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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-06
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TcWmnjepuc
so why start off with sharing a story it's about a couple who grew up in Vietnam the man's name is bond he was a country boy who grew up in a big family the woman's name is Kim she grew up in the city the heart of Saigon city boy arse city girl meets country boy and they fall in love and they would eventually get married follow
love and have children but their use their story is unique in the sense that their country was in a state of war the north and south were divided fine later joined the navy and he would fight with the US troops and as we know how the Vietnam War ended they lost the day the war ended on was captured in to a labor camp by the communists
there he would remain for three years and the day he was released he fled with his wife Kim his daughter tram on a fishing boat from Vietnam to Malaysia with many other families they would take shelter and refuge there and there they would wait patiently for eight months and so they got the good news from two families in Rochester New York that they would sponsor them
and help them start their lives all over again I'm proud to say that this couple are my parents they have a courageous journey of inspiration they started their lives all over again and left with nothing but the clothes that they had on their back they embrace a new culture a new language a new life for their family and so they instilled in me the cigarette and
the submission and the snap city to always dream big to always trust in every six parents no matter how scary the circumstances are and you always lead with your heart that's what matters most and so through their inspiration it fueled me to start a passion project here in Rochester cults eroticized a food and drink blog that would help others fall in love with the city and
would highly others in China positively in Rochester and so thus began my creative journey but I want to sit on that word creative for second what does it really mean to be creative I always thought of being creative in the more traditional sense tied a theater type music type of the arts and you are growing up I played a small role in the fourth grade production
of beauty the beast I still know all the words and I I play the trumpet all from middle school which I actually found in my parents basement last Christmas let's just say they're not impressed so it's safe to say that I'm pretty sure I didn't sell in either of those areas and with the blog it was the first time in my life were actually started to
explore that word creativity but with that creative process and as I am parked on it I started experience the highs and the lows of it not only having to struggle to identify with that word creative but also the jury itself and to be truthful struggle is real my friends so it's real uncertainty think about the world that we live in today is a very noisy cluttered
saturated world with so many different mediums you've got social media you've got new brands new businesses new websites and blogs starting new every single day and one of my biggest fears when I started this blog as trauma gonna stand out who is going to listen to me and how are they going to hear me I'm just this little Vietnamese girl posting pictures of food hoping that
people like that and so I was worried that I wasn't going to measure up that my work wasn't going to be good enough compared to others and I started feeling the sphere in my hide in this inner self critic ask myself am I really going to be good enough and that's your only intensified when I thought about the highlight reel the highlight reel for those of
you who know social media it happens all the time you think of social media and you think of the snippets of everyone's life that they share the most positive aspects when it's the dead of winter there on this luxurious trip to the Cayman Islands or if they just got that big promotion when you just lost her job and so it can be difficult and you start
to feel inadequate and discouraged in their process because you start to compare your path with others and so I fell victim to this highlight reel and started comparing myself to others and feeling like senior business bloom and I'm feeling so left behind but the highlight reel can be deceptive it only shows the finished product the masterpiece so you see this presentation today what you don't see
is the behind the scenes where I'm changing the font fifty million times so that you guys will like it or that I'm doing ugly cry in the bathroom when I'm in a crate of funk and I'm feeling uninspired you don't see the unglamorous behind the scenes and you don't see the battleground in my head wearing feeling like I'm not going to be good enough to share
with the world so I want to share with you guys for ways that I've been able to overcome that feeling of not being good enough the first one is stop comparing yourself to have the hustle real or to the highlight reel so as I said before when you compare your behind the scenes so the highlight reel your basically comparing the worst of you to the best
of everyone else so what it item I disconnected I go for a hike and I meditate with myself and remember to just take pictures for fun to feel alive in that moment and so remember that my path doesn't have to be the same as everyone else's number two is focus on what matters focus on what makes you excited why did you start this project in the
first place I started to think about different sources of information or inspiration and think about ways to get excited again and so that it wouldn't be so distracted by what everyone else is doing number three is fine your creative circle so I learned the hard way and bottled up a lot of feelings inside and I see I started to talk to other people I start up
to understand they're doing ugly cry too and so I didn't feel so much alone and we could share our vulnerabilities we could share our ideas and we could really learn from each other and leverage off this separation and the support system and number four is my favorite its own your voice and I think your story your voice is the most powerful weapon that you have in
this world it's going to be the key to how you're gonna break through this noisy differentiated cluttered world and so that was the key for me to always stay true to who I am so these ways have helped me tremendously I think about the person who I was two years ago to the person I am today and I'm a much more self aware confident and stronger
version of myself I think about that work fritos and while I may not be the leading lady in beauty and the beast or it might not be a professional trumpet player I mean many different things and creative can take on many different meetings it can mean I'm an optimist I'm encouraged her a dreamer a foodie a blogger and even a crate of but the most important
description that I wanna leave you guys with today is that I am enough that today standing right here I don't need to feel like I'm on the same path as everyone else that I don't need a standing ovation from you guys although a few claps would be appreciated I don't need a million likes on Instagram to feel validated I just need to know that the moment
