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When I was a kid, I was obsessed
with the Guinness Book of World Records,

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and I really wanted
to set a world record myself.

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But there was just one small problem:

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I had absolutely no talent.

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So I decided to set
a world record in something

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that demanded absolutely no skill at all.

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I decided to set a world record

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in crawling.

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(Laughter)

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Now, the record at the time
was 12 and a half miles,

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and for some reason,
this seemed totally manageable.

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(Laughter)

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I recruited my friend Anne,

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and together we decided,
we didn't even need to train.

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(Laughter)

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And on the day of our record attempt,

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we put furniture pads
on the outside of our good luck jeans

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and we set off,

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and right away, we were in trouble,

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because the denim was against our skin

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and it began to chafe,

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and soon our knees were being chewed up.

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Hours in,

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it began to rain.

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Then, Anne dropped out.

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Then, it got dark.

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Now, by now, my knees
were bleeding through my jeans

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and I was hallucinating from the cold

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and the pain and the monotony,

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and to give you an idea
of the sufferfest that I was undergoing,

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the first lap around
the high school track took 10 minutes.

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The last lap took almost 30.

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After 12 hours of crawling,

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I stopped,

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and I had gone eight and a half miles.

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So I was short of
the 12-and-a-half-mile record.

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Now, for many years, I thought
this was a story of abject failure,

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but today I see it differently,

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because when I was
attempting the world record,

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I was doing three things.

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I was getting outside my comfort zone,

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I was calling upon my resilience,

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and I was finding confidence in myself

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and my own decisions.

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I didn't know it then,

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but those are not
the attributes of failure.

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Those are the attributes of bravery.

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Now, in 1989, at the age of 26,

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I became a San Francisco firefighter,

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and I was the 15th woman
in a department of 1,500 men.

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(Applause)

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And as you can imagine, when I arrived

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there were many doubts
about whether we could do the job.

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So even though I was a 5'10",
150-pound collegiate rower,

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and someone who could endure
12 hours of searing knee pain --

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(Laughter)

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I knew I still had to prove
my strength and fitness.

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So one day a call came in for a fire,

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and sure enough,
when my engine group pulled up,

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there was black smoke billowing
from a building off an alleyway.

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And I was with a big guy named Skip,

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and he was on the nozzle,
and I was right behind,

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and it was a typical sort of fire.

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It was smoky, it was hot,

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and all of a sudden,

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there was an explosion,

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and Skip and I were blown backwards,

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my mask was knocked sideways,

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and there was this moment of confusion.

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And then I picked myself up,

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I groped for the nozzle,

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and I did what a firefighter
was supposed to do:

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I lunged forward,

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opened up the water

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and I tackled the fire myself.

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The explosion had been caused
by a water heater,

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so nobody was hurt,
and ultimately it was not a big deal,

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but later Skip came up to me and said,

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"Nice job, Caroline,"

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in this surprised sort of voice.

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(Laughter)

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And I was confused, because
the fire hadn't been difficult physically,

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so why was he looking at me
with something like astonishment?

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And then it became clear:

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Skip, who was by the way a really nice guy

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and an excellent firefighter,

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not only thought
that women could not be strong,

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he thought that they
could not be brave either.

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And he wasn't the only one.

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Friends, acquaintances and strangers,

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men and women throughout my career

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ask me over and over,

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"Caroline, all that fire, all that danger,

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aren't you scared?"

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Honestly, I never heard
a male firefighter asked this.

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And I became curious.

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Why wasn't bravery expected of women?

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Now, the answer began to come

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when a friend of mine lamented to me

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that her young daughter
was a big scaredy-cat,

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and so I began to notice,

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and yes, the daughter was anxious,

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but more than that,
the parents were anxious.

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Most of what they said to her
when she was outside began with,

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"Be careful," "Watch out," or "No."

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Now, my friends were not bad parents.

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They were just doing what most parents do,

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which is cautioning their daughters
much more than they caution their sons.

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There was a study involving
a playground fire pole, ironically,

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in which researchers saw that little girls
were very likely to be warned

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by both their moms and dads
about the fire pole's risk,

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and if the little girls
still wanted to play on the fire pole,

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a parent was very likely to assist her.

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But the little boys?

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They were encouraged
to play on the fire pole

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despite any trepidations
that they might have,

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and often the parents offered
guidance on how to use it on their own.

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So what message does this send
to both boys and girls?

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Well, that girls are fragile
and more in need of help,

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and that boys can and should
master difficult tasks by themselves.

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It says that girls should be fearful

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and boys should be gutsy.

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Now, the irony is that at this young age,

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girls and boys are actually
very alike physically.

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In fact, girls are often
stronger until puberty,

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and more mature.

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And yet we adults act

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as if girls are more fragile

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and more in need of help,

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and they can't handle as much.

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This is the message that we absorb as kids

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and this is the message
that fully permeates as we grow up.

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We women believe it, men believe it,

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and guess what?

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As we become parents,
we pass it on to our children,

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and so it goes.

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Well, so now I had my answer.

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This is why women, even firewomen,

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were expected to be scared.

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This is why women often are scared.

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Now, I know some of you
won't believe me when I tell you this,

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but I am not against fear.

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I know it's an important emotion,
and it's there to keep us safe.

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But the problem is
when fear is the primary reaction

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that we teach and encourage in girls

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whenever they face something
outside their comfort zone.

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So I was a paraglider pilot
for many years --

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(Applause)

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and a paraglider is a parachute-like wing,

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and it does fly very well,

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but to many people I realize
it looks just like a bedsheet

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with strings attached.

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(Laughter)

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And I spent a lot of time on mountaintops

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inflating this bedsheet,

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running off and flying.

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And I know what you're thinking.

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You're like, Caroline,
a little fear would make sense here.

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And you're right, it does.

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I assure you, I did feel fear.

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But on that mountaintop,

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waiting for the wind
to come in just right,

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I felt so many other things too:

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exhilaration, confidence.

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I knew I was a good pilot.

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I knew the conditions were good,
or I wouldn't be there.

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I knew how great it was going to be
a thousand feet in the air.

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So yes, fear was there,

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but I would take a good hard look at it,

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assess just how relevant it was

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and then put it where it belonged,

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which was more often than not

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behind my exhilaration, my anticipation

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and my confidence.

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So I'm not against fear.

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I'm just pro-bravery.

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Now, I'm not saying
your girls must be firefighters,

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or that they should be paragliders,

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but I am saying that we are raising
our girls to be timid, even helpless,

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and it begins when we caution them
against physical risk.

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The fear we learn
and the experiences we don't

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stay with us as we become women

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and morphs into all those things
that we face and try to shed:

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our hesitation in speaking out,

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our deference so that we can be liked

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and our lack of confidence
in our own decisions.

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So how do we become brave?

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Well, here's the good news.

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Bravery is learned,

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and like anything learned,

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it just needs to be practiced.

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So first,

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we have to take a deep breath

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and encourage our girls

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to skateboard, climb trees

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and clamber around
on that playground fire pole.

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This is what my own mother did.

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She didn't know it then,

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but researchers have a name for this.

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They call it risky play,

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and studies show that risky play
is really important for kids, all kids,

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because it teaches hazard assessment,

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it teaches delayed gratification,

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it teaches resilience,

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it teaches confidence.

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In other words,

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when kids get outside
and practice bravery,

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they learn valuable life lessons.

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Second, we have to stop
cautioning our girls willy-nilly.

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So notice next time you say,

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"Watch out, you're going to get hurt,"

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or "Don't do that, it's dangerous."

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And remember that often
what you're really telling her

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is that she shouldn't be pushing herself,

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that she's really not good enough,

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that she should be afraid.

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Third,

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we women have to start
practicing bravery too.

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We cannot teach our girls
until we teach ourselves.

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So here's another thing:

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fear and exhilaration

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feel very similar:

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the shaky hands,
the heightened heart rate,

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the nervous tension,

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and I'm betting that for many of you

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the last time you thought
you were scared out of your wits,

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you may have been feeling
mostly exhilaration,

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and now you've missed an opportunity.

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So practice.

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And while girls should be getting
outside to learn to be gutsy,

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I get that adults don't want
to get on hoverboards or climb trees,

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so we all should be practicing

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at home, in the office

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and even right here getting up the guts

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to talk to someone that you really admire.

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Finally, when your girl is, let's say,

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on her bike on the top of the steep hill

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that she insists
she's too scared to go down,

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guide her to access her bravery.

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Ultimately, maybe that hill
really is too steep,

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but she'll come to that conclusion
through courage, not fear.

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Because this is not
about the steep hill in front of her.

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This is about the life ahead of her

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and that she has the tools

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to handle and assess

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all the dangers
that we cannot protect her from,

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all the challenges that we won't
be there to guide her through,

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everything that our girls here

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and around the world

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face in their future.

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So by the way,

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the world record for crawling today --

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(Laughter)

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is 35.18 miles,

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and I would really love
to see a girl go break that.

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(Applause)