Hello guys, today we are going to discuss the
highlights of the speech given by Maisie Williams in the recent TEDx Talk at
Manchester. It was approximately 16 minutes speech. Here, I have written the speech
for you to read and my thoughts on the same. Share your thoughts in the
comments. You may watch the same spoken by here by clicking on the link: https://youtu.be/TTYOpfGvlwc
“Hi, I am Maisie Williams. And I am kind of just waiting for someone to come
on stage and tell me that there's been some sort of miscommunication. And that
I should probably leave. No?
So, some of you
may know me as an actress. Some of you may know me for my really average tweets.
Oh yeah! And some of you may be finding out who I am for the first time right
now. Hello!”
For those of who, who are from the last category, Margaret
Constance Williams, known as Maisie Williams, is an English actress. She made
her professional acting debut in 2011 as Arya Stark of Winterfell in the HBO
world phenomenon Game of Thrones. She is an astounding actress and has also
starred in other television shows, feature films, web-series and recently enough
in plays. Her broad artistic life led her to co-found Daisie, a social media
aimed at creative people. Let’s continue.
“Whether you knew me before or not, you're probably wondering what I'm gonna
talk to you about today? And I would be lying if I said it didn't take me 1 or
2 sleepless nights trying to figure that out. At last, here I am.
Upon finding out
the news that I would be giving a TED talk, I did what I think most people do
and watched about 50 TED talks back-to-back and read ‘Talk like Ted’ by Carmine
Gallo for some inspiration. Was I inspired? Yes and No. Did it make me want to
go out and change the world? Hell yeah! Did it make me feel like a totally inadequate
public speaker with absolutely no point to make who was definitely in need of a
big Thesaurus if she wants to
keep up? Indeed.
What can I possibly
say that would have any impact! What point am I trying to make! And who the
hell thought it was a good idea to give me a TED talk!”
That shows her humor as well as her consciousness. She wants to be useful. With her speech she
wants to make an impact, any impact. That to me, is the most important feature
of any speech. After going through the entire speech, one might feel that she
has just promoted herself, her show and her app. However, the context of her entire
speech is this. Moving on.
“So, here's the part where I tell you what I know.
I'm the youngest
of four siblings. My parents divorced when I was four months old. I really was
the icing on the cake of a terrible marriage. I have two step siblings who are
younger than me and a half-brother who's older than all of us. I grew up in a three-bedroom
council house with four of my six siblings just outside of Bristol.
I went to a very
ordinary school. I got very ordinary grades. I wasn't quite good enough to get
a gold star and I also wasn't quite bad enough to be kept after school. I
walked that nice center line where if I kept my mouth shut in class then I
could probably get away with not being spoken to you by teachers for weeks on
end. Everything about me was pretty damn ordinary, except for how I felt on the
inside. I had big dreams. Shock.”
Yes, again the jokes are good. But the message in
the last line is notable. She explains how her life was ordinary yet inside she
felt extra ordinary. Opportunities are important to explore the extra-ordinary.
But unless one feels it from inside, the opportunities are invisible.
“From as young as I can remember, I have dreamed of becoming a professional dancer.
There are certain memories from my childhood that I would really rather forget.
But during those times of immense pain, I found myself instinctively walking
over to my mother's CD player cranking up the volume to drown out the noise and
letting my body move to the beat. It's hard to describe how it felt. I was
harnessing emotions that I didn't even really know the names of yet. I was summoning
all of this energy and feeling. It flew through my body and out of my fingertips.
I was alone in my own head and I felt the most alive. I didn't really know much
about the big wide world then. But I knew that this feeling was addictive and I
was going to stop at nothing until I made it my profession.”
This para of her
speech has a lot to offer. First, she talks about dreams at a young age. Now, though
she has become an actress instead of a professional dancer, it signifies the
importance to have dreams and goals. It takes you somewhere ahead of where you
are today. Second, she talks about memories that she would rather forget. That should
remind people that everyone has such memories. Brooding over them won’t get you
anywhere. Third, is her conviction. Even in her pain, she had the conviction to
drown herself in her passion.
“At eight years
old, I was enrolled in dance class. And by 10, I informed my mother that I
didn't want to go to school anymore. I wanted to be like Billy Elliot and go to
stage school. This was the first opportunity or challenge I was presented with.
Even as young as
10, I was willing to give up all of my friends and go away to board a private
school. Away from my siblings, away from my mum. She would repeatedly ask me, “Are
you sure? This is what you want?”
And to me, it was
a no-brainer. I didn't just want this I needed it. My grubby knees and crooked teeth
were not on the list of requirements for becoming a professional dancer. And
when I look back now both myself and my mother looked severely out of place. But
at the time, I was just too young and naive to feel inadequate. I didn't care. If
Billy Elliot could do it, so could I.
Once my audition
was done, I returned home. For two weeks of staring out the window, waiting for
the postman, waiting for my ticket out of my sleepy village and into a world of
jazz hands and dorm rooms. It was good news followed by bad news. I had got in
but the fees to attend a school like this were not cheap. And despite my best
efforts, I had not received any government funding. I auditioned again the
following year. And this time I received 40% funding, but this was still just
money that we didn't have, and it broke my heart.
I was good enough.
I made the cut. But I wasn't going anywhere. It was a blessing in disguise. Although,
if anyone would have said that to me back then, I probably would have given them
the finger and told them to jog on. I wasn't willing to give up that easily.”
Here, she talks about her first opportunity and the
failure. Do note here that at such tender age, she was willing to give up her regular
life to attain her dream. She also talks about her flaws, yet she convinced herself
to fulfill her dream. The story of her first opportunity culminates in a very
important learning for life. At times, you may be good enough yet not make it. Make
peace with it.
“So, at age 11, I was bursting with excitement when my dance teacher informed
me of a talent show which boasted opportunities of making you a star. This was
the second opportunity I was faced with.
I entered into
singing, acting, dancing and modelling. The talent show consisted of workshops
and seminars with specialists who would help train you up for your performance
at the end of the week.
After meeting a
woman could Louise Johnston in an improvisation acting workshop, she gave me
the words ‘bowling ball’ and asked me to create a short scene inspired by these
words. After making her laugh with a fictional story of how I threw a bowling ball
at my brother and it bounced, she asked me to join her acting agency.
I didn't really
know what this meant. I knew that I would do auditions for films and may be
become an actor. But I still had big dreams of becoming a professional dancer. So,
this woman was gonna have to work a lot harder than that, if she was gonna
convince eleven-year-old me that I was gonna become an actress.
Was this gonna
take time away from the 30 hours of dancing I was doing a week. And what if I
didn't get the part. Was this gonna be too upsetting. And do actresses have
teeth like mine. Because if they do, I'm yet to watch any of their movies.”
Make peace with a failure not with life. She
failed. She pulled herself up and tried a different route. That’s important
lesson. Another impressive feature that she has is making the most of it. As I noted
earlier it is important to her to make an impact with her speech. Similarly, she
made the most out of the acting workshop. She explains that she did not know what
it meant to be an actress, something that she did not choose earlier. Note here
that life shapes itself if you work hard enough. Then she makes a second remark
about her teeth, that shows that she sure does not feel perfect, yet it does
not stop her. She has embraced what she feels to be her imperfections.
“After meeting Louise in the February of 2009 and trying but failing to land
the part in the hit sequel Nanny McPhee to the Big Bang, my second audition was
for a show called Game of Thrones. This was the third opportunity or challenge
I was presented with.
I climbed the
steps to the Methodist Church with my mother's hand in mine. I perched my tiny
bottom in one of the seats outside the audition room. And listened to an
annoying girl, with her even more annoying mother, tell me all about the number
of auditions she had done prior to this one and also about her pet fish. My
name was called. Then, I stepped inside.
I had a hard Bristolian
accent and dark rings around my eyes that were so big they took up half my face.
And a hole in the knee of my trousers which I tried to cover with my left hand
as I was talking to the kind lady who taped my audition.
But, as soon as
she pressed record, it all drifted away, much like when I was dancing in my
mother's living room. I harnessed all of my insecurities and self-doubt and let
it flow through the words that came out of my mouth. I was cheeky, I was loud,
I was angry. And for this, I was perfect.
After getting the
part and shooting the pilot episode, the show slowly grew to become one of the
biggest shows in television history. To this day, we've smashed previous HBO
viewing records. We've been nominated for over 130 Emmys, making us the most
Emmy nominated show to ever exist. We've recently finished shooting our eighth
and final season which is predicted to smash records that we've already broken.
And nearly a decade to the day since my first audition, I'm still wondering
when am I gonna get to be Billy Elliot. I joke. But in all seriousness, I have
absolutely no plans of slowing down.”
Her third opportunity which made her a star. Apart from
again making the most out of the moment at the audition even with her
self-doubts, I want to highlight that she makes two important judgement. One is
about the girl who tried to bring her confidence down and second about the lady
who took her audition. Its important to know who is helping you achieve your
dream and who is pulling you back. Then she briefs you about her show. To some,
it may seem as bragging about your fame. But one should be proud of one’s achievements.
“Throughout my time in this industry, it has been a minefield, I have grown
from a child into an adult and from four feet tall into a whopping five feet
tall. I have constantly been trying to say the right thing accidentally saying
the wrong thing. Trying not to swear too much. And trying to stop saying like like
all of the time.
In February of
2017, a friend of mine, Dom and I were drinking beers in my kitchen and he
confessed to me that there is a huge problem with the creative industries. I
agreed. The series of events that had got me to that point were based mainly on
luck and timing and were unable to be recreated. He suggested to me that we
create a social media but just for artists. To be able to collaborate with one another
and create a career. This was the fourth opportunity or challenge I was presented
with.
Great! I thought. How
the hell do we do that. And Daisy was born. Of course, everyone who I spoke to
about my latest endeavor thought that I was mad. However, I know that this is
something that I can help change.
This last year, in
the industry, we've seen a huge shift with the me-too movement. The industry is
built with gatekeepers, holding all of the power and selecting who they deem talented
enough to advance to the next level. More often than not, it is easier to catch
the attention of those people if you have graduated from an expensive school. But
even then, I have so many friends who are fresh out of art school, having
trained for years, and are still no closer to creating a career.
Now, I'm not
claiming that with Daisy I can make everybody a star. But I do believe that the
key to success within creative industries is collaborating. Actors are only as
good as their writers. Musicians are only as strong as their producers. And designers
need their teams.
To start the
company, we self-funded. I had a pot of cash from Game of Thrones that I was free
to invest wherever I liked. Dom had a series of businesses from the age of 16
which meant he was also left with a pot of cash. We threw our money together 50:50
and we built a team. Now Lady Gaga has repeatedly said that there could be a
room of 100 people and 99 don't believe in you but it just takes that one
person to believe in you and they can change your life. Well, now we had a team
of six.
Over the next 16
months, we built our MVP. Now if you're wondering what MVP is, I only found out
what it is about six months ago. And from what I can gather, it's a product
which proves has a problem worth solving with the minimum team effort. So basically,
from my point of view, you're marketing something which you know is gonna be
good one day but is a little bit bad right now. And for us that was an iOS app.
The six of us made
an office in Dom's garden and on the first of August 2018, we released our version
one. We had over 30,000 downloads in the first 24 hours and over 30,000 comments
asking when the Android version was going to be come. Despite our app being
imperfect buggy and literally built by one man alone, this was exactly what we
needed for people to invest. We learned a lot from our angry users and our scary
investors. And over the last six months, we have grown our team to 16 people. From
then till now, we've been building version 2 which we will be launching in
April.
Within the
industry, there is a common phrase which I think we're all pretty familiar with
and that is “It's not what you know, it's who you know!”. And with Daisy, I
hope to give that power back to the Creator. I want to encourage people to
create a list of contacts that they will work with and support as they take
their first steps into the fickle and often challenging creative world.”
There are two key takeaways from this part of the speech.
One being considerate and giving back. Second, taking the risks. She got
discovered and made it huge as an actress. At the age of around 20, being only
7 years old in the industry she has taken the risk of investing her money in something
which would yield something for the industry.
“I am of the generation who grew up with the Internet. I've never known
anything else. We are connected, we are aware, and we are the future. I hope
Daisy can breathe new life into the slightly dystopian ad-riddled health
escapes that social media platforms have become. I hope to create a space where
people can boast their art and creativity rather than what car they are driving
and whether or not they bought it cash or on Finance.
In a world where
literally anyone can be famous, I hope to inspire people to be talented instead.
Talent will carry you so much further than your 15 minutes of fame. So why am I
telling you all this? The very fact that I'm here, giving a TED talk right now,
is so far from anything I thought that I was capable of. Even writing the bio
for my speech, made me realize that in a decade everything in my life has
changed.
I am an Emmy-nominated
actress, an entrepreneur and an activist. Yet, I have no formal qualifications
to my name. When I left school about seven years ago, I made it my mission to
continue learning even though I never wanted to set foot in a classroom again. Who
knows what's going to happen to my life in the next 10 years! I, surely, have no
idea. I've never had an end goal. It's working out okay so far.
So, trust that
you're good enough. If there's one thing that I've learned, is that there truly
is a place for everyone. Ask questions and laugh in the face of people who say
that they're stupid questions. Be open to learning and admitting when you don't
know what the hell is going on. Refuse to hold yourself back and dare to dream
big. Thank you for listening.”
She ended her speech with brilliant thoughts. Being
of the generation which is always told to be stuck in the internet, she gives a
positive outlook to the use of internet by stating we are connected and aware.
Then she drops her thought of the speech. “Inspire
people to be talented rather than famous.” I want to write a lot about this single
line, yet I would refrain myself to just saying that do your work with utmost
devotion and work hard in everything you do. Try to learn and be good at
everything you do.
Then she talks about the uncertainties in life and how
having no end goals is good enough. Do not mistake this statement as not having
dreams. Dream thousands of things. The achievement of your dream should not be
the end goal though. Move to fulfilling another dream.
Last she talked about positivity. To me, positivity
is the key to inner peace and happiness. Its not just a attitude, it’s a way of
life.
I hope you like Maisie’s speech and my breakdown of
it. Thanks.
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