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You are not your limits | Richard Fallon | TEDxBirminghamCityUniversity


[Music]
[Applause]
hi I’m dr. Richard falender marketing
engineer and the first thing I have to
do is I need to ask a favor of you
if I speak fast can you listen fast is
that okay with everybody
actually that for two reasons one I have
a lot to cover two I’m always told in
this type of environment to slow down
and speak slowly and I’d like breaking
the rules and I like war breakers and
this is what this talk is about this
talk is about how do you break the rules
how do you go beyond your limits how do
you get out your box Oh Breaking Bad
ethically so by the end of this talk I
want you to kind of have know three
things that might be limiting your life
might be affecting you right now how you
can deal with them and three things you
can do to change your life is that okay
good stuff okay I have a bit of a
confession to make some of you and you
leave this talk and say he seemed like
an all right guy I quite enjoyed that
others of you will leave this talk
saying I really didn’t like that and I
really don’t like that fellow at all and
when I say don’t like I mean you will
see me walking down the street as you’re
coming up here and you will choose to
walk into oncoming traffic rather than
risk a conversation with me that’s it a
lot of my friends come meet the marmite
of marketing and that’s the way I am so
I’m gonna start my story from the start
which was when I was born when I was
born I was in my mom was in labor with
me for several hours and I didn’t have
enough oxygen to my brain and the
doctors told my mom rich is going to
have a coordination problem so he’s
never gonna be able to do things like
ride a bike or play the piano and here’s
a picture of me riding a bike and
playing a piano because I had this thing
is I thought I’m interested in doing
those things I want to learn how to do
these things so it took me longer than
other kids but I got there another thing
I had when I was younger was an interest
in science I’d like to find out about
how things worked and how the world
worked a part of that was understanding
maths maths is very important in science
and I did all right in maths at school
and I was lucky enough to get into
the top set and my maths teacher said to
me Richard we’re gonna put you in for
the exam a year early your GCSE a year
early but we don’t think you’re gonna do
very well so I thought well I can learn
this I’m going to do it anyway and I got
an A I was really pleased with that and
my physics teacher said to me Richard
you’re you all right physics you’ll do
okay at GCSE you might be okay a level
but don’t go any further than that
you’re not good enough to do a degree
and here’s me getting my physics degree
from Durham University now you may think
I’ve spent most of my life trying to
prove of the people wrong this isn’t the
case these were all things I was
interested in in and I had a passion for
and I wanted to find out more about and
I thought I can learn this stuff I can
learn I can learn new skills and this
was useful because when I finish my
degree in physics every employer I spoke
to said to me Richard we don’t want
physics we don’t want physics graduates
we want electronic engineers that was
that’s what we want I thought great it
would have been useful as somebody said
this earlier but I thought okay I did a
bit of electronic engineering physics
I’ve got an interest in it I can learn
it so I did a master’s in it at
Nottingham University and I enjoyed that
so much that I went on to do a PhD in
laser physics at Aston University and I
was privileged enough to be able to work
on a 20 million pound yacht and I put an
optical fiber sensor system into the
master that yacht so the acht detects
the strain you put on it as you went out
sailing and my work appeared on
tomorrow’s world and that was good three
years and I’ve really enjoyed it but it
was three years working in an
underground lab with no sunlight on my
own and I started to think socks and
sandals sounded like a comfortable
combination
I thought maybe I just need to get out
just a little bit more maybe I need to
get out a little bit more and at the
time my house my Andrew is applying for
a job with British Airways and a pic of
the brooch and I thought well that looks
like something I’d be interested in
doing so apply for a job and it became
business analyst for British Airways and
a business analyst is some leaders
business process reengineering
Scouts work with IT people and business
people and this really suited me because
I get to use my analytical skills and my
people skills and I had a great time
there and one thing I really enjoyed was
travelling and it was on my travels with
three of my friends that I got my first
lesson in marketing from a South
American prostitute so it was amazing
the way the interest levels come up at
that point what happened was me my
friends Maxine Chris and Sharon
accountant when azari’s for the weekend
it was Maxine’s birthday it was Sunday
night it was 2:00 a.m. the club we’re in
was shutting and Chris and Sharon
decided to go home but my friend Maxine
said to me I think would go home yet I
want to stay out a bit I’m gonna stay
out a little bit longer so we had to
look around we found the one single
solitary bar that was still open and it
had that distinctly mafioso feel about
it if you know what I mean and I said to
Maxine I said look you sit over there
I’ll go to the bar we’ll be quiet will
have a nice time couple of drinks and go
home and I went up to the bar got the
drinks and as I’m walking back this very
attractive young lady came up to me and
she looked up and down like that and she
said to me shuttle I’m quite busy right
now what you want some company later on
here’s my business card
and she gave me a business card and our
business covers a name and a job title
was Public Relation which that was
absolute genius partner Marcus an
absolute genius and it said so I said
well thank you very much sir I said I’m
not looking for any company and find him
with my friends but thank you and the
marketing lesson I learned from that is
no matter how attractive your offering
is not everybody’s in the market for
buying it now this was going to serve me
in good stead because a couple years
later I decided to step out into the
abyss and set my own business and I’ve
always had a passion
helping people and I found it BA I was
good at helping people and good at
training people so set up a training
company there was designed to help small
businesses students and graduates and I
did based on the skills and there’s
marketing skills in there and those
management skills and this went along
very well and in 2009 after the credit
crunch every said to me Richard we don’t
want management skills anymore we just
need more clients we just need more
customers can you just focus on
marketing so put everything you knew
about marketing together and did a
one-day workshop that covered all the
marketing basics and a ran list it went
very well
and it did of course in July of that
year and I’m going around the people I
have in the room that I’ve gone I had
countess’s Lister’s hit over here I had
a lady who wanted to sell Jamaican super
Tesco I had a couple of bars and
restaurants I had a gentleman who had a
yoga franchise for schools I then had a
cleaning company and then finally I had
a manufacturing company that specialized
in doing parts for yachts and nuclear
submarines this was a diverse group of
people and I thought how am I going to
deliver something that’s good for
everybody
well of course covered all the basics
and the basics apply to every business
they might we daily apply to everybody
so I did that people liked it and happy
but at the end of it I thought using my
engineering hat there must be a process
that I could go through and get the
right answer for anybody that’s been
something and had to look around but
couldn’t find anything and it kind of
parked it around the back lands think
I’ll think about that later
and everything was going fine until
Wednesday the 21st of October 2009 I’m
in Birmingham I’m in st. Paul square and
I’m walking across the square it’s a
cold crisp day and I can hear the leaves
crunching beneath my feet and the church
thinking nine o’clock in the background
and I thought this should be a great day
but my stomach said something’s going to
go wrong and I was right we would you to
have 15 people that day and it’s half
gnome registration for a ten o’clock
start 9:45 nobody zero no one had
arrived so start to get worried
ten to ten the first person arrived five
to ten
the second person arrived five past ten
the third and final person arrived and
that was it
so I’d lost eighty percent of the
attendees didn’t sure
so I thought well what can I do so when
out I did my marketing thing and they
liked it because they turned up so
course I’m going to do my best and
people seem to like it but then we went
back to the office and I had to ring up
people and say oh well what happened why
didn’t he come and I found that people
had changed what they needed and wanted
they didn’t want marketing training
anymore they needed somebody to do the
marketing for them they wanted somebody
who would do that and guarantee they’d
have clients and customers next week so
I thought okay I can do that I’m
interested in marketing I’ve moved on
from what makes the world tick to what
makes people tick
and I got really interested in so I’ve
you know this idea the process I’ll dig
that out and they developed a twelve
step process that I use to help small
businesses attract in the clients they
want and that works pretty good and
oddly enough have gone back to helping
my old PhD group you now also need to
engage with small businesses so help
them tell the business community as well
and that’s my story but what did I learn
during my story well there’s a couple of
things I learned one thing is boxes can
be useful a good way to understand the
world is through putting things into
boxes and boxes are very common in
marketing because you need to know what
people are gonna like and dislike these
types of people like this they dislike
this this helps your marketing I’ll give
you this marketing statistic here is
blue is the most popular color have you
noticed the way Twitter LinkedIn and
Facebook all the logos are blue that’s
because most people like blue possibly
why and we’re nibbly showing blue tie
today but that’s kind of useful
information that’s lumping people into
that blue box but there are boxes that
are very damaging and sometimes other
people forces into them and sometimes we
put ourselves into them so this I found
very disconcerting was it was a study
done in 2017 and it was done with
children
and it found that by age six girls were
more likely to put boys into the really
really smart category than themselves
all the children were given various
activities to do and some of them are
labeled for really really smart children
and the girls tended to leave them alone
and give them to the boys because they
thought intellectual brilliance was a
male trait incredible this is one of
those self-limiting beliefs isn’t it
they decided they can’t do that so I’m
not going to do that I’ll leave it for
somebody else and this is what I’ve come
across first thing that kind of stops
people most people have some self
limiting beliefs a self limiting belief
is a decision you’ve made about yourself
that stops you doing something or
getting good at something so this could
include I’m too old to learn something
new I’m too young I’m too lazy I’m just
not good at maths all these things are
things people have is limiting beliefs
and they stop them reaching their full
potential and the best way to deal with
them is covered in various TED Talks all
I can say today is if you recognize them
that goes a long way to dealing with
them but if you ever look you will find
other TED talks on how to deal with
self-limiting beliefs but sometimes
these beliefs come from other people’s
beliefs some fears people who say to you
you just aren’t good enough you can’t do
that it’s too risky to set up your own
business what do you mean you want to do
marketing you’re a physicist all of
these things come in and there’s various
ways to handle s one of it is to ignore
them and just go and do it anyway and be
very successful
I like that route or just hang out with
different people it’s a way to do it and
then at the top we have actual limits
there are things that limit people for
example one of my friends Kerry she
really really wanted to be a nurse to a
DES that was her passion that was a goal
in life she wanted to achieve that now
unfortunately she was only 5 foot and
you need to be 5 foot 2 to be no
stewardess this was a physical limit
beyond putting herself on a rack she was
not going to be able to be a nurse to
you at s on my side I like singing
anybody knows me knows I am its hair
Herbal singer I am genuinely awful now I
could take lessons and get to a point
where people don’t find me offensive
when I sing but I’m never going to be a
world-class singer so all you can do
with actual limits is accept them so
I’ve just accepted the fact I am never
gonna be a great singer I’m never going
to be a model for Calvin Klein these are
beyond what I can do
but the thing is you pinned down by
these lower things self limiting beliefs
or the people’s beliefs and face so
here’s what some famous people have said
I love this quote from Henry Ford
whether you think you can or whether you
think you can’t you’re right if you
think you can do something that’s going
a long way to being able to do it if you
think you can’t you’re never going to
try you’re never going to even give it a
go and I like this quote from Richard
back if you argue for your limitations
and sure enough they’re going to be
yours if you keep telling people I’m
just no good with computers don’t be
surprised when you find out you’re not
very good with computers because you put
it there you said I’m not good at this
so if you can get over those ideas you
can start getting good at these things
and developing new things how do you do
that well you do that through interest
in learning if once have more ability if
you want to have more wealth if you
won’t have more fun in life it is
genuine interesting something and the
willingness to learn it that will get
you there there are so many ways to
learn things these days
you’ve got TED Talks there’s online
courses there’s books libraries you can
go out and learn whatever you want and
get yourself as able as you can do and
you’ll have more fun and more ability so
the start I said I was going to share
three things with you you can do to
transform your life the first one is
experience and learn something new and
what I mean by that is go out and
experience something you think you would
hate my mum years ago had tickets for
the Opera on the day of the performance
she had a migraine so she said to my dad
you’re gonna have to go instead my dad
really really didn’t want to go said
there’s no way I’m gonna like this he
went
he absolutely loved it he was blown away
he thought that was brilliant to go out
and experience something you think I
don’t think I like jazz music I don’t
think I like this go and listen to it go
and do it
and learn something new if you’re
interested in photography do a course
and photography find something new to
learn because this will help you do the
second thing discover new passions and
realize new abilities how do you know
what you’re passionate about and where
you’re stronger bliss is life unless you
try new things
you don’t know you have to try new
things so get good at something so hey I
really like doing this it might be
something you prefer doing than what you
do now just like me I’ve tried various
things go and try something new if
you’re gonna really realize new
abilities though you have to this third
one hang around with the right people
because people can either drag you down
or pull you up if you want to have a
successful business hang around with
successful business people if you want
to be rich hang around with rich people
if you want to be really good at
something and around with people are
really good at it
things brush off you pick things up from
them so in summary what I’ve covered
today is one I guarantee you you have
skills abilities and passions do you
haven’t realized yet there’ll be stuff
you haven’t tried that when you try your
thing I really like this this is great
number two I can guarantee that you are
far more able than some people would
like you to think you are and number
three the key to surviving in uncertain
times is being interested in things and
being willing to learn new things and
having some fun while doing it because
that’s really important so my end
message is be all you can be and go and
have some fun thank you very much
you
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