when I was younger buying into the
stereotype he asks the young Indian girl
what do you want to be when you’re older
is it a doctor
no I replied feeling like a rebel I want
to be a spy and for the next three years
I worked hard in school and in sports to
meet the qualifications of becoming a
spy and then one day I watched the movie
zero dark thirty if you don’t know it’s
a movie about the spy who found bin
Laden Oh watching that movie I realized
that I couldn’t stand to torture people
so I gave up on my quest to become a spy
it was as easy as that in a matter of
minutes I gave up on what I had thought
was my sole reason for working hard but
now that I think about it I believe I
just wanted a goal in general students
that believe they have a goal to achieve
perform better in school this might have
been the reason why I created such an
outlandish goal because no one really
knows the qualifications for becoming a
spy I could never do anything but put my
best foot forward in whatever I decided
to pursue in other words I created a
fake goal that I really didn’t care
about and that goal kept me motivated to
get good grades and stay active
throughout middle school so I wondered
why doesn’t that work other times why
can’t we create a goal and use it as
motivation why doesn’t it work when we
create that new year’s resolution to say
lose 15 pounds
well after examining my past I realized
something about myself I’ve been
depressed coming into middle school I
would stay holed up in my room for weeks
at a time and wonder about my
imperceivable existence in the world and
how I was of any use I know
dark thoughts for an 11-year old so I
realized that I really needed to get out
of my slump so I created this goal at a
desperation to have something to work
towards there’s a story about a young
Chinese girl who grew up during the time
of the Communist revolution she
originally come from a rich
with four houses maids all the clothes
she could ask for and then the
Communists came and took everything away
her family was left with barely enough
to survive and that same girl grew up
got married had kids and then her
husband died and the responsibility of
providing for her family fell onto her
shoulders but at that time it was very
difficult for her to find a job because
women weren’t expected to work but she
knew she had to provide for her kids and
her brother and his family who were also
barely getting by so she decided to come
to the land of opportunity
she took whatever she can carry work to
get her papers and she and her kids came
to America that same day while walking
on the street carrying everything she
owned in a bag that woman got mugged and
she lost everything but here’s the
interesting part
she can’t give up she had every reason
to she’d lost all of her possessions she
was cornered but her hardships
encouraged her to work harder than she
would have otherwise she started making
shirts and selling them for pennies she
and her family lived off that for years
she eventually saved enough to send her
son through college motivation is a
natural instinct people like having a
goal or a purpose and we have a tendency
to work hard and consistently when our
goals are the very things that we say
that we live for or at risk
say something threaten the lives of your
family how far would you go to keep them
safe and I wonder can we really
manipulate our own motivational drives
can we put around purposes at risk to
achieve something well it’s possible but
unlikely because we as human beings
won’t deliberately put our own purposes
at risk to achieve something so what can
we do I want to tell you something that
I’ve learned in my short 18
years of life everyone has something
that he or she believes is their
weakness whether it may be financial
issues health issues or family issues we
can channel these negative feelings that
arise from these things into something
positive
save for my own health issues for
example I have asthma and a heart murmur
I remember gym class in elementary
school all the kids would have to run a
lap around the field in order to warm up
and I’d always be that last kid behind
everyone else and panting like a maniac
I was a competitive kid so this upset me
I didn’t like that I had to work twice
as hard to achieve the same results as
everyone else and this feeling of
frustration stayed with me for a while
and then I got older and I decided to
pursue soccer and track and when I felt
that same feeling of frustration that I
felt in the past I decided to do
something about it
I used that feeling to use and use it to
achieve something positive I started
running whenever I could I remember
waking up at 6:00 a.m.
and running a mile every day until my
mom finally caught me this one time and
yelled at me because I wasn’t allowed to
get out so early so I started running in
the afternoons I kept running even when
I could feel my heartbeat through my
ears I kept running even when it felt
like my muscles would give up on me I
push harder than I had ever pushed
myself before and I keep became faster I
wouldn’t get tired as quickly so this is
how you can manipulate your mind stay
motivated say you have a setback
don’t let it push you to give up on
something instead use it let it feel you
to do what you want to do and there’s
one last thing that I want to tell you
it’s a quote by Ernest Hemingway the
world breaks everyone and afterward many
are strong at the broken places what I
want you to get out of this quote is
that sometimes our biggest weaknesses
can become our
strings a weakness is not nothing bad is
absolutely okay to have a weakness but
never let it make you give up on
something like that young indian girl
who created a goal out of desperation to
get out of her slump use your weaknesses
to your advantage
thank you [Applause]