Why I will never be successful | Hannan Rashid | TEDxDaresSalaamIntlAcademy
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxniD70M2cM Video ID: MxniD70M2cM ============================================================ Transcriber: Marta Guerrero Méndez Reviewer: Amanda Zamuner Mama Duma unfortunately grew up in poverty and because of that she had to cut her schooling short and join the workforce so that she can support her family in bringing food to the table and also running the house. Years later, she became a parent of her own -a single parent- to be exact, and she made a promise that she will send her kids to school. In order to support and finance this dream she started her own Mama Duma business and [sorry] [I’m so excited!] she started her own business. And from that business, she was able to send her kids not only to primary and secondary school, but to university as well. One interesting thing about Mama Duma is whenever I would meet her, she would always say she was successful, that she was a successful person. I never understood it. She never had a massive business where she would earn profits. She still had the same Mama Duma business. She wasn’t living in a big fancy house or in a fancy area in Dar es-Salam. She was actually living in her kibanda, but she would always say “I’m successful” I never understood how... until now. Good morning everyone. My name is Hanaan Rashid and this is my talk on “Why I will never, and I mean «never» be successful.” Growing up, I never knew exactly what my passions were or what I wanted to do with my life, or what career I wanted to specialize in. I mean, who does at that young age? But what I did know, because it was what I was constantly told, was: I had to work hard. I had to get my grades up so I can go to a good university, get my degree and my masters get a good job and that’s it. My life will be set. I’ll be successful. Fast forward years later, I'm in university. I still don't know what career I want to specialize in. Sorry that. I still don’t know what my purpose was. I still don’t know what I’m doing with my life. But luckily for me, I slowly started discovering my passions at that time. And some of them were writing, learning, particularly in matters of personal development and sharing what I've learned through various means, mainly public speaking and writing. So I started my own blog. It was called “In a Nutshell” Now in a nutshell, no pun intended, was a blog which would share lessons and key takeaways from successful people in different public events that they went to, different podcast interviews, or even episodes. So when I was searching for the list of people that I would like to feature on this blog I searched up successful people and, as one would expect, these were the people that came. It was the lives of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, Hasan Minhaj, and so on and so forth. I learned a lot from these people. I learned new ideas, matters of innovation, perseverance, hard work, patience. But what I also learned, which I’m now realizing, was that I was slowly building my definition of success, which was “I will only be successful once I have made a big of an impact,” just like these people. Once I have «made it» either being the owner of a Fortune 500 company, attaining mass followers, impacting people, saving thousands of lives. That’s when I will be successful. And so even the smallest of my wins, such as presenting on this platform today, which has been my goal, or being able to run in two kilometres under ten minutes, was not a success. While preparing for this presentation, I wanted to get a wider understanding of what “success” meant. It’s something which has been constantly discussed over the years of time before long as we can remember. So I asked several people what success meant to them, and one answer stood out to me. One day, as I was heading to work with my father, I randomly asked him: “Dad, do you think you’re successful?” Surprisingly and humbly, he said: “Yes, I am.” And I said: “why?” To which he simply said: “it’s because I’m constantly achieving the goals that I set out to do for myself.” And just like that, I got my answer. I finally understood why I will never be successful. It wasn’t because I was lazy. It wasn’t because I wasn’t enough. It wasn’t because I wasn’t smart or I wasn’t worthy of anything: It was because I never had my own definition of “success.” It was because I was constantly told what “success” was, be it through people around me, be it through the people, social media every single day, and it was just how I built my definition of success, which boils down to “fame” and “wealth” So now that we figure this out, what do we do next? How do we actually define what success means to us? From my research, I figured out two ways: “exploration” and “introspection.” We need to constantly seek out [yeah, that’s me over there.] so we need to constantly seek out new experiences that expose us to new ideas and new people and because it’s from there is where we’re going to build our values and our principles. What are our likes? What are our passions? And from there, we slowly start discovering who we are as individuals and what we want to do, and hopefully discovering our purpose. And secondly, it is “introspection.” We need to let every work that we do, be it personal or at the office, be an art form of self-exploration of who we are and why we do what we do. We need to constantly analyze whatever we're doing and see if it is in alignment with our values and our principles. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I am a successful person today, or I finally know what “success” means, and I can tell you how to figure out success for yourself. No, I don’t. Today is my first step of taking, of understanding that success is not just measured on wealth and fame and I’m slowly starting to discover what “success” means. And hopefully during our next talk, or whenever we meet another day, we -I and you- can probably say that were successful. We’ll be happy, fulfilled and content, just like my cat. Thank you