And as you begin to minimize and manage your variables, your success should begin to increase. Ironically, sailing as a sport based on adaptation to two constantly changing variables found in the wind and the waves. Add in a teammate whose ability to do the right thing at the right time is 50% responsible for your success in a race. And you can understand why we're trying to control as much of our environment as possible. Having a routine allowed us to reset and eliminate any emotional variability that could negatively influence our following race. It allowed us to wipe our slate clean, act like we were going into the first race of the day with nothing behind us, and have a neutral, stable mentality. Visualization was also a key part of our routine. And I got to the point where I would envision every step of every maneuver in the order they would occur during the hourlong race.
and I wouldn't break focus until I'd mentally rehearsed crossing the finish line. Peter and I even got to the point where we refused interviews from the media boat because we saw no point in changing a mental routine that was getting us consistent top five finishes. After two years of training following the clinic with Steve Hunt, we had perfected a routine that allowed us to stay focused and level-headed over 3 days of racing with up to seven hours of racing each day. But it wasn't until the summer of 2025 that I began to appreciate how key Steve Hunt's advice really was. Peter had graduated from junior sailing, so I was competing at open nationals with my twin brother Sam. In sailing, nationals consists of two days of qualifying racing and one day of metal racing. Going into the start of metal racing, Sam and I were tied for first with a team of sailors from California, which is actually better than where Peter and I had been placed going into metal racing the previous year.
We were focused and had solid mental routines considering we'd only been sailing together for a couple of months. Going to the last race of the day, the podium was up in the air. Sam and I were in a position that had the potential to place us in first overall because our top competitor was behind us by about 13 boats. Unfortunately, as we crossed the halfway point, dozens of coaches streamed into the racing area and began to notify the competitors that the race had been called off due to course corrections and would have to be rerun. That race was then rerun over eight times due to false starts. Sam and I were extremely frustrated that a national title might have just been stripped away from us. And this coupled with a mentally and physically taxing repeated starts in grueling conditions caused us to break our flow while our friends from California managed to stay focused.
After an absurd amount of starts, we finally got a race off. Sam and I had a good start, but began to struggle on a leg of the race that we were typically the fastest on. With frustration at a peak and all mental prep thrown out the window, we hit a large wave at the wrong angle and nose dived. We lost about 40 boats while recovering and finished in the mid-30s, dropping us off the podium to a tantalizing fourth place. It's extremely difficult to do the right thing at the right time if you're crippled under pressure and exhausted. And while physical while exhaustion might be solved by physical practice, operating under pressure is much more of a mental game. And the ability to do this is something that sets athletes apart or causes catastrophes like Lindsey von's crash. A fact that you might have missed due to the crash.
the craze over her crash in the Olympics is that Lindsy Vaughn actually had a similar crash in the World Cup a couple months prior and was not oblivious to the whispers that she was getting too old to be competing at that level. Similarly, Simone when Simone Biles famously dropped out of the Tokyo Olympics mid competition, she blamed it on her loss of air awareness. But I'm willing to bet that the pressure that comes with her position as an outlier in gymnastics had some negative influence on her mentality in that moment. Conversely, in order for her to constantly repeat that flow state that was so lucrative, I would hazard a guess that every time Alyssa Lou went out on that ice, she gave herself a little reminder to just be herself and have fun. And that is an example of a basic mental routine. Now, you can't rely on a mental routine to increase your performance if you are missing the fundamentals of a sport.
If I were to go up to bat against a major league pitcher, I know I'm not going to hit anything because I'm simply outclassed. I like to represent this concept as a pyramid where mentality is the peak and everything else that is specific to your sport is the foundation. And the peak of this pyramid is the same for every sport. It doesn't matter whether you're playing golf or you're a tight end. If you can't do what you need to do under pressure, you will never reach your full potential as an athlete. And this doesn't just go for sports. take tests, interviews, a TED talk. I'm a senior, but I'm taking more SATs over my gap year, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to squeeze more points off that test. Now, I'm not saying you have to envision every letter you write on your next pop quiz with Mr.
Lima. But if you think a couple of deep breaths would have helped you on that last FRQ you bombed, then why not try it? So, what does it take to break the cycle? What does it take to be an outlier and critically keep that cycle broken? Steve Hunt, a man who has dominated his corner of the sailing world for decades, believed that the secret to breaking out of the pack, is in your mentality. I proved the importance of flow state to myself in my experience at nationals when Sam and I neglected our mental routine. I was unwittingly a guinea pig in my own experiment, but I'm going to use the knowledge I gained from making mistakes to my advantage in the future. And after this presentation, I hope you will, too. This is how mental routines influences athletics via mentality and flow state. And this is my wave for a better tomorrow.
Thank you, Finn. Can you please stop that? Thanks. Uh, all right. Thank you, Finn, for a really wonderful presentation on Flow State. We appreciate you. All right. Our second presentation for period 5 is The Cost of Wanting More by Noah Velozo. Noah is a senior here at DHS who enjoys fishing, thrifting, the outdoors, and listening to music. This is his first TEDx DHS talk, and he chose his topic because of how much consumerism impacts our society. Upon graduation, Noah plans to attend Endeott College, although he hasn't confirmed what his major is going to be yet. Um, oh, he hasn't confirmed Endeott yet. Whoop! Big secret. Uh, to study business. Please welcome Noah Velozo. 1.28 trillion. That's how much credit card debt is in America. When the credit card was first introduced to Americans in 1950s, the idea was buy now pay later. This instilled the desire for Americans to buy a lot of products.
If you've been on the internet in the past year, guarantee you've heard of this. It's a Lebu created by Chinese artist Caseing Long. The Labu was first created in 2015, but last year due to their online presence, they blew up in popularity. They'll come in these little blind boxes, so you never know what you're going to get. If you wanted a certain Lebu, you have to buy a lot of these boxes, try and get the one you wanted. All this is a direct result of consumerism. The Oxford dictionary defines a consumer as a person who purchased goods and services for personal use. So all of us are consumers. Consumerism on the other hand is the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods. Basically meaning that society makes us believe that if you want to feel good about yourself, you need to buy things.
A phrase I'd like to introduce everyone here is keeping up with the Jones Jonases. This phrase basically refers to the idea that you want to keep up with your neighbors soioeconomic status. say they buy a new car, you might feel a need to buy an even better car, almost creating a sort of competition. So, why do we want what we don't have? And what is the driving force behind wanting to purchase goods? First off, consumerism is something that's very hard to avoid. Places like malls promote it and are constantly trying to make you buy something. If you go to the mall, you might want to buy even a little product just to feel like the trip was a success. Online shopping has taken the spot as to where many people do their shopping nowadays. Places like Amazon and Walmart are places where a lot of people want to buy products.
Now 75% of Amazon shoppers have a Prime membership which is a monthly membership you can buy where you get products faster. According to the Pew Research Center, 62% of people prefer to do their shopping online and 34% of people at least buy one thing online a week. Holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are big events where companies want you to go out and buy a bunch of things. The main reason is that these items go on sale. So, if you want to buy a bunch of things, why not buy it now? One big reason that we like to buy things in general is instant gratification, often tied to dopamine. Dopamine is a feel-good chemical released by your brain in situations where you feel pleasure, whether it's eating a meal you love or watch a movie you enjoy. Apps like Tik Tok, Instagram, and YouTube have scrolling options which allow you to watch videos around 10 seconds long that release dopamine at a very concerning level.
Advertisements are also a big reason we end up buying things. If a product doesn't get advertised to you, how do you know if you want it? Super Bowl is one of the main places that companies buy out commercial spots to advertise their products to you. Famous ones such as the Dunkings and the ad where Mr. Peanut dies gained a lot of traction for these companies online, which caused more attention to the company. Collaborations are also another reason that we end up buying things. Take Crocs for example. Crocs is a very famous shoe brand and when they collaborate with something such as KFC or Shrek, fans of both of the products may feel a need to want to buy the shoe. Another reason that collaborations is because of influence. Many of you might remember the Travis Scott meal which was a collaboration between Travis Scott and McDonald's in 2020.
Travis Scott was a very big rapper at the time and his fan base most likely likes McDonald's, but when they collaborated, McDonald's actually had a shortage of ingredients and their quarterly revenue rose by 4.6%. Just like Travis Scott, influencers are one of the main reasons that Laboos grew in in popularity yesterday or last year, excuse me. People like Kim Kardashian or Rihanna were seen with Laboos and fans of the celebrities saw this and thought, "I can buy a Lebu. Maybe I would feel as famous or as rich as one of them." The internet has the power to make things trend really, really fast. Stanley was just an an ordinary brand. They would make cups and thermoses, but a couple years ago, they blew up online mainly from Tik Tok. Store exclusive Stanley's such as the pink one from Target had people running to go try and grab it and cause insane resale prices.
But after the hype died down, you can easily buy Stanley now. Trends go by fast and now the big water bottle is a wala. I guarantee many of you in the audience either have a Stanley or an Aala that you've been drinking from all day long. If you've been on the internet in the past couple weeks, I guarantee you've heard of Punch the Monkey. Punch is a Japanese monkey where a video of his blew up where he was being bullied by his fellow monkeys. He only found com comfort in this plush, but it's just a simple IKEA plush, but the internet has the power to make nothing into something. And this plush is now sold out because of Punch the Monkey. Another phrase I like to introduce to everyone here is the Dero effect. The dero effect is where you when you end up buying one nice thing, there's an impulse decision to buy more things to match it.
Say for example, you have a living room that might feel a little outdated. You might buy a new couch, then everything else looks a little worse around it. So you end up buying new carpet, a new table, maybe change the paint on the wall, but then you might want to change it again. And by the end, you have a bunch of things that you don't need and you're a lot poorer. As I said with Stanley, the internet has the power to even make old brands famous again. New Balance and Carheart have gained a lot of traction in the past couple years, mainly due to their presence online. New Balance wasn't really a desirable shoe brand a couple years ago, but now they're one of the biggest shoe brands. The current consumer market always wants us to keep buying things, but never let us feel truly feel satisfied.
Funko Pops and Pokémon cards are just like Laboos where they have that feeling that you want to collect them all. These are much cheaper than Laboo, so you can buy more of them. Since these are targeted towards younger audiences, they're more prone to buy it. I've talked about the psychological effects of consumerism, but one thing a lot of you might not consider is the environmental impact of it. Fast fashion is one of the main reasons that the earth is polluted. Online fast fashion brands like Sheen, Romwe and Timu sell clothes at a very cheap rate and are producing countries where the labor practices are not that good. Even online places like Hollister, H&M or Paxon are fast fashion brands. But they continue to raise the prices even when the quality goes down. Higher prices don't always equal higher quality. Fast fashion is responsible for 10% of the total carbon emissions that the world produce.
That's more than international flights and maritime ships combined. So what can we do to combat these issues and how can we stray away from the consumer trap? First thing is be appreciative of what you have around you. Just because your neighbor buys a new car doesn't mean you need to match them. And if you want new clothes, maybe don't go to a place like calls or H&M. You can try thrifting instead. Thrifting has become a very common hobby, especially within Gen Z nowadays. Thrift stores such as Salvation Army, Savers, and Goodwill are places where you can buy a lot of clothes for much cheaper than you would buy at a retail store. Local thrift stores, such as the one at Dartmouth's Council on Aging in St. Mary's church have a lot of highquality clothes that you can get at a very cheap price. Another way that we can combat these issues is personal experiences.
So looking back to the Dartmouth Mall, let's say you're hanging out with your friends. A place you might want to go to is the Dartmouth Mall. But instead of the Dartmouth Mall, try watching the movie, getting a hole in one at Catty Shack, or getting a strike at Wonderbolt. These experiences facilitate personal learning and can help you grow as a person. George Carlin famously once said, "Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body." It may seem like a funny quote at first, but it really is our reality. So, next time you go to a store and you see something such as a Lubu, I want you to ask yourself, do I really need this? Where will this item be in 2 weeks? Will it end up in a box in my attic or will it be useful to my life?
That's how I'm making waves for a bear tomorrow. Thank you, Noah. Really good lesson on what to do with your money. All right, our third presentation for period 5 is when will I ever need this? Now by Ahmed Ramy. Ahmed is a junior here at DHS and this is his first TEDx DHS talk. Since elementary school, Ahmed has been interested in programming, science, and especially math. He regularly puts time into learning new skills that help with his hobbies, especially things relating to math. He uses what he learns to program robots, write simulations, and navigate curiosities he finds in everyday life. Please welcome Ahmed Ramy. Okay. When will I ever use this? This may be a question you've heard before in your math classes. Uh in this presentation, we seek to understand why people ask this question and come up with an answer to it. The first reason why people ask this question, uh they're asking about the utility of what they are learning in math class.
Uh so any answer to this question has to prove that math is useful. Moreover, they are asking when how long can I use this? They aren't looking for oh you're going to use the math you learn on the next test. They're looking for how how can I use the math I learn in school long term. So any answer to this question has to convince students that they will will be learning using the math that they learn for a long time. And finally and most importantly uh individuality. Uh you have to convince the students that the math that they learn is useful to them. If you come up with an answer that says okay this math is really useful in for example engineering that isn't going to help our students who want to say become artists or store clerks uh understand why they have to learn it.