How you can make failure work… for you!

How can someone achieve something that he really wants? What kind of tools can one use? What to expect, when your dreams and goals, do not become real? I am sharing my experience with you, hopefully it will help you accomplish your ambitions!

It is a great honor for a speaker to participate in a Tedx event. Tedx events, initiated by Ted, a non-profit organization that was founded in 1984 in California, are prestigious speaking events that take place in many countries around the world and aim to spread ideas that are worth spreading. In December of 2012, one of my new year’s resolutions I set with my colleagues was to speak in a Tedx event.

The first thing we did was to contact with the leaders of Tedx events in Cyprus and Greece, as I am Greek- Canadian. We did not hear something from them. In March of 2012, I noticed that the selection process of the Ted speakers in California has started. The first requirement was to send a one-minute video of your proposed speech to Ted and wait until your speech was chosen among thousands of applications, in order to talk in one of the events which would take place in 14 different cities and in 6 different continents. I picked the Tedx event in Amsterdam (the closest destination). If your one-minute video was accepted, then you could perform your speech there for 4-6 minutes. I thought: “It’s ok! I have nothing to lose!”

I could never imagine how hard it would be to prepare a one-minute video so “amazing” as to please me. I had been working for over 4 weeks to create the main body of the speech. The difficulties started when I finally was ready to video the speech. To be more specific, I shot the video more that 60 times! Keep in mind that I have been working as a professional speaker for over 9 years. Two months later, having achieved a good result, I asked for feedback from worldwide-recognized speakers who I knew from the Global Speakers Summit. I did many changes. After 15 more shootings, the video was good.

You could imagine my disappointment when I received the rejection email concerning my application for Ted. In their email, they suggested to attempt next year. I wandered; do they give the same answer to everyone?

In May of 2012, I was talking with a dear friend from mastermind group. She shared with me how thrilled she was to be one of the speakers in Tedx Chennai in India. I asked her how she got invited to speak and she told me that one of our friends form a workshop we did together at Jack Canfield’s event in Arizona was a member of the organizing committee. I asked her ‘Do you mind if I contact with her because I would, also, like to participate in this event?-Of course not!’

So I contacted my friend in India and she informed me that there were already many applications to look over and that I had no time to prepare my speech outline for the event as the deadline was in some days. I sent her the video and my speech within 10 minutes! She told me that she would present my nomination at the committee and they would contact me.

In the 30th of September, I talked about “Our Unique Failures” in front of an audience of 1200 people together with 16 world class speakers form 10 countries and 5 continents. I explained that failure is part of the success. Failure exists only when you give up or when you keep on trying in the same way. My participation in TedxChennai is a living proof.

Be Unique!

Jill Douka