How to get motivated - by losing?! (with Monica Wadhwa)
How to Be a Better Human
TED
4.1 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you’ve ever daydreamed o standing at an Olympic podium or delivering a big award speech, you probably pictured yourself as a winner. But according to today’s guest, marketing professor Monica Wadhwa, maybe you should imagine yourself as a runner-up. In this episode, Monica talks about why getting close to – but not quite achieving – triumph actually helps us gain the energy and motivation we need to chase after our goals, and shares tips on how we can change our mindset and create almost wins that will put us on the path to success.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective. |
| 0:02.0 | Audio Collective. |
| 0:04.0 | You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm your host Chris Duffy. |
| 0:12.0 | Okay, here's a wild story for you. Several years ago, I was a |
| 0:15.8 | contestant on the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. And this was at a time when I was |
| 0:20.9 | just starting out in my comedy career and money was really tight and so when they asked the question |
| 0:25.9 | who wants to be a millionaire my answer was me please I would really really like that I want that very much |
| 0:35.2 | Now I didn't win a million dollars on the show. I got knocked out very early because I didn't know what the acronym NASCAR stood for. |
| 0:39.7 | To be honest, I didn't even know that NASCAR was an acronym, but now, till the day I die, |
| 0:44.9 | I will never forget that it stands for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. |
| 0:50.9 | Honestly, seems like there's too many words that mean car in there, like that's a kind of a trick acronym, but it is what it stands for. I'm going to leave it behind. |
| 0:58.0 | And look, here's the weird thing about not winning on that game show for me. Okay, predictably I did wake up in the |
| 1:05.4 | middle of the night and I was like, why didn't I use my lifeline? I should have |
| 1:07.9 | phoned my friend John. He 100% knew that answer. But then kind of unexpectedly there was this other side effect of losing on the game show |
| 1:16.0 | which is that when I thought about not winning I found this new kind of motivation for |
| 1:21.8 | succeeding in my career. |
| 1:23.2 | Right, it was like, if this money isn't just going to fall out of the sky and save my comedy |
| 1:28.3 | career, then I'm going to have to work really hard and I'm going to make it happen anyway. Who needs that |
| 1:33.1 | game show money? Look I fully recognize how ridiculous my personal example is, right? |
| 1:38.8 | It's not like in any way I deserve to win on a game show. But on today's episode we're going to be exploring |
| 1:45.9 | the surprising benefits of not winning with an expert who studies exactly that. |
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