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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-11-12
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xt7zgnuK0
thank you hello my name is Kevin Baylor and I'm the grant writer for the Allentown symphony association and I was fine that a strange way to introduce myself it's not that I don't like my job I'm very proud of it but why is that are only introduction when I was five I had lots of introductions hi my name is Kevin and my favorite color is green
hi my name is Kevin and I have a cat named tiger hi my name is Kevin and I look finger painting admittedly that last one was kind of playing it safe because let's be honest who doesn't love finger paint but I didn't pick it because it was safe I picked it because I was always honest and up front about who I was and what I loved
when I was in elementary school I change my introductions to match my newest interests hi my name is Kevin and I like watching Power Rangers hi my name is Kevin and I do the martial art I keto hi my name is Kevin and my favorite food is keys yes I was a very weird boy and I admit it but their reach is an age when being
honest and open about yourself is the social equivalent of getting kicked me tattooed across your forehead so as I got older I slowly picked the safer option by the time I was in high school I had changed my introductions to match what was normal Hey I'm Kevin and I like watching The Simpsons Hey I'm Kevin and I like eating corn pops I didn't even tell people
I did martial arts and it's not that I ever lied about myself I just told people the parts of me they expected to hear how come well in case you don't remember high school very well you need to fit in and what do you want to fit in with the popular kids or if you want to fit in with the counter culture if you wanna have
any friends you need to have something in common with somebody in the safe for your introduction the more likely you are to connect so I figured out how to say the right things and I survived high school without being ostracized as a quiche gobbling wannabe ninja and that was a victory but when graduation day came I was so excited for college this was a place where
people paid money to learn it had to be filled with incredibly passionate people right yeah I guess how wrong I was I'll give you a hint it was a lot it turns out that passionate or not everybody on campus had one introduction okay I'm Kevin and my major is and nobody cared what your major wise it was just the only allowable introduction but do you know
why because everybody had one it was this way to kind of define yourself but always within the safety of the established programs now I have to admit I have not always been charming charismatic sharp dressed man you see before you in fact I used to be a huge nerd that would do anything to have friends so when I was in college I mastered the safe introduction
and I mastered the safe conversation and I mastered the safe friendship and you know what safe friends are boring we didn't do anything sat in our dorms plain about teachers and homework and that was hanging out by the time I was in junior year I had more friends than I had time to spend with them and I wasn't even enjoying myself and when I realized this
it pushed me over the tipping point and I finally stopped caring about fitting in and I started caring about being happy so instead of being safe I started being honest hi I'm Kevin and I'm fascinated by chemistry and physics hi my name is Kevin and my favorite band ever is news hi my name is Kevin and I love finger painting you don't grow out of it
you don't and the funny thing about allowing myself to is that all those boring people stopped wanting to hang out with me because I wasn't safe and all the people who stuck around were also these were people that did things we hiked we swam we practice martial arts together we could discuss anything from black holes to stand up comedians from victims starting to Winnie the Pooh
and all the while we were laughing and it's so easy to get lost in having a good time so I made sure to remind myself one simple fact I would never have my true friends if I wasn't willing to be rejected by everybody else so when I graduated college I was ready to enter the real world I'd learn to let go of the safety of conformity
and I was ready to meet other self actualized adults and guess how many I. Mets yeah about the same if you no it turns out that it was just the same introduction from college only now it wore a suit or more often then name tag hello my name is meaningless and I M. my job no like I said at the beginning I'm proud of my job
I am privileged to be able to earn my living by raising money for the symphony but when I was nine I never introduced myself by saying hi my name is Kevin and when I grow up I want to be a great writer I wasn't that we advocate and even today as an adult there are things that I'm far more passionate about then mailing out project budgets
and annual reports and passion is what this is really about I find it so mind blowing that so many people have so many passions and so badly want to share them with the world but they don't for fear of being criticized by people they don't even care about I'll talk about my passions with anybody some crowd at a party the woman in line at the grocery
store you there in the back whoever because if some stranger doesn't think that old kung fu movies are totally awesome so what I'm probably never going to see them again and it doesn't make me love them any less but if that person is totally into the thirty sixth chamber of Shao Lin then I just made a new best friend so no matter what I win and
so can you the ultimate question here is how do you introduce and that's tricky you know me pretty well by now but I've had a good eight minutes to tell you who I am how do you convey all of that in a single sentence and that's something you have to figure out for yourself and I challenge you to do it but I know that it helps
