[Music] [Applause] so I will admit that I was wrong I've always been a thicker person way back before being thick was a cool thing right so there's a lot of different times in my life when I triy to lose weight I tried losing weight as a young teenager trying to keep up with the popular girls I tried losing weight again when I was uh in my early 20s in the dating scene and then I tried losing weight again when I got married and every time that I tried losing weight I always had a number in mind and I thought when I hit that number I'm going to be happy at least with what I saw in the mirror but the day always came that I stepped on the scale and I looked down and I saw that three-digit number that I've been working my butt off for literally and instead of feeling excited I felt almost nothing at all what made me feel something was stepping on the scale week to week and seeing that I lost maybe a pound or that I could put my belt a notch tighter or that I could just bend over in my jeans without feeling like I'm freaking suffocating I don't know about you but admitting I'm wrong is not my favorite pastime but it's funny how doing so can change your perspective often times for the better much of the last 11 years of my life I have been running away from the fear of being financially dependent upon someone that could hurt me this fear didn't come out of nowhere I watched my mom go through this nearly my entire childhood and for both of us it was an incredibly hopeless feeling so I thought if I make enough money I will never be in this position ever again again Tada C my super awesome plan of never being in that position ever again are you ready for it yes step one achieve the goals yeah that was step one step two be successful yeah step three be happy that's it and and this I thought would save me from that fear and bring me out of a crippling depression now before you take my super awesome three-part plan and create a bestselling self-help book out of it I want to let you know that it was about as successful as telling me to just stop eating desserts is in order to lose weight I'm annoyed by that advice my definition of success was completely wrong when you think of success who do you think of maybe Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos for the tech Bros maybe for us fellow Ted nerds we think of Simon cynic or Berne Brown and yeah with a lot of people's definitions of success they check the boxes but what about people like you and me I think we should look for the signs of success and people that we know people that we've shared space with people we've left or cried with I was recently asked who's the most successful person you know and I even surprised myself when I said my mom now looking at my mom objectively you wouldn't call her successful imagine a woman who came from a very poor family I'm talking where the kids got whatever meat was left I'm talking where the kids got whatever meat was left on the bone after their dad had eaten steak two times married and divorced to abusive men physically disabled the only formal education she had was a high school diploma and she relied on a man to take care of her from the time that she was born until she was 50 just a couple years before she passed away [Music] [Applause] her life didn't end that way and after being with her second husband for about 25 years she found the courage to leave and she got herself and her young daughter that's me a rental home now her room was technically a closet and that house was maybe 200 square F feet but it was hours and just a couple months before she passed away even though she only made $800 a month she got approved for a home loan and we moved into our very own house so when I was asked what Ma your mom successful she was at peace for the very first time in her life she could be 100% herself no constraints holding her back she was happy now if this is what I think of when I think of Peace then the question must be asked what if success lies in acquiring a sense of peace and not necessarily within those accomplishments that Society tells you is success but it couldn't be that simple right there's got to be more to it and I do think that there's more to it acquiring peace means knowing who you are and what you value and in order to know know who you are you have to fall flat on your face and know how to get back up it's the only way to know what you're truly made of if you want to see someone's true character watch them fall flat on their face and the journey they take to get back up if they even choose to do so on the days that I step on the scale and I see that I'm up yet another pound I let myself have that oh moment and then I make the decision that I am not going to hate my body and I'm going to accept this size 14 body knowing that it's part of the journey your failures do not just Reveal Your weaknesses which just show you how you can learn and grow but I would argue there's no better way to know your strengths now me for example I found out that I'm terrible at scripted comedy and and I found this out at my very first open mic open mic night in front of a bunch of people which is the perfect place to find out that you're terrible at something and aside from the fact that I have ADHD and I had a small mental breakdown because I couldn't remember my lines scripted comedy just does not come natural to me but when I had the courage to sign up yet again for another open mic night and did the entire thing improv I'm talking I had no idea what I was going to talk about until I stepped on the stage everything came natural I kept thinking of things to say everyone was laughing and I had no idea that a failed dating story and some childhood trauma would be so damn funny it's in these moments that you get to create peace and you get to create your own definition of success because the world will tell you that you're successful when you have that dream job after college for example but I have my dream job and I'll tell you what it was so much more fun fantasizing about this life than it is getting up at 6:00 in the morning every morning getting into my car and then reporting to someone who tells me where I'm going to be for 40 hours a week to quote shitz Creek you David you think you're going to stop hating your body when you have the hot husband been there too on the ring with the ring on my finger to prove it it's that smoke show in the blue right back there but it doesn't stop me from throwing a fit in the fitting room at at H&M when I need yet a bigger Siz pants than I wore last year you think you're going to be successful when you have a growing business but I've coached over 4,000 amazing ing humans I've been on some of the top podcasts in my industry I was even on a reality show for entrepreneurs can you believe that they took me and I am still waiting to feel like I'm enough it is these feelings and these experiences that made me reconsider what success is because after accomplishing nearly everything from my previous bucket list I can tell you that I was so very wrong these markers of success your ceiling becomes the new floor it's like a mirage right when you feel like you're there it becomes even farther away so what if just maybe I'll feel successful when becomes I feel successful right now my friends the worst feeling in the world is feeling hopeless feeling like there's no next move to make sadness you can get over that with a bowl of ice cream and a chat with your besy anger you can get over that by taking a bat and going to town on a piece of plywood that has your ex's name on it don't you go judging me for how I deal with my emotions we're talking about you right now not me but hopeless what do you do when that good old saying just put one foot in front of the other feels like too much one of the saddest things a high school boyfriend once told me was I will never leave this small town it's a Scary World out there are you kidding me you're never going to leave this small town that we grew up in because you're afraid of the unknown and it's true he never left that small town because he was afraid of the unknown my heart hurts for him do you want to know why because I don't think he will ever truly know himself I don't think that he will ever find what makes him excited to get out of bed what fills his cup I don't think he will ever have that moment where he falls on his face in front of a crowd honestly that sucks the difference between that old boyfriend and my mom is that my mom never gave up hope she didn't look at the current circumstances she was in and believe that things would never change she chose to spend time with people that believed in her and believed in her abilities and most importantly she chose to believe in herself I hope it scares you to know that the biggest regret of the dying Is Not Having the courage to live a life that is authentic to yourself knowing that life is what you make of it along the way the way to what well well that's for you to decide so my friend you've always dreamed of being on Broadway but you won't even show up to the audition because you're scared of rejection you've always dreamed of writing a book but you're spending every day in a sterile office at a job that you hate you dream of going to college but you're 50 and you're afraid of what your friends might think it's not your fault that you have fear there's a part of our brain const assessing risk called the amydala now unfortunately for us it can't tell the difference between being chased by a bear and taking that next step toward your big dream your brain is comfy cozy doing the same things that has been day in and day out even when you are say my mom and every day you're living a nightmare on somebody else's borrowed time when you take that step your prefrontal cortex goes into overdrive new neurons fire but your brain is wired to be complacent and soon those two become routine how scary is it to fail and the better question is is it scarier than never finding what's worth failing for those big goals and dreams are not where success lies I know that I'm not the only one to finally figure out that it is so so hard to feel successful until you found peace that you can't find peace until you know who you are and you don't know who you are until you fail be more afraid of being complacent than you are a failure you'll find what fills your cup you have more skills than you realize and your failures reveal more about your strengths rather than your weaknesses I think we need to redefine what success is it's being at peace what with what currently is while striving for what could be now my question for you my friends is what is one small step that you could take in the direction of your big goal that's in your control and when will you take that step thank [Applause] [Music] you w