Transcript

Doing things outside of your comfort zone frees your dreams | Geoffrey Williams | TEDxRoyalHolloway

hello hello just give me a second to get there it takes me a while um so I'm trying out how are you all today by the way good good oh you talkative that's nice um trying out a new look do you like it yay yeah it's a working progress oh and I've decided on um a drag name for myself I think I shall be Joy Galt I don't know work in progress um in my life outside of a dress um my name name is Jeff Williams and this is what I look like and for today I decided to set myself a challenge the challenge was to do something that I'd always been too afraid to try but really wanted to give a go so for the first time ever I am appearing in public in drag now wo go on yay oh you're awesome um now I work in the theater so unsurprisingly I have actually been in a dress before but never for very long my God never in high heels and uh never with any real sincerity but I've always wanted to give it a try and there's always been this sort of thing that's kept me back I've had so many fears what would other people think what would other drag queens think would I be able to walk in heels would I look any good in a dress um so I never did it till today um now I think sorry was coming undone one second better um this is new for me okay um now this feels uncomfortable to me a little bit because it's so far outside of anything I normally do to express myself physically let's have a look at the picture again this is me how I normally am well even this is a little bit sort of glammed up my normal look is sort of drab and unimaginative end of the slideshow um yeah wasn't it amazing um so I have been very afraid to do this I don't know if you can tell I'm a bit nervous and it's it's been sort of a challenge to get here to to try this out um oh I've lost my train of thought a little bit um in 2010 I was um in South Africa where I'm from studying an MA in psychology I was 2 years in and something wasn't right I was told by everyone around me and believe myself that the thing to do was to find job security and um I was very good at Psychology so I had a clear career trajectory but something wasn't right looming in the future somewhere in the fog was this dream I had of doing something different and the problem problem was that this dream followed a path that went up a mountain over on the other side and I couldn't see what came next I couldn't see what was right after where I was so um I I was really unaware so was it um a lake of fire was it sort of dragons was it a life in drag so I never gave it a try what I was sure of though was that I wasn't happy in Psychology um what I wanted what this dream was was actually to be what I am now as a theater director and and I would love to be a film director I saw myself at the Oscars having uh a drink with Tarantino or a cheeky giggle with Pacino you know the usual stuff and that was never going to happen because that was a pipe dream right once you're on a path you stay on a path and you keep doing that till you're finished what lunatic what lunatic uproots themselves climbs up over the mountain away from the job security away from the clear career trajectory that lunatic was me and and there is something I should tell you at this point I haven't told anybody what this talk is about which is one of the reasons I'm so nervous I didn't do that because I was ashamed of it or afraid of it actually I did that for the opposite reason I did that because I didn't want to let myself off the hook it would have been so easy to Canvas everyone's opinion see what they thought take take out anything that people went uh and do a talk that was down the line but what I've decided to do is just offer what comes from me so my friends my family my boyfriend my colleagues they don't know this is what's happening and they're all watching so we'll see what happens we'll see how that goes um what kept me in Psychology for so long was that I was confident and secure in life I thought I fully understood the known routine seemed so safe it seemed so easy so just take a moment for yourselves to think about your own routines and the things about it that you find secure and the things that make you happy those little rituals of life that you count on that make you your day seem manageable for me it's like in the morning my day does not start and I mean it does not start without a cup of coffee right I can't do that and in the evening I I will admit this I can't go to sleep without watching an episode of rupal's drag race cuz it's amazing okay but I can't go to sleep without it we exist in these ruts in these grooves of life because they are comfortable and what's outside them is so scary but what if we were to take a step outside what if we were to try and just imagine that dream that we have just for a moment as if it was a real possibility there is a one wonderful Yiddish saying that I've grown so fond of over the years got and it means we plan and God laughs and I I think personally that God is laughing happily like a grand grandfather laughs at what his grandchildren get up to but we exist but I am terrified of being here and that's the problem we're all afraid so take my current situation I'm sure God is sort of laughing at this because this is lunacy um and there were so many reasons that this was a sort of a bad idea everyone was telling me that this was not going to work in fact there was one guy who told me um the only people who make it in the Arts are those who start as children everybody else fails so I should just stay where I was in Psychology doing what I did and I should be a good boy so there was all these fears that kept me trapped and and fear is the thing that I I keep coming back to it's the thing that makes us try and identify all the things that can go wrong about a specific Endeavor and put those things all around us we try and minimize risk the thing is though if you build a life around the minimization of risk you put in all these boxes all around you you exist in a tiny tiny world now I grant you that of course it's possible to do that that and it works you will identify risks and they will help you prevent go yourself going towards them but your world will get smaller and smaller and you'll never really move away from all the things that are risky because you can't do that you can't avoid all the risks if IID stayed in Psychology it would have been because I wanted a stable income and I wanted a life of security and that would have been fine that would been safe I would have been happy but I wouldn't have been as happy as I am now crazy man in a dress and I would have always had that sense of the thing over the mountain the dream the thing far away that I wasn't actually pursuing so that's my story now in a minute I'm going to ask you guys to do some things for me haha um crazy crazy you know Ted to people do things um they're really easy they're really mundane but I'm going to ask you to do them in a specific way I want you to open yourself to doing them in a slightly different way than you normally would I want you to try not to anticipate not to prepare not to get yourself ready for what's going to happen just do what I ask you to do because it's really mundane and and see where that leaves you okay you all okay for this it'll sound so nervous because it's silent right let's go everybody stand up oh lovely that was easy right that wasn't hard that was easy okay the next thing I'd like you to do is find a partner so you might have to move around the room to do this so find so pair up with someone so right while you're pairing up listen to the instruction okay everybody got a partner oh I'm really messing with this Ted Talk have pretty good a partner great now listen to the instruction before you do anything right with your partner when I tell you all you're going to do is you're going to turn to them and you're going to look them in the eyes and you're not going to let stop looking at them in the eyes until I tell you you're going to just hold their eyes okay you can giggle it's fine that's natural give it a go let's hold their eyes okay you can stop look back at me fabulous man in the dress right next thing you guys are awesome by the way that was fantastic think about the hand you normally shake hands with right this for me that's my right hand and don't do anything till I tell you think about I want you to take the other hand and what you're going to do is with your new friend you're going to shake hands and again you're going to hold on until I tell you to let go just shake hands but hold the hands go for it now hold on Keep Holding On keep holding hands okay you can let go now for the insane part I want you to sit down where your partner was sitting aha oh I'm oh I'm falling out again how do women put up with this right now that you're sitting down I want you to adjust how you're sitting so you sat down in a natural way this is not natural it's me squatting um you sat down in some natural way I want you to adjust it to another way that feels comfortable wasn't how you naturally sat down okay just adjust it slightly change how your legs are yeah lovely interactive part over so you can take a breath but I want you to close your eyes for a second don't worry Auntie Joy is taking care of you so close your eyes and I want you to reflect on what you just happened what you just did you did some really mundane things in a slightly different way in a way that was outside of your comfort zone in a way that challenged you maybe maybe it was terrifying maybe exciting maybe invigorating I don't know I hope it was positive but it was is something different okay you can open your eyes and get all doled up not to be looked at um how about this I bet you're in a heightened state of focus as well you're sort of more paying attention to everything around you than you were a minute ago it is this heightened state that I think you can use to push yourself out of your boundaries of fear okay this this get up is outside of my company Zone I can tell you I can't even see my comfort zone it's somewhere Over the Horizon but it's allowed me to give this speech which I don't think I otherwise would have now I'm not suggesting that everyone has dreams of drag like me or that you have Big Dreams necessarily that you want to realize in your life or things that you desperately want to change but whatever the Small Things Are whatever the things that there are in your life that you do want to change my proposal is that you can use the space to get there you can take small steps in the space of the unknown in the space that is a little bit scary a little bit challenging but easy to access that will take you there I thrive in the space of the unknown as you might have guessed um in my personal life in my career and work with actors all the time and I try to push them outside of their comfort zones because it's sort of okay to watch a play that goes perfectly to plan but it's a little bit dull and actors who don't take any risks are quite boring to watch and I would say a life with no challenges that's never been pushed is one that is not going to be memorable personally I find myself most alive when I'm dealing with something that went wrong it went wrong when I came in I couldn't remember where my speech was going to go but you know had to deal with it um I almost fell over too but you know that's where I feel most creative most pushing things forward most taking things to the next level so I've never done this before and now I'm doing it so I'm able to like see do I want to take this somewhere else but you don't have to do what I did you don't have to uproot yourself go to another country and change careers because there only lunatic South Africans with a fetish for drag do that man got we dream and God laughs and I think he's laughing happily it might all go wrong but try it anyway now go force and be fabulous [Applause]