “I knew it. I should have chosen the other thing.” You don’t know that. You could have been dead if you chose the other thing. Learn what you learned in what you chose, dust yourself off and move forward. My father taught me that.
Writing isn’t a manifestation of what I’ve discovered, it’s a discovery of what I’ll manifest. Learned this one on my own, trying to write. I used to hold ideas in my head thinking that once I figure them out then I’ll write them down. But it doesn’t work that way. The best part of writing is sitting down to write and then writing something you didn’t even know was in your end.
In five years you’ll be wrong. I think we sometimes get too caught up in our visions for the future that we forget to see what’s in front of us every day. When people ask me where do I want to be in five years, I always answer, “Living intentionally,” because when I go back five years and look forward, I’m never where I thought I’d be. We design our ship and load our provisions for what we think we will encounter over the horizon, but what we inevitably do encounter is never what we expected. So we certainly have to choose and paddle in a cardinal direction in life, but we should always be ready to adapt to what comes from beyond the horizon. This has taught me to not put too much weight on any decision. Life will always throw a curveball, so it’s better to act while you can and adapt later.
Tell us something about yourself we could never tell from looking at you. I have a stutter that I work around every day. One of the hardest things for me to do is just say my first name when going around the room introducing ourselves.
If you could live in the setting of any book or movie, without necessarily being involved in the story, which would you choose? Inception; Imagine there was a world where you could enter people’s dreams?! That would be crazy.
If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be? Rocket science
Go-to karaoke song? The Killers “Mr. Brightside”
Where would you go in a time machine? Inside the command module of Apollo 11 on top of the Saturn 5, ten seconds before liftoff. It was the greatest adventure of all time. Would have loved to be a part of it.
TEDxSalem VII
TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event featuring talks, performances, refreshments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Convention Center. Click here for tickets. Follow us on Facebook for the most up-to-date news from our community, and check our website regularly for new information. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com