Why curiosity gets you farther than ambition | Drew Lynch | TEDxNashville

two foreign monkeys are throwing themselves against a wall after an hour, the first monkey stops and says: I'm exhausted, what if we can't get any to hit?, to which the second monkey replies: I don't know, we should try mine now, what I want you to learn from that story is that I'm very funny, but I also want you to explore the idea of ​​living with

curiosity

versus living with

ambition

and how a change in that perspective has taken me further in my travels. personal and professional. My name is. Drew Lynch I'm a comedian and I've stuttered almost my entire adult life growing up.

All I ever wanted was to be an actor. I was ambitious at a young age, so I attended a performing arts school that would require me to ride the city bus alone when I was 11 in Las Vegas every day on those trips I read all of Neil Simon Tennessee Williams Shakespeare and all of my hard work. The work paid off because they chose me for the first work in Charlie and the Chocolate. Factory I got the lead role of Oompa Loompa. I know a lot of people think Charlie is the protagonist, but you know? If you don't have workers, you don't have a factory.

Anyway, after high school I got accepted to Las Vegas. Academy, which is a very competitive performing arts high school where I took musical theater classes and taught myself piano. By the way, I am married to a woman. I know that's surprising to everyone, including my boyfriend. um right after guys let's focus right after right after. In high school I moved to Los Angeles, where I got a night job working the door at a comedy club so I could have my days off to audition for performances, everything was going according to plan, to the point that my freshman year living in La I got an agent who booked projects with Disney and was being considered for television shows.

One day the comedy club was hosting a softball game nearby so I went and chose to play shortstop during the game a ground ball hit me and as I went. to the field, he appeared and punched me in the throat, I fell back and hit my head on the ground, now not knowing anything about concussions, I went home and went to sleep that night and when I woke up the next day Next he was stuttering. I was immediately rushed to the hospital where doctors from all over came to study my case. They finally explained to me that while the concussion was serious and my speech was different, it appeared to be only temporary and I should be back to normal in a few weeks. and my voice hasn't healed I can't go to auditions so my agent leaves me my friends feel weird about it and start to distance themselves my parents want me to come home to them I was starting to feel like Rock Bottom until one day in the I get my hospital bill now it's in the dumps so what do you do if you're me?

This wasn't the plan This seems like the opposite of a plan This is chaos I was supposed to be an actor that people took Seriously, now I'm a joke, I feel embarrassed, isolated, humiliated and besides, the acting door was firmly closed. Funny thing about doors, sometimes you see someone walk right into one because the door clearly says pull when they push, you really find out who. They are in that moment because either they will attack and get angry at the door for not going the way they wanted or they will realize they made a mistake and laugh at themselves and laughing at myself is precisely what I was missing.

I was so obsessed with this obstacle that I didn't realize how heavy it was making me, that it was turning me into something that was impossible to move, so I shifted my attention to a more curious perspective. I thought what if instead of kicking, screaming and demanding? This door opens for me, what would happen if I went and knocked on another one? What if comedy could really restore balance after a tragedy? If instead of trying instead of hiding my stuttering in conversations, what if I was the one who made fun of it clearly? sight and then I would joke with people about how hard it is for me to go drive-thru and go on first dates and what it would be like if my voice was the voice of your GPS.

I like that you're just getting that, um, I noticed. People felt calmer about my situation because they were no longer burdened by it. Suddenly, this accident felt like a gift. This accident felt like it was on purpose. All because my perspective on it had changed. Career opportunities also started happening again not long after my injury. I won a local comedy contest, the video of that set was discovered by Bo Burnham, who asked me to open for his theater tour. Colleges started applying to me from all over the country, my life was back to normal and all my hard work was paying off. again because I eventually entered America's Got Talent and being naturally ambitious I decided that I was going to win the show I decided that the last night was up to me and another contestant and just before they announced the winner I realized that now I am moments away of being validated for all my hard work and then losing another closed door another chance to prove I was good enough another reminder that I wasn't so let's talk about the monkeys from before specifically we all know the old saying about throwing against the wall until that something sticks, but I assign characters and dialogues because I believe that looking at things in a playful way is the inherent lesson in my adaptation.

The first monkey, the one who was adamant about sticking, represents Driving, this monkey is all about. the destination the goal the accelerator pedal the second monkey the one who had the idea to try something else represents

curiosity

this monkey has to do with the journey the adventure the steering wheel now you might think that the monkeys that represent the destination and the journey are opposites but they are in reality, teammates use each other to overcome obstacles and experiences to advance; That's the unique distinction here, we often look at our goals linearly as if a sign that says Road Closed deters us, but what if the detour we're forced to take never happened? presented as a detour, if you never knew the road was closed you would never know that wasn't the original route in the first place, you would just assume this was part of the trip, how quickly that second monkey accepts the blocks as bumpers used to steer its Traveling, not derailing, is the important difference here, so don't take the sign for what it says, take the sign for what it is a sign the day I lost America's Got Talent as the day I realized that the Ambition can only take you so far, it's the story of the day repeating itself for me where I ended up in a situation once again relying on the momentum to cross a literal finish line only this time I fell short, the feeling of losing something. important was too familiar to me, but rather Instead of demanding answers, I ask questions.

I thought: how is it possible that you can do everything right and it still ends up going wrong? Well, that's because it didn't go wrong, it just didn't go the way I wanted, we're conditioned to think that if we don't accomplish exactly what we set out to do exactly the way we envisioned it, it's a failure, but I'm grateful that it didn't work out because That led me to my next idea, turn the wheel and hit the gas again. People think I increased my audience on America's Got Talent. I actually increased my audience on YouTube when I was done with AGT.

I had 80,000 subscribers which is a lot now I have over 2 million only this time I didn't make a plan. to arrive at that number based on a destination using calculations like before no, this time I embraced my opposite making decisions based only on impulse based on the way I felt, not the way I thought I bought cameras I couldn't afford I got editing software that I knew nothing about all I knew was that I knew nothing, the concept of the program was simple. I would sit in front of the cameras and make a Vlog with my dog ​​Stella about my life.

She along with an excellent resting face would have subtitles. her head throwing shadow at me the difference was that this time my goal was personal. I only vlogged about a new experience once a week and if I couldn't do it that meant my life was too predictable, my curiosity hadn't peaked and therefore my journey. I was stuck, this turned out to be more challenging than, say, appearing on TV because I realized that it doesn't end, there's no gratification from fate, you just have to do it. I know there are people here who need real evidence that something works before they can do it.

Start believing it, but that's what makes the second monkey so much more successful. They believe it before they see it, they accept it before they resist and I could tell you that two years after launching my YouTube channel I reached one million subscribers, but I could also say it. you that at that time I ate in a Michelin star restaurant I got stuck on a zip line in Puerto Rico and my dog ​​met Conan I'm sorry Conan met my dog ​​this work formula based on the game was perfect because it not only generated new experiences for me, but my stand-up was also evolving, my work was getting better because I was playing, how much more fun I had making jokes about my life and how much more successful and dynamic those stories turned out to be.

I'm not up here trying to convince. that you are something that you are not. I'm saying that using your natural and unnatural tendencies is the key to unlocking your supernatural self. I have talked a lot about my professional life and now I want to share something personal with you. I hate being interrupted. No one likes it, but for me it runs a little deeper because of the 10 years I spent struggling with stuttering and how tumultuous my relationship with it has been. At first I was mocked for having it and then called a liar for being successful despite having it.

Damned if I do Damned if I don't I'm telling you this because one day Comedy Central asked me to perform a half-hour stand-up routine, the problem was that people kept interrupting me during the show and that's why I had to stop. To address it, I filmed eight shows in a row and couldn't complete an entire set without being interrupted, which interrupting someone who stutters is like tickling someone who has gas. It is a huge risk. I didn't expect that laugh to be so big and so. Now your joy has frustrated me and my memory. Can we make a version where they don't laugh so I can go back to normal?

Please, they are ruining this. Let me go back so I can remember here. Sorry, be patient, these are 15 minutes long have some kind of criteria, I got it so wrong, by the way, just remember where I was for continuity, I don't think I've done this gesture even once, well, that It will never happen. I so wanted to move forward. these people who are interrupting I wanted to unload years of trauma to tell them that they will never know what it's like to go to speech therapy or the Carousel of mental health professionals I saw how I went to meditation retreats to manage my anxiety and visited support groups and took singing lessons and microdosing acupuncture chiropractors yoga Tai Chi sound baths floatation tanks alcohol marijuana life coaches religion and self-harm so I could cope with my situation, but instead of unpacking all of that I went against my natural inclination, stayed playful, and addressed those interruptions in a fun way even though the footage was totally unusable.

I was patient and asked questions. I thought: what's the lesson here? Why do I have such a visceral response to this? Sure enough, a lady approached me after one of the shows. and she said I loved what you wrote, but I want you to know that my favorite part was when you went off script and that's when I understood that the recurring theme for me was and probably always will be that I found the best I could in things. it didn't work and then I had a deeper appreciation for all the times the universe interrupted. By the way, I never got on Comedy Central, but I posted those audience interactions on my own channel and, as some of you may know, that led to even more people finding out about me if you're so focused on one path that you can't zoom out and see what the Universe could show you yours it's like when a monkey yes, I'm back with the monkeys it's like when a monkey keeps throwing its peels behind while walking eating Nana's you can try to follow that same path but if Mario Kart has taught me anything it's that you're going to slip and that Bowser a little person has asked me all the time how my stuttering has gotten better, but as anyone who stutters knows, it never goes away completely and I know that, reading that list, it sounds exhaustive and inconclusive. , but that's my point.

I got even more out of my initial goal because I now have stories of experiences and relationships along the way. I had a neurologist who told me that soccer was good for brain health and now I have a new hobby. A friend recommended yoga to calm my nerves and now I have a daily practice. These are things that have gotten me out of my head away from planning my life and further into my body closer to living it I think the less I've thought about The more I've done and The more I've done the less I've cared and when you're carefree No teaworry about how you sound, where you're going, how you get there, you're really just on a journey.

I want you to know that he was terrified by this talk today, not because he's afraid of public speaking. Not because it's a format I'm not familiar with. I struggled with this talk because I knew deep down that the lesson I am teaching is one I always resist. He didn't want to deliver this speech like an impostor and that's why he knew it. that meant he would have to review the advice and accept it. I was ambitious enough to accept this career opportunity and now I have to be curious enough to see where it takes me personally.

Mastering the balance between

ambition

and curiosity is a lifelong journey, but if mastering your goal performance is at this intersection, the journey itself becomes the destination, so if you are ambitious by nature, you must accept your detours and if you are easily distracted, you need to face your deadlines, you have the resources of both monkeys, but we often forget that we are neglecting one, so I say if you need inspiration, play with your monkey and if you need motivation, slap your monkey, thanks.