3 questions to ask yourself about everything you do | Stacey Abrams

1,455,586 views ・ 2019-01-08

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00:13
When I was in high school at the age of 17 --
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I graduated from high school in Decatur, Georgia,
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as valedictorian of my high school --
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I was very proud of myself.
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I was from a low-income community, I had grown up in Mississippi,
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we'd moved from Mississippi to Georgia
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so my parents could pursue their degrees as United Methodist ministers.
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We were poor, but they didn't think we were poor enough,
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so they were going for permanent poverty.
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(Laughter)
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And so, while they studied at Emory,
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I studied at Avondale, and I became valedictorian.
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Well, one of the joys of being valedictorian in the state of Georgia
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is that you get invited to meet the governor of Georgia.
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I was mildly interested in meeting him.
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It was kind of cool.
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I was more intrigued by the fact that he lived in a mansion,
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because I watched a lot of "General Hospital" and "Dynasty"
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as a child.
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(Laughter)
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And so I got up that morning, ready to go to visit the governor.
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My mom and my dad, who were also invited, got up,
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and we went outside.
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But we didn't get in our car.
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And in the South, a car is a necessary thing.
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We don't have a lot of public transit, there aren't a lot of options.
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But if you're lucky enough to live in a community
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where you don't have a car,
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the only option is public transit.
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And that's what we had to take.
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And so we got on the bus.
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And we took the bus from Decatur all the way to Buckhead,
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where the Governor's Mansion sat on this really beautiful acreage of land,
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with these long black gates that ran the length of the property.
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We get to the Governor's Mansion,
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we pull the little lever that lets them know this is our stop,
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we get off the bus,
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my mom, my dad and I, we walk across the street.
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We walk up the driveway, because there are cars coming up,
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cars bringing in students from all across the state of Georgia.
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So we're walking along the side.
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And as we walk single file along the side,
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my mom and dad sandwiching me to make sure I don't get hit by one of the cars
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bringing in the other valedictorians,
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we approach the guard gate.
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When we get to the guard gate, the guard comes out.
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He looks at me, and he looks at my parents,
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and he says, "You don't belong here, this is a private event."
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My dad says, "No, this is my daughter, Stacey. She's one of the valedictorians."
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But the guard doesn't look at the checklist that's in his hands.
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He doesn't ask my mom for the invitation
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that's at the bottom of her very voluminous purse.
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Instead, he looks over our shoulder at the bus,
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because in his mind, the bus is telling him a story about who should be there.
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And the fact that we were too poor to have our own car --
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that was a story he told himself.
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And he may have seen something in my skin color,
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he may have seen something in my attire;
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I don't know what went through his mind.
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But his conclusion was to look at me again,
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and with a look of disdain, say,
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"I told you, this is a private event. You don't belong here."
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Now, my parents were studying to become United Methodist ministers,
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but they were not pastors yet.
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(Laughter)
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And so they proceeded to engage this gentleman
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in a very robust discussion of his decision-making skills.
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(Laughter)
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My father may have mentioned
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that he was going to spend eternity in a very fiery place
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if he didn't find my name on that checklist.
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And indeed, the man checks the checklist eventually,
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and he found my name, and he let us inside.
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But I don't remember meeting the governor of Georgia.
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I don't recall meeting my fellow valedictorians
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from 180 school districts.
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The only clear memory I have of that day
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was a man standing in front of the most powerful place in Georgia,
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looking at me and telling me I don't belong.
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And so I decided, 20-some-odd years later,
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to be the person who got to open the gates.
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)
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Unfortunately, you may have read the rest of the story.
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It didn't quite work out that way.
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And now I'm tasked with figuring out: How do I move forward?
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Because, you see, I didn't just want to open the gates for young black women
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who had been underestimated and told they don't belong.
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I wanted to open those gates for Latinas and for Asian Americans.
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I wanted to open those gates for the undocumented and the documented.
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I wanted to open those gates as an ally of the LGBTQ community.
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I wanted to open those gates
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for the families that have to call themselves the victims of gun violence.
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I wanted to open those gates wide for everyone in Georgia,
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because that is our state, and this is our nation,
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and we all belong here.
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)
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But what I recognized is that the first try wasn't enough.
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And my question became: How do I move forward?
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How do I get beyond the bitterness and the sadness and the lethargy
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and watching an inordinate amount of television as I eat ice cream?
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(Laughter)
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What do I do next?
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And I'm going to do what I've always done.
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I'm going to move forward, because going backwards isn't an option
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and standing still is not enough.
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(Applause)
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You see, I began my race for governor
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by analyzing who I was and what I wanted to be.
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And there are three questions I ask myself about everything I do,
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whether it's running for office or starting a business;
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when I decided to start the New Georgia Project
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to register people to vote;
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or when I started the latest action, Fair Fight Georgia.
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No matter what I do, I ask myself three questions:
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What do I want?
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Why do I want it?
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And how do I get it?
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And in this case, I know what I want.
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I want change.
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That is what I want.
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But the question is:
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What change do I want to see?
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And I know that the questions I have to ask myself are:
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One, am I honest about the scope of my ambition?
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Because it's easy to figure out that once you didn't get what you wanted,
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then maybe you should have set your sights a little lower,
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but I'm here to tell you to be aggressive about your ambition.
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Do not allow setbacks to set you back.
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(Applause)
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Number two, let yourself understand your mistakes.
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But also understand their mistakes,
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because, as women in particular,
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we're taught that if something doesn't work out,
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it's probably our fault.
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And usually, there is something we could do better,
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but we've been told not to investigate too much
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what the other side could have done.
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And this isn't partisan -- it's people.
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We're too often told that our mistakes are ours alone,
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but victory is a shared benefit.
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And so what I tell you to do is understand your mistakes,
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but understand the mistakes of others.
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And be clearheaded about it.
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And be honest with yourself and honest with those who support you.
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But once you know what you want,
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understand why you want it.
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And even though it feels good, revenge is not a good reason.
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(Laughter)
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Instead, make sure you want it
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because there's something not that you should do,
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but something you must do.
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It has to be something that doesn't allow you to sleep at night
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unless you're dreaming about it;
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something that wakes you up in the morning and gets you excited about it;
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or something that makes you so angry,
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you know you have to do something about it.
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But know why you're doing it.
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And know why it must be done.
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You've listened to women from across this world
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talk about why things have to happen.
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But figure out what the "why" is for you,
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because jumping from the "what" to the "do"
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is meaningless if you don't know why.
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Because when it gets hard, when it gets tough,
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when your friends walk away from you,
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when your supporters forget you,
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when you don't win your first race --
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if you don't know why, you can't try again.
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So, first know what you want.
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Second, know why you want it,
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but third, know how you're going to get it done.
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I faced a few obstacles in this race.
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(Laughter)
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Just a few.
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But in the pursuit,
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I became the first black woman to ever become the nominee for governor
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in the history of the United States of America for a major party.
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)
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But more importantly, in this process,
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we turned out 1.2 million African American voters in Georgia.
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That is more voters
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than voted on the Democratic side of the ticket in 2014.
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(Applause)
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Our campaign tripled the number of Latinos
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who believed their voices mattered in the state of Georgia.
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We tripled the number of Asian Americans
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who stood up and said, "This is our state, too."
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Those are successes that tell me how I can get it done.
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But they also let me understand the obstacles aren't insurmountable.
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They're just a little high.
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But I also understand
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that there are three things that always hold us hostage.
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The first is finances.
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Now, you may have heard, I'm in a little bit of debt.
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If you didn't hear about it, you did not go outside.
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(Laughter)
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And finances are something that holds us back so often,
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our dreams are bounded by how much we have in resources.
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But we hear again and again
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the stories of those who overcome those resource challenges.
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But you can't overcome something you don't talk about.
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And that's why I didn't allow them to debt-shame me in my campaign.
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I didn't allow anyone to tell me that my lack of opportunity
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was a reason to disqualify me from running.
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And believe me, people tried to tell me I shouldn't run.
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Friends told me not to run.
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Allies told me not to run.
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"USA Today" mentioned maybe I shouldn't run.
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(Laughter)
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But no matter who it was,
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I understood that finances are often a reason we don't let ourselves dream.
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I can't say that you will always overcome those obstacles,
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but I will tell you, you will be damned if you do not try.
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(Applause)
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The second is fear.
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And fear is real.
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It is paralyzing.
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It is terrifying.
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But it can also be energizing,
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because once you know what you're afraid of,
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you can figure out how to get around it.
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And the third is fatigue.
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Sometimes you just get tired of trying.
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You get tired of reading about processes and politics
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and the things that stop you from getting where you want to be.
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Sometimes, fatigue means that we accept position instead of power.
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We let someone give us a title as a consolation prize,
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rather than realizing we know what we want and we're going to get it,
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even if we're tired.
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That's why God created naps.
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(Laughter)
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But we also learn in those moments
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that fatigue is an opportunity to evaluate how much we want it.
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Because if you are beaten down,
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if you have worked as hard as you can,
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if you have done everything you said you should,
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and it still doesn't work out,
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fatigue can sap you of your energy.
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But that's why you go back to the "why" of it.
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Because I know we have to have women who speak for the voiceless.
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I know we have to have people of good conscience
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who stand up against oppression.
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I know we have to have people
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who understand that social justice belongs to us all.
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And that wakes me up every morning,
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and that makes me fight even harder.
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Because I am moving forward, knowing what is in my past.
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I know the obstacles they have for me.
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I know what they're going to do,
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and I'm fairly certain they're energizing and creating new obstacles now.
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But they've got four years to figure it out.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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Maybe two.
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)
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But here's my point:
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I know what I want, and that is justice.
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I know why I want it,
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because poverty is immoral, and it is a stain on our nation.
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And I know how I'm going to get it:
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by moving forward every single day.
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Thank you so much.
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)
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