| What: Courage to be Average Writer/performer: Viv Vermaak When: June 4, 2025 Where: Theatre Arts, Cape Town Time: 19h00 Running time: approx. 50 mins Bookings: https://theatrearts.co.za/show/courage_to_be_average Genre: Performative Philosophy Age advisory: Teenagers and adults |
โIt is fine to give people hope, but it is another to give permission for delusionโ, contends Viv Vermaak who is gaining fame as a DisMotivational speaker in the field of Performative Philosophy. In order to thrive, we should endeavour not to measure ourselves up against others and not set absurd goals. She is presenting her first theatre show, Courage to be Average on June 4, 2025 at Theatre Arts in Cape Town. Read on for more. Info as supplied:
YOUโVE HEARD THE TED TALKS, NOW HEAR THE TRUTH!
If you can dream it, you can do it, right? No, you canโt! It doesnโt work like that. But we all have unlimited potential which we can unlock with the power of motivation? Absofuckinlotely not – because: maths, neuroscience, and common sense.
Award-winning investigative journalist, Vivienne Vermaak has returned from a six year-long exploration of the world of motivational speaking and is sharing her findings with the world. In this presentation she offers a deconstruction of many of the myths of motivational speaking, starting with a proper bollocking of the phrase: โIf you wanna change the world, start by making your bed.โ She points out that the statement is metaphorically outrageous, neuroscientifically challenged and creates a false impression about what it takes to be a super-achiever. โIt is fine to give people hope, but it is another to give permission for delusion. These ideas are holding people back from reaching their authentic potential.โ
She further uses the example of lotto winners and icons like Michael Phelps to expose the logic flaws in the โIf I can do it, you can do it!โ nonsense that permeates public speaking. โJust because someone has done it, does not mean anyone can do it. Everybody is not anybody.โ Using input from mathematicians and statisticians, she explains the thinking errors in these statements, specifically survivorship bias and post hoc rationalisation, replacing it with a surprising alternative โ the courage to be average.
โThere is nothing wrong with you that has to be fixed,โ Vermaak tells the audience. โRight now, there is no unlimited potential inside you waiting to be unlocked โ you are just average. It is enough.โ Vermaak then guides the audience into how to live a life of courageous averageness, for therein lies a fuller life experience. โI wish Iโd known this when I was in school,โ says Vermaak. โI spent my whole life too afraid to participate, for fear that I wouldnโt be excellent enough at things to be a winner. Now I now that being not good enough is more than enough to make any endeavour worth it. Show up, even if you are terrible at something. It will make you more productive and more authentic. Lowering your expectations will help you get more out of life.โ Vermaak then shares some tips on how to ace being average: โYour biggest tool in your toolbox will be radical curiosity and relentless authenticity. They make any enterprise worth it in their own right. Focus on engagement, rather than winning and draft yourself a โfuck youโ list, where you acknowledge your human instincts towards anger, envy and resentment, but donโt take the list, or yourself, too seriously.โ
As a result of her investigation, Vermaak is also now the worldโs first DisMotivational speaker.
What is DisMotivation?
DisMotivation is not de-motivation. It is not unmotivation. It is a lateral shift.
It is a lifestyle choice that embraces complexity as a constant and favours resilience over the hollowed-out rhetoric of hyper achievement. HOPE is not a strategy. Let me show you how to COPE. Motivation is not the answer.
About Viv Vermaak
Vivienne Vermaak is an award-winning journalist, writer, TV director and public speaker. She recently won the prize as the best speaker in the PSASA (Professional Speakerโs Association of South Africa) Speaker Factor Competition.
Perhaps more famous as being the most loved and hated presenter on SAโs iconic travel show, โGoing Nowhere Slowly,โ she is now gaining infamy as The DisMotivational Speaker.
She does Jiu-Jitsu and has a red 1969 Chev Impala.
Radical Curiosity
As a writer and journalist she has contributed to investigative productions including Carte Blacnhe, E-Files, Noseweek where she earned the reputation for being the โbullshit detectorโ and the creative in the team. She has also delievered a variety of documentary, magazine, lifestyle and political items to BiZnews, Business Brief, Vrye Weekblad, De Kat, Getaway, Go, New African, SABC, M-Net, ETv and SAPA amongst others. She is currently a columnist for the Daily Friend and an associate of the Free Market Foundation, where she is known for her incisive social commentary and distinctive style of connecting the dots in an impactful and entertaining way.
Fresh thinker, transformative strategist, springs from authentic connection of the dots. Insights sharp and true.
| Follow Viv Vermaak: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/viv.vermaak/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgf2C-RC_luI0pwmxv7Ee1w Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivvermaak Website: https://viviennevermaak.co.za/home/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/viv-vermaak ย ย |
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