MOTAL’S Celeb Salon Featured​Zoot Velasco: Overcoming Childhood Trauma

Zoot Velasco
A dynamic speaker with long experience fighting trauma.

The Museum of Teaching and Learning held its fifth Celeb Salon at the home of Jo Ann Brannock on June 8, 2022. The MOTAL fundraising event, now a tradition, featured a “brain food” dinner, a silent auction, and a local celebrity who provided plenty of food for thought. This time it was Zoot Velasco, an entertaining and beloved speaker, who explored attributes of childhood trauma and possibilities for overcoming its tragic effects.

His current roles in the community include President of the Rotary Club of Fullerton, and Executive Director of the Friends of Fullerton College Foundation. He also teaches business classes at California State University, Fullerton, and Cal Poly Pomona.
Here are some details from that evening.


All guests took the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire for Adults (ACE), which is as follows:


Our relationships and experiences, even those in childhood, can affect our health and wellbeing. The questions on this test relate to events happening to you before your 18th birthday and the number of yes(es) you answer related to trauma suffered in childhood. Questions deal with the following content:


1) being put down and humiliated;
2) physical and sexual abuse;
3) not being loved or feeling important;
4) neglect;
5) parents had drug problems or mental illness;
6) abandoned through divorce or prison time; and
7) threatened with a gun or knife.
 
Each point on the ACE doubles your risk of the following behaviors:

• Negative Behaviors: Lack of physical activity, smoking, alcoholism, drug use and missed work.
• Physical & Mental Health: Severe obesity, diabetes, depression, suicide attempts, sexual transmitted diseases, heart disease, cancer, stroke, COPD, and broken bones.

If there are 5 or less “yes” checks, there are 10 years less life expectancy. With 6 points the effects double, and again double further at 8 points.


In with 4 or more “yes” checks, there is a 20% greater risk of health and wellness issues as well as addiction.


The biggest asset in the world is your mindset!


Carol S. Dweck (2006) in her book, "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success," discusses that mindset can influence how we perceive our world.  With a growth mindset one embraces challenges and persists in the face of setbacks and leads to success  A fixed mindset avoids challenges and gives up easily when faced with challenges.


Angela Lee Duckworth, author of “GRIT” demonstrated how the strongest predictor for success is perseverance, and that one can overcome childhood negative experiences. It has to do with your “mindset.”


Johnny Mercer’s 3-step process to Mindset is:
1) accentuate the positive,
2) eliminate the negative, and
3) don’t mess with Mr. In-between.
 
We have internal factors of strengths (+) and weakness (-) and external factors of opportunities (+) and threats (-). It is how you use these positive factors for success.


Perception is everything. A four-year-old girl takes her first flight on a plane, and after takeoff, she asks, “When do we get small?”


Resilience Studies


In study after study, including Michael Rutter’s 38-year study of the children of Kauai growing up in adverse conditions, found that half of the children did not repeat that pattern in their own adult lives (1985).


Emmy Werner’s ongoing study found that one-third of the children having four or more risk factors during their childhood were doing fine by adolescence. By age 32, two-thirds of the children who did develop problems during adolescence were leading successful adult lives.


How could that be? In each study, the only difference was having a mentor which was important to their success.


In normal stress level there is:

• 20% good stress
• 60% tolerable stress
• 20% toxic stress.

Stress levels for high scores on the ACE without a mentor are:

• 0% good stress
• 40% tolerable stress
• 60% toxic stress.

However, the stress levels for high scores on the ACE with a mentor shows:

• 60% good stress
• 40% tolerable stress
• 0% toxic stress.

A good example of overcoming negative experiences in childhood is of Thomas Edison, as he personally relayed his story. A child came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.” His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read out loud to her child. Your child is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.
 
After many, many years when cleaning out old family things, he suddenly saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written “Your son is addle-minded (mentally ill.) We won’t let him come to school anymore.” Edison later wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child who, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”


RECAP

1. Accentuate the positive – Negative is also positive when developed.
2. You must have goals and you may change them often.
3. There is opportunity in every crisis.
4. “There are no mistakes, only lessons”- Ancient Sanskrit tablet “Rules for Humanity”
5. Relationships are the key to success.
6. Success comes in many forms if you can see it.

Zoot’s presentation was edited and is printed with his permission.
Submitted by Jo Ann Brannock, PhD
MOTAL Board member