How to turn your dissatisfaction into action | Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2020

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

After the devastating rebel invasion of Sierra Leone in 1999 and the Ebola epidemic in 2014, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of Freetown, refused to be paralyzed by her frustration with the status quo. Instead, she used her anger as a catalyst for action. In this inspiring talk, she shares how she transformed her city by taking the risks necessary to bring about dramatic change -- and shows how you can find power in your dissatisfaction.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Elise Hugh here with your TED Talks Daily. In today's talk, why we should never get too
0:09.7	comfortable or too satisfied, because dissatisfaction can be transformative. Yvonne Aki-Soyer is the mayor of
0:18.3	Freetown Sierra Leone, and in her talk from 2019, she explains how recognizing pain points during times of crisis can reveal a lot of possibility, too.
0:31.7	Sometimes you have a niggly feeling about things.
0:37.0	You're not happy about the way things are going.
0:40.3	You feel frustrated and dissatisfied.
0:44.3	And so often, we choose to live with it.
0:48.3	It's a negative that we tell ourselves we have to endure.
0:52.3	And yet, I passionately believe
0:55.0	that we all have the ability
0:57.2	to turn that negative feeling
0:59.5	into a positive
1:01.1	by allowing our dissatisfaction
1:04.2	to give birth to change.
1:07.6	On the 6th of January, 1999,
1:12.6	I was working in London when the news channels began to report the rebel invasion of my hometown,
1:18.6	Freetown Serealione.
1:21.6	Thousands of people lost their lives
1:23.6	and there are bodies littering the streets of Freetown. My husband's elderly aunt was burnt alive,
1:31.3	and I thought of my own two-year-old as I saw images of little children with amputated limbs.
1:38.3	Colleagues said to me, how could we help?
1:42.3	I didn't know. So I began to call the telephone numbers that
	...

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