COMMON BELIEFS BEWARE Living The Reality Transurfing Concepts Vadim Zeland Renée Garcia

14 May 2020 · 4 min

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4:29

In this spoken monologue, the presenter shares a personal narrative of repeatedly rejecting widely‑held societal beliefs in order to pursue risky, unconventional experiences. Starting at age 18, she backpacked alone through the Middle East, later single‑handed a sailboat to the Channel Islands, and launched multiple businesses without prior expertise. She recounts the criticism she faced—people telling her where she “shouldn’t” go or that her actions were foolish—yet emphasizes that many of those warnings never materialized. The speaker argues that common beliefs are learned early, become entrenched, and often serve to protect people from perceived danger, but they also limit growth. By deliberately taking larger risks, she turned failures into valuable personal assets, prioritizing experience over financial wealth. The talk concludes with a call to the audience to reflect on which common belief is holding them back and why.

Chapters

Common beliefs. Beware. When I was 18 years old, I strapped a backpack on and took a one-way flight to Tel Aviv. I backpacked through the Middle East alone for nearly 4 months. When I originally told people what I was doing before I left, they were often confused and asked, Why? I stated that I just wanted to go and flights were cheap. Some said to me, that is not a place a woman should go alone, or you don't just leave somewhere with a one-way ticket for 4 months. My question back was, why? It was the same when I bought my boat and sailed it single-handed to the Channel Islands the coast of Santa Barbara. People in my life have softly called me stupid and some brave. I don't think I'm either. I have just cultivated a practice for not buying into the common beliefs that most people follow. We start to hear things when we are young, and unfortunately those things settle in if you are not careful. If you don't maintain awareness that there is another mode of operation. We hear things about parts of life not being for us, or other parts of life being too dangerous or risky. Most people follow these words because they don't want to experience defeat or danger or fall down when someone stated that would happen. I have learned firsthand that oftentimes what someone stated to me would be the case never did become the case when it came to risk. So I started taking bigger ones. My question is, how are these common beliefs written? How do they originate? And why as human beings did we decide that being fearful of moving in a direction of the unknown would be our default. Did some crazy stuff happen to me when I was in the Middle East? Yep. Did some crazy stuff happen to me when I was sailing my boat? Yep. I have had all sorts of ups and downs with my adventures and my business ventures. All of my businesses that I've started, I had no experience. I'm sure lots of people thought I would fail. Sometimes I did. What blossomed out of those failures, however, are my most cherished personal assets. So where is the loss? The bottom line is I took risks and I still do. I don't buy into the common beliefs and I learn things for myself. If I had not been willing to take a hit, I would've missed out on so much. I think at the very end, when I reconcile all of my wins and all of my losses, I will definitely be in the positive. Even if it's just based on experiences alone. I've dropped importance on crossing the finish line with a bunch of financial wealth. I'm looking for experience. I know at the end I will look back and feel satisfied that every opportunity that presented itself, every door I walked through because of my ability to see through the common beliefs trying to pull me back. So my question for you all today, what common belief is holding You back, and from what?