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Foreign [Music] So I'm talking about overcoming the fear of failure. And you know, you may look at me as a new zinc, you probably recognize me or recognize my, my sultry voice. I don't know why I'm holding a microphone; it's right here. But you know, it wasn't always like this. I, I don't have it all together right now, and I certainly didn't have it all together back in high school. And I want you guys to see if you notice a pattern here. Let's go back to high school, at Appleton North High School in Appleton, Wisconsin.
And when I got to high school, I was a really good basketball player in middle school. I led my team in points and assists, but I didn't want to try out for the basketball team in high school because if you try out, you could get cut, and that would be a huge failure. I don't want to get cut; that would be embarrassing. So I didn't try out. I played soccer though, played soccer my freshman and sophomore years. But when it came to junior year, there's kind of an expectation to make Varsity, right? But what if I didn't make varsity? That would have been really embarrassing; that would have been a huge failure if I didn't make varsity. So what should I do instead, huh? Well, cross country; you can't get cut. So despite playing soccer for my entire life, from age five to my high school years, I quit. I did cross country instead. It was fun, but the pattern continued, out of athletics in academics as well. I was, I was smart enough, but I never really tried because if you try and then you fail, that's a huge failure. If I don't try and I pass, well, I didn't try anyway. If I don't try and I fail, well, it's not really a failure; I didn't put myself out there.
And of course, this extended past athletics and academics into my social life. I wasn't being vulnerable with people; I wasn't being myself because if I was myself and people rejected me, that would be a huge failure. You're probably noticing a pattern; I was deathly afraid of the fear of failure. I couldn't fail. I would learn later that it was my perfectionist tendencies coming out. I had some high-achieving parents with some high-achieving older siblings, so you're going to do all the things. So I, I tried to get past that. I went to college, and that still lingered on. I still had some fear of failure. I got middling grades; I felt like I wasn't myself. And my mom gave me this book, and it's by Brené Brown. You guys may have heard of her; she's one of the most famous Ted Talks out there, and the book is called *Daring Greatly*. And the name is derived from a quote that absolutely changed my life. I can just see everyone on the edge of their seat waiting. Yes, I'm going to read the quote:
Peter Roosevelt, our 26th president: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
I get goosebumps every time I see that quote. I love that quote. There's so many great metaphors in there, and I just like the, the vision of the man in the arena, right? Instead of on the sidelines, not being your authentic self, just watching everyone else go about their life, you're actually in the arena. It's not the critic who counts; it's not the people who point out when I stumble, because I stumble a lot. I don't know if you watch the newscasts at all, but every single day I mess something up, right? I say Shawano, I get 50 emails; it's Shawano. And like, I know that, but it's the heat of the moment, right? But you know, this quote, it really was a turning point for me. Instead of being my inauthentic self, I tried to be in the arena. I tried to actually strive to do the deeds so that I would know victory and defeat, and I certainly did.
After I read this book, after my freshman year, my grades improved. And it wasn't only that; I participated in class. I'm a very genuinely curious person, and I always held that back in school because I didn't want to be judged, right? But I really just let myself be me. I did things like go on a cross-country trip by myself, something that probably isn't typical for people, but I knew that that is something that I would enjoy, and I did that, and I, and I had a really good time. Similarly, I started a band, I released an album after college, I got a great job, and then after that, I had the confidence to leave that job and go into something I was actually truly passionate about, which is journalism, and eventually went from weekend reporter to news anchor here, Channel 12, just down the street. So I feel like I'm, I'm in the arena right now. This is my new pattern; I'm trying new things; I'm, I'm failing; I'm succeeding. And once you actually start to fail and succeed, you realize that failure really isn't a big issue at all; it's actually a moment to learn and, and change and just reflect upon just being there.
But that wasn't quite enough, even to this day. And as I was coming up with this Ted Talk, there's still something holding me back, and I'm trying to overcome this. And a good example of this hurdle that I'm still facing right in front of me is, maybe a year ago, I went to an open mic event, and I played "Yesterday" by the Beatles. Do you guys know them? Small indie band, I think. And, uh, you know, I played it perfectly when I practiced every single night, but I get to the open mic event, and I just butcher it. I don't know what I was doing; I made mistakes that I had never made before. And even as I was thinking about talking about this vivid experience, even this week, even though it happened a year ago, it's still, still brought me shame. And there's so many more experiences like that where I did put myself out there and I failed. And of course, you all know this, that you remember your failures more than your successful outings, right? Here's another quote I stumbled upon; it's by Peter Sheehan: "Shame becomes fear; fear leads to risk aversion; risk aversion kills innovation." And I think about innovation as daring greatly, right? Risk aversion stops you from daring greatly. So how do we overcome these shameful moments that we perceive to be shameful and embrace them? Shame resilience. Think about it like you have to put your self-worth somewhere, right? And when I was doing all these things, when I was starting a band, releasing an album, I was putting my self-worth into the performances themselves, and it goes for the newscasts too. I put my self-worth into how I perform during those, but that is a very slippery slope because once you tie yourself to your performance, you become a prisoner of that; you have to please others; you have to perform at your best to consider yourself worthy. So the trick here with shame resilience is to not imbue your self-worth in performance, but just the act of showing up and daring greatly.
I told myself, coming to this speech today, that my self-worth is not on the line when I came out to this stage. It's, it's not because my self-worth is derived from even just showing up and doing it; that's all I needed. So when I was talking to Mike Effinger earlier this week, he said about 15 to 17 minutes, and I thought, huh, I'm at about 12 right now, so let's do something a little bit differently. I'm going to walk the talk of what I just talked about and do something I've never done before, ever. I'm gonna do some stand-up comedy. [Applause] And I know this is a TEDx event, so I want to keep it high-brow, right? So nothing naughty. Okay, so I hope I passed the testicular… I mean… but speaking of testicles, I was at Beefarama last weekend. You guys know Beefarama, right? It's up in Manawa, and there was a beer there that actually had bull testicles in it. It's the strangest thing, and I, you know, I was imagining the most interesting man in the world. I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer those testes. But something else I imagined, or I noticed at Beefarama, is that a lot of people are wearing leisure wear nowadays, right? Sweatshirts, sweatpants are really in, and this actually makes sense because a study shows that if you wear gym clothes, you're actually more likely to be ultra-rich, which I found was interesting. So gym clothes, you're more likely to be ultra-rich than actually wearing really nice clothes. Like only the ultra-rich would have the self-confidence to look like hobos. And I see we have a lot of ultra-rich people here tonight. As if it's a late-night show. Um, all I'm saying is that looks can be deceiving, right? Like if you see a person in a Chicago Bears jersey who plays in the NFL, you'd think they'd be good at football, but no, you'd be wrong; they're not good at football. No, but I, I do watch a lot of television; I watch a lot of sports, and I, I saw—I can't believe I'm doing this—I, I watched the commercial for, for hemorrhoid cream, and the song that was being played was "Ring of Fire." And I mean, that's a little on the nose, right? That's like a funeral home commercial playing the song "Another One Bites the Dust." It's just, it's a little much. Uh, but I did see this on the news; you know, I like to pay attention to the news. There was this huge jewel heist in Belgium. Did you guys see this? This huge jewel heist; these people made off with 50 million dollars worth of diamonds. And you know, a little part of me kind of roots for the, the burglars, right? You know, you see those movies, but I have to remind myself this isn't *Ocean's 11*. It's not cool; it's not funny; it's actually more like *Ocean's 12* now that I think about it. All right, I'll save that one for the drafts next time. Another movie I watched recently was *Tetris*. It's weird; they're making movies out of anything. But I was reading about it on Wikipedia, and it seems like during the production process it was very difficult; like it didn't look like it was going to work out, but in the end, all the pieces came together. But you know, I don't trust everything on Wikipedia. But actually, funnily enough, I, I saw on Wikipedia that it turns 32 years old this year, but I read that on Wikipedia, so I, I don't know if that's true. No, but you know, I like to follow the news, and it's, it's crazy how dry it is out west right now. Uh, it's so dry that Snoop Dogg had to change his name to Snoop Camel. It's so dry, and then at strip clubs they can't even make it rain anymore; they can only make a drizzle. So it's, it's affecting all sorts of industries. But you know, it's, it's so dry out west, and it's so wet out east right now; it's really ironic. Um, you know what? I don't even know what ironic means anymore. That Alanis Morissette song really messed me up. Isn't it ironic? You know, but it raining on your wedding day isn't ironic; that's just weather. A lotus? I don't know what you're talking about. Um, but what is ironic is ending a TEDx event on my worst joke of them all, so that's what I'm about to do. A doctor, uh, just announced that he grew an ear on a woman's arm. It's crazy; he announced this is a huge breakthrough in science; it's going to lead to so much more science. And the woman said, "I just came in for a migraine." Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Dare greatly, my friends. [Applause] Foreign [Music]