Earring, Foot Massage and Championship Inspirational Interview with World Champion 2021 Verity Price

She beat me at the club level. So choose it for the growth and then celebrate if you happen to get a win along the way. I looked at the calendar and I looked at the 28th of August and it was exactly 100 days. We have to notice those moments in our lives and also create them. When I opened myself up, that's when my life changed. My whole life changed direction when that happened. I just—

Maybe I'm crazy thinking that this might work. Maybe I'm crazy wanting something that might hurt.

Good morning, afternoon, evening, people. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Inspirational Interview. And please pinch me, I am, I am with world champion. Can you believe? Yeah, thank you so much, Verity. I am in awe. I, frankly speaking, when I put that DM to Instagram, I didn't expect that you'll respond I understand you must have been flooded by hundreds and thousands of requests. So it was like, yeah, you, you try your luck. If you can get, that's good enough. But no, thank you so much for graciously accepting my request. I'm really, really honored.

It's my pleasure. You know what, if you don't ask, you don't get. So well done for asking.

Yeah.

And if you remember, that was the first, first line I put in the DM that I know this might be too much, but somebody said if you don't ask, the answer is no. So let me try my luck. So I'm lucky today. Uh, thank you so much. So, uh, in this, uh, podcast or YouTube, uh, do I invite people who I genuinely feel inspirational, and I, and I followed your journey in the world championship and otherwise, and you've been such an inspiration for so many people out there in the world. If I may give a brief introduction, uh, you are a professional singer turned actor and facilitator You are the first person from West Indies to win the World Champion of Public Speaking. I, if I'm not wrong, you are the 6th woman ever to win World Championship of Public Speaking, and you are the 2nd virtual world champion, and you have been TEDx speaker 2 times, Distinguished Toastmaster, African Champion of Evaluation. Oh my God, how, how did you do all of that?

I don't know, I don't know when I found the time.

No, this is, this is so amazing. Uh, so I, I like to hear your version of, uh, your story. What have you done, uh, before probably the world championship? I know you have a lot of stories to talk about, so give us a brief journey in maybe 3 to 5 minutes about how your life journey has been, and then we'll try to go a little bit deeper.

Okay, wonderful. So my life journey has been a surprising one. I certainly never expected that I would be a world champion of public speaking because I was the girl who used to skip school if I had to read in assembly or speak in assembly. I was terrified. And it got so bad that eventually my fellow classmates just waited one day when I didn't know it was, you know, didn't think it was my turn. And they said, "You're going on stage. You're going to say something." I was like, "Oh." And so this was really the last thing I was ever going to do with my life. But when I finished school and I went to the University of Cape Town here in South Africa to study psychology, on my 20th birthday, we have a ritual in our— or tradition in our family that at the time you were born, you should go somewhere quiet and contemplate the year you've had, think about the year ahead, And so I was doing that, beautiful beach in Cape Town. And while I was sitting there, words started coming to me and they wouldn't go away. They were like, write me down, write me down. So I picked up a pen and I started writing. And what I wrote was song lyrics. And it was very, you know, I've never written lyrics before. Where did that come from? But they kept coming. They kept coming. And with them came a dream that maybe I could sing. Maybe I could share these songs with the world. And with that dream came a nightmare. You'd have to stand on stage and be in front of people. So I did what I think a lot of people do with big dreams. I ignored it for a long time, but it got bigger and bigger and it got more and more uncomfortable not to do something with my dream. And unfortunately for me, the thing that got me going was my dad dying. My dad passed away when I was 24, very unexpectedly. And anyone who's seen my final speech will know how important he was in my life. And after he died, I thought, "Whew, life is short. I don't want to get to the end of my life and have a whole lot of things I haven't done." So that's when I started singing. I worked with an amazing coach in America as a singing coach, and he worked with me on confidence, on learning to be okay with things going wrong on stage. He said, "That's why people are afraid. What if I do something foolish?" And he taught me to be okay with it not going well. And that built my confidence. I started singing professionally. But in my 30s, I ran a crazy project where I asked people to buy my first album before I recorded it. And it was one of the world's first online crowdfunding projects. So what happened was I became famous for thinking differently, more famous for that than I did for singing. And suddenly, I was being invited to speak and to speak to businesses and to people about how do you think differently about the problems in your life? How do you innovate? How do you get creative?, and my whole life changed direction when that happened. I joined Toastmasters. I've used the program to build my speaking capabilities, and I find myself here now in my mid-40s, having turned my life around from a story of sorrow to a story of success by changing the way I thought about things and by writing a different story.

Wow, that, that's such an amazing, amazing story, and, and You really gave us a brief. I know there are things that you still to touch, like the part you said in your World Championship speech about living with your sister and going through all the journey. That was such a powerful speech. But what I did pick up, a couple of things from your quick journey. One is having that self-contemplation time, and what better than to go to a beach? But yeah, having that time to think and having that mindfulness that what exactly I want to do in life and what do I really want to achieve. So that's Great. And then second thing that I picked up is being comfortable on being uncomfortable. So you have to go to the situation, you know, you're not going to be comfortable, but if you keep going there, you become what you want to be. So great, great journey. And thank you for sharing that. Now, one of the things in this podcast I do ask every guest of mine that we all boast about success and you are a world champion, you have all the rights to boast about the success. But behind every success, I believe there are so many setbacks, there are so many failures, there are so many things that you lack. Uh, what has been some of your setbacks, some of your failures, if you want to share one or two with the audience to inspire them?

Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the biggest things that has held me back throughout my life has been me and has been inside here, the thoughts that I think about myself, the thoughts that I think about what's possible for me. And my fear and my pride. I'll put it that way. So if I bring it back to winning the World Championships, I entered for the first time in 2012, and my sister, who is a huge part of my life, she beat me at the club level. And she worked much harder than I did on that speech. I was arrogant, and I thought, oh, well, I'm fine. I didn't ask for help. I didn't get anyone to look at my speech before I competed. And then I had to watch her go all the way to the world semifinals and do really, really well and go, okay, maybe I could learn from her. Maybe I could learn from how hard she's worked and that she backed herself and that she put in the time and effort. But it was still 3 years before I entered again. And then I asked for a little bit more help. You know, I knew I needed to work harder than I had the first time, but my pride was still in the way. It was hard to listen to people's inputs and I did better. I became 3rd in division. But this year when I entered, I decided to put away self-doubt, put away pride, put away fear, and just put myself out there and ask people, what do you think? What would make the speech stronger for you? How can I improve it? And it wasn't easy, but it was life-changing. You know, I've got the, I've got the results to prove it. So, so up until this point, and it's something I think I will always battle with, is that self-doubt that sometimes means I don't even enter. I hadn't entered for 6 years. Every year it would come around, "Nah, I've got nothing to say. You know, I'm never going to win this contest. Why bother entering?" That's a terrible attitude to have. Enter because you're going to grow, not because you might win. And so that's been my journey to get past that self-doubt and past that pride sometimes where it's, I just don't ask for feedback because I just want to think what I'm doing is enough. When I opened myself up, that's when my life changed.

Wow, love it, love it. So yeah, for audience, Verity actually lost at the club level once, but I love that, you know, I think it's coming back to the mindset that Dr. Carol Dweck says, that if— are you having a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset, where you're saying, okay, I'm not going to participate because I might lose and I'm not supposed to be losing in club contest. Or are you looking at how do I learn from it? How do I grow from it? And you are a living example of the growth mindset. So thank you for sharing that.

Well, I just want to quickly tell you, that is what my keynote about this journey is going to be based on. I am actually basing it on, and I call it fixed versus growth. And I want to share with people how that journey was for me, because I think it's important we acknowledge that that fixed mindset shows up because we're afraid and because we don't want to fail and we don't want to be foolish. But this is— you don't grow here, you stay stuck. So you've actually totally touched on what I want to explore as to how this journey changed me and the lessons that I hope other people can apply to their own lives, not just to speaking, to anything.

Yep, yep, absolutely. So people who are watching or listening, Verity is open for doing keynotes and especially for mindset. And she mentioned in her bio So if you are interested in having a keynote speaker or facilitator, please reach out to her. I love it. Thank you so much, Verity. And I've been following you. Yeah, you can say kind of stalking after you won Word Championship on Instagram and Facebook page. And yeah, I was one of those past 5,000 people who didn't get into your friend request, but I do follow your Facebook page. One of the— I love some of your pictures that you put in. For example, the foot massage. Or the earring. I believe this is the same earring that you said. So do you want to talk about some of these? These are not those.

These are different ones, but these are also a very special story woven by African women. It's beautiful. Yeah, so it's funny that— so I'll start with the earrings, and I don't have them, otherwise I would show them to you. But there's a beautiful, uh, jeweler here in South Africa who makes beautiful earrings, and I was walking past her shop on the day of the semi-finals and I just saw this pair of earrings. And I mean, like, I think like a lot of women, I was like, oh, I must have those earrings. And I was looking at them and I was looking at the price, and they were expensive. They weren't ridiculously expensive, but they were expensive. And I said to the, the salesman, I said, you know what, I'm in a competition, and in a month's time, if I win, I'm going to come buy these earrings. And he said, I look forward to seeing you in a month's time.

Wow.

So when I walked back in there a month later, he went, oh, you won! And I said, yes! And it was such a beautiful moment. And, and the even more magical moment was I shared that story on Instagram and on Facebook, and the jeweler Kirsten Goss saw that story. Her whole company celebrated him as a salesman. They then said, can we give you a little gift? And when I went back to my gift, he's like, oh, it's so good! And I feel like I've shared this you know, the win with you. So that was a special moment. And I think we have to notice those moments in our lives and also create them. Sometimes promise yourself a reward, you know, if I do that, if I achieve, I'm going to do this for myself, and then do it, you know, don't— because I could have forgotten about it, but it was hard to forget about those earrings. And then the, the foot massage, that was my sister on the day of the semi-finals and the finals. She took me at 9 o'clock in the morning to a beautiful, uh, Chinese massage parlor where we got our feet rubbed to ground myself and to handle the nerves. And every time, without meaning to, I always ended up with the same wonderful lady in tombi, which is the African word for girl, actually. But she's a lady, she's definitely not a girl, but just this beautiful energy. And so I just wanted to share how she'd been part of my journey. You know, you wouldn't think that rubbing your feet can make you speak better, but of course, anything that relaxes you and gets you grounded and present really, really helps. And I was there yesterday, I'd hurt my shoulder, so I went for Ntombi to work on my shoulder. And she said, you won't believe it, Verity, someone came for a massage last week saying she saw you about me on Instagram. So she came to book a massage. I was like, oh, we're spreading the happiness! I was so excited.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I've got a couple of things. One of the things that— for the first one, for the the earring things. I, I love that, no, you're spreading the message. But I think it's very important for us. A lot of us get into that selfish mode. You don't have to be Word Champion, but you can always be the person selling the earring. You don't have to really literally sell, but you can always say that if you want to be Word Champion, I am there with you. And that's what we need in the world. We need to support each other, help grow each other. So amazing, amazing kudos to that guy. And Again, the foot massage. I mean, we all need to take. And I'm part of Darren Lacroix's Taste Time University, and he says there is a champion mindset. And, and as a champion, you have to think about what is something, even the teeny tiny things that could help you and make a 0.1 centimeter difference in a race. If you win by 0.1 centimeter, you're still a winner. So love that.

Wow.

Thank you so much. Uh, do you want to talk about some of those African dance that happened after you won in your test? You can see I've done a lot of talking, sorry about that.

Oh well, again, in the lead-up to specifically the final, when we heard— we heard at 3 o'clock in the morning South African time that I was a finalist, and then I had to be online at 2 o'clock that afternoon, and then at about 7 we were going to record. So my sister had said, regardless of whether you're in or not, I'm picking you up at 9 o'clock that morning, we're going for the foot massage. So either it's going to to be to console you that you didn't get through or to ground you because you have to speak. And when she picked me up, she had Waka Waka by Shakira and one of our local South African treasures, Freshly Ground. They did that song with Shakira. She had it blasting and she said, it is time for Africa. You are going to win this. You are going to bring back this title for Africa. You're going to create hope for all our Southern African speakers. And I was like, whoa. But then we just put the music on and we danced. And then the hour before the contest, we put it on and danced around the garden, and we offered a prayer up saying, "It's time for Africa. If this is meant, let me speak from my heart and let me do this for Africa." So when we watched the finals, that song was waiting. And when they announced that I'd won, my sister just turned it up. And there was 50 of us in the room. And we just danced. And the 2021 World Champion of Public Speaking is Barry. It was the most joyous, incredible experience, and even more so because the rest of the contest I was always on my own in a room hearing the results, no one with me. So to actually be with family and friends and, and to get African, because we love, we love dancing on this continent, uh, and it was such fun.

So yeah, thank you so much for sharing. It, it seems so fun even listening, so I, I can only assume how much fun you had when you had that dance. Uh, all right, so let's move on to the next segment, and this is probably the first time I'm doing this. So when I got to know Verity has accepted the invite, I did reach out to put out on WhatsApp and other places that if you had the opportunity to ask one question from the current world champion, what would that be? And I've got— I picked 5 of them, and I, I'm pretty sure Verity is gonna amuse us with her answers. So can we start?

Yes, I'm ready.

All right, so first question comes from Rahul, and he asked, how did you decide this is the speech for the international speech contest?

Oh wow.

So I'm not sure which one he's talking about, but I think it's important to know—

I think it's the final speech he's talking about.

Okay, so I mean, obviously it starts with your semi-final speech, and you've got to know that that speech is good enough to get you into the finals. And I worked really hard for that to happen. I wrote two different speeches before I wrote my final speech. I'd actually made the decision I wanted my final speech to be about my father because my semi-final speech was about my mother, and now I was trying to find Well, what, what do I say? This speech came to me at 3 o'clock in the morning, 100 days before the finals. And the original version included the fact that after reading my dad's letter, there was a Facebook challenge called 100 Happy Days. And that was one of the things I did to write a different story. And, and I wrote the speech— well, I didn't write it. I wrote it at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I was like, oh, I'm so excited about this. And when I finished, and obviously that's the first draft, you're going to write so many. I looked at it and I thought, 'God, that's amazing.' And then I thought, 'Well, if I'm going to speak about this, maybe I should start the 100 Happy Days Challenge to keep myself positive.' And then I looked at the calendar and I looked at the 28th of August, and it was exactly 100 days.

Wow.

Until the finals. And I thought, 'Maybe that's a sign. Maybe this is the speech that's going to win because day 100 will be the 28th of August. And then I started working on the speech. As you know, there was no reference to 100 Happy Days in the final speech because the feedback I got from a lot of male members of the audience, including my brother-in-law whose spare room I lived in, was like, "Oh, you're saying so much about happiness. I'm not really enjoying your speech." So I started changing it and finding a message that worked for both men and women, young and old. You know, I wanted it to be universal. But it was— I knew when I'd written it that this was the start of a speech that could possibly win the world championship.

Now it took you 100 days to actually fine-tune one speech of 5 to 7 minutes. Amazing. Now next up is question from Srijita, and I think that might be somewhat related to the previous question. And she asked that, how to decide that the message we are choosing for our speech will be as impactful for our audience as we thought it to be?

Ah, so you need to ask your audience. You need to get as much feedback as possible. As I said, I had the first version was looking at things and choosing to be happy. Then I practiced one around being grateful. Then it became look for the good. Then it became change the way you look at things. And eventually through feedback, I got to write a different story. Same speech, same line of events, not much changed, but the message changed. And so your message becomes relevant to your audience when you test it on audiences. You have to speak at as many clubs as you can and open yourself up for the feedback. It's not always easy. Yeah. Some of the feedback I got was hard, but I had to listen to it. And especially with my speech, I was, I was talking about, or I was touching on depression and anxiety. And how hard my life felt. And then I had to hear feedback from someone going, well, being single at 40, living in your sister's spare room isn't that bad. Like, what about people with real depression? And I was like, oh, that's different. You know, now I don't want to offend someone because I was properly depressed, but in a 7-minute speech, you don't have time to speak about it. And that helped me put in the line for my ego. This was a scary tale. It was for my ego, not this is depression, this is the worst possible life. For me, for my ego. So listening to my audience helped me to craft the message. So ask your audience. Don't think your first take at a universal message is going to be the one that lands. It's through feedback that you'll refine it.

Absolutely. Okay, this one question, probably it's more of a cliché after you become a world champion, but I did ask, how to become a world champion?

It's, you know, it's such a hard one to answer because 35,000 people enter every year and only one person wins. So it's a, it's a very difficult one to, to answer. I do think what makes the difference, and for the people who, you know, the 8 finalists who get to the finals every year will probably agree with me, is you have to look at what previous champions have done. You have to see the patterns in what's working around the way they are engaging with the audience, what are the kind of common messages that are coming through, the amount of humour that they are putting into a speech. You know, you have to look at those patterns because it is actually quite strategic. My speech was very strategically thought out. I mean, a lot of people say it was so authentic and real, but every single word was strategically thought out to go, what is the judging ballot looking at? I have a far more relaxed way I can tell that story. So you have to approach it technically, and then you have to put your heart in it and still be real. So it is, it's a fine line between, you know, following all the rules and still being real. But watch what previous champions have done, work with previous champions. I can guarantee you, you cannot become a champion without a coach. I could not have done this without Lance Miller. I could not have done this if I hadn't done Prez Vazilev's, he was the 2013 world champ, his compelling storytelling course. Learn from the people who've done this path already. That's my advice. And again, only one person wins, but thousands of people get to experience the contest journey and grow as speakers regardless of whether you place. So choose it for the growth. And then celebrate if you happen to get a win along the way.

Absolutely love it. Choose it for the growth. Yeah, and you do have to do a lot of hard work and do get coaching. I think there's no alternative to coaching. Getting a good coach is like one of the major thing that you need to do. All right, uh, Chintan asked, and that's probably gonna be my question but he stole it, but anyways, how has life changed after winning world championship?

Jo.

So this is, this is an interesting one. It is the most incredible life-changing moment to hear that you are the World Champion of Public Speaking. You know, I worked 6 months tirelessly, 2 to 4 hours a day on those speeches with no guarantee. And now suddenly you've won. It's like you've climbed to the top of Mount Everest and you're there. Now you have to go down and you have to clean up and you have to unpack, you know, and you have to get home and life carries on. So it's an interesting journey when, when you actually win or when I won. I came home, my baby needed his nappy changed, you know, nothing, nothing. My life was the same. I was still me. I just had this amazing title. But there's a lot of responsibility that comes with winning anything. I now represent a continent, I represent a district. In essence, I belong to Toastmasters, so I've had to deal with all the requests of asking me to speak, and I wasn't ready. All I'd done was work on a 7-minute speech. Now someone, can we have a workshop? Can we? And I was like, so I've taken 6 weeks out to breathe. Doing lovely interviews like this helps me to integrate the experience, but there is a, there is a weight And I mean, you know, you pick up these trophies, they weigh a lot. That's right. And not just physically, they weigh on the champion's shoulders because now I'm responsible like all my previous champions to help other people go on this journey and to help other people get set up for success. It's not just about me. And so winning changes your life because you can change other people's lives if you share what you've learned.

Wow, wow. Winning changes life if you share what you learn. Amazing, amazing. Okay, this one is the last question. I thought this is one of the very important question by Richa, and she asked this 3 words: what moves you?

Oh, I love that.

See guys, even word champion has to think and take your time.

Yeah, that's— no, it's a beautiful question.

It is indeed.

I think what moves me— I mean, this would, this would flummox people at a Table Topics contest. Could you imagine? What moves me is— and I mean, this is such a general word— but inspiration. Things that, that ignite inspiration in me. So when I find a thread of inspiration that excites me, I feel moved. And, and we were speaking earlier about the, the growth versus, I mean, fixed versus the growth mindset. That came to me a few days ago that I could probably use this to start working on how I share my Champion journey. That moment of inspiration just gets everything moving. I want to sit down. I want to write. I want to put it all together. So I'm moved by moments of inspiration. And I make it my mission to look for those moments. So things like seeing the magic between going, I'm going to buy those earrings and going back and buying those earrings and then connecting the dots. That excites me, that moves me.

Wow, amazing, amazing answer. Thank you so much. Thank you to all the people who asked the question, such an amazing question. And thank you, Verity, for answering those brilliantly. Thank you so much. Now we're coming towards the end. I have last two questions. Uh, what's the future plan for Verity? I know you said you're gonna take 6 weeks off and you're gonna do the interview, so I think I'm lucky to get you in those 6 weeks. But what's after—

what's after this? Cool. So there's a lot of Toastmasters events around the world. Before this call, actually, I was busy scheduling all of it with my brand manager that my district has given me, amazing woman Jasmine, helping me book all these events. And so I will be speaking at districts around the world, most of them virtually at this stage, but to share my champion journey, to share the mindset that goes into winning, and hopefully inspiring people how they can write different stories and speeches that take them to where they want to be. In my professional life, it's getting very busy. Lots of big conferences, you know, being the opening keynote speaker at events. So I'm very excited with the opportunities that it's bringing to me and just loving seeing where it takes me. Because I need to write a workshop around how do you write a different story, because I know people want to know how to do that. And that's part of the work I teach, is around optimism and changing our perception. But I I need to now sit down and find that inspiration that moves me to create those programs so that people can apply what I've learned and that helped me into their own lives.

Amazing, amazing. So my last question to you is, if Verity has to give an advice to someone, and many of the audience of this particular podcast or the, the YouTube video is the young people who are almost at the end of completing their studies or just enter to the corporate world, What would be that one to two message from Verity to them?

Very simple. You have a choice. Life can either happen to you or it can happen because of you. Now, your circumstances might be out of your control at times, but the way you look at them, the way you talk about them, the way you show up is always in your control. So just decide on a day-by-day basis, am I making choices Am I speaking in a way, am I looking at life in the right way so that life will happen because of me, because of the action I take, because of the things I do, because of the person I am? Or am I being a victim? And, and I say this because this is where I've come from, and just letting it happen to me and complaining about it. That is always your choice. Is it going to happen to you or because of you? I hope you choose because.

Is it going to happen to you or it's going to happen for you? Thank you so much, Verity. So last, yeah, it's time for you to talk about what you are looking forward to in terms of why people should contact you, where they can contact you, and what are things you're looking forward to. Please go ahead.

Yeah, beautiful. So my happy place is working with businesses and organizations to inspire them about what's possible for them and help people change their thinking so that they can change their results. So if people are needing keynotes at big virtual or in-person conferences, I love being on stage. I am a singer, so I even end my talks with a song and you can get the whole audience having fun. And if people are looking for, for smaller work with their teams in the online space, I do a lot of work around helping activate optimism and keep people happy and positive in these very difficult times. So feel free to look at my website, iamverity.com or verityprice.com. And then I love sharing my journey, so join me on Instagram and Facebook @iamverity and LinkedIn Verity Price, and we can keep the journey going, and hopefully I can keep sharing and spreading some inspiration.

Thank you so much, Verity. This was really, really amazing. Now, since you already said you end most of your keynote with singing, I'm gonna request you if you can sing few lines, you know, only if you're comfortable. Yeah.

A little bit harder. It's a little bit harder in this with no music, so I'm just trying to think if I've got anything.

Um, I'll try.

You know what, why not? Why not? The song I'm gonna sing you is called Crazy Not to Try, so let's see what happens.

Maybe I'm crazy thinking that this might work. Maybe I'm crazy wanting something that might hurt. Maybe it's madness to start something that might end. Maybe it's easier to just not begin. I may be delusional believing this stands a chance when so many before have proved that good things don't last. Seems a little bit naive to step in anyway, but I'd be crazy if I didn't take a step around the corner confronting all that I don't know, the storms that I might weather, those times of being out of control, not having all the answers is never a reason not to try. What if the Wright brothers hadn't believed that they could fly?

Thank you so much, Verity. I can't say enough thank you to you. Thank you for accepting, and I'm gonna spend my day in awe because I talked to a world champion of public speaking, reigning world champion of public speaking. Thank you so much. It was indeed a pleasure and honor to have you as guest in my podcast as well as on inspirational interview. I wish you all the best, all the luck for everything, every endeavor that you're gonna take. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Haritosh. Beautiful being with you, and keep spreading the inspiration.

Thank you so much. So this was Verity Price, reigning world champion of public speaking 2021. As I say every time, we will have some more interesting interviews coming up, but until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh And I'll be back with another episode of Inspirational Interviews. Take care, stay safe.

Something that might hurt. Maybe it's madness to start something that might end. Maybe it's easier to just not begin. Now maybe delusional, believing this stands a chance when so many before have proved that good things don't last. Seems a little bit naive to stay stepping anyway. But I'd be crazy if I didn't take a step around the corner, confronting all that I don't know, the storms that I might weather, the times of being out of control and having all the answers. There's never a reason not to try. What if the Wright Brothers hadn't believed that they could fly?