Full text of author Arel Moodie’s talk: The Secret to Student Success at TEDxYouth@ClintonSquare conference.
Listen to the MP3 Audio here: The Secret to Student Success by Arel Moodie
TRANSCRIPT:
So what if I told you you’ve been lied to your whole life?
What if I told you that what you’ve been told since you were a kid about what it takes to become successful is completely wrong?
What if I told you that you did not have to be so many of the things you thought you did?
Now you’ve been lied to, and just for clarity, you weren’t lied to by your teachers, by your parents, by the adults in your life because they hate you. You’ve been lied to because they were just misguided.
For example, what if I told you, you do not have to be smart to be successful? There are a bunch of really not smart people doing very well.
But, this is what we’re told ever since we’re younger. We want to be in the smart class, don’t we? Have you ever heard a teacher say something like this to maybe you or one of your classmates: “Wow, you finished your work really, really quickly. You must be really smart.”
Do you know what’s being said and implied in that statement? What’s being implied is if it takes you a long time to do something, then you are not smart.
So when we’re younger, if we come up to an obstacle, we don’t go, ‘Oh, this is awesome.’ We go, ‘well, I don’t want people to know I’m not smart.’
But as adults, we all know that anything worth doing takes a lot of time. But we keep saying, ‘you got to be smart.’
Now I will prove to you that being smart is not a precursor to success with this simple question.
How many of you know someone, you know someone who’s really, really smart, but they’re not doing anything productive with how smart they are? Does anyone know someone like that? All of us. So being smart, that can’t be what it is.
Oh, good news. You know what else you don’t need to be?
Talented. Talent- Completely overrated. We talk about talent. ‘Oh, you, you’re going to go so far. You have so many natural abilities. You’re so gifted.’ It doesn’t mean anything. And I’ll prove it to you at the same question I just asked you a few moments ago.
How many of you know someone, I want you to really think who is really, really talented. Maybe they’re amazing poet or musician or artist or whatever it is, but they’re not doing anything to the level they should with the natural talent that they have. Does anyone know someone like that?
So when somebody says, wait a minute, so we all know someone who is smart. We all know someone who’s talented that’s not doing anything.
So it can’t be smart, intelligence, talent, gifts. And by the way, it’s also not being born into the right family, being born rich or any of those things. It’s one thing that nobody can give to you. It’s the only thing you can give to yourself that makes the biggest difference. And that word is effort.
Effort is everything.
Whatever you’re not good at, with the right amount of effort, you become good at it.
Now, this whole concept was very fascinating to me because when I grew up in the projects in Brooklyn, New York, I was in the smart class in elementary school. I was in the top class and you know what, we all knew we were in the top class.