anyone actually saw that film but uh we
we we like seeing someone win when they
expected to lose and that not having a
weight of expectation or having a low
expectation gives an underdog an
opportunity to gather strength now the
beauty of low expectation is that if the
outcome is positive and it’s a bonus
it’s just amazing and if the outcome is
negative it doesn’t really matter
because none expected you to do it
anyway if there’s a high expectation and
a positive outcome then my friend you
are Adele well done but if there’s a
high expectation and a negative outcome
you’re left kind of feeling sad
disappointed and unhappy um now I spent
a lot of my life looking for these bonus
levels and the further I get through the
stages of my life the harder those
levels are to find um I’m a writer
performer so for me these stages have
been quite literal so I want to try and
go through five of some stages I’ve been
on and explained how I’ve utilized low
expectation to help me succeed so the
first stage I ever went on was it was in
the Brent local bara after-school Club
talent competition
um I was born in witting up Whittington
Hospital in North London which is the
same hospital that my grandfather died
in and a few years later my mom and I
moved to a castle sorry council estate
in Easton where people’s expectations
were kind of crime or failure but the
ages of nought to five are quite a
blissful period where no one really
expects anything of you um in fact
around that time just asking a question
is an achievement this is great but when
I got towards ten in primary school I
actually ended up being bullied by um
three guys with genuinely called Richard
Ricky and Ricardo
all the three hours for sure and when I
wasn’t clutching my face or crying my
mom and I would joke about their name
correlating with the old educational
usage of that term which was a reading
writing and arithmetic which is just the
most paradoxical phrase ever heard in my
life
um but for that reason the bullying III
was more relaxed that at the
after-school Club CK after-school Club
it was called I remember the woman who
run it she’s a she’s called Sonia this
lovely she had an amazing smile and it’s
warm beige in action and yet she told us
one day that there was there was a local
talent competition now um I didn’t know
what it was like to be on stage at that
point but I did know that I wanted to be
Cisco more than anything so so naturally
I said I’d do it and so you know mom and
I we’ve got some silver hair dye which
was turn out to be gray silver silver
sunglasses we’ve got anything with
dragon on it we dyed it green I’ve
practiced high kicks a lot in my living
room and then when I got the actual
talent competition I realized I was
performing to a load of people I’d never
met before and I was one of the only
people performing alone so I kind of
freaked out at the side of stage um I
tried to pull up with my mum who was a
Mason performer herself she offered me a
secret she said Jordan listen um I know
you’re scared and no one expects you to
do this but I promise you once you get
on stage you won’t want to come off a
big round of applause I will run to my
next act I said to be voice very very
hard when you’re a single person
come on stand up all you people we’ve
got a young lady’s name’s Jordan and
he’s in the CK Club
so it’s to give a big round of applause
and a big wicked welcome to Jordan from
just fast-forward through this bit know
that like there’s there’s a high kick at
some point I get the high kick wait it’s
yeah that’s just okay so I had been
taken by the adrenaline as you can see I
clapped myself when leaving the stage um
but like it was it was just the beauty
of the fact that no one expected me to
perform I wanted to be Cisco and yeah
that’s that’s what happened the second
stage that I want to talk about I’m
gonna skip forward now on my mom line we
moved to Brighton and I went to
secondary school in blotching tamil’
Appalachian to mill in Hove and a
secondary school I kind of found a
little bit difficult I interned
expectation I think that the official
time is I felt like I was in a molten
lava flaming volcano pit of expectation
I personally like when I was a kid I had
a lot of niche interests you know like I
really liked archaeology and ancient
Egypt and then I got to second just go
know like no you’re not learning that
you have to learn this kind of it’s this
set array of lessons um and even if you
weren’t interested in them you had to to
learn them and if that wasn’t difficult
enough then you were kind of assessed on
how well you knew them after a few years
in this kind of – our memory exam it’s
like I mean it’s up for some people not
for me um but aside of that being a
teenager hormonal II there was a lot of
other expectations I was expected to
what I spent a ton of school on time pay
attention and do my tie up properly I
suspected to know how to kiss girls of
tongue um no Artu punch guys were fists
I was expected to score in all my
football matches I was expected to
regulate my energy levels because I’ve
got ADHD even though I couldn’t afford
anything else be food in the canteen
shower Jamie Oliver and and I also it
was just I was always drowning in it
basically so at that point I did what
literally no one in my life expected me
to do in year 9 I entered a geography
competition set by the Department of
so the next day Jai is actually not I
basically ended up representing the UK
in the g8 +5 environment ministers
conference in Osaka Japan yon over
listen it is as preposterous as it
sounds and explain to you what happened
so amidst all this expectation I entered
this competition and I used to enter
loads of competitions as a kid because
for me they’re like the haven of low
expectation because you didn’t have to
enter them and you’re only really heard
back from a competition if you had won
so if you didn’t hear back you could
just live in ignorance like a man
must’ve got lost in opposed so so yeah
so I just wouldn’t actually I went for
it and I literally so this competition
was to convey the message of climate
change to people of your age through a
media of your choice which could be no
longer than two minutes so I entered a
ten minute radio show and I didn’t know
anything about the climate I googled
everything I knew nothing I spent most
of my time perfecting the adverts which
were like socks for you buy one sock get
the other one free now I have heard that
some people have know some haters don’t
like my blatant disregard for the rules
in this competition but I couldn’t hear
them because I was on top of a glacier
in Switzerland that I’ve been flown to
to study and it was incredible and I
wanted to hear what they had to say
because I shouldn’t have been him in the
first place when I came back from
Switzerland and you’ve loads about the
climber it was it was incredible I went
to Downing Street I met Arnold
Schwarzenegger mad and then just when I
was supposed to do my GCSEs like a
normal human pear I got rehired by a
British Council from the point of this
first competition I’d entered to
represent the UK energy a +5
environmental conference and just to
give you an idea of how mad it was that
I was there after having entered the
competition just using GarageBand which
I’d mainly used to diss my form cheering
to that point the Americans who were
representing America they were all about
to go to Harvard and I hadn’t even made
senior student a fact I’d missed out on
it to my friend and Orton who later
applied for English Lit and spelt it
but it but the reason I think it’s
amazing it’s got to the end of war end
of year award ceremony that at the end
of school and I had to invent an award
for me so that was amazing as I’ve
missed every single target I had I’d
missed all expectation academically I’d
gone under par I turned up to my prom in
a local taxi um I I they didn’t know I
wasn’t punctual there’s nothing I had to
create it and I loved that they had to
create it ah because I just ended the
competition I used the time I had that’s
supposed to be doing coursework to try
and make something to myself and then I
also got I mean look I like to think
excuse addict like date I reckon it
probably the climate thing by let’s
believe it something to do my 65 plays
on myspace at the time as a musician and
but that might not have been as
far-fetched as it seems the next stage I
want to talk to you about is the go
busker unsigned music act live final at
93 for east Brick Lane so a couple years
later I’d rekindled my love for music
that I thank you Cisco and I had entered
a bunch of competitions to try and
prepare myself in the live final itself
I didn’t actually win but the
competition had already provided me with
the key to my future career and to try
and put yourself out as a musician at
that point you use something called
MySpace that’s Tom he was your friend
never met him but he seems nice and like
yeah I couldn’t to get a good-looking
myspace you had to pay a graphic
designer like 60-pound and I didn’t have
that money I spent all my paper our
money on strong buy supers so I had like
nothing so what I did with the time that
I had gathered from people who would
expected me to be cooler by that point
and teachers to expect me to do homework
I I taught myself HTML and Photoshop and
I became so good at making my spaces
that other musicians asked me to make
ones for them so um it got me so far
that I ended up working as a graphic
designer for foreign beggars who are the
biggest UK hip-hop act
um and I met this local dagnabbit who’s
an amazing producer now dag didn’t care
about my spaces which totally floored my
plan
um he needed money I didn’t have money
um
but from one of the many conditions I
entered I I got given a bursary by go
busker for 500 pounds which was mad to
me at the time and so I’ve run up
daggers like y’all got your money went
to Whitechapel
and I literally paid like 50 pounds for
this Pete of him and I made a song
called down with the trumpets and I
later re-recorded it with my friend
Harley who is there as part of Rizzle
Kicks and after meeting a director who’s
wedding photographer I hadn’t expected
him to be so good at making music videos
called Toby Lockerbie something
unimaginable happened in my career and I
say congratulations to rizal kick it
will happen if this is it safe because
they’ve sold a million records
yeah
however yeah so so we sold a million
records we had to surpassed although I
still mad you know surpassed all
expectations you know our management at
that point it even said that we maybe
went label ready the two labels before
the one that signed us told us it was
early doors I hate that phrase there was
there was a lot of expectation we’d
surpassed a lot of rappers in Brighton
didn’t expect my kind of happy hip-hop
to be to be accessible I suppose and a
lot of them still think I’m a bad rapper
which I love para the underdog so so
yeah but I mean we collected more points
on a bonus level than then imaginable
but those points do accumulate and in
about a month
we’ve been dragged from the world of
underdogs into a much more dangerous
kennel a kind of love top dogs and the
land of great expectation so the next
stage want to talk to you about stage
four is our headline show at the engine
shed in Lincoln um so this is a the
Rizzle Kicks tour we done really well
and about five minutes for is going
onstage I received a phone call from
Mike’s girlfriend who hadn’t spoken to
in a few months and but she knew I was
on tour so I answered that I’ve
intrigued the first thing I heard was
her crying and then she told me that I
brother Leo who I knew very well
committed suicide I I remember when mom
was working for child line nearby at the
time and I rung her straight away
afterwards and I thank the heavens for
having such a wonderful mom although I’m
sure anyone in that position would have
responded just as quickly I can’t
remember being on stage that night and I
haven’t ever been in that situation I
didn’t know what was expected of me but
um my personal anguish aside I spent the
following months watching one of the
strongest people I’ve ever had the
fortune of meeting handle the worst
situation imaginable
her name’s the ceiling that I love her
an awful lot and I could spend the rest
of this talk discussing how she was able
to surpass all expectations and
transform you know how her weakest into
strength but I don’t need to because
she’s already done TED talk in Warwick
you can watch it I named it ceiling
it’s fantastic as for my personal stress
I have to be very honest and telling you
that fame showed little mercy to my
bereavement I ended up back in that
flaming molten lava or volcano pit of
expectation um it was a little harder to
get out there were no competitions there
was only competition I was expected to
conduct myself in a in a proper manner
in interviews I was expected to be a
role model to all these young fans we
had I was expected to not talk about
religion politics or other artists on
Twitter and if I did I was expected to
understand why people would call me dumb
talentless stupid or not question that
the notion that maybe a 21 year olds
opinion isn’t gospel with every TV
performance we did my life shrunk I
couldn’t hang out with my friends in
public comfortably anymore
and ended up in this kennel of top dogs
and it’s really weird because no one
really knew each other but they
pretended like they did there’s a lot of
barking but not no biting and that the
lack of emotion was so hard to avoid
that it was no surprise why everyone
finished the evenings feeling numb we
made a second album we taught it again
it was a lot of fun but it didn’t do as
well as expected and I became a cocaine
addict and then so by the time all this
happened I was already feeling numb and
I was I was incredibly lost so at this
point with everything to lose and
everything going on and all these
expectations I did the only thing in my
power at that point and that was to stop
completely now before I go into the
final stage I want to make it clear guys
I’m super happy right now like I know
this is I wrote like I really am like
the 2 years away from that low point I
believe that low point would be like the
making of me I think I needed that that
in the 2 years away I’ve um I’ve managed
to grow up a little bit to be honest it
felt like I went like 1919-1920 for
benefit the maths right III manage there
just just like um just put my energy
into into other creative areas where no
one was expecting me to do well I’ve I
did a bit of painting I overcame
addiction myself I just by eating
healthfully and exercising I started
doing a bit of painting bits
writing and it I could just fail
comfortably basically and I love Rizzle
Kicks I’m smitten by the music and I’m
eternally grateful for the opportunities
it’s given me but I’ve also made music
more reflective of how I personally feel
and been able to outlet a lot of that
angst I felt and actually one of the
songs from my side project wild hood was
recently used when NHS campaign called I
am hole where it would battle stigma
surrounding mental health in young
people yeah yeah nourish the soul but
listen what I want to say is I’m a long
I’m a long way from where I want to be
but the important thing is I have
rekindled some of that love for
productivity I had as a teen which
brings me to my final stage which is
here it’s it said this is the final
stages TED talk TEDx Brighton 2016 I
never expected to be here straight up
setting that like I downloaded the app
like a year ago and I just kind of been
drinking in the knowledge and um and and
ideas always sharing so what I want to
say I’m not gonna tell you anything
cause I mean who wants I don’t I don’t
have been taught what to do so I was
going to suggest some ideas I think that
like um low expectation could be a kind
of key to happiness I suppose like and
that doesn’t negate ambition you know
aim for the stars just don’t worry if
you miss um definitely don’t back into
other people’s expectations surprise
others by surprising yourself and just
be the underdog like it’s it feels great
but to be honest I like especially
listen to me I don’t even expect you to
like the talk I don’t expect you to
share it um but one thing I do was going
to do promise you is that there yes one
thing I can promise you all is that I
will continue to throw myself headfirst
into doing things that nobody expects me
to do for the rest of my life [Applause]