Why The Bold and the Beautiful’s Sean Kanan is unbecoming

On The Bold and the Beautiful, Sean Kanan plays Deacon Sharpe, a husband and father who owns a business. But is Deacon meaningfully happy? Sean's new TED talk could help him — and you.

The Bold and the Beautiful: Sean Kanan’s Inspiration

Sean Kanan posted a story on his Instagram page about his first TEDx talk, "How to be the hero of your own story.” If you watch one thing on YouTube today, let it be this.

The focus of Sean Kanan's TED talk is “unbecoming” yourself, meaning letting go of the person you’ve turned into so you can become your “authentic self” — which Sean describes as who you were before external influences changed you. Sean tells a story straight from the heart, a defining moment when he was fighting for his life in the operating room of a Las Vegas hospital. Sean was 22 and had been training relentlessly for his new role, Karate’s Bad Boy Mike Barnes in Karate Kid III. The pain in his thigh was due to a bleed onto his femoral artery and needed immediate surgery. He had to sign a form that said he understood that the hospital couldn't guarantee he would survive the operation.

The pain was almost unbearable, and Kanan said he felt his body getting cold. He was starting to fade away as he was wheeled into the operating room. Sean said one thing became clear: he was no longer fighting for a role. He was fighting for his life. Not long after waking in recovery with a 12-inch wound in his abdomen held together by surgical staples, his thoughts turned to “What about the film?” The director's call came swiftly and with a stern ultimatum: return to the set in two weeks or be fired. This became a decision that would affect the rest of his life. He could either become a victim or fight with everything he had.

Choosing the latter, Sean recovered and performed all his martial arts stunts in the film. It changed everything…for a while. Sean then fast-forwarded to his 50th birthday on November 22nd, 2016. By then, he was successful, at least outwardly so. However, Sean shared that he wasn't meaningfully happy. What had become of that 22-year-old kid who fought to save his own life?

Unbecoming who you have become

The points of Kanan's TEDx talk are both poignant and hard-hitting, with something for everyone to take away from it. Like the drama and uncertainty Deacon faces in The Bold and the Beautiful, Sean has faced many challenges. In the video, he candidly shares how he fought for his life a second time — and the lessons that made all the difference to help him become his authentic self and be meaningfully happy.

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Sean Kanan: “There are two forces in the universe that bring about true and lasting change in humans: their fear…and love.”

You can watch Sean Kanan as Deacon Sharpe in full episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful on weekdays on CBS or stream on Paramount Plus.

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