Change your inner voice | Troy Armour | TEDxYouth@ISMonaco

Quick Overview

Troy Armour realized that his inner voice, which constantly told him he was weird, different, and not good enough, was actually his greatest strength, driving him to found Junk Kouture and ultimately change his life by embracing what others told him was a weakness.

Key Points: Armour joined the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) forum ten years ago, which gathers entrepreneurs globally in small groups that meet monthly. An event within this forum caused a significant perspective shift in Armour regarding his self-perception. The negative inner voice that constantly told him he was different, gay, and unworthy was actually his greatest strength, which he had been hiding. Armour founded Junk Kouture, an organization that gathers entrepreneurs and focuses on impacting young people through creativity and fashion. The negative voice suggested he would fail, be a nobody, and that his father (a hard worker) and mother (a dreamer) had set him up for failure by living in a caravan. He finally told his PR agent that he wanted to do interviews, and when asked why, he replied, 'I want you to tell me why I will not fail,' realizing his perceived weakness was his driving force. The exercise given by Patricia Kallen, his life coach, involved imagining a happy place in nature and then writing a sentence about his true self, which led to the realization that his inner critic was based on external narratives.

Context: Troy Armour, CEO of Junk Kouture, recounts a pivotal experience from ten years prior when he was part of an Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) forum. This story centers on how he confronted a deeply ingrained negative inner voice, stemming from his childhood experience of growing up in a caravan in rural Ireland, which told him he didn't fit in because he was gay and interested in creative pursuits rather than traditional work. The turning point came through a specific exercise given by his life coach, Patricia Kallen, forcing him to articulate this internal conflict.