Transcription
Ted Talk: Richard St. John’s 8 Secret of Success Transcription
This is really a two hour presentation I give to high school students, cut down to three minutes. And it all started one day on a plane on my way to Ted’s seven years ago. And in the seat next to me was a high school student, a teenager, and she came from a really poor family. And she wanted to make something of her life, and she asked me a simple little question: she said “what leads to success?” And I thought really badly because I couldn’t give her a good answer.
So I got off the plane and I come to Ted and I think: “Jeez! I’m in the middle of a room of successful people. So why don’t I ask them what, how them succeed and pass it on to kids?”
So here we are seven years, five hundred interviews later and I’m gonna tell you what really leads to success and makes Tedsters tick.
And the first thing is PASSION, Freeman Thomas says “I’m driven by my passion”. Tedsters do it for love, they don’t do it for money Carol Coletta says “I would pay someone to do what I do.” The interesting thing is if you do it for love, the money comes anyway.
WORK! Rupert Murdoch said to me “it’s all hard work. Nothing comes easily, but I have a lot of fun!” Did he say fun? Rupert? Yes! Tedsters do have fun working, and they work hard. I figured they’re not workaholics, they’re workafrolics.
GOOD! Alex Garden says “to be successful, put your nose down into something and get damn good at it. There’s no magic, it’s practice, practice, practice”.
And it’s FOCUS Norman Jewison said to me “I think it all has to do with focusing yourself on one thing.”
And PUSH! David Gallo says “push yourself! Physically, mentally you’ve gotta push, push, push! You gotta push through shyness and self-doubt”. Goldie Hawn says “I always had self-doubt, I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t smart enough, I didn’t think I’d make it”. Now, it’s not always easy to push yourself that’s why they invented mothers. Frank Gehry said to me “my mother pushed me”.
SERVE, Sherwin Nuland says “there was a privilege to serve as a doctor”. Now a lot of kids tell me they want to be millionaires. And the first thing I say to them is “okay well you can’t serve yourself, you gotta serve others something of value, because that’s the way people really get rich”.
IDEAS, Tedster Bill Gates says “I had an idea, founding the first microcomputer software company”. I’d say “it was a pretty good idea, and there’s no magic to creativity and coming up with the ideas, it’s just doing some very simple things and I give lots of evidence”.
PERSIST! Joe Kraus says “persistence is the number one reason for our success. You gotta persist through failure, you gotta persist through CRAP. Which of course means Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure”.
So the big at, the answer to this question is simple, pay four thousand bucks and come to Ted. Or failing that to the 8 things and trust me these are the big 8 things that lead to success. Thank you tedsters for all your interviews.
You can check out the video here