Is Your Self-Identity Limiting Your Potential? | Vusi Thembekwayo on Impact Theory

I couldn't believe I was saying that and

your

initial reaction is like what are you talking about? Yeah, so what were you talking about? You mean because I know you came from a beautiful place, but I have to imagine when people hear you say that they get scared, what do you mean, yeah, I mean I have to tell you, so there was that? It was so amazing it was such an important moment and statement because there was a context within which I said it and I was giving a masterclass like I do and I made that statement and it was probably on YouTube for like two years now.

Things are just bubbling and simmering and then someone went and found it on YouTube and clipped that video and put it on Twitter and it just blew up, so I think language is important here, I'm not saying black people. You don't deserve freedom, I think that's an important point to make, first of all, freedom is not something you deserve, it's a God given right, it's like breathing well, so you shouldn't have to justify why you deserve to be free. and often people. that approach that conversation heard me say that black people don't deserve freedom and I'm going to say no, no, the idea that you deserve it means that there is something you have to do to earn it, which in it

self

is fallacious, there is nothing what you have to do. do to earn the right like Tom Bill you to

self

-determination you can self-determine that is

your

human right right that says if you accept and we all do it there have been hundreds of years of exclusion and structural oppression not only of the black body but of the black mind more important is the black mind nelson mandela sitting on the plane becoming a saint there is a black pilot true, this is the father of our democracy himself caught in that trap but he had to be wise and intelligent enough to get out of that comment in his head and See that comment in the context of the moment, so when I say we weren't ready for freedom, what I mean is that we have it, but we haven't freed our minds properly, so what are we doing is violating the reasons and excuses that we had before freedom to explain why we are not doing what we should be doing now in freedom, so I think the oldest, the oldest, most independent country in Africa is Ghana, and I think it has probably been independent for more than 60 years, true, but if you follow the trajectory of where that country has gone, if you go to Haiti and, of course, there are several structural problems around the relationship that Haiti has with Europe and with France, but if you go to Haiti and if you go to Zimbabwe, just north of here, who is Zimbabwe going to blame?

That's really a question because what happens is that we have put these people in positions of power and leadership whose mindset was not separate from the way things used to be. so they bring an oppressed mind to a construct of freedom, then they act like oppressed people and we wonder why the results are the way they are krs-1 said it in the most beautiful way in one of his raps, he said that as black people we need to be free people , not liberated people, that's all and the point is that the starting point is when you are free you don't find the need to explain your freedom, you're just right um and that's where the comment came from it was and it was a reflection it was fine so I did it we got it but were we ready for it?

Are we using it the best we can? This incredible freedom that we enjoy, are we really being transformative? Are we being imaginative? The things are that we are a generation that our children's children will look at and say those guys had the right model, they did it right or they didn't and it's a question we have to answer every day. Yeah, it's interesting, so, because of my experience, I think. of the same problem, but I don't think about it in racial terms, I think about it in economic terms, it's probably the closest thing, so working in the inner cities I realized that whites, Hispanics and blacks didn't matter.

People had been told things like the ones I remember. A kid who comes to see me has to be Hispanic and he said my mom told me the world doesn't want to see me succeed and I thought, "I actually understand why she says she's trying to say look, this is going to be hard." For you, there are hardships that you will face that other people won't, so I know where she was trying to go, it was like trying to calm him down for the difficult road ahead, but what she told him was that you don't belong. in that room, so don't bother, don't even try, and I started to become obsessed with the notion that this is a mindset problem, so generational poverty to me is not really about money, it will manifest itself as money, but it is a question of mentality, it is a question of how to think, so there are minimum requirements.

Anyone who is watching you and has a little common sense will go. This guy is so eloquent. I'm sure his verbal ability has helped him in life. 100. I think they are beyond. a doubt, but if someone has that latent skill that you don't train, he won't end up being able to leverage it as a skill set. There's a guy named jeffrey canada and he was watching basically how to give people the right mindset to grow up successfully in Harlem at the height of the crack epidemic and he's just like that, it's atrocious and what he realized from watching the data was that what mattered was the number of words you heard at the age of five and the ratio of positive words to negative words because of what it did to the language centers of your brain and how you spoke in a job interview or when trying to communicate with other people and that's why he says that this is a very complicated problem that has a very simple solution.

It's like a pivot that if you address that then everything else falls apart and I will say one of those things is not just language, it's just how you think about your place in the world, your

identity

and it all comes back to that. Do you agree that the statement you made about being able to make the most of your freedom focuses on how you conceptualize yourself and the world with a 100

identity

, which is why I think the work of our current generation really revolves around about forcing ourselves to counter reconstruct these same identities that we have if we think about it, we live in a world today where almost all identities are assumed correctly, so the idea, for example, of masculinity is assumed well, um, the idea of ​​being a strong Zulu man, there is a a script, there is a book that someone wrote that says these are the ways you have to do this right and I couldn't edit it, I only got the correct pdf version, but I say yes I'm alive.

In a complex and changing world, I can't take this pdf script to a new environment, it's not going to work, so I either maintain tradition and excitement or progress, but I can't do both well. And you know, in my case, I was really bothered by this because I was punished, I was made fun of, I was attacked, then I realized that I was actually giving others permission to be themselves and that is the most empowering thing you can have. . what you can do when you choose to go into no man's land, that is, say well the things that you're saying, those kinds of incendiary things, so don't just say the things that you're saying, but allow yourself to vent, allow those thoughts be discussed and aired by people, right?

One of the things I had to learn was that while I was doing it, it was amazing how many other people came out and said, sure, I'm glad you said that because I've been thinking but I couldn't say it. because you know they would lynch me and I was like wow man, like that, like that, we are all aware that the script doesn't work, but none of us are willing to say it because they are going to kick us out. in the proverbial concentration camp of social media well, son of edna, right, I mean, that's not progress, right, the last thing just so you think what is this, what's the worst that can happen, well, the worst What can happen is that you are wrong, so you are educated. which goes back to where we started from the beginning, it's still teachable, so the worst that can happen is you say something, you make a mistake, someone picks up the phone, you're polite, you grow and mature, um, but I think it's really important. , I think this idea of ​​identity is so powerful when someone asks who you are, how do you answer that question well?

You are the job you have You are the place you come from You are the lineage of your ancestors What are your qualifications? Its geography? Who has the reason? And I think a lot of us don't really bother to think about that enough. I want to go back to this idea of ​​starting. I think that gets to your point that you should be educated. You are wrong, but you realize that you are wrong and now you can take a step towards being right. It seems to me that one of the most incredible things about your journey was simply your willingness to fail at the beginning, which, of course, you did, so why are you so staunch about the notion of just starting?

Because the most important part of the momentum equation is correct movement, so I'll give you an example. That's how I explain this to people, so if you're driving your car and for some other strange reason you know the car stops and you're stuck, right? You have one of two things you can do well and let's imagine you're in a cell phone black zone and you can't. call anyone one or two things you can do sit in the car change the risks and pray that someone comes by for you that's what we call the charity approach hello I'm here I grew up poor I didn't get a good education help It completely empowers you to the person on the other side of the equation, which is: I feel like I want to help and this is how much I'm willing to help.

Okay, show the dangers. The alternative is that you open the driver's door and fall out. Then you release your hand, put your shoulder behind the chassis and push. Now, when you start pushing, the hardest part will be that initial meter because the car is completely still, it has no momentum, so you start pushing and what happens is five. meters after the line 10 meters after the line assuming the road is flat of course suddenly you're not pushing as hard as before you're just maintaining momentum so the reason I always tell people to start is because the hardest part is the beginning my dad used to tell me you will always be the worst at something the first time you do it, so the results you get the first time you do it are not the true results, that was the worst version of you doing that. that's the first time you sing, the first time you speak in public, you know, the first time you try to do a comedy set, the first time you do something it's the worst time because you don't have the necessary skills, but as you You do it, what happens is that you mature.

You improve and you learn well, that's what I mean by that, the reason it's important to start is because all those stories, that self-narrative that you've been telling and working hard in your head, the excuses are valid, the world is no Fair enough, but guess what, it's going to be hard at first, but the only way out of this is to get started. There is no other way out. You can't negotiate with that. One last thing you need to think about, so I literally said this to an entrepreneur today who came to me to see me about this very thing and she was like look, you know, the business is covered, it's been a tough time yada yada and she I said I told you if you were going to imagine that you knew the Empire State buildings.

I told you that if you climb to the top of the building and stand on the ledge you pray to whatever god you praise the god Buddha Allah and say no. If you don't believe in gravity and you jump, you will find that gravity believes in you, so he was telling the environment that the moment we're in gravity, you can't negotiate your way out of it, right? You can start with who you need to be to survive this moment and what she was doing, which is what I think a lot of people do: they cling to who they used to be right, so I used to be the pit that doesn't work.

So who do you need to be and start that journey? Honestly, I'm a big believer in the school of start, start, I think it's often more important in the whole building of momentum than everything that comes after that guy, your obsession with what works is a shared obsession. You and I think so alike that it's scary that you might be the closest person in terms of saying things that I've never heard anyone else say that I've said or I've had floating around in my head for a long time um and that idea of ​​what What I want to shout at people is for your own good do what works do what works like I'm not saying it because I'm taking something out of the equation I'm just saying do it what works look at the data it's what I call the physics of progress the physics of progress is basically the scientific method recontextualize for business you have an informed hypothesis based on your life then test that hypothesis by performing an experiment doing something but then look at the data, this really moved me towards what I want, yes or no, and you have a quote, in fact I think I wrote this, let me get this out, um, you said and I quote, this is vuci, everyone don't give me something out of pity.

I don't want pity, give me something because I'm the best at what I do, man, talk about pushing the car now, the interesting thing is,next step so once you get it right you go oh okay so I actually don't need the perfect person to come save me I can do it myself. bro i love your way of thinking man i love it where can people find out more about you? I think they need to spend time with you and your ideas, so I love you man in vuci tembego, the full word on all the social networks I'm on. ig I'm on linkedin uh twitter and of course on youtube I published a lot of my material there and I love this like this current stage of my life I feel like it's very interesting I feel like the great teacher who is a student, you know what? that means I'm like oh wow, I know a lot and then I read something and I'm like oh wow, I don't know anything and then you know you're like the next stage, the next phase and every time I'm interacting with what I know, I'm still educated. older because I think collective intelligence is a lot more powerful so yeah I'm all over social media hit me up I'd love to chat I love it man okay guys this is definitely someone.

That you're going to want to follow this man is amazing, uh, and speaking of amazing, if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and until next time, my friends are going to be legendary, take care and enough people have said yes, now that's it you know. It now

impact

s eight and a half million lives, but if I could count the no's, I mean, there are tens of thousands of notes that we've all heard over the last decade.