A Matter of Point of View
i am
not exactly where i was distinct to be
co-litanan playing destiny if you wish
that’s the taste of my life
however today i feel more than ever
i’m in the right place
as a child i had no self-confidence for
two reasons
first i thought i was ugly as the only
black girl of my school
i regularly received racist comments
about my physical appearance
those commands followed me all my
schooling from your skin looks like poo
in my childhood to your party
for a black girl in my teenage years
not the best comments to be strong
self-confidence
these remarks quickly had consequences
on me i remember that
as a child i wanted to straighten my
hair and bleach my skin
second reason i thought i was trump
because my lowest team
killed my intellectual abilities my
family
put a lot of pressure on me to excel at
everything i did
from sports to school but being an
average student
i was stupid enough to think i have no
talents
i wasn’t this distorted self-perception
i have been conditioned to failure
year after year as my selfish team
dropped my grades too
this situation went on until my last
year of high school
at that time something triggered me and
my low self-esteem turned into
self-confidence
and i discovered parts of my personality
i didn’t even know
at that point after believing i was not
pretty my entire childhood
i was selected to take part in the 2020
miss france competition
and after believing i had no talents
today
i write engaged articles i became an
actress
i organized protests gathering thousands
of people
and i’m invited today to give a ted talk
i told you seconds ago about something
triggering me
after graduating high school with
average grade scheme
summer break i was off to college and i
had good resolution in mind for the new
year to come
so i tried to improve myself but i
didn’t know how to proceed
that’s when i found a youtube video of a
man named steve
who taught a story about the power of
mental conditioning
steve explained the day a mother brought
her son to his first reading training
and taught him he’s a bit stupid so
don’t mind if he doesn’t understand
anything
steve then decided to condition himself
as if this child
was gifted throughout the week he talked
to him as if he was a genius
he made him feel important at the end of
the week
steve gave his students a test he
realized that the child
obtained the best result ever out of the
thousand students here
at your son had the best results ever
he said to his mother and do you know
what she answered
i don’t believe it then steve replies
that’s exactly the answer i expected
from you
you don’t believe it and since you don’t
believe in your son
then he can’t believe in himself
this video had a powerful impact on me
it restored my self-confidence i then
decided to apply steve’s methods
directly on myself every day before
going back to college
i convinced myself that i was
intelligent and that i had many talents
i conditioned myself to succeed and you
know what
it was a fantastic success as the weeks
went by
my grades improved and thanks to my
positive mental conditioning
i reached the 15th grade point of read
with the compliments of the class
counsel
i then realized that i had abilities i
never suspected
and that i had to believe in them to
give myself the means to succeed to
reveal them
besides my studies i was very committed
on my social networks
i regularly organized debates on
political and social issues such as
the death penalty racism misogyny
and many other topics so
i was thinking about what i wanted to do
with my life
then a major event upset me a few weeks
after the end of my classes
on may 25th 2020 media were repeating
the same information
over and over george floyd
a black man father of five children was
killed in meniere police
by three police officers during a check
police officers knelt on floyd’s neck
for
nine minutes while the man repeated over
and over i can’t breathe
his death scene touched many hearts
across the globe
and riots were taking place worldwide
claiming that
black lives matter and that justice must
be known
for the flight family i was
very touched by this tragic case
i imagined my father who could have been
in this place as he suffered unjustified
violence
during the police check in the past
i followed the news from my town closely
and saw
that many people were talking about
george flair’s death on social media but
no one was ready to act on it so
i wanted to show actions speak louder
than words
by which i called for a protest on my
i still remember a friend telling me the
next day
you’re never going to make it there will
be 10 people at your demonstration
i doubt it for a moment but i remembered
that i was conditioned to believe in
myself so
just to prove to myself that i could do
it i decided not to have a second
thought
and proceeded further i got into the
organization of a protest
well i knew absolutely nothing about it
very quickly the movement has grown in
ways that completely exceeded my
expectations
after only three days on my social
networks 600 people were expected
and i received supporting messages from
other countries
i could not believe it
then came the d-day the protest was
going to begin on the nisswa avenue
la promenade des anglais i arrived at
the departure
expecting to see 200 people
well turned out the promenade was so
full of people
i couldn’t see the mars hands it was
impossible to estimate on human terms
how many we were
but what was certain was that we were
definitely
more than 200 and then one thing led to
another very quickly
the procession started the march i gave
my speech in a bullhorn
the crowd childed slogans and demanded
justice and journalists were chasing me
the more the demonstration progressed
the more the crowd grew
the next day i learned in the media that
we were thousands of people
i can’t even realize what that means
today
after that day my life took a new turn
by conditioning myself to succeed i had
no needs
i had gathered thousands of people for a
course that was close to my heart
i have seen creating a collective i am
regularly invited to participate in
public debates
and i write newspaper articles and then
another thing happened because of all
this media coverage
i was approached by a member of the miss
france committee
he encouraged me to give it a try and
enter the contest
since i was a little girl i admired
these women from my television
and i finally found myself in their
shoes
driven by my values i engage in the
adventure with the primary goal of
touching the public
through my story and commitments
i was selected and arrived at miss code
desire while keeping my committed sight
despite the preconceived
non-compatibility of
miss francie universe and the militant
worlds
later my typical miss activist profile
attracted the media
and i was invited on a tv show and
interviewed by many channels
today i’m an actress in a committed
short film
and only god knows what’s right of me
whatever it is now i’m confident
now that you are aware of the tremendous
impact your state of mind can have on
your actions
let’s move on to the practical advices
that i have applied myself
to have a strong mindset let’s go back
in time
before the demonstration and before miss
france
just after watching steve’s video i
remember that afternoon
i was thinking hard on how could i
positively change my life
i will share two of the crucial things i
realized during this
introspection with you all the first
thing i realized was that
over the course of my life apart from my
immediate family
my surroundings would constantly change
people
will constantly come and go in my life
in fact the only person in the world
with whom
i’m certain to live with until i die is
myself
so i might as well deepen the
relationship
i decided to condition my minds to
really think about myself
before thinking about others i remember
that
when i faced a difficult situation i
said to myself
i’m in control of my mind so where there
is a will
there is a way with this principle
i have not failed on a single debate or
interview
and all my personal projects end up in
success
thanks to this strong mentality i took
part in very impressive debates with
experienced journalists
and match audience sometimes i’m happy
with what i’ve done
sometimes i’m not during one particular
debate
i did not live up to my own expectations
but he did not discouraged me
instead it gave me the motivation to
work twice as hard to do better next
time
so i adapted my work to my expectations
and i put in place routines to make sure
i would live up to it for example
it has been a year since i have taken on
the habit of learning two words
expressions biographies or other things
per day
because if i want to prove my legitimacy
to some
60 year old politicians or journalists
who doesn’t really care for my young age
i have to increase my general culture
tirelessly
to give you an idea of the knowledge i
gained with this method
i could say to the 100 capitals i know
or even the government’s entire
organizational charts
but well you get my points
i have been able to keep up with these
habits because of the confidence i got
from lenin from my mistakes
i trusted and i worked hard to give
myself the means to live up to my
expectations
in my mind i wanted to so i could
since then with the conviction that
where there is a will
there is a way i have not failed on a
single debate or interview
and all my personal projects end up in
success
i must tell you that i am aware that we
all are not equal when it comes to
where there is a will there is a way i
am aware that
everyone is not equal for that for
example
a white man from a rich family will have
more chances of succeeding
than a veiled black and proliteral women
regardless of their respective wills if
everyone
at his own level must fight against this
injustice
it is certainly not a valid reason for
us to feel sorry for ourselves
because to have a will is already a real
door open to possibilities
in my case in addition to my tenacious
will i had to work hard
to despite my young age and the fact
that i’m a black woman
impose my credibility and get where i am
today
but without the will i would not have
arrived anywhere
because at the slightest obstacle
without this determination
i would have given up before i leave you
the last thing i want to say is that
i went from being a victim of racism to
being
a fighter against racism
i went from the belief that i had no
talent to the belief that i could help
you find yours
however my skin color and my
intellectual faculties remain the same
only my way of apprehending things has
changed
i will close with a quote from alain
leblai
that inspired me a lot
in life nothing is necessarily good
or bad everything is a matter of point
of view