Marley Dias "Do Your Best, Don’t Worry About Being the Best"

Okay, so, hello, everyone. My name is Marley, and today I'm here to talk and hopefully brighten up your day. So I'm here to talk about doing your best and not worrying about being the best and transitioning from looking outside for energy and focusing within to gain energy and to work hard. The election might have been tough on some of us, so hopefully this will help and make everyone smile and we'll be jumping around like unicorns. Okay? Are you doing your best? So my campaign, the 1000 Black Girl Books campaign, came about because I was learning how to be my best self. I saw a problem and I wanted to solve it, but I didn't really know how to. My mom asked me what I was going to do about it, and this is the question that you should ask to your colleagues, your friends, your children, your nieces and nephews. It fuels everything that we do and it helps everyone strive. But what was I really going to do about it? I would collect books, of course. A lot of them. At first I thought I would have reached this goal, but the one thing we did know for sure was that I would try my best. And no matter what, I would give my best. My goal wasn't and isn't to be the best kid out there collecting books. My goal is to solve the problem of exclusion and promote diversity all across the world. My best today is definitely not my best tomorrow. A tired and hungry Marley is not the same as a well rested and sushi fed Marley. I believe that if you focus on a better day and if you look inside of yourself instead of outside to the world, your best will become the world's best. Don't confuse better with best. In English class, you're taught the comparative state of words. For example, looking at three apples, you can compare their size, determining which is big, bigger and biggest. The comparative ending or suffix for short. The common adjectives are generally better, bigger, faster, stronger. Like the Kanye west song the Know what I Mean? The superlative suffix is est. The word good is a little bit different and you don't add an er, but you have three different words and the last one is one everyone focuses on. Now, in my sixth grade, we had a motto which was good, better, best, never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best. Now, I think this motivates a lot of people, but for me, it's kind of different. As a kid, you're always being asked, did you do your best? Though adults ask this question sometimes. They mean, did you do better than them? Were you better than them? Did you beat them? Did they beat you? And things of that sort. Common parental mistakes. Now, I think parents do a good job overall, but here are some things that I think could be fixed a little bit. I have seen parents who focus a lot of time on how their kids are doing compared to other children. Parents obsessed with sports and grades. Did you play better than them? Was your grade higher than them? How did she do and how did you do? Did she do better than you? Best, best and best. Luckily, my parents are pretty crazy thanks to my grandma and Nana, who are in the audience. And instead of focusing on other children's performance, they normally focus on me, which is great. I'm an only child, so it's my life now. My mother, who is clearly the craziest in the family, is always talking to me about excellence and she's obsessed with it. And because I have to spend so much time with her, which I love, mom, wherever you are, I love you. And now I kind of am obsessed with it as well. In my family, best is not a comparative state because good and better are never really options for me or for anyone who's in our community. Best is the only standard, and it's fixed. We understand that our best can change and that our best is a variable and that some days my best is really like a B. And some days my best, hopefully like today, is an A. So in my family, it's best, best and best. The best is inside. We don't compare. We focus within. We work on being our best self daily. We work on giving our best at every single thing that we do. And we strive to be the best version of who we are. We show our best self to the world. But while this is my personal journey, it's not the journey of many kids I know. And it seems the comparative state is something that only kids know. This is a problem. When a kid is told to do their best, they spend their time trying to figure out what they love. They search inside for their passions, and they challenge themselves to rise to the occasion. Comparing is pretty bad. But when kids compare and they're told to be the best, then something else happens. They develop bad friendships. They spend time with kids who they think they're better than, they're motivated by what happens in the world, and they focus on rewards and presents for anything they do. And others determine their sense of self. Frustration can lead to your best. In my fifth grade class, I was assigned only books featuring white boys and their dogs. This is a phrase that some of you have heard, and it's Very, very true. And no books had black girls as the main characters. I'm a black girl and I wanted to read stories about girls like me. Smart, funny, interesting, beautiful, adventurous. Had I been assigned one book, only one book about a black girl and her dog, we wouldn't be here today. You wouldn't be able to see the youngest girl or youngest person ever on this stage speaking at a main stage on inbound 2016. Exactly. So I kind of wish it never happened, but I'm happy I'm here. So let's keep going. I'm not Fannie Lou Hamer, but on that. That morning in the diner, I told my mom I was sick of it. Like, done. You can't even make me go back. Unless this changes, I'm not going back to school. Mom, no, it's done. It's done. And I was sick of us not being included. And I was sick of our stories not being told. Preparing to be your best. I attended the Grassroots Community Foundation Super Camp. For the past five years. I've been learning how to become more confident. And I'd use my gifts and talents to make the world a better place. By the time my mom asked me what I was going to do, I had the training and confidence to respond. Your truth is your best. The first thing we learn at Super Camp is the principle of truth. But there are four core principles that we work Truth, order, balance and reciprocity. And through my campaign, I think that truth and reciprocity are the two things that I've always focused on. In truth, we learn to distinguish between the myths and the facts. We also learn to speak the truth and do the right thing when nobody's watching. This campaign and my need to include black girls voices and experiences are my truth. The principle of truth teaches you to focus on being your best self. Goals change as you do. My original goal was to collect 1,000 books where Black girls are the main characters. I was serious about about us being the main characters. Because like the books, I'm also sick of TV shows, movies, magazines and other forms of media not featuring us as the main characters. I am done. Just done. But when we are featured, we were the sidekicks. Why the sidekicks? Our lives are just as interesting, just as amazing and just as intriguing anyone else's. While I had this very bold goal, I didn't expect to be successful. And I wasn't for a while from November 2015, which was the start of the campaign. So it's a year. It's a year. Like yesterday was the year anniversary. Which I'm really happy about. To January 18, I had only collected about 200 books. Most of my books came from my family and my friends. And My deadline was February 1st, and I started to be afraid that I wouldn't make it. It seems like while I was sick of these books, everyone else was just fine laying in Cabo. Not giving me books, not helping me change the world. Be conscious. But my hope is to really raise consciousness now. More people are aware of what I do. But I want people to actually think about how they can use this to help people in their communities. It's not just about me telling you, but it's about me motivating you and showing you and inspiring you to be the best. Okay? Freedom means that children and their communities will look closely at the books that they are being assigned and who's in their classes. If the stories don't reflect the kids, then I want them to be hopefully braver than me and tell their teachers, their parents, their superintendents, and whoever is there to show that they can help them. I want them to be brave and be strong. But freedom also means that school districts will realize that they're really doing a very bad thing by not exposing all children to diverse stories and diverse lives. And they will change the curriculum and assign different books. Diversity equals equity. If there are no black girl books, then the message that teachers and parents are constantly telling us is that we're all equal and that this world is made for everyone and that everyone can be around and that America is this place for everyone is not the truth. And I want it to be the truth. But if I'm not seeing myself, then you can't tell me an opposition message, a message that is not telling me the truth about my identity and my country and the place that I live. So here are some advice and tips that I have for children and adults for them to look inside and to change from wanting to be the best to doing your best. Start for your kids by asking daily questions to them about their day, more specifically about what they did. So, like, how was your day? Did you do great? Instead of saying, did she do better than you? Or things like, I've told you before, that it needs to be focusing on their performance, less about the people around them, and that they should be able to focus within to find what they really want to do what they really want to improve. And I also suggest that you write down monthly, weekly, or daily goals with your child to promote them. Looking within to find what they want to do. It helped me and I think it can help adults, but for children, it really does help to sit down and look with them about what they want to improve. And for adults, I say, after getting an assignment at work or something that you want to work on, write down a plan of action. What you want to learn and how well do you think you're going to do. And that should always be your best. And I think that that's one thing that you have to remember to stay cool and to not get anxious and stressed out. So if your mind ever starts to drift into competition mode, think about what you do and strive to connect that to what you're actually doing at work. These tips allowed me and can allow you to think less about who's better and who's beating you, and more about what you love and how you can incorporate it into your life. Finally, thank you and happy reading.