Transcriber: Aijia Yang Reviewer: Sebastian Betti
Can you move the Sun?
This was the deep and urgent question.
My four year old son interrupted his conversation with his little brother
to ask me while we’re sitting in line,
waiting in the drive-thru for my much needed cup of coffee.
You see, my son didn’t want the sun in his eyes anymore,
and somehow he believed that I had the strength to move it.
For that moment, he believed that I was more powerful than any god, goddess,
or favorite superhero.
He believed in my capabilities
and that gave me a renewed sense of confidence in myself.
We assume it is our responsibility
to teach our children how to live and succeed.
But what if they were actually responsible for guiding and developing us?
Would we be better for it?
The answer is yes.
So why am I here talking to you about children?
I’m not a teacher, doctor, or a psychologist
but I am a mom to two young kids,
a corporate leader and founder of two companies focused
on empowering young people.
And I have spent much of the past decade coaching and mentoring diverse students
and professionals on what I think it takes to be successful.
I believe that we should all channel our kid courage to thrive in college,
work and beyond.
And by kid courage, I’m talking about three things.
One, the courage to be creative.
Two, the courage to be confident.
And three, the courage to connect.
And if we unlock our kid courage, there is no stopping us.
Let’s talk about kid courage lesson number one, creativity.
Now, creativity is necessary when we think about progress
and innovation across all industries.
It’s a new idea which have allowed us to be
in the era of driverless cars to predict health care outcomes,
using advanced data analytics
and turn heaps of plastic waste in our ocean into everything
from clothing to furniture.
So if innovation is necessary to advance our society,
then probably we should be really in touch with our creative sides, right?
Wrong. We are way, way, way out of touch.
In fact, NASA conducted a study about a person’s creative potential,
and they engaged 6500 young children,
and they found that 98 percent of them score at the creative genius level. Why?
Because we have something called divergent thinking,
which essentially means they don’t see limits to their ideas.
They're not bound by concepts such as right and wrong.
However, when they conducted the same tests with adults,
only two percent of us scored at the same level.
In case you're struggling with the math,
this means that we are 96 percent less creative than our childhood selves.
I know your self-esteem may have just taken a hit,
but I assure you it gets worse.
A famous experiment called
the Spaghetti Marshmallow Tower Challenge has been conducted all over the world,
and the point is to take a few pieces of uncooked spaghetti,
some string and some tape and build a freestanding tower and gently place
the marshmallow on top and hope that it doesn’t come crumbling down.
Now, I participated while I was getting my MBA
and if you know anything about MBA students,
we are competitive and we like to win and succeed.
But almost all of us failed worse.
We learned that there’s one group that out consistently performs
not only MBA students, but also CEOs.
You’re looking at them. Kindergarteners!
Why?
Because their minds are open to any possibility.
They make more prototypes in the same amount of time,
and they don’t let the potential that they could fail
prevent them from attempting a solution.
Now it’s helpful to have NASA
and the Spaghetti Marshmallow Tower challenge studies
to support a point about a kid’s creative potential.
But the truth is I didn’t need them.
Just take the example of my toddler, Darius.
One weekend we were home relaxing
and I assumed he was just quietly playing nearby, but come to find out.
This little child of mine was busy innovating. You see?
He wanted to watch cartoons on TV and the option to sit on the floor.
It just wasn’t cutting it for him.
So he decided to improve his vantage point.
A chair on top of a table was key to achieving this.
You can see my toddler has fully embraced divergent thinking
because gravity definitely did not apply in his situation.
And my older son Samir, who’s now a kindergartener,
shows me his limitless creativity on a daily basis.
He loves puzzles, and he’s really good at them. 100, 200, 500, 700 pieces.
He is up for the challenge.
Now, when he first started attempting these puzzles,
I would intervene to show him what I thought was the right way.
Starting from the corners and edges and working our way in.
But he found his own process.
He prefers to start in the middle with the focal point and work his way out.
And as you can see, his process seems to be working just fine,
and he didn't need any of my help.
And even when he would complete these complex puzzles,
he would flip them over and do them the other way.
You know, the side with no pictures and just the cardboard.
And when I asked him why, he responded as most kids as his age do.
And he said, why not?
I have seen the gift that children have to approach the world
in a truly unfiltered way.
Now, imagine if each of us brings this limitless creativity to our jobs.
We may just discover the next breakthrough innovation in education,
health care or technology.
Kid courage lesson number two is about confidence.
Now, there’s plenty of research
that shows that we adults struggle with confidence.
And this is particularly true for women and people of color
who I’ve had the most experience working with in my professional career,
84 percent of women say that they feel uncomfortable talking about
professional and personal accomplishments.
In fact, we despise this so much.
A third of us would rather go to the dentist.
But you know, who isn't struggling with their confidence?
You guessed it, young kids.
Earlier this year, my son, Samir,
the kindergartner said to me completely unsolicited:
“Mom, I am really great at smelling.”
Smelling. I laughed, but I went along with this revelation and I asked him,
What else are you really great at?
Now, in all honesty, I wasn't expecting much of a response,
but instead without hesitation, he responded with:
Soccer, running fast,
protecting his little brother and, of course, puzzles.
Now you may be thinking that my kid
has an especially unique sense of self-confidence.
And before I try to persuade you otherwise,
I want you to spend a few moments thinking about your own confidence.
So, think right now about the things you are really great at
that you would feel comfortable
sharing with the strangers around you or via social media.
OK, everyone ready?
Don’t stress I’m not actually going to make you do this,
but probably many of us felt just a little bit squeamish
at the thought of this.
I wanted to test if young children really do possess
a greater sense of self-confidence.
And so I enlisted the help of a few early education experts,
and we brought together children from diverse backgrounds across Texas
and Massachusetts.
We gave them each 30 seconds to tell us all
the things they are great at.
On average, each child listed three positive attributes.
Across all backgrounds, the majority of children said that they felt really good
talking about themselves.
Interestingly,
girls were more likely to say that they felt good compared to boys
and underrepresented minorities,
more likely to say that they felt good than their white peers.
My favorite strength was shared by a little Hispanic boy in Texas
who said he loves science.
And one day he's going to be a scientist.
So for all of you out there who might be
an underrepresented individual in STEM today,
keep going and pushing ahead
so that little boy can see that there are role models that he can look up to.
What I want us to take away is that children might have the same anxiety
and fear of rejection that we adults do, but they don't let this overtake them.
Remember this fact the next time you are asked to talk about your own value?
The third and final lesson on kid courage is around connection, and by connection
I'm talking about the absolute root of connection empathy.
Now, with everything that we've been through over
the past two years related to social injustice, our society feels fragmented,
tense and at times hopeless.
And this has carried over to the workplace as well.
Eighty five percent of employees report that their employers lack empathy,
and the pandemic that we're still living through has certainly highlighted
the negative consequences of not having those personal interactions in our lives.
So, while we adults and corporate corporations are struggling to connect,
once again, children are leading the way.
I'll give you another example from my toddler, Darius.
Just a few weeks ago, we were visiting my mom, his grandmother,
and she had a major health setback and she was unable to tie her shoes.
Darius immediately went over to offer his help.
As you can see her, my toddler wears velcro shoes.
He has no idea how to tie shoes,
but this didn’t stop him from offering his support.
Not that long ago we were out at a restaurant
and he heard a baby crying nearby,
which prompted him to stop what he was doing,
raise his arms up and to say “deep breath”
in hopes that the baby would calm down.
Now, it’s not just my kid who is especially kind and concerned
about the well-being of others.
Research shows that young children are about as helpful as human beings ever get.
Why?
Because they don’t have the mental complexity to think about
whether or not to act.
They just do.
But the same intrinsic behavior to offer support was missed by many in our schools,
our workplaces and our overall society.
To check in with our black and brown communities
after the death of George Floyd or our Asian communities
after the racial attacks targeting these groups.
So whether you want to improve how you engage your customers
or your employees to address social injustice or simply strengthen
the relationships with the people in your everyday lives,
connection is necessary and a failure to demonstrate it
has undeniable consequences both personally and professionally.
We all face challenges in our lives.
The next time you are faced with a difficult situation,
I urge you to pause
and take a deep breath, as my toddler would say.
Channel your kid courage.
Ask yourself what would a child do?
Would they have the courage to be creative,
to propose a new idea or take a risk?
Would they have the courage to be confident
to ask for that next project, promotion or pay raise?
Would they have the courage to connect to help a friend,
a colleague or even a stranger?
And sprinkle your kid courage like magical fairy dust everywhere you go.
Remind your team members and your mentees of their value,
especially those who are underrepresented in fields such as STEM
and entrepreneurship.
Use your seat at the table to advocate for those from marginalized groups
and remind your own children of their power and learn from them.
Here's the thing about kid courage.
It’s about changing your mindset from what could happen if you fail
to focusing on what could happen if you succeed
and all of the beautiful lessons you will learn, even if you don’t.
We were all children once,
which means we already have everything within us to be effective,
productive and successful.
And if we channel our kid courage,
we may just move the Sun.
Thank you.