Learning Via Your Style | DJ Cunningham | TEDxYouth@Toronto

Summary

The speaker addresses fear, emphasizing that people are most afraid of embarrassment, not failure or the unknown. Drawing from personal experience with learning disabilities and ADHD, the speaker shares how low self-esteem and learned helplessness shaped their early school years. However, through advocating for themselves and becoming more self-efficient, they developed resilience. The speaker highlights how different learning methods helped them overcome academic challenges and encourages others to embrace their unique strengths, turn weaknesses into advantages, and develop the skills necessary to build resilience and self-efficacy.

Takeaways

• 😨 Fear of embarrassment drives many actions more than fear of failure or the unknown.
• 😰 Embarrassment can lead to low self-esteem and avoidance behaviors, such as procrastination.
• 💡 Self-efficacy, the belief in one’s ability to succeed, leads to resilience and can combat fear and embarrassment.
• 🗣️ Advocating for yourself and understanding how you learn are key skills to build self-efficacy.
• ✍️ The speaker struggled with a learning disability and ADHD, which made tasks like reading and writing especially challenging.
• 🎓 Learning independence is crucial. The speaker shared how avoiding tasks, like writing, worsened self-esteem over time.
• 🎯 In high school, the speaker learned to advocate for himself, which led to better academic outcomes and greater self-confidence.
• 🎖️ Joining the military helped the speaker discover his strengths in different learning styles, particularly visual and kinesthetic learning.
• 📚 Understanding how you learn can help you adapt and find efficient ways to overcome challenges.
• 🛠️ Resilience is built by learning from mistakes and adapting strategies to overcome personal limitations, rather than letting those limitations hold you back.

Q & A

What is the speaker's main argument about what people are most afraid of?

The speaker argues that the thing people are most afraid of is being embarrassed, rather than fear of failure or the unknown. Embarrassment is what drives many of our actions and decisions.

How does the speaker describe the impact of embarrassment on self-esteem?

The speaker explains that fear of embarrassment can start to undermine self-esteem, causing people to avoid challenges and feel less confident in their abilities.

What are the two key skills the speaker suggests are needed to build resilience?

The two key skills are learning how to advocate for yourself and becoming more self-efficient. These skills help to increase self-efficacy and lead to greater resilience.

How did the speaker’s personal challenges with learning disabilities affect them in school?

The speaker struggled with low self-esteem due to learning disabilities, including ADHD, and experienced learned helplessness. They often relied on others for help, which made them feel embarrassed and less capable.

What specific incident in 4th grade does the speaker mention to illustrate their struggle with writing?

The speaker recalls an incident in 4th grade where they would procrastinate by staring at the teacher instead of writing, leading the teacher to eventually write down their ideas for them. This allowed the speaker to avoid the embarrassment of writing poorly.

How did learning to advocate for themselves in grade 9 help the speaker?

In grade 9, the speaker learned to advocate for themselves by communicating their struggles to their teacher. This helped them receive accommodations, such as practicing reading in advance, which improved their confidence and ability to manage their fears.

What is self-efficacy, according to the speaker, and how does it relate to resilience?

Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations. The speaker argues that increasing self-efficacy helps individuals become more resilient by allowing them to face challenges without fear of embarrassment or failure.

What did the speaker learn about different learning styles during their time in the military?

The speaker discovered that they learn best through visual and kinesthetic methods. The military taught in multiple formats—visual, sequential, auditory, and kinesthetic—which helped the speaker realize how they learn most effectively.

What strategy did the speaker develop to overcome their difficulty with reading?

The speaker learned to outsource reading by converting text to audio. They would take pictures of the text and use apps to convert it into MP3 files, which allowed them to comprehend more effectively through auditory learning.

What final message does the speaker leave about dealing with personal challenges?

The speaker encourages listeners to not let their disabilities or challenges stop them. Instead, they should let these challenges enable them to achieve great things by developing resilience through self-advocacy and self-efficiency.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 Overcoming the Fear of Embarrassment

The speaker introduces a question about common fears, with answers ranging from zombie apocalypses to fear of the unknown. They argue that the real fear most people have is being embarrassed. This fear can drive people to procrastinate or act irrationally to avoid uncomfortable situations. The speaker reflects on their personal struggle with low self-esteem and explains the concept of self-efficacy, which leads to resilience. By advocating for oneself and becoming more self-efficient, individuals can overcome embarrassment and fear, becoming more resilient in life.

05:03

🎭 The Struggle with Public Reading in School

The speaker shares an embarrassing experience from grade 9, where they feared reading aloud due to their reading difficulties. They describe their attempt to blend into the background during English class, only to be called on by an overly enthusiastic teacher to read a part of Romeo. Overwhelmed by fear, they ran from the classroom, even jumping out of a window to avoid embarrassment. This event highlights the speaker’s deep anxiety about being judged by peers due to their learning struggles.

10:04

😢 Fear of Being Stupid and Learning to Advocate

In an emotional moment, the speaker recalls confessing their fear of being perceived as stupid to their teacher. This vulnerability allowed the teacher to help the speaker by offering strategies to practice and improve reading skills. For the first time, the speaker learned to advocate for themselves, marking a pivotal moment in their journey toward resilience. By asking for help and expressing their needs, they began to transform their fears into opportunities for growth.

15:04

💡 Discovering How to Learn Effectively

The speaker explains how, in grade 12, they were unsure about their future and ended up joining the military. Surprisingly, this experience taught them how they learn best, as the military provided instruction in multiple ways: visual, auditory, sequential, and kinesthetic. By recognizing their strengths and weaknesses in learning styles, the speaker realized that school wasn’t suited to their way of learning, but they could adapt by using their strengths, such as outsourcing reading tasks to auditory formats.

🎯 The Path to Resilience Through Self-Efficacy

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of self-efficacy and resilience. They explain that advocating for oneself and finding efficient ways to overcome challenges are key to thriving despite learning difficulties. By learning how to adapt and use their strengths, the speaker encourages others not to let their disabilities hold them back but to enable them to achieve success. With self-advocacy and resilience, they believe anyone can turn failures into stepping stones for future success.

Keywords

💡Fear of Embarrassment

Fear of embarrassment refers to the intense discomfort or anxiety people feel about being judged or humiliated by others. In the video, the speaker argues that this is the primary fear people experience, more than the fear of failure or the unknown. It motivates people to avoid certain situations, like the speaker's avoidance of reading out loud in class to escape the embarrassment of making mistakes.

💡Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish tasks. In the script, the speaker mentions that improving self-efficacy leads to resilience, meaning that once individuals believe in their capacity to manage and overcome challenges, they are better equipped to handle adversity. The speaker's personal journey highlights how developing self-efficacy helped him overcome academic struggles.

💡Resilience

Resilience is the ability to recover from setbacks or difficult experiences. According to the speaker, the end result of self-efficacy is resilience, which allows people to withstand embarrassment or fear. By advocating for himself and learning how to work with his learning challenges, the speaker became more resilient in the face of obstacles.

💡Advocating for Yourself

Advocating for yourself involves speaking up for your own needs, especially when facing difficulties or challenges. The speaker emphasizes this as one of the key skills for building self-efficacy and resilience. He shares an example from grade 9 when he told his teacher that reading out loud was difficult for him, which helped him find solutions that worked for his learning style.

💡Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness is a psychological state where a person feels unable to control or change their situation, often due to repeated failures or challenges. The speaker describes experiencing learned helplessness growing up, as his learning disabilities led him to believe he couldn’t succeed without help. This feeling trapped him in a cycle of dependence and low self-esteem.

💡Learning Disability

A learning disability refers to a neurological condition that affects a person's ability to learn in a typical manner, often leading to struggles with reading, writing, or comprehension. The speaker discusses his own learning disability and ADHD, describing how these conditions made school challenging for him and contributed to his fear of failure and embarrassment.

💡Self-Efficiency

Self-efficiency is the ability to perform tasks in a way that maximizes one’s strengths and minimizes weaknesses. The speaker learned how he learns best—through visual and kinesthetic methods—and began applying those techniques to improve his academic performance. By becoming more efficient in his approach to learning, he boosted his self-efficacy.

💡Peaks and Valleys

Peaks and valleys refer to the varying strengths and weaknesses people have in different areas of learning or performance. The speaker explains that his strengths lie in visual and kinesthetic learning, while he struggles with auditory and sequential tasks like reading. Recognizing these 'peaks and valleys' helped him identify ways to improve his efficiency and overcome his challenges.

💡Fight or Flight

Fight or flight is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to perceived danger, where a person either confronts the threat or flees from it. In the video, the speaker humorously describes how, in a moment of high stress during a class reading, he threw a book and ran out of the room, showcasing his instinctual flight response to avoid embarrassment.

💡Sequential Learning

Sequential learning involves understanding information in a step-by-step manner. The speaker notes that while traditional schooling often focuses on sequential methods, like reading and following instructions, this approach didn’t suit his learning style. He struggled with tasks that required a linear process, which led him to develop alternative strategies for learning.

Highlights

The speaker discusses fear of embarrassment as a primary motivator, rather than fear of failure or the unknown.

Fear of embarrassment can lead to procrastination or avoidance behaviors.

The concept of self-efficacy and its connection to resilience is introduced as a way to overcome fear.

The two key skills for building self-efficacy are learning to advocate for oneself and developing self-efficiency.

Personal story of overcoming learning disabilities (ADHD and dyslexia) and academic struggles.

Example of procrastination in grade 4, where the speaker would delay writing until the teacher intervened.

Significant turning points: learning self-advocacy in grade 9 and self-efficiency in grade 12.

The impact of a caring teacher who helped the speaker overcome the fear of reading out loud.

Running away from reading in class due to embarrassment and anxiety, highlighting fear-driven avoidance.

Joining the military and learning through multiple teaching methods (visual, auditory, sequential, kinesthetic).

The speaker excels in kinesthetic and visual learning, but struggles with traditional sequential learning styles.

Learning to outsource tasks like reading through auditory aids to improve comprehension and efficiency.

Self-efficacy and resilience are key to overcoming challenges and turning failures into successes.

The speaker emphasizes that personal challenges should enable, not disable, an individual.

By mastering self-advocacy and self-efficiency, people can become resilient and better equipped to handle life's obstacles.

Transcripts

all right I have one question for

absolutely everybody here right now and

just with your a blue buddy beside you

discuss this question what do you think

we are most afraid of go

all right bring your eyes and ears back

on me for a second

so I heard something out there zombie

apocalypse yeah that is definitely scary

as somebody here is scared of the dark

that is okay but many of you I heard

scared of the unknowing or fear of

failure the thing we are actually most

afraid of is being embarrassed think

about it for a second

fear of failure or fear of the unknown

is that really what we are afraid of or

is it that feeling of being embarrassed

something that I've really realized is

fear something that really motivates us

it motivates us to do crazy things

because we're so afraid of that feeling

of being embarrassed I mean we will

cheat like some people procrastinate

because that's easier than that

sensation of absolutely feeling

embarrassed and what's challenging with

that is it really starts clawing at our

self-esteem I'm somebody that grew up

with pretty low self-esteem and I had an

idea one day saying you know what I

don't like that how can I look back at

my life now that I'm older and have some

success how can I look back and what can

I learn from some of the trials and

tribulations I went through and here was

the big idea that I discovered there's

something called self-efficacy and the

end result of self-efficacy is

resilience if you're resilient right you

don't have to be embarrassed anymore

because you can steer clear of the

things the fear that's going to put you

down or make you upset the two skills

that you need in order to increase your

self-efficacy are these you need to

learn how to advocate for yourself and

you need to learn how to be more self

efficient once you've done these things

self-efficacy increases and you will

become resilient people I want to share

for you just a little bit of how that

happened for me school was not a great

place for me in fact I definitely was

not that straight-a student I was a

student that barely barely made it by

and one of the biggest challenges that I

had growing up was the fact that I have

a learning disability and a

HD I am definitely not this type of

worker I'm like the latter type of

worker attention is really really

challenging for me

so for made these two things they

created something known as learned

helplessness inside of me I had no

learning independence growing up I

always had to have people helping me and

that's embarrassing I'll give you an

example I remember in like grade four

when my teachers would would say to me

alright class time to write and

everybody pull out their journal write

say you have 15 minutes to write I would

sit there and I would just stare at my

teacher I would play a game of academic

chicken with them I would stare at that

teacher as they walked around and after

like five minutes the teacher would say

DJ have you started writing I'd be like

Oh miss I'm just getting the good ideas

out you know I'm almost there and then I

just stare at them as they walked around

and then like five more minutes would go

by and the teacher would look at me

again DJ have you started writing I'm

like oh just getting to my blank page

miss you though I'm already there and

they're like another five minutes would

go by the teacher will look at me one

more time I'm like DJ are you writing I

didn't like sharpening my pencil of like

I'm not quite miss and in that moment

teacher would say to me ah give me your

pencil let me write down your ideas and

boom I have won the game of academic

chicken so you have to understand for me

writing is really challenging so is

reading the fact I kind of read as

though I'm in like grade six so for me

it was super embarrassing trying to

write something and have people look at

it so it was easier for me to just sit

there and get somebody to do it for me

but the problem was I didn't feel good

about myself who actually wants people

to do everything for you this was the

big shift what I learned in grade 9 was

how to advocate for myself and then in

grade 12 I learnt self efficiencies I

learned how I learned and when those two

things happened everything changed I

want to share with you exactly how that

happened for me

so grade 9 I remember going to school

and I had this one thought in my head I

need to make a good first impression man

like if people like me on the first day

of school high school will be awesome so

I start walking to school with this like

ridiculous swagger going on you know

thinking I'm like all that I was

basically wanting to be like Channing

Tatum from like 21 Jump Street you know

I was like my life goal in that moment

to make a good first impression but

again you have to realize in grade 9 I'm

probably reading as though I'm in like

grade 4 I mean the biggest thing I was I

was afraid of my biggest fear the thing

that most embarrassed me is reading out

loud so you have to know when I walk

through the front foyer of my school and

I was given my schedule it was like a

freight train hit me cuz guess what the

first class of gray night happened to be

for me English of like dum-dum know you

know like all I have to do is make a

good first impression and now I'm going

to like the one subject I'm most likely

to read out loud in right so me being me

I like beeline it to English go to the

very back of the class sit away from

everybody and like melt into the seat

hoping I can just get through the next

you know hour and 15 minutes and I'll

never forget migraine on teacher she was

so happy all the time no picture this

person they like eat rainbows and

happiness for breakfast like that is how

happy they are so she doesn't just come

into class he like floats on in and

honest-to-goodness what she does she

comes in and she goes class welcome to

grade nine English and she starts

cheering and like giving us high-fives

and I'm like oh my goodness who is this

crazy English loving person and then I

got super nervous because I looked next

to me and I saw a stack of the book

Romeo and Juliet and my teacher starts

talking about Shakespeare and then she

says how else can we even do Romeo and

Juliet justice than to read it out loud

together together out loud I froze in

fact I remembered when I was four euro

four years old I learnt this skill

I'll teach it's used to skill

being invisible it's easy whenever

you're really nervous close your eyes I

can see you you probably can't see me

invisible right so instantly I pulled a

book I put it in front of my face I'm

like hawk I'm safe

I was not safe because a second later I

remember the feeling of that teacher

putting your hand on my shoulder going

you why don't you read the part of Romeo

oh my go - in fact you know I scanned

the page of this to show you how

ridiculous this was like for the average

grade 9 student I think that's insane

but for me that's an impossibility man

so I'm standing there trying to figure

out my first line like hearts pounding

like bombs are sweating

line after line is being read and then

it's my turn and my mouth opens nothing

comes out I'm just standing there

psychologist calls this high points of

tension and whenever you have these

really really high points of tension one

of two things happen you either fight

your way out of it or you run so this is

what happens to me fight-or-flight took

over I'm not proud of what happened but

this is how it went down this was my

fight I looked at that poor teacher and

I had this book in my hand and I heaved

it at her that is my fight and this was

my flight

I ran man I ran as fast as I possibly

could in that classroom and I'm like

running and I'm running and I and I look

at the back of the class and I started

recognizing there are like no doors

anywhere there is only windows and thank

God I was on the first floor of my

school because there was one open window

and I thought to myself if I get a

little bit more speed I bet I could

Superman myself out through that window

so that became my plan I ran and I

jumped out of the window because that

was less embarrassing the standing in

front of that group of grey knights

having my grade 9 English teacher sound

out the words of Romeo and

juliette with me my train wreck is not

quite over

in fact I googled my school this is

where I went to high school right here

was migrated 9 classroom so are you

seeing what's happening when I jumped

out of the window I promise you there

are no unlocked doors in that quad on

the first day of school I had to pull

myself back in the window the weirdest

thing though man everybody was like

cheering for me giving me high fives

I met my principal that morning he's a

good guy

something really changed though my

teacher took interest in me and she

found me after school one day and she

said to me why are you so afraid and I

had all this emotion kind of boil up in

front of her in me in front of her and

like tears started to well and I looked

at her and I'm and I said you know what

I'm so afraid of I'm afraid that I'm

stupid and I and I come to school and

everybody's learning and they know stuff

and they're doing stuff and all I'm

thinking about is how can I get through

that day and what is more embarrassing

than being stupid and this is what I

honestly felt and this teacher her being

her all you know happy looks at me

you know crying and she says DJ that is

fantastic information thank you for

sharing of like just hug me like I am

NOT okay but what I came to realize is

when I did that I advocated for myself

for the first time ever and she said

that is good to know that reading so

hard let's figure out how we can get you

the reading up front right so you can

rehearse and practice so that when it's

time to read out loud in class you go

running for the window again by

advocating for myself I learned the

first step of becoming a resilient

person and it's something that I've

learned to do is be able to see an

embarrassment coming at me see fear

coming at me and then telling people the

things I need around and

for me to turn that failure into a

success the other thing that I learned

is self efficiency and the way that I

really weren't learnt it was to learn

how I learned and happened in the most

bizarre way I remember in grade 12 being

asked that great big question what are

you going to do with your life and I

think my answer was like my life what am

i doing for lunch man it's a main

question

so like that got me a trip to the

guidance counselor and the guidance

counselor asked me what i like to do i

really like first-person shooter games

so he like slams his hands on is that

she's like perfect you should join the

army and i'm like you're right

you know i'm wicked at first-person

shooter games in the basement of my

mom's house on the couch i should join

the army so I do that I you know March

myself to the local recruitment office

and I listen to the military and I start

training to become a soldier this is

when I learned how I learned and it's

fascinating the military brought me a

lot of success and I it's hard to

describe I soldiering just came easy to

me and when I when I left I started

understanding the way that they taught

me was amazing they taught me in four

very different ways in a visual way in a

sequential way an auditory oral way and

in an aesthetic way and by teaching in

all these different ways all different

types of learners can learn I'll give

you an example uh we were taught how to

shave our face there's like a military

way to do everything

so imagine this one day drill sergeant

like walks into the parade square with a

massive wash basin and puts it down

calls us to attention Oh John we all

like you know snap to attention and

stare at him and then he starts shaving

his face in front of like 60 of us that

was for all the visual learners to watch

that technique the military are

brilliant at delivering instruction and

a booming audio format so all the people

that are great at listening and learning

totally taken care of

we were then marched down to a tent line

with a classroom set up and we were

issued kanay

in forces field manuals on how to shave

your face there is like 14 steps to a

properly shaven military faced so people

that learn best sequentially in order

like reading totally taken care of and

last but not least can aesthetically oh

my goodness we were shaving our face

like three times a day during basic

training this is what I learnt about

myself I learned differently from people

everybody learns a little bit different

but I have what are called peaks and

valleys

I'm incredibly good visual sequential

not so much auditory in orally pretty

good and Ken aesthetic it's like my

superpower I'm really really good at

that but what I then realized was a lot

of schooling happened in that sequential

area it's not that I'm stupid

I just don't learn well the way school

teaches and I started learning how to be

efficient how do I take these things

that I'm really good at to overcome this

challenge and I learned to outsource

things so remember as mentioning I'm not

great at reading if I open a book and I

start reading I'm only going to

comprehend like 15 percent of that page

this is why I have to reread things like

three four or five times every time I go

through it I learned just a little bit

more that's not very efficient I don't

feel very good about myself I could

outsource that same thing by listening

to the text read out loud to me I can

take my phone take a picture of the page

and using an app convert it into an mp3

file that I can listen to all of a

sudden I'm using this very strong

auditory processor I'm now comprehending

like 80% of everything I listen to that

my friends is efficiencies so this is

what I learned I learned that I needed

to increase my self-efficacy I needed to

become resilient the only way you can do

that is to learn the skills of self

advocating for yourself and self

efficiency if you can do these things

they've become like little ninjas men

you'll be able to go into this world you

can see bad stuff coming at you and you

can advocate for yourself and when it

all goes very wrong you'll be resilient

you'll be able to learn from that

mistake stand yourself back up and

succeed honestly do not let the things

that disable you stop you let them

enable you to go off and

amazing that is everything

you