About Being Self-Confident

English IV

Marcelo Muñoz

If you are a little insecure and life challenges you to act like a self-confident person, you have to pretend to be a secure person. I mean, you have to fake it! The secret is “Fake it until you get it.”

For example, if you have to give a speech in front of many people and if you don´t have much experience doing that, you will obviously feel nervous. But it doesn´t matter if you are new at giving speeches. In this situation you have to trust your skills, knowledge and behavior. It is only a matter of practice.

If you are shy, but you know what you are talking about, you have to imagine that you are an expert talking to people. Forget that you are on a stage giving a speech. Think that you are in your house talking to the wall. Even though this is not as easy as it seems, you have to persist and try to overcome your weaknesses. After many speeches, you will notice that you don´t need to fake that you’re self-confident anymore because you will be! You will get it!

I guess that this had a big impact on me because when I was in school I wondered what would happen if decided to study Business Management because I knew that businessmen have to experts in talking to people, giving business speeches and motivating people. So, here I am studying Business Management asking myself, “What am I going to do?” I´m terrible at talking to people, but after listening to this TED talk I realized that I can learn all these skills to be a successful professional. How? I have to fake it until I get it. How? I just need to practice it.

I heard that many people lose great business opportunities because they are insecure. I think that all our academic preparation, sacrifice and pain in order to have a better life are crucial especially when life gives us this one chance. This is the moment when you have to choose from being a successful person or a loser. Right this moment, you have to do all your best including forgetting your weaknesses and resorting to your strengths.

Finally, I think that Bolivia needs to learn this. Many talented people lose their one-time opportunity because they´re insecure. Take our soccer teams as example. I am sure that we can be better if we overcame our fear to be successful.

About Failing

English IV

Mauricio Andia

Larry Smith is an economist and he talked about this topic in Canada. This talk had a great impact on me. I really enjoyed it and I even showed it to my parents because this is a very controversial topic among my family.

He said that we have to find our passion if we want to be successful. If we don´t do that, we´ll get tired of our lives. In fact, our life won´t make any sense if we don´t find our true passion.

He also said that if we want to be successful and have a great job, we don´t have to work harder and harder in a boring job just because dad and mom told us to do so. Unfortunately, this doesn´t happen in real life.

In addition, he said that even if we discover our passion, we might fail because we are human beings and we are young. Larry said that our passion has to become part of life. It should be something like marriage, so it should be the biggest thing in our life. This is why it´s so difficult to find our true passion. In fact, most people will never find it.

This speech had a lot of impact on me because I´m about to graduate and I´m a little scared of the future, so this topic was very inspiring to me. I don´t want to fail in my life. Nobody does.

I also loved the way Larry Smith ended his speech. He said, “You won´t be successful and happy, at least…at least…” It is on us to complete his sentence. We have the answer.

About Business and Music

English IV

Luis Nogales

Beethoven Businessman

Beethoven was a great businessman because he was the first musician who created a way to sell music. Before him music could only be heard in concerts.

This talk had an impact on me because music is my passion and my favorite bands have strong feelings about making money out of their music. But when I saw this talk I was shocked because I had never thought that music could be created with a financial purpose.

My second point is that Beethoven was an amazing person, but I had never seen him as something else and the fact that he was also a businessman makes me feel better because something I was afraid of was to get apart from music, my passion because of my major, economics.

The last reason is that this talk about Beethoven was my first TED talk ever. I had never seen any TED talks before that one. It was great to find a website where people express their ideas.

About Music

English IV

Claudia Jove

One topic that I liked was the one about a man who talked about music. This topic was interesting because this man showed me how I can create music with some things that I have in my house, for example pencils or brushes. If you use your imagination you can create melodies that sound great.

I was also interested in this topic because I love music! And I listen to music because it relaxes me. When I have free time, I like to create music with some pencils. I sometimes like playing my brother´s guitar. I honestly don´t know how to play this musical instrument, but I like to listen to some melodies I create. On my next vacation I will take some music lessons, so I can learn how to play the guitar.

When I was a child I was member of a music band “Pink.” We chose this name because my friends and I adored this color. As any other children, we played together and one of our favorite games was to play music. We used to sing songs from TV shows. We thought we will become the next music stars. I miss those times!

In conclusion, I think that all TED talks were interesting and in some cases I was able to learn a lot because TED speakers are people just like us and they try to make us understand that we can do amazing things. It´s on us to do that!

About Education

English IV

Darwin Nissttahuz

I believe that the talk that has had more impact on me was the one about the importance of creativity at schools. The speaker of that presentation explained that some current teachers have a square mind because they teach with the idea that they know everything and students know nothing. When teachers behave this way students don´t have the opportunity to relate to their teachers and enjoy the learning process.

Education is passive in many schools because teachers just write all they know on the board while students feel forced to copy all that information. It is difficult to see this reality because all schools educate people following the same kind of thought.

The speaker also explained that when we use creativity and motivate students, we contribute to their imagination and we can help students find new skills.

In conclusion, school teachers have to motivate students to be more creative because it´s important to get a good education.

About Success

English IV

Yasmine Sadud

The TED talk that has had more impact on me was the one about success. The speaker talked about how once people get success they stop doing all the things that made them successful. This talk had had an impact on me because of three reasons.

The first reason is that this talk taught me that we have to fight for our goals and dreams even though this might take a long time. Some people dream of having a big company and they´re waiting to get successful in a short period of time, but this is not easy at all.

A second reason is that we get motivated by this talk because if we work hard, we will reach as many goals as we want. I think nothing is impossible and many people believe the same. Big companies, for example “Coke” sets a good example on how to try to apply new strategies to be successful.

The last reason is that this doesn´t happen only with companies. This could happen in every aspect of your life. For example, if you want to become a great singer, you have to take classes. You should practice and practice and then you can sing perfectly, but if you quit classes, because you believe that you already know everything, you might start singing terribly. The truth is that if you stop practicing, you can lose your singing skill. This sounds weird, but it has happened to me. This is when people begin to lose opportunities.

In conclusion, we don´t have to stop pursuing our goals even if we think we already have everything we wanted.

About Design

Adriana Monasterios

English IV

The TED talk that has had more impact on me was the one about a designer. This designer inspired me a lot because he is a very different person. He can´t see colors, so he only sees things in black and white and even though he can´t see colors, he is able to design. He can do it so much better now because he has a device that is connected to his brain. I don´t really know how it works, but it´s kind of a camera. This presentation has had an impact on me because I think that we shouldn´t give up. He is a great example of this. We should fight for what we love, no matter what. Also, he shocked me because he made fun of himself saying that the clothes he was wearing were colorful even though he couldn´t see them. So, I think that we all should laugh at ourselves sometimes. And the last reason I enjoyed this talk was the fact that he is a famous designer. He inspired me to do my best to become a successful graphic designer. To conclude, I think that we should be happy with whom we are just like he does.