A 3-Step Guide to Believing in Yourself | Sheryl Lee Ralph | TED

00:15:32
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy2Zj8yIe6c

Summary

TLDRSheryl Lee Ralph delivers an empowering speech about believing in oneself, recounting her journey from facing doubts and rejections to winning an Emmy for her role in 'Abbott Elementary.' She recalls starting her career in a film directed by Sidney Poitier and experiencing years of 'nos' before succeeding in Broadway's 'Dreamgirls.' She emphasizes three key lessons: seeing oneself clearly, thinking positively, and acting confidently. Ralph shares anecdotes of facing racial discrimination, particularly in Hollywood, where a producer questioned her suitability for roles opposite major stars, but she reframed his words to fuel her determination. Her persistence and self-belief eventually led to a role in 'Designing Women.' Sheryl reinforces the importance of maintaining a positive self-image and the impact belief has on realizing one's potential. She encourages the audience to embrace and build a positive relationship with themselves, highlighting that faith can help overcome challenges and lead to success.

Takeaways

  • 🎤 Sheryl Lee Ralph triumphs with an Emmy win for 'Abbott Elementary.'
  • 🌟 Persistence amid years of rejection is essential for success.
  • 🚀 Belief in oneself enables overcoming societal and professional barriers.
  • 🎭 Sheryl's role in 'Dreamgirls' was a pivotal point in her career.
  • 💪 Sheryl emphasizes the importance of a strong self-image and self-respect.
  • 👩🏾‍🎤 Personal anecdotes highlight battles with racial discrimination.
  • 📺 Acting self-assured opened new professional opportunities for Sheryl.
  • 💬 Inspirational message: 'Never ever give up on you.'
  • 🧠 Mental health and self-belief are crucial in today's challenging times.
  • 👀 Reflecting on oneself with kindness can empower personal growth.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    The speaker begins by reflecting on a personal achievement: winning an Emmy award for her role on 'Abbott Elementary.' She describes the surprise and disbelief she felt, and how it prompted a reflection on her career journey. This journey included early experiences with rejection and perseverance, which taught her important life lessons. Despite numerous setbacks, she emphasizes the importance of continuing to move forward and believe in oneself, especially during challenging times.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    The speaker stresses the necessity of self-belief, explaining it through three main actions: seeing, thinking, and acting on one's self-worth. She relates personal experiences from her childhood and career to illustrate these points. Her journey highlights overcoming societal prejudices and personal doubts by fostering a positive self-image and maintaining mental strength. She recounts an instance where a derogatory remark from a Hollywood executive pushed her to redefine her belief in herself rather than break her spirit.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:32

    The final message centers on the power of believing in oneself to create new possibilities. The speaker shares how taking initiative in her career by advocating for herself led to significant opportunities, such as landing a role in a popular TV show. She urges the audience to cultivate a practice of self-love and respect, reinforcing that the strongest relationship one can have is with themselves. The speech concludes with a call to action for self-empowerment and kindness, highlighting the importance of faith in personal potential.

Mind Map

Mind Map

Frequently Asked Question

  • Who won the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy in 2022?

    Sheryl Lee Ralph won the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy in 2022.

  • What role did Sheryl Lee Ralph play to win the Emmy Award?

    Sheryl Lee Ralph played the role of Mrs. Barbara Howard on the TV show 'Abbott Elementary' to win the Emmy Award.

  • Who directed Sheryl Lee Ralph's first movie?

    Sheryl Lee Ralph's first movie was directed by the great Sidney Poitier.

  • What Broadway musical did Sheryl Lee Ralph make it big in?

    Sheryl Lee Ralph made it big on Broadway in the musical 'Dreamgirls.'

  • What mantra did Sheryl Lee Ralph's mother teach her when faced with discrimination?

    Her mother taught her, 'You are rubber, they are glue. Every ignorant thing they say about you bounces off of you and sticks to them.'

  • What was significant about Sheryl Lee Ralph's first Emmy experience?

    It was her first time attending the Emmys, and she won on her first nomination.

  • What role did Sheryl Lee Ralph play in 'Designing Women'?

    She was cast as Etienne Toussaint Bouvier, a Las Vegas showgirl turned Anthony's wife in the final season of 'Designing Women.'

  • What words of encouragement does Sheryl Lee Ralph offer at the end of her speech?

    She encourages people to believe in themselves, love or at least respect their reflection, and never give up on themselves.

  • What did Sheryl Lee Ralph believe about her own potential in Hollywood?

    She believed that she belonged in Hollywood, was beautiful and talented, and deserved to be cast in major roles.

  • What were some of the obstacles Sheryl Lee Ralph faced in her career?

    She faced ten years of rejections and discriminatory comments in Hollywood but overcame them by believing in herself.

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  • 00:00:04
    (Singing) I am an endangered species
  • 00:00:11
    (Applause and cheers)
  • 00:00:13
    But I sing no victim song.
  • 00:00:20
    I am a woman.
  • 00:00:23
    I am an artist.
  • 00:00:28
    And I know
  • 00:00:35
    where my voice ...
  • 00:00:41
    belongs.
  • 00:00:45
    (Applause and cheers)
  • 00:00:52
    Now, you might have heard me sing that song.
  • 00:00:57
    It was September 12th, 2022,
  • 00:01:00
    right after Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers said,
  • 00:01:06
    "And the winner is,
  • 00:01:09
    Sheryl Lee Ralph!"
  • 00:01:12
    What!?
  • 00:01:15
    I had just won the Emmy Award
  • 00:01:19
    for Best Supporting Actress in a comedy
  • 00:01:22
    for my role as Mrs. Barbara Howard
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    on your favorite TV show, "Abbott Elementary."
  • 00:01:31
    (Cheers)
  • 00:01:33
    Oh, yes.
  • 00:01:35
    And I was shocked.
  • 00:01:38
    As the children would say, shooketh into disbelief.
  • 00:01:43
    Oh, my goodness, it was my first time at the Emmys and I won.
  • 00:01:49
    Yes!
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    And I got to tell you,
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    in that moment,
  • 00:01:56
    I was so stunned into disbelief
  • 00:02:00
    that I don't know how I got up on the stage.
  • 00:02:05
    There I was, just listening to that roar of applause.
  • 00:02:11
    Mm mm mm.
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    And my whole career flashed right there in front of me.
  • 00:02:16
    Starting with 19-year-old Sheryl Lee in her first movie
  • 00:02:22
    being directed by the great Sidney Poitier.
  • 00:02:27
    Oh, yeah, you can clap that.
  • 00:02:29
    (Applause)
  • 00:02:32
    Followed by ten years of “no” after “no” after “no.”
  • 00:02:39
    Before the next film role came about.
  • 00:02:42
    But I filled in that time with TV
  • 00:02:45
    and more "nos" and more rejection
  • 00:02:48
    until I made it big on Broadway
  • 00:02:52
    in what has become the iconic musical of the '80s,
  • 00:02:58
    because I say so,
  • 00:02:59
    (Laughter)
  • 00:03:01
    "Dreamgirls."
  • 00:03:02
    (Applause)
  • 00:03:05
    And boy, did I learn a lot of life lessons there.
  • 00:03:09
    And I mean, after so many moments of doubt, disbelief,
  • 00:03:15
    there I was, on that Emmy stage,
  • 00:03:19
    with this huge sign in front of me flashing
  • 00:03:23
    "Stop now," "Stop now," "Stop now."
  • 00:03:27
    And I started to think,
  • 00:03:28
    “My God, what if I had stopped after all of those ‘nos?’
  • 00:03:32
    What if I had stopped after all of those moments of feeling defeated?
  • 00:03:37
    What if I had stopped?"
  • 00:03:40
    I wouldn't be standing there
  • 00:03:43
    for that golden moment.
  • 00:03:48
    But right now,
  • 00:03:50
    many of us, we are feeling ...
  • 00:03:55
    deeply challenged
  • 00:03:58
    trying to hold on
  • 00:04:00
    and believe in ourselves,
  • 00:04:02
    and I do not mean in a toxic way.
  • 00:04:05
    I am talking about a way that comes from confidence,
  • 00:04:10
    the kind of confidence that can keep us moving forward
  • 00:04:14
    when we are feeling
  • 00:04:17
    like we are carrying the weight of the pandemic,
  • 00:04:21
    trying to figure out all of this political division,
  • 00:04:25
    fighting all of the mental, physical, social violence in our homes,
  • 00:04:32
    in our communities,
  • 00:04:35
    to climate change, social media.
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    It's a lot.
  • 00:04:42
    Making it hard to believe in the goodness in the world.
  • 00:04:48
    And harder still to believe in the goodness of ourselves.
  • 00:04:56
    This is a rough time, people, and our mental health is suffering.
  • 00:05:02
    We all need a checkup from the neck up.
  • 00:05:05
    (Laughter)
  • 00:05:07
    And I don't mean -- yeah, it's OK.
  • 00:05:09
    You feel me, thank you.
  • 00:05:11
    (Applause)
  • 00:05:12
    And I don't mean just medicine.
  • 00:05:16
    I actually mean reframing our thinking
  • 00:05:23
    of our ability to believe in ourselves.
  • 00:05:30
    Now I know,
  • 00:05:32
    you see me on TV, in magazines, on movie screens,
  • 00:05:37
    and you might be thinking to yourself,
  • 00:05:39
    "What does she know about struggling to believe in herself?"
  • 00:05:44
    Well, let me tell you something.
  • 00:05:47
    I do not look like my journey.
  • 00:05:49
    (Laughter)
  • 00:05:51
    (Applause)
  • 00:05:57
    Oh, I've been through a few things.
  • 00:06:00
    And the struggle is real.
  • 00:06:04
    But I have learned something in my life.
  • 00:06:09
    That there are three things that we all must do
  • 00:06:13
    in order to believe in ourselves.
  • 00:06:19
    Number one.
  • 00:06:21
    First, we need to see ourselves.
  • 00:06:24
    I mean, really, truly,
  • 00:06:27
    deeply see ourselves for who and what we are
  • 00:06:33
    in order to believe in ourselves.
  • 00:06:36
    I’m a child of the ’60s, and that was hard.
  • 00:06:41
    Oh.
  • 00:06:43
    In the third grade,
  • 00:06:45
    I tested out of public school into a fancy private school
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    where the only Black person I saw every day
  • 00:06:57
    was the one who looked back at me in the mirror.
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    I was by myself, and I was all alone.
  • 00:07:09
    And the things that were said to me,
  • 00:07:13
    and I'm not talking about just the kids,
  • 00:07:16
    but the adults, too.
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    And when I would come home from school crying the ugly cry,
  • 00:07:25
    my immigrant Jamaican mother would sit me down in front of the mirror
  • 00:07:31
    and ask me,
  • 00:07:33
    "Do you see an N-word?
  • 00:07:37
    Do you see a liar?
  • 00:07:40
    Do you see a big-lip monkey?
  • 00:07:44
    No!
  • 00:07:45
    So dry your eyes.
  • 00:07:47
    And when you go back to school, remember,
  • 00:07:51
    you are rubber,
  • 00:07:52
    they are glue.
  • 00:07:54
    And every ignorant thing they say about you
  • 00:07:59
    bounces off of you and sticks to them."
  • 00:08:03
    (Applause)
  • 00:08:10
    And I believed her.
  • 00:08:13
    And it didn't hurt.
  • 00:08:15
    So much.
  • 00:08:18
    Because I believed.
  • 00:08:21
    Number two.
  • 00:08:24
    We've got to think.
  • 00:08:26
    Think about ourselves in order to believe in ourselves.
  • 00:08:31
    Growing up, my dad had a sign on his desk.
  • 00:08:35
    And it said, "Think."
  • 00:08:39
    "Think."
  • 00:08:41
    Oh, I did not know how valuable and powerful
  • 00:08:46
    the simple act of thinking was
  • 00:08:48
    until I came back to Hollywood from my triumphant run on Broadway,
  • 00:08:54
    and I had this meeting with a big studio Hollywood casting director.
  • 00:09:00
    Oh, I was so excited.
  • 00:09:02
    I walked in and he looked at me and he said,
  • 00:09:06
    "Hm.
  • 00:09:07
    Everybody knows you're a beautiful, talented Black girl.
  • 00:09:11
    But what do I do with a beautiful, talented Black girl?
  • 00:09:17
    Do I put you in a movie with Tom Cruise?
  • 00:09:21
    Does he kiss you? Ugh.
  • 00:09:25
    Who goes to see that movie?"
  • 00:09:32
    (Laughs)
  • 00:09:35
    I could not believe
  • 00:09:37
    that that man had just said that to me, to my face.
  • 00:09:44
    And he hurt me.
  • 00:09:46
    He hurt me so deeply,
  • 00:09:48
    I was actually thinking about quitting.
  • 00:09:53
    Until ...
  • 00:09:56
    I started to think.
  • 00:09:59
    And I thought about what he said.
  • 00:10:01
    He said that everybody knew
  • 00:10:04
    that I was a beautiful, talented Black girl.
  • 00:10:08
    (Laughter)
  • 00:10:09
    (Cheers and applause)
  • 00:10:15
    And that I deserve to be cast in movies with the likes of Tom Cruise,
  • 00:10:22
    and he should kiss me.
  • 00:10:24
    (Applause)
  • 00:10:26
    (Laughs)
  • 00:10:28
    So what was meant to break me did not break me, it built me up.
  • 00:10:33
    I believed that man, I believed what he said.
  • 00:10:36
    And I walked out of there giving myself permission to take up space in Hollywood,
  • 00:10:42
    knowing that I belonged there
  • 00:10:44
    no matter what anybody thought about me.
  • 00:10:48
    (Cheers and applause)
  • 00:10:55
    Thirdly.
  • 00:10:57
    We've got to act like we believe in ourselves.
  • 00:11:02
    Oh, yeah.
  • 00:11:03
    Because when we believe in ourselves and act on it,
  • 00:11:06
    we create possibilities that never would have been possible
  • 00:11:11
    had we not just believed.
  • 00:11:14
    OK, so I will tell you another story.
  • 00:11:19
    I will never forget walking into one of those crowded Hollywood rooms,
  • 00:11:23
    and I see Harry Thomason, producer Harry Thomason,
  • 00:11:28
    who is married to Linda Bloodworth-Thomason,
  • 00:11:31
    writer, creator of the series "Designing Women."
  • 00:11:36
    I walk right up to Harry and I say,
  • 00:11:39
    "How can it be, that after all of these years
  • 00:11:42
    Anthony has not had a relationship with a Black woman?
  • 00:11:47
    After all, the show takes place in Atlanta,
  • 00:11:52
    Georgia."
  • 00:11:53
    (Laughter)
  • 00:11:56
    He looked at me, took a step back
  • 00:12:00
    and said, "Who are you?"
  • 00:12:03
    I said, "I'm Sheryl Lee Ralph."
  • 00:12:06
    And he said, "OK.
  • 00:12:09
    Have your people call my people
  • 00:12:12
    and we will see what we can do."
  • 00:12:17
    And guess what happened?
  • 00:12:19
    (Laughter)
  • 00:12:20
    I got cast as Etienne Toussaint Bouvier,
  • 00:12:25
    Las Vegas showgirl turned Anthony's wife
  • 00:12:29
    for the final season of "Designing Women."
  • 00:12:33
    (Cheers and applause)
  • 00:12:34
    Oh, yeah.
  • 00:12:36
    Against all odds, once again,
  • 00:12:40
    I gave myself permission to take up space,
  • 00:12:45
    believing that I belonged.
  • 00:12:48
    I believed that if Sheryl Lee did the work of honing her craft,
  • 00:12:54
    building solid relationships
  • 00:12:57
    and stayed ready so she didn't have to get ready,
  • 00:13:01
    anything was possible.
  • 00:13:04
    Heck, winning an Emmy.
  • 00:13:08
    A Grammy.
  • 00:13:10
    An Oscar.
  • 00:13:12
    A Tony.
  • 00:13:13
    EGOT it, baby.
  • 00:13:16
    (Cheering)
  • 00:13:18
    So ...
  • 00:13:20
    When you leave this room today,
  • 00:13:24
    I challenge all of you to start a meaningful practice
  • 00:13:29
    of looking in the mirror
  • 00:13:32
    and loving what you see.
  • 00:13:34
    Believe in what you see.
  • 00:13:38
    If you can't love it, then respect it.
  • 00:13:42
    And if you can't respect it, then encourage it.
  • 00:13:45
    If you can't encourage it, empower it.
  • 00:13:49
    And if you can't empower it, please be kind to it.
  • 00:13:57
    (Applause)
  • 00:14:03
    The greatest relationship,
  • 00:14:07
    the greatest one you will ever have
  • 00:14:12
    is with yourself.
  • 00:14:15
    Believe me.
  • 00:14:17
    Have faith in yourself.
  • 00:14:20
    Believing that faith can make broken wings fly.
  • 00:14:25
    And we deserve to soar.
  • 00:14:31
    Remember,
  • 00:14:34
    maybe one of these days when you pass the mirror
  • 00:14:38
    and you catch a glimpse of yourself,
  • 00:14:42
    remember, I told you this.
  • 00:14:44
    That is what believing looks like.
  • 00:14:51
    And don't you ever, ever,
  • 00:14:55
    ever give up on you.
  • 00:15:00
    I am Sheryl Lee Ralph,
  • 00:15:04
    and I love you just the way you are.
  • 00:15:09
    (Singing) Believe in yourself
  • 00:15:13
    As I believe in you
  • 00:15:23
    Thank you.
  • 00:15:24
    (Cheers and applause)
Tags
  • Sheryl Lee Ralph
  • Self-belief
  • Abbott Elementary
  • Emmy Award
  • Dreamgirls
  • Hollywood
  • Racial Discrimination
  • Confidence
  • Motivational Speech
  • Self-image