The 6 words you need to change your life | Maria Thattil | TEDxSydney

thank you, do you all remember a significant moment when

your

life

change

d? The year here is 2020 and I have just come out of 112 days locked up and I am one of the two women on a split screen broadcast digitally around the world and I listen and the winner is María la Till and at that moment I had just become the third woman of color at 69 years old to be Miss Universe Australia thank you but you can see it on my face there was an air of disbelief because I had gone from being this closeted son of working class Indian immigrants, one of whom is a former priest to now, no I realized it was funny, but someone laughed, you know, and then I went on to be our country's representative on one of the biggest stages in the universe and now I'm an openly queer, sex-positive author, TV host, podcaster and presenter and I can see how yeah, that looks like that at the time my

life

change

d, in fact, it was actually my little brother who is here today. who recently told me: "I'm waiting for my Miss Universe rocket moment, you know, the one that's going to change everything, and to be fair, he's so gay that maybe he's waiting for his Miss Universe moment, I don't know, but Look, I've learned something about these life-changing moments and contrary to what you think, it wasn't like that, in fact it wasn't even a moment, but it was six

words

and just four years ago I was broke in five figures of death. newly single and closeted and just moved back in with my parents I was working a corporate job that I hated but I knew with every fiber of my being that I was destined for more, but I didn't know what for and I didn't know how, but I was waiting for something It will change my life and how many of you can relate to that?

You know you've used what someone else told you and now you feel like you can't live life because you're stuck. The first time I felt stuck was. when I got to my skin. It's 2013 and this is how I looked. He was basically dressed up as a white woman. You like it. I don't know why no one told me. losing contact lenses, the color matches the base, is just what leads someone to wear a costume for everyday life. You know, I had absorbed messages that I didn't fit into ideas for the power and success of beauty, so I thought I had to change and I absorbed them. messages very young I mean I was five years old when my first crush told me that he couldn't like me because I was a monster with dirty skin and I grew up in an Australia where diversity was not celebrated, they had no representation for people from the south of Asia liked me and racial abuse was tolerated, so I would go home and rub my knees raw in the shower hoping the color would go away because that girl grew up to be a 13-year-old girl who used skin creams. whiten skin even before using them.

Same makeup and I look back and think about how I thought if I changed my skin maybe I'd be good enough and I did the same thing when it came to my sexuality too and I'm going to be so real with Guys for a minute, you know what? What is it like to be the daughter of a former priest and try to tell

your

parents that you like to go out to eat and I'm not talking about restaurants? Try explaining that crap to Mom and Dad later. Guys, I grew up in a religious and culturally conservative context and the ideas I had about the agenda of life, love and sex, were from these limiting frameworks that taught me that the honorable thing I can do is find a good man. to marry and procreate with, and so I was obsessed with it and thought that if I married a nice white boy who ideally looked like Zac Efron, it would be good enough.

I would have made it and I didn't get there with Zac Efron, but I found a man I loved and I passed. Years of waiting for the ring and falling asleep every night fantasizing about what it was like to be with a woman, but it remained a fantasy because I thought I was incapable of changing and did the same when it came to my ambitions. After school. I obtained degrees in Psychology in administration. I started working in corporate human resources and I thought if I follow this conventional blueprint for success, people will look at me and say, yeah, she's successful, she made me see that she used what other people did. she said and it made me think that I can't because I'm not enough and I also did something to change my life.

I didn't and four years ago I hit that sad low point, but that same year I saw an Indian Australian. The lawyer won Miss Universe Australia and I felt two things: one excitement because I thought I just saw her propulsive moment, but two, this unwavering, inexplicable fire where I thought I have to know how it feels and as short as I am. I threw my hat in the ring and it's 20 20? It came undercover and the blockades followed guys, how do you compete when you can't attend events? You can't network, you can't exercise. I couldn't even leave my house for more than an hour a day and after I broke up I moved back in with mom and dad, what was I going to do on a dirt road on the outskirts of Melbourne to show people I could be Miss Universe Australia?

Well, this, hello guys. Yeah okay just give me a minute to explain guys, in Miss Universe there is a runway segment and since I was locked up I had to send a video of me doing it but my parents lived in a small rental and didn't have a good enough stretch of floor to walk on the catwalk, so what did I do? I went outside, but obviously that wasn't working, so God, my mom came to the rescue and this story is about to get a lot stranger, she called the local priest and asked him. He if we could use the church hall and honestly I don't think he knew this is what was going on but forgive me father because I have sinned and honestly the way I campaigned in 2020 was by asking myself what do I have? .

I had a phone and an internet connection, so I decided to host an online empowerment series and every week for 32 weeks I went on Instagram live and talked to people about social and political issues that mattered and talked about things like sexual. harassment consent race and that series got hundreds and thousands of views because I decided that if I'm going to win, I'm going to win because of what I have to say and not because I'm fitting into someone else's ideas about the power and success of beauty and my campaign, pushed me into public discourse and believe me, people had opinions.

I can't tell you how many times I've opened my phone to get feedback and this is word for word, like I miss the days when Australia sent tall white women to Miss Universe or the trashy tabloids writing articles about you and suddenly it's become viral and now, for weeks and weeks, you receive thousands of direct messages as if you were committing suicide. Deport her. She's not even Australian. Look, I wasn't expecting that and that almost got me, but I decided I wasn't going to get stuck. With the idea that who I was was something that

need

ed to be fixed, I didn't go so far as to compromise and when people told me that my differences were the reason I wasn't enough, I told them that my differences are the reason I wasn't enough.

I

need

to be there and so that year. The way I presented myself as Miss Universe Australia was by writing and producing my own campaign videos and then I started submitting opinion pieces for free and those articles led to me being offered national columns which led to my first contract for a book and after speaking. I spoke about the racism I was experiencing as Miss Universe Australia. I was invited to be a guest on a big morning show and believe me, I was scared. I was afraid it would open me up to more hate again, but I swallowed the fear and did it anyway. it has led me to the career I have now and as I remember the beginning of this talk you saw my face when I was in disbelief because I just won Miss Universe Australia and finished in the top 10 at the Miss Universe world competition representing Australia I felt no disbelief , I felt these guys were powerful.

I didn't realize it was a laughable moment, but it's okay, I'll move on. I felt powerful and to this day the public doesn't see how many times I do it. I still tell you no or how hard you have to fight to be in a room, especially when the further you go, the fewer people like you are in those rooms, but I do it because I know that kind of courage is important and it gets me somewhere. . of the bravest moments of my life, including being the daughter of a former priest and coming out on National Television, and I do it because there is someone out there who could see themselves in me and I want them to know that who you are is not a compromise for your ability to live a life beyond the limits, it is your fuel and I have learned that the greatest change occurs due to cumulative moments each day that masquerade as everyday decisions, it is the moment when you decide to throw away the whitening creams from the fur. or when despite all odds you get up and take a dirt road just to get the job done or when faceless trolls tell you to kill yourself and that you should be deported, it is in every moment that you block delete and remain visible and heard Because you don't change your life waiting for a propulsive moment, you change your life when you realize that opportunities for greatness don't always present themselves as great, so stop using what other people say and instead, tell yourself every day, I can.

I am and I will thank you thank you thank you