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TED Talks Live, New York (The Education Revolution)
I came home from New York City (NYC) and people were amazed what I fit in just 3 days. They thought I was there a week or more. I did it all while I was in NYC. The Tower observation decks, museums, boat tours and much more. The main reason I was there was to experience my first Live TED Talk event.
This was a double bucket list trip. First time seeing TED Talks and NYC. The whole trip was amazing but I would like to tell you my thoughts on some of the best motivational speakers of the evening. In the heart of NYC, Broadway and Time Square, I went to the historic Town Hall Theater. This event was going on all week with a different main topic each day. The main topic for the day I went was “The Education Revolution”. Other topics were things like science, history, war and peace.
I would like to say that this is a very informal post, more like expanded notes.
Andrew Mangino, CEO and Co-Founder of The Future Project:
He told us about how we need not just teachers in our world but Dream Directors. Yes every teacher can be a Dream Director, every one of us can inspire the future of our children. With the increasing amount of rules and regulations in the education industry we are leaving children’s creativity by the way sides, and we are ignoring their abilities to dream big in their life. Life is not all about just pushing kids to go to college it is about living their own lives. Listen to their ideas and let them follow their dreams. Not all will succeed right away but if we teach them how success and failure work together, all of their dreams have the ability to grow. We need to update the Education System and teach kids the jobs of today. Things have become useless were other things are not even brought up.
Julie Lythcott-Haims, Academic & Bestselling Author of “How to Raise an Adult”
Julie said at the end of her speech, “My kids are not bonsai trees they are wild flowers of an unknown species.” We are giving our children a checklist childhood we are expecting our kids to perform at a perfect level that we never even held ourselves too. These kids need to learn right and wrong by experience. Our kids need to experience failure and how to rise above it. Julie says, “By the end of high school these kids are questioning the worth of their life and their future.” We need to stop babying our kids. They need to be able to grow their own self-efficiency. Kids have too much entitlement; they need to earn more of what is just given to them. Kids need to experience life for themselves!
Julie told us, “A study was conducted and all the top professionals did chores as a kid.” I did chores and I made it to Design Director and now I am headed toward Dream Director as a motivational speaker. Academically kids need to know they matter to us, that they are not just another test grade statistic. All success did not come from going to big name schools, and world renowned colleges. Some success did not come from college at all. I choose to only get my 2 associates degrees. With that and a well brought up life of challenges and discovering who I am, I am succeeding everywhere in my life. I don’t owe everything I have accomplished in my life to some big name school. I owe it to my parents, Scouts, Failure, and outright earning everything I have in life from hard work.
Daniella Carter, Founder of Gender Global
As a youth Daniella was homeless, she was homeless because she was rejected by her own parents for being transgender. The LGBTQIA individuals have enough problems in the school and social setting as it is. For Daniella to rise about her homelessness and the critiques of the world around her is a huge challenge. Today she teaches children to overcome their adversities and embrace who they are with confidence. She was emotional giving her life story speech but I think she left no eye dry in the theater either. Bullying is such a problem in our world today. Where are kids learning that it is alright to tease and make fun of people who are different? The crazy thing is every single one of us is different! Even as an adult we make fun of and talk down things and people just because we don’t understand them. At the end she says “Join the revolution of loving someone different.” That is vague and precise all in one statement.
Sean McComb, National Teacher of the Year in 2014.
He started a program called AVID to help the students stretch themselves to succeed. He is also the youngest teacher to ever receive this award. He tells us that even thru all the change in regulations and paperwork and poor treatment of our future it still stands that teachers are the heart of hope for the future of our students. Our biggest enemy is the unknown future ahead, will it get worse or will it get better? “We need to make school the best 7 hours of our students day,” says Sean. We, above all else, cannot let these doors of opportunity close on any child.
There is a future for me here. The world of motivators is calling out to me and I get closer and closer to hear exactly what they are saying every day. I have been around the block many times. I have been hurt and I have been happy. My life has always been an adventure. This blog is certainly where I started but It will never end till I stop breathing. I am going to make a difference in this world, you can wait and see or you can join me along the way. I am too strong for anyone to break down my cause and truthfully only care for those that support, encourage or just plain accept what I am doing here. Those that follow me are very helpful, those that share their positive opinions I am thankful for, and those that want to help me I am extremely grateful for. You are all amazing and I am grateful for any part you take in this journey. I know I cannot make this world a more positive place on my own but I guarantee WE can do it together.
Opportunities
Yes I am still here. I have been very busy outside of this blog. I still do have my TED Talk New York Trip to talk about and I had a birthday pass as well. I also had a spell of no motivation to which I just kinda of took a break from everything. I eleam out of that spell, my life is flooding with opportunities right now, and I am just trying to keep them in order.
I was researching to rejoin Toastmasters and I just went to a meeting Monday. They seem excited to have me join and I have already volunteered to help them network and expand their club. If you are not familiar with Toastmasters it is an international organization were all varieties of people get together with a common goal to improve their public speaking abilities. Obviously, this is a perfect organization for me to join and I look forward to seeing if this will be a good fit for me in the coming weeks.
I have also been looking to volunteer at children’s hospitals and children’s homes. It has been a difficult journey and I finally discovered the reality of this desire. I talked with someone from the hospital and she told me why it was so difficult to get in, and once you are in its years before you start actually helping the children directly. It was very real and it all made sense but it is just not an opportunity for my fast paced lifestyle. The Assistant Principle at my school told me about a great organization called Give Kids The World here in Florida. Just the other day I meet someone in the grocery store that worked there. She said the application rate is 100% acceptance pending my background check. Give Kids The World is an organization that takes in less fortunate or ill children from all over the world and gives them the vacation of a life time. I really look forward to hearing back from them, and hope I can help as well.
I also got interviewed by a Life Coach that is coming out with her own website which will be a consulting site. She will have people with many different skill sets involved in this site and it will be like an internet radio idea. I don’t want to say much about it just yet but when she has it up and running you will certainly know about it. This will give me the opportunity to network out farther. I will be able to share my ideas on many different platforms and this will give me a good opportunity to work on the video and speech ends of my goals. This will also give me an opportunity to be one of the people consulting others and making a little extra cash in the process. This is something that is already in the works and I am excited to get the ball rolling to see how this new website works out for her and everyone she is trying to get involved with it.
Outside my job and volunteering at the Elementary school those are just a few things I am working on. A few others are; taking a public speaking course on my own, researching and implementing my own TED Talk presentation, looking into making some extra money with my passion for gemstones and healing crystals. There is probably more smaller things that I am forgetting right now as well!
I just wanted to check in for my avid followers to say I am still here. This blog is very important to me but it is also a path into many more opportunities that need to be pursued. As always I am so grateful for your following and no matter the time frame between my post on here I am still moving forward with my main goals in life.
I have also made my way back to the beach and in the water for the first time sense I left for Alaska in June.
One at a Time
The summer is over. Alaska is in my past and my leg is almost 100%. I have an updated board of goals full of great ideas but I struggle to find the motivation to carry them out. I am at a motivational roadblock. I do not want to force my way through goals if the passion is not there and I do not want to go down the wrong path.
You know the term practice what you preach, right? That is exactly what I need to do. I tell people all the time to take the situations and events in their lives one at a time to lower the stress level and be more successful in the end. I have slowed down my efforts but I have a list of achievable goals that make my life look amazing.
Teaching myself public speaking, research bullying, start writing and practicing speeches, build a successful TED Talks speech, and volunteer at children’s hospitals. These are only some of the big goals I have laid out for myself and I still have a job to keep up too.
Para professionalism is still new to me. I learned so much last school year but this year there is even more. With my academic level of students with autism, outside of teaching them basic skills, we still have to handle behavior issues, bathroom issues, and now this school year I get to go swimming with one of my students too!
With everything going on in life right now, I struggle to find my forward directional motivation. I love my job so much, but everything outside of it I cannot seem to give 100%. I have given myself an ambitious list of expectations and I need to take them one at a time. I want to jump right in and give 100% to motivating children, but there are so many things that need to happen first. I have started my search for volunteering at children’s hospitals; I believe this a valuable adventure for the children and me. Also found a course book for public speaking and I will start a routine of working through it every Sunday!
Overall, I have great list of goals and challenges that lay ahead but I need to practice what I tell my followers and take them one thing at a time. This speaks for my career; there are still more adventurous ideas that lie within my reach. I would have never thought being full of great ideas, being open to new things, being part of great adventures and having such a positive outlook towards it all would actually have so many challenges at the front lines. However to alleviate all the lack of motivation and challenges all I have to do is accomplish my goals one at a time. From experience, this works every time. This is why it is so valuable to write things down so you can organize what is more important or what needs to come first. There is no problem having a goal list that is very ambitious, especially when you give yourself the right opportunities to make it happen.
I have had this plaque sense I was a teenager. I bought it in New Mexico on a backpacking trip. Back in those times I was not always very positive but I did pride myself on never giving up on things no matter how hard they get. This is a big reminder for me when things get hard. One time things in my life got so incredibly hard I took a hammer to this thing. I wanted to break it but you can see how strong it is. You can see were the hammer hits it but never broke. I would say that day life was on my side. Without this sign I would probably not be here today. DON’T EVER QUIT!
Julian Treasure: How to speak
There are multiple reasons I want to be a motivational speaker. A lot of my life I have struggled to be parts of conversation, or have something interesting to say, or have people interested in what I am saying enough to listen. Starting up in the blog world was so I can find those people to listen and also be inspired by. Being a motivational speaker is an avenue to hopeful show that I do have important, beneficial and interesting things to say!
I am a big fan of Ted Talks and can across this gem the other day that is certainly helpful in my future and I hope he is speaking in a way that will interest you as well!
Julian Treasure: how to speak so that people want to listen
Here are some notes from the video:
7 deadly sins of speaking
-Gossip
-Judging
-Negativity
-Complaining
-Excuses/blame
-Exaggeration/lying
-Dogmatism/ facts vs. opinion
HAIL: to greet or acclaim enthusiastically
-Honesty, being straight and clear
-Authenticity, be yourself
-Integrity, be your word
-Love, wish them well
Register-speak from your chest, depth and power
Timbre- not high pitched
Prosody- don’t be monotone or talk in questions
Pace- don’t talk to fast or to slow, some silence is ok
Pitch- to emphasize things
Volume- use variably
Read and Watch
Everyone reading this knows full well the impact that reading has on our lives. It changes your level of knowledge, your level of creativity and changes your life. What you choose to read is a big reflection on your life. If you choose to read The Onion or The National Inquirer where do you think your life is going? It is going into a world of negativity where you really don’t have big plans to amount to anything in your life. Now, if you read something like Discover or Success magazine, you seek inspiration and fuel to achieve in your own creative goals. Read to be inspired, there are many paths reading can take you: You can read to promote your spiritual path, you can read to increase your knowledge on select subjects or you can read things just to get the gears in your brain to turn. I know this is cliche but there are tons of blogs out there worth reading and following. You just have to look for them. The list of things you can read and the paths you can take with it are endless but ultimately what you read will affect your life even in ways you don’t realize.
What you watch can have the same effects as reading. Those reality show, what are you really getting out of them? You are not getting anything worth taking to your future. Aside from a few documentaries and positively inspiring programs I cannot really think of a whole lot of good things to watch on TV. The internet is a plethora of videos. How many epic fail video compilations do you need to watch to look past the temporary laughter and realize you yourself are failing epically at a life that has so much potential? To find the positive and inspiring videos all you have to do is look. Ted Talks is a great place to start. In fact next Wednesday I will be sharing a video I recently watched on Ted Talks. (TED LINK)
I have taken it upon myself to be more structured in my efforts to read more and watch more inspiring videos. I have been more actively reading my followers blogs and other people’s blogs. I read sections of “Notes from the Universe” by Mike Dooley, on a daily basis. I seek out positive memes and a few other things to read each day. As far as videos I don’t do too much with that but I watch one Ted Talks video every day. You should definitely check that site out.
I do ask graciously if you could please share readings, reading materials or videos that inspire you. Please leave them in a comment below I would absolutely like to see what inspires my followers and anyone really! PLEASE SHARE THIS BLOG WITH OTHERS. The more positive and inspiring things we share with one another the bigger our doors of life open up. Have a great day I look forward to seeing what you have to share!
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