Why you can't Rah Rah your way to success! | Amanda Johnson | TEDxSouthportElementarySchool
good morning why you can't rah-rah your way to success and what to do instead the word willing got my attention in a book called the energy of money and as you heard I'm a financial planner so I help people with their finances and I found that this word helped me give ease to my clients how they managed their finances my own as well and I also discovered that it was useful in other areas of my life so let's start with the definition of willing according to Webster's dictionary willing is an adjective which I'm sure you've studied and it means inclined or favorably disposed in mind ready willing and eager to help it also can mean prompt to act or respond lending a willing hand and it can mean done or accept it by choice or without reluctance a willing sacrifice now why is the word willing such a game-changer and what the heck does it have to do with the title of this talk why you can't roar out your way to success and what to do instead being willing to be a certain way or to do a certain thing doesn't mean that you are being that way or you are doing that certain thing why does it matter because sometimes your current reality and how you want things to be aren't the same and there is a gap in the middle of those two things and in order to close that gap and to have things be the way you want them to be that takes effort so let's do a quick survey please raise your hand and keep them up if you are some kind of musician you play the piano the clarinet good keep them up please raise your hand if you enjoy playing some kind of sport basketball soccer and if you don't have a hand up yet raise your hand if there's something you really enjoy being you enjoy being a good sibling you enjoy being an artist you want to be a somebody whose hand just went down when I said good sibling keep'em huh you want to be a good artist or you want to be as spelling bee great now keep your hand up if 100% of the time you are 100% of the musician or the athlete or the artist that you want to be 100% tell the truth now look around pretty normal pretty normal now why would that be well it's kind of a goofy deal don't you think about it it would be 100% of the artist or the musician or the athlete that you want to be 100 percent of the time however and we agreed that you want to be good at the stuff you're doing yeah can I hear yes good and can we also agree that it is possible to feel like you gave 100% of your effort and things turned out the way you wanted can we agree okay I'm just like you I had my hand up because I'm a musician also and I put my hand down because I'm not 100% the musician I want to be all the time I sing in a big choir this choir has over 120 singers we performed four times a year for audiences of between 850 and 2500 people it can be scary I really like being in this choir and I want to be a successful musician so I'm just like you now have you ever tried to give yourself a rah-rah pep talk before a recital or a game or a spelling bee or something have you ever tried to do that it might sound like you're the best goalie and you're not gonna let any goal score or you're the best clarinet player and you're not gonna miss any notes right might sound like that and as you're giving yourself that rah-rah pep talk a little voice starts talking to you and the little voice might sound like this you're not the best goalie you let that easy goal get by last Saturday or you'd have the best musician why you completely forgot the end of that piece at the recital Oh what if I mess up again I don't know if I should be doing this is this a good idea why am I even here or even worse the voice might get so loud that you don't even try at all hmm but back to the voice it kind of sounds like a screeching monkey has gotten loose in your head have you ever met this monkey anybody yeah okay see now why does this happen because for one thing your brain and all of our brains doesn't hear the word don't and won't so when you give yourself a pep talk and you say this is participatory okay when you say don't mess up don't mess up don't mess up if your brain can't hear the word don't what does your brain hear right is that helpful if you want to be your best not really here's the other reason if you declare that you're already the best goalie or the best clarinet player or the best sister and there's a gap between what is currently true and what you want to be true then the monkey starts to argue with you it picks a fight and we get back to I kind of thought that picture would make you laugh thank you thank you for the laughs are you interested in what to do instead may hear a big yes fantastic I want you to think now of somebody who you admire this might be a person who you know this might be a character in a book or a movie or it might be somebody who's currently doing something you really want to do well soccer star something like that okay have you got it have you thought of it could you keep it to yourself okay you got it now I want you to think of one or two qualities that this person possesses think about something about them are they kind are they enthusiastic so think of a quality about this person have you got it good here's something really important to learn today this is special those qualities are you you're already those qualities how do I know that I don't even know you but how do I know that I didn't tell you who to think of did I I didn't tell you exactly what qualities to think about them did I they came from you you thought of them if I tell you I if I how am i doing if I tell you I love chocolate ice cream I must have experienced chocolate ice cream in order to know that I love it and to share it with you it's the same exact thing with the qualities that you just thought of do you believe me you do good my example is Renee Fleming she's an opera singer and I happen to know a little bit about her preparation methods so when I'm coming up as a singer on a big concert and I'm starting to get nervous and I'm starting to hear the monkey I asked myself well what would Renee do would she be alert would she be focused would she be attentive and then I asked myself well what would an alert focused attentive musician do right now that's the key what would she do how would she put this in action and then I do that thing and you know what in that moment I do feel like I'm a hundred percent of the musician that I want to be so if you want to improve a skill that you are working on something that you want to do then ask yourself Who am I willing to be and what qualities am I willing to demonstrate bless you right now okay am I willing to be courageous am I willing to be creative am I willing to be focused what would a creative courageous focused person do right now and then do that thing that's how you do it now why does it work because you didn't declare that you're the best soccer player the best clarinet player you just said you're willing and then you take those actions those qualities and you put them into action that's why it works so the next time you're tempted to give yourself the rah-rah try this 3-step process instead think of someone who you admire think of two or three qualities that you admire about them ask yourself in that moment how could I bring these qualities to bear and demonstrate them in what I'm doing right now do that thing and that's how you can skip the rah-rah and get results thank you [Applause]