Winning Words! The Phrases That Pay | Lisa McInnes-Smith | TEDxMelbourne

I was born with my left eye permanently closed what it meant is that my life was always in the medical area I start they started plastic surgery on me at age two I didn't really realize I had a problem until I got to school when I got to school I discovered that kids are so creative when it comes to name-calling I mean there were a hundred awful names that I got but to that I heard nearly every day they would say Lisa you are so ugly and you look dumb I was five where did they get this stuff from I would run home to my mother I remember just throwing myself into her arms and saying mum it's not fair and my beautiful mother who knew all about life not being fair 13th child raised by her grandmother grabbed my little face and pulled me in really close look deep into my eyes and said life's not fair I said is that it she said no she said if you don't like it don't do it to others I said that's not fair she said correct I love the fact that my mother taught me at a young age one of the most important relationship skills we can have and that is life is as fair as we make it for one another life is as fair as you make it for the person next to you and for the person that you're thinking that you might like to put a little bit of effort into in the future life is as fair as we make it but you did happen to mention she said sweetheart your father and I think you're very smart I said pretty would have been better but smarts not bad so when I got to school and the kids would say you're ugly I would stand there and quietly say to myself but I'm smart my mum says so I've got to tell you hundreds and hundreds of times throughout my primary schooling did I tell myself that I was something that was spoken over me I'm smart I'm smart I'm smart you might say I'm dumb but I'm smart do you understand that a child starts to move in the direction of their dominant thought and my behavior changed I started to ask more questions put my hand up I started to be eager to learn because something was happening inside of me I was believing that I truly was smart and it's interesting because I went to a girls school in secondary school and they moved some of the girls when we got to year 12 the girls that were doing the science subjects and maths were moved from the girls school into the boys school so just imagine please 13 girls moving in with a hundred and eighty six year twelve boys heaven heaven I mean it was heaven for the other girls but it was hell for me because halfway through the school year three of my supposedly good male friends scratched on my locker a new name they wrote this for all 800 boys to read good on ya bang I I was devastated I felt like the boys had just taken a knife and plunged it into me and say what you look like is what you are and you can't change it I wanted to scream out and say can't you see there's more to me than meets the eye unfortunately I didn't think of that line and I said nothing all the conversation was in my head and I got out of their way I got on with my studies and I just tried to come to grips with what you did with a new name like that end of year school social came well I did what single girls sometimes do I saw set a little bit out of the way and I just picked out the cutest guy in the room and I just followed him with my eyes and if he'd look at me I'd look away and then I'd find him again and I just follow him around the room he'd look at me I'd look away two and a half hours of light entertainment at the end of the night that young man courageously walked all the way from the far corner across the dance floor right up in front of me and stuck his hand out he said hello I just wanted to introduce myself to you I've noticed that you've been winking at me all night and I thought I had a handicap I had a built-in asset but you need to understand that for 17 years I had allowed people to laugh at me it was this young man that revealed that I could actually get people to laugh with me instead of at me if I would be brave enough to point out my differences my little uniqueness before other people got to it then I would allow everyone to relax with my little insecurities do you know when I accept myself and speak words of acceptance over me then I make it easier for you to do the same thing and when we are together we make it easier for others to come into our circle and accept one another the words are so important and the lightness and the sense of humor the most important words that you will ever hear in your whole life are the words you say to yourself about yourself what do you need to be saying at this age at this stage of your life what do you need to label you what are the words that you wear every single day over your life like a banner did you put the map or did somebody else put them there if you're going to change these words you're going to need what I to do what I did and that is go into training so let me just show you how I did that if I just stand up please for a moment I want you to bend your knees to 45 degrees so like this that's right now you're don't bounce just just don't stick your bottom out make your back straight and put your knees over your toes until you can feel the stress on this muscle group these are called the quadriceps they pump almost more blood to the brain than any other muscle group this is a fantastic position for learning environments you cannot fall asleep in this position and what this position is really called is pain now some of you have just realized that it's starting to hurt but we are the TEDx crowd we are into growth so we aren't going to stand up we're going to go 10% beyond pain down you come now this is called agony come back ten percent isn't pain easy after agony oh he's not convinced down again see it's hard to live like this it's hard to sustain this and take a seat thank you pain pain has a purpose pain is not in our life just to make us miserable pain is part of the training pain is taking us forcing us sometimes out of our comfort zone and moving us towards where we want to go it is going to take effort the name-calling was agony but pain is the discipline it takes to move my head from what other people said to what I want to say and that's how I started to take my message to teenagers I was 26 years old and I said well I'm going to say was a wild hairy audacious goal it was way out there when I said to my parents I am going to help a million ozzie teenagers I'm going to teach them how to dream break the dream down and set some goals and solve problems along the way and fortunately for me I had parents that were dreamers and they said why don't you just get started you know I started to going to schools and I was a terrible speaker and the kids would throw paper airplanes across the classroom in the middle of my presentation but I understood I was in training it wasn't going to be easy there was going to be discomfort and I would need to find a way to learn how to take what was in my heart for these people and put it out in a way that they could receive it little did I know that going into the schools of Australia would then catapult me into the corporate conferences of this country and eventually around the world the adults who loved the message would take me to places that I had never even dreamed of places like Russia and Israel and Africa and I remember thinking how did I get here how did this happen and I just look back and think about all the train I did in my quiet private place in my own home in my own life learning the words that would help me to win help me to win in relationships help me to win in sport help me to win in just the way I did life and I want to share with you three phrases that pay I've got a top ten of these but I want to give you three today that I hope you're going to be able to use all day the first phrase is one that you probably need when you've got very very irritated annoyed or angry now I don't know what you say when you're angry but I got my temperament tested when someone cuts me off on the freeway you know don't tell me what comes out of your mouth but what came out of my mouth wasn't so lovely because the two children in the car seats behind me repeated it perfectly so I went alright this is not working for my family I need new vocabulary and so I tried to come up with the word what could I say when I'm really really angry and then I came up with it a nice long four syllable word fascinating that driver was fascinating how many of you need a word like this everybody say the word three times go fascinating fascinating fascinating now notice what it does to you it releases a little tension it takes a little time it gives you a moment to laugh at yourself and it lightens you up so every time that I would say fascinating the kids would repeat it so I'd get the double benefit but I started to realize that instead of me moving towards road rage I move towards self control a lightheartedness and an ability to turn the situation from a negative to a little bit of fun so fascinating has been a friend of mine and you know I've got to say that sometimes I look at my children and say they're fascinating and even my husband has been known to accuse me of being fascinating and it's not a negative word that's just the point isn't it it's just a word and it gives release to a particular type of feel so let me give you phrase number two phrase number two is ideal for sport now I've grown up in a family with professional tennis players my dad semi-professional my two brothers professional I guess all the talent was gone by the time they got to me so when I was I'm learning to play tennis my coordination was absolutely terrible I mean my dad used to stand out on the road and throw me balls and he would throw and I would miss and he would throw and I would miss and well we just go through a whole bucket of balls and then as we picked up the balls my dad would say to me it's really fun playing tennis with you Lisa one day you're going to be a very good tennis player now notice my father was in his heyday my father was giving equal time to his daughter who showed no talent and my father spoke words of life over me he told me it was a delight to be with me and that the future would get better and I'm very very grateful because for six months he through buckets or balls before I ever connected I was looking like a lost cause last season we won our first a grade midweek competition and you know sometimes you wait 30 years doesn't matter so all I want you to see is that the phrases that pay count so much third phrase oh no the phrase that we need that I didn't teach you is that what you've got to do is when you've run and you've actually decided that you've missed the ball you've made a mistake you say that's not like me everyone say it please now you could look at the person next to you say that's not like you either so we need these phrases and the third phrase is I'm sorry I was wrong and you were right yes it's like chewing glass and all I want to say to you now is this what's coming out of your mouth and what are you going to do about it thanks very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 167,603

Rating: 4.8669724 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Australia, Life, Psychology, Success

Id: Y8CRVoogNi4

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2015