Panorama Ridge Secondary student selected to speak at TEDxSurrey
Panorama Ridge student Aminullah Shirazi will be getting out of his comfort zone in January, delivering a TED Talk titled How to Leave Your Teenage Comfort Zone at TEDxSurrey. The Grade 10 student will share his life experiences as an immigrant and the youngest in his family that have contributed to social anxiety, and how he overcame it. (Photo by TEDxSurrey)
A Panorama Ridge Secondary student will soon be encouraging his peers to get out of their comfort zone, as part of his TEDxSurrey talk slated for January.
Grade 10 French Immersion student Aminullah Shirazi is among only a dozen speakers chosen to participate in the sixth annual TEDxSurrey, a forum for thought-provoking presentations related to technology, entertainment and design. Shirazi’s talk, titled How to Leave Your Teenage Comfort Zone, touches on his life experiences as the youngest of four (by a nine-year age gap), an immigrant to Canada at just seven years old, and overcoming the social anxiety that came with it.
“Growing up, I experienced a lot of change in moving from the U.K. and my siblings leaving the nest, and I felt like I couldn’t really speak up or do anything that made me uncomfortable,” he said. “I didn’t know how to differentiate genuine gut feeling discomfort and boundary setting from irrational fear and cowardice. There was a lot of self-induced alienation.”
As his older siblings moved out and away, Shirazi said he started to feel what it’s like to be an only child, which only compounded his anxiety around life’s uncertainties and matters beyond his control as he entered his teenage years.
But Shirazi credits insight from his youngest sister with shifting his mindset around the parts of life that are out of his hands, which ultimately led to an important personal realization and the inspiration for his TEDx Talk.
“She reminded me that discomfort is an essential and necessary part of growth, and I had this epiphany,” he recalled. “I spent an entire year doing everything I could to be as uncomfortable as possible, and last summer, I visited my sister and we reflected on how much I’ve grown when it comes to leaving my comfort zone.”
“I realized that I can narrow that process down to three very simple, digestible steps, and I thought, the perfect thing for my talk would be a simple guide on how to leave your teenage comfort zone.”
For Shirazi, speaking on a TEDx stage is something of a life goal: He previously told his Grade 8 English teacher, Karan Pooni, that delivering a TED Talk is one of three things he wants to do before he dies.
Pooni introduced him to TEDxSurrey, and after a “heavily procrastinated” application and an ironically mildly uncomfortable audition, the rest, for Shirazi, is history to be made in the new year.
“I am very excited, I’m a little nervous but I love the thrill of public speaking and I feel like I get better at it every single time I do it,” said Shirazi. “It’s a learning process and that’s the fun part.
“I can’t wait to refine and perfect my talk and finally be able to hear what people think about it. I want to provide them with the same epiphany I had.”
TEDxSurrey takes place Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024, at the Bell Performing Arts Centre. For tickets or more information, visit tedxsurrey.ca. Early bird tickets are available for $20 off with the code EARLYBIRD before Nov. 30.
