all the young adults in this room please
raise your hand if you participated in a
debating competition so your school very
recently beat mine at a local debating
competition so I expected slightly more
people to see raising their hands now a
question for all the adults in this room
who a few recently lost a argument to
I can see some slightly some some faces
are relatively amused as some we’re also
relatively grumpy for those who had a
grumpy face when I asked the question
you might want to consider joining the
first group who raised their hand when
it joined a debating competition because
one of the many things that debating
teaches you is to argue quite
persuasively my dad can testified it is
that most dinner table arguments are in
fact won by me and that is why in fact
we now have far more dinner table
arguments because he’s getting a bit
frustrated about losing all the time
that’s not the thing I want to talk
about debating teaches you many things
it teaches you to think quickly it teach
you to speak in public but the most
important thing that debating teaches
you is self-confidence that is what this
talk is going to be about before I get
onto that let me introduce myself I’m
Flores as you might have heard just now
I’m a second year student at Latin
University but mostly a debater at
Leiden University I coach also the
national high school team so some might
say that what I’ve been doing in the
past years is debating too much for too
long and this is again something my dad
will agree with but the thing is that
the betting has told me a crucial skill
it has taught me to be confident about
myself and what is important to remember
here is what exactly is debating some
people have varying views in it but in
essence debating is a discussion which
is led by formal rules the side which
you are on is to decide beforehand the
amount of time you get to speak is
decided beforehand any topic you’re
talked about like you need to talk about
it’s also decided beforehand so what is
this admittedly a bit strange game teach
you about self-confidence I think it
teaches you self-confidence in three
particular ways the first way in which
it does so is it makes you more
persuasive to be confident who is going
to believe me or is going to believe my
story at the point where I don’t even
believe it myself how confident you are
about your story reflects on your
audience and it makes you more
persuasive therefore to be confident so
therefore to be a better debater is to
be more confident second
by exposing yourself to Republic to
argue for a particular size is you often
need to overcome quite some nerves some
of the people who raise their hand
during the first question might be able
to testify to that it can be a quiet
nerve-racking moment to stand in front
of a stage and you actually debate the
topic something you might not
necessarily agree with and to do that
and to be able to do that requires a lot
of self confidence and by exposing
yourself to such an activity you often
overcome those barriers which prevent
you from being confident thirdly and
most importantly often debating and
being able to argue about lots of
different things makes you more
confident about yourself
one of my former coaches admittedly a
bit arrogant one said I would not be
afraid to debate any professor on their
special education or the topic that they
know most about and although that
comment was quite arrogant I think
there’s some truth in the fact that
debating gives you that confidence to
talk about anything to anyone and that
is not to say that debating will make
you more arrogant or will make you not
able to stand for have a conversation
with because often here’s the thing
often those were most humble are also
those who are most confident because
they do not need to show off to the rest
of the world but they are great they
know it by themselves so before I want
to talk about why this confidence is all
the more important I want to talk a bit
about the title of this conference
because I’m gonna do am it the first
time I read the title of this conference
I thought this has to be the most
cliched title of any conference ever
that doesn’t make necessarily a bad
title but it is something we hear all
the time that there are no limits you
can achieve anything you want many of
the speakers here actually repeated that
very same cliche and the only way in
which there is going to ever be some
truth in that cliche is true
self-confidence here’s why it is a
necessary prerequisite to achieve
anything that you believe in yourself
that you can achieve that to believe
that as some of the other speakers here
might have done that you start your own
business start a restaurant run for
longer than 42 kilometers the only way
in which you are going to ever attempt
that to train for that or put yourself
forward to achieve that is when you are
confident that you can do that and
therefore for almost any
any limit you want to breach you need to
have the confidence to do that and so
what abating did for me is that gave me
the confidence to achieve not just
certain things in debating but also lots
of other things debating drastically
improved my academic record it even made
me more confident to talk to girls and
so yeah that is actually something quite
unexpected right you would not think
that if most debaters it’s pretty nerdy
activities but admittedly the confidence
you gain from it actually helps you in
lots of lots of different ways and I
want to particularly illustrate this by
a story so almost two years ago I went
to the world school debating
championships it’s the largest debating
competition in the world for high school
students I was selected after almost a
year and a half of training to represent
the Netherlands and in the world schools
format the format in which we debated
our free speakers is sort of similar to
the format of the Dutch national high
school championships and I really badly
want to be the third speaker on the team
why because you could do more rebuttal
to the other side you could you’ve
actually got the chance we pretty mean
at the other side I quite like that but
the problem was that my coaches didn’t
seem that the same way they thought that
I was much better as a first speaker the
speaker who would set up the debate and
would bring the first arguments I didn’t
agree with them at first but this was
already something which was quite
devastating to me I was disappointed
that it didn’t get to be the first
speaker and even later but even worse my
coaches told me that out of the eight
rounds at the world schools
championships I would only be allowed to
speak for so when the other host just
said oh this is the king of debating I
didn’t feel quite like that at the time
to be honest I was pretty devastated and
at some point that even when the actual
news was told that I would only speak
for a limited abates
I cried extensively but I’m welcome to
lie I cried like a little baby and that
might seem quite weird to cry about such
an odd activity as debating but at that
point in my life and to still it is it
was very important um also to sunix and
my confidence was taken down but I got
back up and the reason was that had
coaches and parents around me who talked
me back into it
specifically my debating coach that time
had lots of conversations with me
about how they actually felt that I
could excel as a first speaker I’d have
thought that I could actually be one of
the better speakers on the team just for
a limited amount of debates and through
all of those conversations I regain
trust in myself I got the
self-confidence again to train to train
harder than I ever did before I worked
days after days just doing the most
nerdy things writing speeches looking up
arguments reading Wikipedia about the
world and current affairs in order to be
as prepared as possible and the only
reason I did that was this I believe
that hard work would pay off that is
self confidence that it will all be fine
and if I worked hard enough that would
be rewarded a couple of months go by the
world championships happen and at the
end I got announced as the third best
speaker in the world that is something
which I never believed to be true at
first but throughout the process of that
World Championships gained the
confidence that I could achieve
something like that now you might not
think but it’s confidence now clearly
it’s only useful when you’re debating
what’s not as I Illustrated earlier it
is only useful to any activity really
not academically speaking maybe in terms
of sports maybe in terms of personal
relations that you have any achievement
that you want to reach requires a level
of confidence that you can achieve that
so when I ask the first question of this
talk about who participated at the
bending competition I said that you
should consider participating in the
mating competition because you might win
the argument at the dinner table you
should consider debating for a whole
host of reasons but most importantly
because it will give you confidence to
achieve anything that you want
so therefore the message I want to leave
and where I want to end this talk with
is get debating for this only way in
which this cliche of No Limits actually
becomes true thank you very much
[Applause]
you [Music]