Have you experienced failure lately?
No one likes to fail at anything.
Maybe because I have been pushing the envelope
for the past 12 years as a sprinter,
I love to challenge myself with something new and difficult.
I love the exciting and exhilarating feelings that I get from such experiences,
and I do love knowing that I am doing my best.
That is why I have been making many mistakes in that process.
For instance,
when I heard that there was a unicorn in Laos,
I traveled to Laos by myself.
Not only could I not find a unicorn,
I got hosed by the guy running the hotel.
On top of that,
while exploring a new territory trying to expand my running course,
I got lost and injured my knee.
"Why has it turned out like this?" is what I oftentimes wonder.
Well, I would like to talk about
how I have been overcoming such mistakes.
I am sure that how I handle my mistakes is the key to overcoming them.
That key is:
Whenever I make a mistake,
I praise myself.
When you make a mistake or fail
is precisely the time for praising yourself.
There was one incident that made me realize this.
When I was an exchange student in Bangkok, Thailand, two years ago,
I was full of ambition and energy, to be globally successful in the future.
However, what I found there was that I was the only Asian student,
and all other classmates were speaking fluent English at a rapid pace
just like native English speakers.
In that kind of situation, I was too afraid of making mistakes
in speaking English to talk with my classmates.
Even if I talked to them,
I blamed myself for my small pronunciation or grammatical errors each time I spoke.
That made me self-conscious and even more taciturn;
I couldn't get out of the vicious cycle.
One day,
when I was listening to my classmates
talking about the party to be held on that night,
I noticed one thing in their lively conversation.
I thought that they had been speaking perfect English before,
but they were actually making a lot of grammatical errors.
Some of them were using present tense
to talk about what happened yesterday.
Nevertheless, without hesitation,
they were saying whatever they wanted to say,
and they were enjoying their lively conversation.
While watching my classmates, I said to myself,
"I see. It doesn't matter if we make a mistake,
because English is a foreign language to us after all.
In this kind of situation in a foreign country,
it is a matter of course for us to make a lot of mistakes in speaking English.
So, those who make mistakes should be praised for their challenging spirit,
rather than criticized for their mistakes.
Using a foreign language in a foreign country
is not anything we are used to;
it is something we are challenged with.
Since we all make mistakes all the time in this kind of situation,
our efforts to do our best and our challenging spirit
should be praised instead of being criticized for mistakes."
That is what I thought.
Then, to my surprise,
I began to be less self-conscious about making mistakes in speaking English.
Even when I made a mistake, I said to myself,
"Okay, I made a mistake.
But I have learned one thing here,
and I can keep improving my English skills like this."
With talking to myself like this, I quit worrying about making mistakes.
I started having this new attitude to change gear and learn something
from making mistakes.
One specific method is
taking a quick note right at the spot whenever I made a mistake
so as not to forget what the mistake was,
and checking them again later before going to bed or on a break.
Repeating this cycle made me confident and also led me to making more friends.
Soon I found myself engaging with people around me,
to plan an international exchange party.
"Shota, you have really changed for the past half year!"
"You have impressed me!"
When I received these comments from my classmates,
I was really happy.
Of course, my challenging journey didn't end there.
What I would like to do in the future is:
I want to start a new type of organization for education
and run it as my business.
My hope is to make a student-teacher-community triad system
where all of three parties would be benefited
from the educational model,
and I would like to circulate it throughout the world.
I might not be able to avoid making a lot of mistakes and failures
in the process,
but I won't take them negatively,
because each failure and mistake would be just one of the steps
towards success that you need to go through.
Therefore,
instead of fretting over every little mistake and failure,
I would rather value the challenging spirit
and then realize my big dream someday.
The theme of this TEDx conference is "First Story."
I am sure that many people in this room
are challenging themselves with something new.
When you stumble on something and feel like you can't go any further,
don't blame yourself.
Praise yourself instead first.
If you think it is impossible to do it,
then consciously try to put a smile on your face.
Everyone, let's try it right now.
You can keep seating.
Lift the corners of your mouth as much as possible
and make a smiling face.
Cheese!
(Laughter)
Not relaxed yet?
Are you still a little tense?
This time, when you make a smiling face,
please slightly throw out your chest and tilt your head back a little.
That is good! Thank you very much.
How do you feel?
Don't you think you feel like you are getting more positive?
By making a positive posture, you can make yourself feel more positive.
I think that if you keep doing this,
your thought process will gradually change.
As a result,
it will lead to a more positive attitude towards the next challenge.
So, please do what we have just done right now
when you feel like you have failed.
Everybody is afraid of failing, including me.
But failure is the unmistakable evidence of that you have made efforts.
Not failing is not the important part.
Learning from it and how to use what you learn from it
to use for your next step is important.
When you fail or make mistakes,
please praise yourself all the more for that reason.
As for myself, after being back in the waiting room,
I will praise myself and look forward to the next challenge.
Thank you.
(Applause)