This elephant has incredible strength.

She can uproot a tree with her trunk alone.

Yet she will remain in captivity, held by only a light rope.

Despite her ability to easily break away, she doesn't even try.

Why?

It starts when she is young.

She is first tied down when she is small

and not yet strong enough to break the rope.

She'll try at first, try as hard as she can to break free,

and try and try,

but eventually realize she can't.

Suddenly, something attaches itself to her

that is stronger than any rope or chain or fence.

It's the belief that she can't break free.

It's this belief that holds her back -

despite her ability.

I've had these same beliefs -

you may have too -

beliefs that held me back,

beliefs that led me to feel unfulfilled in my work,

to struggle in my relationships

and to live a life that was far from the one I am living now.

It was only when I became aware of my ropes

and actively pulled against them

that I found myself in a different reality.

How do you break the ropes that tie you down?

Don't believe everything you think.

When I was six years old, I had a favorite baby sitter, Amber.

One morning, my mother told me we couldn't have her babysit

because she didn't have enough money to pay her.

So that afternoon, I started my first company.

I gathered rocks from around the neighborhood,

painted them with my art set,

and went door to door, selling them to our neighbors.

That night, it was Amber and I on the couch together.

When I was young, I was bold, outgoing and fearless.

I wore what I wanted

(Laughter)

or didn't want to wear,

(Laughter)

guided by my own voice that told me what would make me happy.

I was also in love.

His name was Fernando, and he was wonderful.

As with everything else, I wasn't afraid to grab him with both hands.

(Laughter)

As I grew older, this picture started to fade.

My exuberance was replaced with timidness,

my leadership with conformity,

my boldness with fear.

I don't think any of us leave childhood without some ropes

despite our parents' best intentions.

I grew up with a mother who was determined to give me the perfect life.

Armed with love and good intentions,

she did everything for me to help me be perfect.

I'd pack a suitcase to go on a school trip,

and she'd unpack it and repack it in a more perfect way.

I'd be ready to turn in a school art project,

and then she'd add her own brush strokes to make it better.

Later she told me

when my choice of boyfriend or apartment wasn't good enough.

Although she just wanted what was best for me,

I stopped knowing what was best for me.

An unconscious rope was formed.

I shouldn't trust my own voice and my own ability,

and I feared not being perfect.

Other ropes attached themselves too.

I grew up in a family filled with yelling, loud voices and strong opinions.

To keep the peace, I learned to stay quiet,

to not rock the boat,

to become invisible.

In school, I came to believe

it's more important to blend in than stand out.

And the pain of an early heartbreak

led me to hold back in my relationships

so I could avoid getting hurt.

I'm not good enough.

Don't speak up.

Don't stand out.

Fear failure.

These were my ropes.

This isn't just my story.

Like the elephant, we all come to believe certain things in childhood

that weren't true -

or at least are no longer true.

But we still live with them as if they are.

If you've ever felt not good enough,

alone, unwanted, unloved,

invisible, powerless, like you don't belong -

these are your ropes.

If you've ever felt you can't trust yourself,

trust others, speak up, stand out,

ask for help, let others in, be accepted as you are -

these are your ropes.

These ropes hold us back.

I found myself defaulting to others' opinions

when I should have been trusting my own,

staying quiet when it would have benefited me to speak up,

and blending in

when I would have been happier if I had to courage to stand out.

This led me into a series of jobs that ranged from tolerable to miserable.

In one, I hoped I'd get sick so I could stay home from work.

It led me into a series of relationships

in which I lacked confidence in myself, the other person and the relationship.

These never worked out.

My beliefs affected the way I perceived the world,

which changed how I acted, which led to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I felt small,

and my world became smaller.

What we believe has powerful effects.

Decades of social psychology research backs this up.

In a study performed at Dartmouth College,

an ugly scar was placed on participants' faces with makeup.

They were then sent into a room for a conversation

and asked to report how people responded to them with this ugly scar.

But here is the twist.

Right before they left, the experimenter said,

"Hold on a minute! We just want to touch up your scar a bit."

Rather than touch it up, they removed it entirely.

So unbeknownst to them,

the participants went into their conversations,

looking completely normal.

Despite this,

they came back and reported how awkward their conversations were,

how people avoided looking at their scar, had trouble making eye contact,

and were tense and uncomfortable in the conversation.

Their beliefs about their scar led them to see things

that weren't really there

and to make meaning of innocent behavior.

What could have been a perfectly normal conversation

instead became an awkward one.

Their beliefs created their reality.

Other studies show the same effect.

Highlight an Asian woman's Asian identity before a math test,

she'll perform better.

Highlight her female identity,

she'll perform worse.

Lead a group of men to believe

an athletic task is diagnostic of sports intelligence,

white men perform better.

Lead them to believe it'd diagnostic of natural athletic ability,

black men do.

Give someone a white coat and tell them it's a doctor's lab coat,

they'll perform better on an attention task

than when told it's a painter's coat.

In all of these cases,

same people, same abilities, same tasks - different beliefs.

And in each case, it was their belief that raised or lowered their performance.

How you see yourself and your circumstances

will affect what you see, how you act,

and what occurs as a result.

It's almost as if our beliefs place a virtual reality headset on us,

(Laughter)

a headset that allows us to see things that aren't really there

and sends us into a false reality.

We have these headsets even when they're miles from the truth.

I remember hearing the top model Cameron Russell share how models,

despite having the shiniest hair and the longest legs,

are some of the most physically insecure people on the planet.

And award-winning author Lidia Yuknavitch shared

how she didn't follow up on the literary representation she was offered

early in her career.

The reason in her words:

"We don't always know how to hope or say yes

or choose the big thing,

even when it's right in front of us.

It's the shame we carry.

The shame of not believing we deserve it."

Our headsets have us living into a false reality.

They also cause us to bump into each other.

Once, I'd been dating someone for a few weeks.

We'll call him Ben.

We talked every day.

Then he went on a work trip.

For four days, silence.

I didn't hear a word.

How would you interpret this?

What's the first thought that pops in your head?

My beliefs led me to wonder what I had done or said

to make this once enthusiastic person change his mind about me.

I shared his silence with friends.

One, who admits she has trouble trusting people,

was sure he was on this trip with another woman.

(Laughter)

Another, who admits she's afraid of rejection,

guessed he was probably upset

because I hadn't invited him as my date to an upcoming wedding.

And a third, who has trouble with commitment,

guessed he probably thought we were moving too fast

and was taking some space.

Each person saw the same situation through the lens of their own headset.

Who was right?

How should I respond?

Each of these assumptions leads to a different response.

Moving too fast? - I should pull back.

But if he's feeling rejected, this would just hurt him more.

Feeling rejected? - I should up my calls and invite him to the wedding.

But if he thinks we're moving too fast, this will just push him away further.

I was so confused.

As I was ping-ponging around in my own headset

while briefly borrowing some of my friends' headsets,

this relationship died a slow death.

Are you ready for what was going on in Ben's headset?

He'd been deeply hurt by a past relationship,

was afraid of getting hurt again,

and pulled away when his insecurities got the best of him.

It was none of the things anyone had guessed.

Sometimes our headsets get in the way of our relationships.

It took me a long time to learn this.

Just as our beliefs can hold us back, they can also propel us forward.

Let's go back to the scar study for a moment.

Imagine the opposite.

Imagine the researchers place something on the participants' faces

that leads them to believe they look beautiful

and then remove it before they go into the social setting.

Now, what do you think they believe about others' responses?

How do you think they show up differently?

What difference does it make if you believe you're ugly or gorgeous,

good at math or terrible at it,

good at sports or not?

It seems, a big one.

I finally learned this lesson.

My headset led me to law school.

There my long-held false beliefs were reinforced:

aim for perfection, follow the crowd, fear failure.

This was a familiar path.

Then one day, without thinking much about it,

I signed up for a class outside the law school,

called Design Thinking Boot Camp,

a class that promised to unleash my creative potential.

I had to design innovative products and experiences,

or more accurately, pull on almost every single one of my ropes.

I had to trust my own voice because when it comes to innovation,

there is by definition no one to look to for the answers.

I had to put myself out there

because innovation doesn't come from playing it safe.

And perhaps most importantly, I had to be willing to fail,

to be willing to not be perfect.

The best designs came only after multiple failed attempts.

If I wanted to get it right, I first had to be willing to get it wrong.

I struggled in this class

because all of the things that would help me succeed

were the same things I believed for so many years I shouldn't do.