in the book Alexander the terrible
horrible no good very bad day Alexander
is a terrible horrible no good very bad
day he wakes up with gum in his hair his
brothers find toys in their cereal but
he doesn’t and he even has to eat lima
beans for dinner he hates lima beans I’m
my own fair share of terrible horrible
no good very bad days I’m having to read
the osses having to go to robots having
to study Chinese my days are hard and
I’m sure you have hard days to which
might look look like this or like this
hi I’m John Corrigan and i’m here to
show you that your bad days can give you
perseverance and grit so one day help
you achieve a whole new level of success
that you never thought was possible i
realized this last year on my family and
i took a trip around the world we went
everywhere from antarctica to fiji to
australia and saw everything from
icebergs two volcanoes second group
during this trip we decided to stop in
Cambodia where we met one of our tour
guides kim chen he told some facts
lawless country and one subject that
kept coming up was a genocide organized
by the camera ruse this genocide was
from 1975 through 1979 and it killed her
on 2 million people the genocide was
based off of education he’s a ruler Pol
Pot wanted to make sure that no one took
over the government system from him
during this time King James father got
taken to a killing camp but miraculously
survived after list though the family
didn’t have enough money to provide for
their family or their kids so they had
to send their children to orphanages Kim
Chang got sent to an orphanage he told
us that this was one of the best things
that ever happened to him he was able to
learn English there a skill that he
would later used to get a job as a tour
guide this made me think that if he
could look at his situation so well I
think think that I get to read the
Aussie build robots instead Chinese not
that I have to this also made me think
that Americans aren’t prioritizing the
right things according to a CBS 60
minutes article 20 2.4 million americans
think that success is getting rich
overnight and 3.2 million americans
things like Kim Kardashian best
represents the American tree really Kim
Kardashian I said choose to get my
inspiration from another celebrity
will smith will smith has quote that
says the only thing i see distinctly
different about me is I’m not afraid to
die on treadmill I will not be at work
period you might have more talent to me
you might be smarter than me it might be
sexier than me you might be all those
things you got me nine categories but if
we got in Tamil together one of two
things are going to happen you’re
getting off first or I’m going to die
it’s really that simple right he’s not a
what he means by this is he’s not afraid
to be outworked and he will always make
in he’s even willing to die to make sure
you out works you someone else who
agrees with this mindset is upenn
psychologist Angela Duckworth Duckworth
realized when teaching middle school
students math that the ones who work
harder end up having more success than
the ones who just have talent she even
has an equation for this town plus ever
equal skill skill plus a 4 equal success
effort comes up twice in your equation
and talent only comes up once which
shows that she values effort twice as
much as talent Doug words also agrees in
the Japanese Japanese business
philosophy caisson Kaizen means
continual improvement or once you become
successful you have to keep working on
to continue your success so at the
beginning this talk I asked you are you
having a bad day or if you are wrap it
up wrap it up and put a bow on it
because it’s a gift thank you [Applause]