Lenore Skenazy

So suddenly it's like, ah, like a cartoon.

And she had a split second to decide what to do.

And she threw herself into a bush, right?

And she got all scraped off and it was okay.

And she put the handlebars back on.

She kept doing it.

And I said, well, you know, well, what'd you tell your parents?

And she's like,

didn't tell my parents and then when other people in the audience started telling stories like this kid this this one guy i think it was a principal got lost on like some family hike and he had to actually hitchhike back to where they were and of course he didn't tell his parents and and some guy played mumbly peg which is the stupidest game on earth where you throw a knife at each other's feet and of course somebody's foot got hurt and they like hid the fact that they were taking him up to the bathroom to wash off his foot and get the blood down the drain and put on a band-aid oh he's fine just taking a shower

you know and and none of them had told their parents and when i said why it was because they they didn't want their parents to know and then therefore take away their independence so their independence was just uh you know innately so important to them that they were treasuring it and protecting it and they were doing two things at once they were protecting their independence and they were saying to themselves look what i can handle

And anxiety is the opposite of that.

Anxiety is when you worry like, oh, you know, this seems hard.

What if I mess up?

If I mess up, it'll be terrible.

I'll be embarrassed.

And if I'm hurt, it will be forever.

So I might as well not do it.

I have to tell you, Nike just changed its slogan like last week.

And while they're keeping just do it, they added the new slogan, why do it?

Like, why do it?