[Applause]
okay thank you the world I hope for is
one where kids and young people I’m
gonna start over sorry the world I hope
for is a place where kids and young
people feel that they can ignore the
unspoken and unfair social rules that
are put out there and find the social
courage to speak up for what you know
for themselves as well as be engaged
bystanders who speak up for others so
gaining and you know our social courage
you starts with like getting conviction
and what you believe and what your
values are and a lot of people go
through life and they think like
suddenly social courage is just gonna
land on them eventually like it’ll just
happen but but the Rhian reality it is a
practice of listening to your heart and
questioning norms and sometimes enduring
painfully awkward moments now the thing
about awkwardness is that we all try to
avoid it right but if you’re willing to
dive into awkward soup swim to the other
side get out and shake yourself off if
then you realize that you survived and
you gained another layer of social
courage now we’re all complicated
multi-dimensional people but social
media doesn’t always capture all of
those dimensions right a lot of people
spend time cultivating their image
online and sometimes it’s fully
fabricated sometimes it’s slightly
exaggerated and most the time it just
highlights the most amazing parts of
life and that can be really stressful
because sometimes your reality doesn’t
really align with what you put out there
and it’s also hard because if you’re
someone who’s you know scrolling through
people’s posts and people’s you know
live seeing their lives you start to
compare yourself and feel inadequate so
that can be really an anxiety
the you know causing situation and it
really takes social courage to put your
true self out there online and not worry
about or even obsess about how people
are gonna react or if they react at all
and you know it can be really tricky to
navigate friendships with people who
constantly seek validation online and
for someone who’s so desperate for
praise there’s no amount of comments or
likes that will fill that void for them
right and you know people put the sexy
pictures out there and get the usual
comments hot gorge goals so cute and I
hate you heart heart heart heart heart
heart heart heart heart and you know if
you’re the key if you’re the kid who
didn’t you know respond sometimes your
friend will find you and be like so why
didn’t you like comment on my post or at
least like it so you get all this
feedback right so it can be a full-time
job keeping the praise junkie fed now by
keeping a balance and how use devices
and social media we can you know keep
cultivate great friendships and healthy
relationships and also stay grounded
but this array of social media platforms
makes it possible to really avoid
developing social courage and with your
peers as the referees on social media
microaggressions tend to be tolerated a
lot of people feel free to make comments
that are racist homophobic sexist
transphobic just to name a few and those
are places where people really feel like
that’s where you want to show social
courage now having social courage is not
about being an extrovert we all know
those shy more introverted friends who
are so strong and have like clear
boundaries and they don’t speak up much
but when they do we all listen right
like all of a sudden they like assert
themselves and drop this huge wisdom
bomb and we’re all like yes preach it
uh-huh
but putting aside your fear of rejection
or your fear of exclusion to confront
someone in person that’s a challenging
thing but it’s worth aiming for and if
you don’t if you’re not there yet
speaking up online is perfectly
acceptable as well so harassment and
bullying that certainly happens on
social media for sure but really most
the time what’s it’s really more about a
subtle forms of harshness underhanded
jabs and and snarky comments and
sometimes fully mean comments followed
by a just kidding so there’s the mop up
afterwards a lot of kids talk about
being left out of group chats or they
were in a group chat and then the group
makes a new group chat and only leaves
them off and they kind of wonder well
you know what was what what was the
reason and they assume it’s some
unspoken rule that they weren’t playing
by right and with the distance of using
our phones we have the emotional
distance and safety so we don’t really
you know have to practice social courage
because we don’t have to be held
accountable for what we say and do face
to face and when you do confront someone
courageously and call them out for being
offensive sometimes you pay a
consequence right people like write all
these negative comments publicly shamed
but not saying something that is what
can feel unsettling and you know with
that that you know that feeling of that
you didn’t say something that should
inspire you to you know aim to dive in
that soup and swim to the other side so
when we start building social courage
the first thing is to witness other
people who have it and who demonstrate
it and so with positive role models who
were showing social courage in all forms
that’s when we can start developing a
plan for how we’re gonna start
practicing and I want you to think right
now in your own minds take a moment and
think about a situation or someone who
was socially courageous and think about
how did people react what did it feel
like what did it look like
and how did it make you feel to witness
it so I had the good fortune of growing
up marinated in social courage I mean
look at this clan of fashion enemies
right here in 1979 that’s me in the
corner I was crying because they
wouldn’t let me wear my baseball cap
because it might ruin the family picture
I beg to differ that I think there’s a
lot of things contributing to a sketchy
picture but I hear them anyway so these
people my I’m the youngest of seven kids
and my parents and my siblings were all
righteous nonconformist and they made
cringe-worthy moments a regular
occurrence in my life and I remember if
we were going out in public sometimes
I’d say to my parents do you think maybe
you could just kind of blend here like
hoping and my father he had no patience
for such nonsense he would be like too
many people in the world blend and
behave find the courage to be your own
person now my mother she was no slack in
that department even even the smallest
injustice she couldn’t help herself she
had to speak up I remember on multiple
occasions going to the grocery store
with her as a kid and we’d be about to
pull into a parking spot and someone
would like go in front of her and take
her spot she’d throw that car in park
calmly get out go around knock on the
window oh my gosh and something about
her bold conviction people would back
their car out and give her her spot but
imagine my sister and I are crouched
down in the car horrified totally
horrified and after grocery shopping we
on the way home we would pepper her with
a lot of feedback on how she could have
handled that situation differently with
a wave of the hand she would say don’t
be ridiculous girls what would happen to
that man if no one told him that he was
rude besides being embarrassed is good
for the soul so part of my social
courage training involve frequent
reminders that you can be a nice person
who’s also polite but as you’re also can
be fierce when someone crosses your
boundaries and a sir
right that is an important lesson
so in middle school in high school I
would speak up for things that I cared
about by the time I got to college I
grew more comfortable speaking up and
you know holding people accountable when
they were rude or offensive and if I
remember if people made disparaging
comments about women I’d step right up
and let him know what I thought even
though they would try to silence me
there is always someone who’d be like
what are you some kind of feminist I’d
be like as a matter of fact I am as we
all should be and you know I think if my
lack of compliance would repel that
person and offend them so much that kind
of confirmed that my natural social
filters were working quite well and so
for you for young people think about
what bugs you what offends you or hurt
your feelings online and off and if
people don’t want to be around you
because you’re speaking your truth trust
your repellents and move them right
along so once we start building social
courage the next step is to reinforce it
in our communities and think about what
it would be like if it was a norm for
people to call out online cruelty if
that was a norm what if people supported
other people who were socially
courageous right and what would it look
like if you know like what would it look
like if we like reinforced that
everywhere we went with our friends and
how would it be if everyone felt
perfectly free to be their authentic
self online and off so it is up to us to
recognize to build to practice and
spread social courage the world I hope
for is a place that supports you to
muster social courage and speak up for
what matters and for what you know is
right in your heart thank you
[Applause]
okay thank you the world I hope for is
one where kids and young people I’m
gonna start over sorry the world I hope
for is a place where kids and young
people feel that they can ignore the
unspoken and unfair social rules that
are put out there and find the social
courage to speak up for what you know
for themselves as well as be engaged
bystanders who speak up for others so
gaining and you know our social courage
you starts with like getting conviction
and what you believe and what your
values are and a lot of people go
through life and they think like
suddenly social courage is just gonna
land on them eventually like it’ll just
happen but but the Rhian reality it is a
practice of listening to your heart and
questioning norms and sometimes enduring
painfully awkward moments now the thing
about awkwardness is that we all try to
avoid it right but if you’re willing to
dive into awkward soup swim to the other
side get out and shake yourself off if
then you realize that you survived and
you gained another layer of social
courage now we’re all complicated
multi-dimensional people but social
media doesn’t always capture all of
those dimensions right a lot of people
spend time cultivating their image
online and sometimes it’s fully
fabricated sometimes it’s slightly
exaggerated and most the time it just
highlights the most amazing parts of
life and that can be really stressful
because sometimes your reality doesn’t
really align with what you put out there
and it’s also hard because if you’re
someone who’s you know scrolling through
people’s posts and people’s you know
live seeing their lives you start to
compare yourself and feel inadequate so
that can be really an anxiety
the you know causing situation and it
really takes social courage to put your
true self out there online and not worry
about or even obsess about how people
are gonna react or if they react at all
and you know it can be really tricky to
navigate friendships with people who
constantly seek validation online and
for someone who’s so desperate for
praise there’s no amount of comments or
likes that will fill that void for them
right and you know people put the sexy
pictures out there and get the usual
comments hot gorge goals so cute and I
hate you heart heart heart heart heart
heart heart heart heart and you know if
you’re the key if you’re the kid who
didn’t you know respond sometimes your
friend will find you and be like so why
didn’t you like comment on my post or at
least like it so you get all this
feedback right so it can be a full-time
job keeping the praise junkie fed now by
keeping a balance and how use devices
and social media we can you know keep
cultivate great friendships and healthy
relationships and also stay grounded
but this array of social media platforms
makes it possible to really avoid
developing social courage and with your
peers as the referees on social media
microaggressions tend to be tolerated a
lot of people feel free to make comments
that are racist homophobic sexist
transphobic just to name a few and those
are places where people really feel like
that’s where you want to show social
courage now having social courage is not
about being an extrovert we all know
those shy more introverted friends who
are so strong and have like clear
boundaries and they don’t speak up much
but when they do we all listen right
like all of a sudden they like assert
themselves and drop this huge wisdom
bomb and we’re all like yes preach it
uh-huh
but putting aside your fear of rejection
or your fear of exclusion to confront
someone in person that’s a challenging
thing but it’s worth aiming for and if
you don’t if you’re not there yet
speaking up online is perfectly
acceptable as well so harassment and
bullying that certainly happens on
social media for sure but really most
the time what’s it’s really more about a
subtle forms of harshness underhanded
jabs and and snarky comments and
sometimes fully mean comments followed
by a just kidding so there’s the mop up
afterwards a lot of kids talk about
being left out of group chats or they
were in a group chat and then the group
makes a new group chat and only leaves
them off and they kind of wonder well
you know what was what what was the
reason and they assume it’s some
unspoken rule that they weren’t playing
by right and with the distance of using
our phones we have the emotional
distance and safety so we don’t really
you know have to practice social courage
because we don’t have to be held
accountable for what we say and do face
to face and when you do confront someone
courageously and call them out for being
offensive sometimes you pay a
consequence right people like write all
these negative comments publicly shamed
but not saying something that is what
can feel unsettling and you know with
that that you know that feeling of that
you didn’t say something that should
inspire you to you know aim to dive in
that soup and swim to the other side so
when we start building social courage
the first thing is to witness other
people who have it and who demonstrate
it and so with positive role models who
were showing social courage in all forms
that’s when we can start developing a
plan for how we’re gonna start
practicing and I want you to think right
now in your own minds take a moment and
think about a situation or someone who
was socially courageous and think about
how did people react what did it feel
like what did it look like
and how did it make you feel to witness
it so I had the good fortune of growing
up marinated in social courage I mean
look at this clan of fashion enemies
right here in 1979 that’s me in the
corner I was crying because they
wouldn’t let me wear my baseball cap
because it might ruin the family picture
I beg to differ that I think there’s a
lot of things contributing to a sketchy
picture but I hear them anyway so these
people my I’m the youngest of seven kids
and my parents and my siblings were all
righteous nonconformist and they made
cringe-worthy moments a regular
occurrence in my life and I remember if
we were going out in public sometimes
I’d say to my parents do you think maybe
you could just kind of blend here like
hoping and my father he had no patience
for such nonsense he would be like too
many people in the world blend and
behave find the courage to be your own
person now my mother she was no slack in
that department even even the smallest
injustice she couldn’t help herself she
had to speak up I remember on multiple
occasions going to the grocery store
with her as a kid and we’d be about to
pull into a parking spot and someone
would like go in front of her and take
her spot she’d throw that car in park
calmly get out go around knock on the
window oh my gosh and something about
her bold conviction people would back
their car out and give her her spot but
imagine my sister and I are crouched
down in the car horrified totally
horrified and after grocery shopping we
on the way home we would pepper her with
a lot of feedback on how she could have
handled that situation differently with
a wave of the hand she would say don’t
be ridiculous girls what would happen to
that man if no one told him that he was
rude besides being embarrassed is good
for the soul so part of my social
courage training involve frequent
reminders that you can be a nice person
who’s also polite but as you’re also can
be fierce when someone crosses your
boundaries and a sir
right that is an important lesson
so in middle school in high school I
would speak up for things that I cared
about by the time I got to college I
grew more comfortable speaking up and
you know holding people accountable when
they were rude or offensive and if I
remember if people made disparaging
comments about women I’d step right up
and let him know what I thought even
though they would try to silence me
there is always someone who’d be like
what are you some kind of feminist I’d
be like as a matter of fact I am as we
all should be and you know I think if my
lack of compliance would repel that
person and offend them so much that kind
of confirmed that my natural social
filters were working quite well and so
for you for young people think about
what bugs you what offends you or hurt
your feelings online and off and if
people don’t want to be around you
because you’re speaking your truth trust
your repellents and move them right
along so once we start building social
courage the next step is to reinforce it
in our communities and think about what
it would be like if it was a norm for
people to call out online cruelty if
that was a norm what if people supported
other people who were socially
courageous right and what would it look
like if you know like what would it look
like if we like reinforced that
everywhere we went with our friends and
how would it be if everyone felt
perfectly free to be their authentic
self online and off so it is up to us to
recognize to build to practice and
spread social courage the world I hope
for is a place that supports you to
muster social courage and speak up for
what matters and for what you know is
right in your heart thank you
[Applause]
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