Get out of your comfort zone and live your dream | Theresa Zabell | TEDxIESEBarcelona

July 1976 many of you that are here today had never been born now just imagine this beautiful Green Lawn under the sunny British sky and children playing on that lawn now what could be better than that I was one of the children playing on that lawn and the father of the family where I was spending some weeks to be able to improve my English in some friends of my parents house he was the greatest player on the lawn he organized the games for us and I think he was more of a child than the rest of us playing on the lawn and suddenly one day he wasn't there anymore so although I was extremely shy I managed to draw up enough courage to go and look for him and I found him inside the house in room sitting in front of the TV and I went up and I said why aren't you outside playing on the lawn and he said because the Olympic Games have started and I sort of looked at him saying what's that he saw the look on my face and so he asked me don't you know what the Olympic games are obviously not so he brought me in and he sat me down on the sofa next to him in front of this TV which was one of these old box TVs huge box tiny screen not much color and he started explaining to me this is the greatest sporting competition celebrated in the whole world and it's every four years and every four years all the best athletes from all over the world they come together to participate here I was incredibly amused about how the athletes would walk in walk out with their national flags track suits with the colors of their national flags then I was even more fascinated by the competition how they would compete some would win and they were so happy others would lose and they were absolutely shattered and then I was really inspired by the medal ceremony and that inspiration LED to a challenge and over the years became my goal in life now that afternoon I decided what I wanted to do in life I did not want to be sitting here on the sofa watching the TV I wanted to be inside the TV now let me tell you a little bit more about me as I said I was 11 and I love sport I used to compete in Middle distance running played in a basketball team did a fairly decent good game of tennis and every time I went onto the playing field since that day I would always ask myself is this the sport that's going to take me to the Olympic Games and a couple of years later I started sailing and I absolutely fell in love with the sport and also with the surrounding where we would practice the sport going out into the sea staring your own boat you're not allowed to steer a car but you could steer a boat and feel that wind in your face the sea water splashing it was just an incredible sensation of freedom of Liberty and I knew from day one that that was going to be the sport that would take me to the Olympic Games but there were quite a few stones in the road to start with women were not invited to go to the Olympic Games in my sport in those years they could go in athletics they could go in gymnastics they could go in swimming maybe one or two sports more but not much definitely not in sailing so I realized that I could not do anything about that that someday someone would come along and do something to change that so I would leave it in their hands and I decided to focus on what I could do and I needed to become really good at my sport and I did as I've said times change times change and that's someone that was going to do something did it and when they did I thought wow this has been done just for me for the first time ever in history women could go to the Olympic Games in sailing in Seoul 1988. so I needed to have a boat now a few years before when I started sailing I also needed to have a boat and I did not have the money to buy a boat my family did not have the money to buy a boat so I started fundraising I was only 14 or 15 at the time but I got enough money to buy a second hand cheap boat and start competing in that and then I started improving and with that Improvement I also needed to go to regatta's abroad and there was no budget line for the girls to go abroad we were not in the program of Olympic Games so we did not have a budget line so again I fundraised and I managed to go to regatta's abroad just imagine the top three boys would go paid by the Spanish National Federation the top girl which was me I went paid by myself they would sleep in an apartment I would sleep in a tent it's cheaper that was what I could afford they would go to a restaurant have dinner in the first Regatta I went to in Holland I spent the whole week eating potato chips with ketchup and mayonnaise I discovered in Holland that you can also put mayonnaise on potato chips not only ketchup it was quite a discovery so when finally a sailing event is included in the Olympic Games I needed to fundraise again I needed a bigger boat a two-person boat I needed someone to go with me I came to live here in Barcelona which is where the national team was and I decided that I had to put every effort into this so that in less than four years I could be amongst the top in the world and I did now to go to the Olympic Games only one boat can go per country if the country's good enough because not 200 countries can go and participate in each event so in sailing we were good enough we got the slot for the for our country for Spain and then it's up to Spain to decide who is going to to use that slot and you have some trials in the trials well I was nearly always in the top ten and there was no other woman Spanish sailor that was hardly ever in the top ten so it was pretty obvious that we won the trials and we had to go to the games now what they do is they they summon you into a room with all the rest of the people that have participated in the trials there was quite a few of us because it was one women's event but seven men's events and then after saying thank you for all your effort and blah blah blah they come to the to the point and they read out the list of who will be representing Spain and when they get to women's 470 double-handed dinghy and they read out the name my name was not on the list now can you imagine how I felt that day I'd done everything to go to the Olympic Games since I was 11 I'd been working towards that every day of my life and suddenly for some reason that I didn't understand I was not there I was absolutely shattered I didn't understand what was going on I felt extremely sorry for myself and I decided that I didn't want to sail anymore and I gave up now lots of times when you're in the center of the picture the vision you have of that picture is very different than when you look at it from a distance and as I started doing different things I started looking at the picture of my life from a distance and I realized that I'd been so focused on the goal that although the journey towards that goal was incredible privilege I had never really given it any thought and I decided that I needed to go back now to go back the first thing I had to do was eat my pride and I did and then I went back saying right I'm going to focus on my goal but I'm going to really enjoy the journey I'm going to be a lot stronger than I was not only on the Racecourse but also mentally and I'm going to go back I'm going to be the best and I'm going to shatter all the statistics and I did so when the time comes for the 1992 Olympic Games again we were summoned inside a room thank you very much blah blah blah and the list comes along now at that moment we were national champions European Champions world champions and number one of the world ranking so I don't think there was much doubt as to whose name was going to be on that list but I must admit that when they came up and said right 470 women's double-handed dinghy before they said my name my heart absolutely stopped beating so we made it Barcelona 92 just down the road something we'd be preparing for in my case for my whole life practically and we were the clear favorites the favorites to win the gold medal and we knew the statistics in the history of the sport of sailing which was practically a hundred years no one had won a medal of any color in the Olympic Games with a very bad performance in the first race so we didn't have to risk and our strategy was right first day no risk second day we'll see and they the gun for the start and suddenly the committee gives another gun saying right there's been a premature starter somebody has jumped the gun somebody was over the line before the gun and it's up to you to decide if it's you or not if it's you you can go around and restart we knew it wasn't us we did a fairly Bad start because we didn't want to risk so we start sailing and when we get close to the first Mark there's a boat there of the organization with a white board and we couldn't see what was on it there was three letters but as we were getting closer and closer suddenly we saw three letters on it e s p Espana we had to look at it several times we did not believe what we were seeing at that moment and so we had we were forced to abandon the Racecourse when we get into the harbor our team leader was there and he said look calm down this is a mistake it's not ESP over the line it's e-s-t Estonia we have a video from a helicopter or Spanish television it's really clear so we're gonna see redress so we went to seek redress we went in front of the jewelry took us about four hours to explain everything we showed them the video they saw written they admitted this had been a really big mistake and then when it seems that everything was okay we were going to be given redress suddenly one of the members of the jury decides to say that this video is not an official proof they do not have to admit it and everything just fell apart so something that we've been preparing for for our whole lives the first day of competition we were last and that night when we went to bed Patricia and I we looked at each other and we said look tomorrow is another day let's enjoy it and let's do a good race and not think about anything else and we did the next day comes along and we did the same philosophy we're going to do a good race and we did and we did this day after day and in the last race but one we still did a good race but we really did a masterly race in the sense that we managed to put enough boats between us the Japanese the Australian and the new zealanders to be able to compensate on those points they were still ahead of us and go up to the first place so to cut the story short we won the gold medal in Barcelona 92. four years later I went back with another crew and one again in Atlanta 1996. now if you asked me what did you learn during all this time I would say if you want to do something that you've never done you need to do something that you never did and I can assure you that that something is outside of your comfort zone I needed to buy a boat and I had no money and I did it I needed to become a good sailor and I did I needed to eat my pride to go back into sailing and I did so if I could go back now and speak to that 11 year old girl that was playing games on the lawn what I would say to her is don't be afraid of going out of your comfort zone that is where life begins so go there and enjoy the journey thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 6,180

Keywords: Achievement, Dreams, English, Life, Passion, Sports, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:53279]

Id: hTU5gQzuFT0

Length: 15min 53sec (953 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023