Listening: 20 TED Talks

5 hours of Gap-filling for better listening

Book 1: Talks 1-10

By Tu Pham (IELTS Speaking 9.0) and IPP Prep Team

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Contents

LINKS TO 20 TALKS 3

EXERCISES 5
1. How to raise successful kids without over parenting 5
2. Perspective is everything 14
3. My stroke of insight 27
4. The global food waste scandal 38
5. The missing link to renewable energy 45
6. Do schools kill creativity? 52
7. The rise of the new global super-rich 70
8. Why I must speak out about climate change 76
9. How public spaces make cities work 84
10. What do we do when antibiotics don't work any more? 92
11. The worldwide web of belief and ritual 110
12. Why we all need to practice emotional first aid 110
13. How great leaders inspire action 120
14. Inside the mind of a master procrastinator 129
15. Why our screens make us less happy 138
16. In praise of conflict 144
17. The happy secret to better work 150
18. How to make stress your friend 157
19. Your body language may shape who you are 163
20. How to speak so that people want to listen 174

KEY 182
1. How to raise successful kids without over parenting 182
2. Perspective is everything 191
3. My stroke of insight 204
4. The global food waste scandal 214
5. The missing link to renewable energy 221
6. Do schools kill creativity? 228
7. The rise of the new global super-rich 246
8. Why I must speak out about climate change 253
9. How public spaces make cities work 261
10. What do we do when antibiotics don't work any more? 269
11. The worldwide web of belief and ritual 276

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12. Why we all need to practice emotional first aid 286
13. How great leaders inspire action 296
14. Inside the mind of a master procrastinator 305
15. Why our screens make us less happy 314
16. In praise of conflict 320
17. The happy secret to better work 326
18. How to make stress your friend 333
19. Your body language may shape who you are 339
20. How to speak so that people want to listen 350

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LINKS TO 20 TALKS
https://www.ted.com/talks/julie_lythcott_haims_
1. How to raise successful kids how_to_raise_successful_kids_without_over_par
without over parenting enting
https://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_pers
2. Perspective is everything pective_is_everything
https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_s
3. My stroke of insight troke_of_insight
https://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_
4. The global food waste scandal global_food_waste_scandal
5. The missing link to renewable https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the
energy _missing_link_to_renewable_energy
https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do
6. Do schools kill creativity? _schools_kill_creativity?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/chrystia_freeland_th
7. The rise of the new global super- e_rise_of_the_new_global_super_rich?language
rich =en
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i
8. Why I must speak out about _must_speak_out_about_climate_change?lang
climate change uage=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_burden_ho
9. How public spaces make cities w_public_spaces_make_cities_work?language=
work en
https://www.ted.com/talks/maryn_mckenna_wh
10. What do we do when antibiotics at_do_we_do_when_antibiotics_don_t_work_an
don't work any more? y_more?language=en
11. The worldwide web of belief and https://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_the_wor
ritual ldwide_web_of_belief_and_ritual?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/guy_winch_why_we_
12. Why we all need to practice all_need_to_practice_emotional_first_aid?langu
emotional first aid age=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_gr
13. How great leaders inspire action eat_leaders_inspire_action?language=en
14. Inside the mind of a master https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_th
procrastinator e_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator

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15. Why our screens make us less https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_alter_why_our

happy _screens_make_us_less_happy?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_marks_in_
16. In praise of conflict praise_of_conflict?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_h
appy_secret_to_better_work/transcript?languag
17. The happy secret to better work e=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_ho
18. How to make stress your friend w_to_make_stress_your_friend?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_bo
19. Your body language may shape dy_language_may_shape_who_you_are?langua
who you are ge=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_how_
20. How to speak so that people to_speak_so_that_people_want_to_listen?langu
want to listen age=en

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EXERCISES
1. How to raise successful kids without over parenting
00:04

You know, I didn't set out to be a parenting _________1. In fact, I'm not very _________2
in parenting, per se. It's just that there's a _________3 style of parenting these days that
is kind of _________4 kids, impeding their chances to _________5 into themselves.
There's a certain style of parenting these days that's getting in the way.

00:28

I _________6 what I'm saying is, we _________7 a lot of time being very concerned about
parents who aren't _________8 enough in the lives of their kids and their _________9 or
their _________10, and rightly so. But at the other end of the _________11, there's a lot of
harm going on there as well, where parents feel a kid can't be _________12 unless the
parent is protecting and _________13 at every turn and hovering over every _________14,
and micromanaging every _________15, and steering their kid towards some small
subset of _________16 and careers.

01:02

When we raise kids this way, and I'll say we, because Lord knows, in raising my two
teenagers, I've had these tendencies myself, our kids end up leading a kind of
checklisted childhood.

01:16

And here's what the checklisted _________17 looks like. We keep them safe and sound
and fed and watered, and then we want to be _________18 they go to the right schools,
that they're in the right classes at the right schools, and that they get the right grades
in the right classes in the right schools. But not just the grades, the scores, and not

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just the grades and scores, but the accolades and the _________19 and the sports, the
activities, the _________20. We tell our kids, don't just join a club, _________21 a club,
because colleges want to see that. And check the box for _________22 . I mean, show
the colleges you _________23 about others.

01:49

(Laughter)

01:51

And all of this is done to some hoped-for _________24 of perfection. We expect our kids
to perform at a level of perfection we were never asked to perform at ourselves, and
so because so much is _________25, we think, well then, of course we parents have to
_________26 with every teacher and _________27 and coach and _________28 and act like
our kid's concierge and personal handler and secretary.

02:19

And then with our kids, our precious kids, we spend so much time nudging, cajoling,
hinting, _________29, haggling, nagging as the case may be, to be sure they're not
screwing up, not closing doors, not _________30 their future, some hoped-for
_________31 to a tiny handful of colleges that deny almost every applicant.

02:46

And here's what it feels like to be a kid in this checklisted childhood. First of all, there's
no time for free play. There's no room in the _________32, because everything has to be
enriching, we think. It's as if every piece of _________33, every quiz, every activity is a
make-or-break moment for this _________34 we have in mind for them, and we absolve
them of _________35 around the house, and we even absolve them of getting enough
_________36 as long as they're _________37 the items on their checklist. And in the

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checklisted childhood, we say we just want them to be happy, but when they come
home from school, what we ask about all too often first is their _________38 and their
_________39. And they see in our faces that our _________40, that our love, that their
very worth, comes from A's. And then we walk alongside them and offer clucking
praise like a _________41 at the Westminster Dog Show --

03:45

(Laughter)

03:46

coaxing them to just jump a little higher and soar a little farther, day after day after
day. And when they get to high school, they don't say, "Well, what might I be
interested in studying or doing as an activity?" They go to _________42 and they say,
"What do I need to do to get into the right college?" And then, when the grades start
to roll in in high school, and they're getting some B's, or God forbid some C's, they
frantically _________43 their friends and say, "Has anyone ever gotten into the right
college with these grades?"

04:21

And our kids, regardless of where they end up at the end of high school, they're
_________44. They're brittle. They're a little _________45. They're a little old before their
time, wishing the grown-ups in their lives had said, "What you've done is enough, this
effort you've put forth in childhood is enough." And they're withering now under high
rates of _________46 and depression and some of them are wondering, will this life ever
_________47 to have been worth it?

04:53

Well, we parents, we parents are pretty sure it's all worth it. We seem to behave -- it's

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like we literally think they will have no future if they don't get into one of these tiny
sets of colleges or careers we have in mind for them.

05:09

Or maybe, maybe, we're just afraid they won't have a future we can brag about to our
friends and with stickers on the backs of our cars. Yeah.

05:22

(Applause)

05:28

But if you look at what we've done, if you have the _________48 to really look at it, you'll
see that not only do our kids think their worth comes from grades and scores, but that
when we live right up inside their _________49 developing minds all the time, like our
very own version of the movie "Being John Malkovich," we send our children the
_________50: "Hey kid, I don't think you can actually achieve any of this without me."
And so with our overhelp, our _________51 and over-direction and hand-holding, we
_________52 our kids of the chance to build self-efficacy, which is a really _________53
tenet of the human psyche, far more important than that _________54 they get every
time we applaud. Self-efficacy is built when one sees that one's own actions lead to
outcomes, not -- There you go.

06:21

(Applause)

06:25

Not one's parents' actions on one's _________55, but when one's own actions lead to
_________56. So simply put, if our children are to develop self-efficacy, and they must,

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then they have to do a whole lot more of the thinking, planning, deciding, doing,
hoping, _________57, trial and error, dreaming and _________58 of life for themselves.

06:52

Now, am I saying every kid is hard-working and motivated and doesn't need a parent's
involvement or interest in their lives, and we should just back off and let go? Hell no.

07:04

(Laughter)

07:06

That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, when we treat grades and scores and
accolades and _________59 as the purpose of childhood, all in furtherance of some
hoped-for _________60 to a tiny number of colleges or _________61 to a small number
of careers, that that's too _________62 a definition of success for our kids. And even
though we might help them achieve some _________63 wins by over-helping -- like
they get a better grade if we help them do their homework, they might end up with
a longer childhood _________64 when we help -- what I'm saying is that all of this
comes at a long-term cost to their sense of self. What I'm saying is, we should be less
concerned with the _________65 set of colleges they might be able to apply to or might
get into and far more concerned that they have the _________66, the mindset, the skill
set, the wellness, to be _________67 wherever they go. What I'm saying is, our kids need
us to be a little less _________68 with grades and scores and a whole lot more
interested in childhood providing a foundation for their success built on things like
love and chores.

08:19

(Laughter)

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08:22

(Applause)

08:26

Did I just say chores? Did I just say chores? I really did. But really, here's why. The
longest longitudinal _________69 of humans ever _________70 is called the Harvard
Grant Study. It found that professional success in life, which is what we want for our
kids, that professional success in life _________71 having done chores as a kid, and the
earlier you started, the better, that a roll-up-your-sleeves- and-pitch-in mindset, a
mindset that says, there's some _________72 work, someone's got to do it, it might as
well be me, a mindset that says, I will _________73 my effort to the _________74 of the
whole, that that's what gets you ahead in the _________75. Now, we all know this. You
know this.

09:08

(Applause)

09:11

We all know this, and yet, in the checklisted childhood, we absolve our kids of doing
the work of chores around the house, and then they end up as _________76 in the
workplace still waiting for a checklist, but it doesn't _________77, and more importantly,
lacking the impulse, the _________78 to roll up their sleeves and pitch in and look
around and wonder, how can I be useful to my _________79? How can I _________80 a
few steps ahead to what my boss might need?

09:39

A second very important finding from the Harvard Grant Study said that _________81
in life comes from love, not love of work, love of humans: our spouse, our partner, our
friends, our family. So childhood needs to teach our kids how to love, and they can't

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love others if they don't first love themselves, and they won't love themselves if we
can't offer them _________82 love.

10:08

(Applause)

10:13

Right. And so, instead of being obsessed with grades and scores when our precious
_________83 come home from school, or we come home from work, we need to close
our _________84, put away our phones, and look them in the eye and let them see the
_________85 that fills our faces when we see our child for the first time in a few hours.
And then we have to say, "How was your day? What did you like about today?" And
when your teenage daughter says, "Lunch," like mine did, and I want to hear about
the math test, not lunch, you still have to _________86 in lunch. You gotta say, "What
was great about lunch today?" They need to know they matter to us as _________87,
not because of their GPA.

11:03

All right, so you're thinking, chores and love, that sounds all well and good, but give
me a break. The colleges want to see top scores and grades and accolades and awards,
and I'm going to tell you, sort of. The very biggest brand-name schools are asking that
of our _________89, but here's the good news. Contrary to what the college rankings
racket would have us believe --

11:29

(Applause)

11:35

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you don't have to go to one of the biggest brand name schools to be happy and
successful in life. Happy and successful people went to _________90 went to a small
college no one has heard of, went to _________91, went to a college over here and
flunked out.

11:49

(Applause)

11:56

The evidence in this room is in our communities, that this is the truth. And if we could
widen our _________92 and be willing to look at a few more colleges, maybe remove
our own _________93 from the equation, we could accept and _________94 this truth
and then realize, it is hardly the end of the world if our kids don't go to one of those
big brand-name schools. And more _________95, if their childhood has not been lived
_________96 a tyrannical checklist then when they get to college, whichever one it is,
well, they'll have gone there on their own volition, fuelled by their own _________97,
capable and ready to thrive there.

12:40

I have to _________98 something to you. I've got two kids I mentioned, Sawyer and
Avery. They're teenagers. And once upon a time, I think I was treating my Sawyer and
Avery like little bonsai trees --

12:54

(Laughter)

12:56

that I was going to carefully _________99 and prune and _________100 into some perfect

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form of a human that might just be _________101 enough to warrant them admission
to one of the most highly _________102 colleges. But I've come to realize, after working
with thousands of other people's kids --

13:15

(Laughter)

13:17

and raising two kids of my own, my kids aren't bonsai trees. They're _________103 of an
unknown genus and species --

13:30

(Laughter)

13:32

and it's my job to provide a _________104 environment, to _________105 them through

chores and to love them so they can love others and _________106 love and the college,
the major, the career, that's up to them. My job is not to make them become what I
would have them become, but to _________107 them in becoming their _________108
selves.

13:58

Thank you.

14:00

(Applause)

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2. Perspective is everything
00:04

What you have here is an 1. __________ cigarette. It's something that, since it was
invented a year or two ago, has given me untold 2. __________.

00:15

(Laughter)

00:16

A little bit of it, I think, is the 3.__________, but there's something much bigger than
that; which is, ever since, in the UK, they banned smoking in 4.__________, I've never
enjoyed a drinks 5.__________ ever again.

00:29

(Laughter)

00:31

And the reason, I only worked out just the other day, which is: when you go to a drinks
party and you 6.__________ and hold a glass of red wine and you talk 7.__________ to
people, you don't actually want to spend all the time talking. It's really, really tiring.
Sometimes you just want to stand there 8. __________, alone with your thoughts.
Sometimes you just want to stand in the corner and stare out of the window. Now the
problem is, when you can't 9.__________, if you stand and stare out of the window on
your own, you're an antisocial, 10. __________ idiot.

01:02

(Laughter)

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01:04

If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a fucking
11. __________.

01:09

(Laughter)

01:12

(Applause)

01:18

So the power of reframing things cannot be 12. __________. What we have is exactly the
same thing, the same activity, but one of them makes you feel 13. __________ and the
other one, with just a small 14.__________ of posture, makes you feel terrible. And I think
one of the problems with 15.__________ economics is, it's absolutely preoccupied with
16.__________. And reality isn't a 17.__________ good guide to human 18.__________. Why,
for example, are pensioners 19.__________ than the young unemployed? Both of them,
after all, are in 20.__________ the same stage of life. You both have too much time on
your hands and not much money. But pensioners are 21.__________ very, very happy,
whereas the unemployed are 22.__________ unhappy and depressed. The reason, I
think, is that the pensioners believe they've chosen to be pensioners, whereas the
young unemployed feel it's been 23.__________ upon them.

02:18

In England, the upper-middle classes have actually solved this problem 24.__________,
because they've re-branded unemployment. If you're an upper-middle-class English
person, you call unemployment "a year off."

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02:29

(Laughter)

02:32

And that's because having a son who's unemployed in Manchester is really quite
25.__________. But having a son who's unemployed in Thailand is really viewed as quite
an 26.__________.

02:42

(Laughter)

02:44

But actually, the power to re-brand things -- to understand that our 27.__________,
costs, things don't actually much depend on what they really are, but on how we view
them -- I genuinely think can't be overstated.

02:59

There's an experiment I think Daniel Pink 28.__________, where you put two dogs in a
box and the box has an electric floor. Every now and then, an electric shock is
29.__________ to the floor, which pains the dogs. The only difference is one of the dogs
has a small button in its half of the box. And when it nuzzles the button, the electric
shock 30.__________. The other dog doesn't have the button. It's exposed to exactly the
same level of pain as the dog in the first box, but it has no control over the 31.__________.
Generally, the first dog can be relatively 32.__________. The second dog lapses into
complete 33.__________.

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03:42

The 34.__________ of our lives may actually matter less to our happiness than the sense
of 35.__________ we feel over our lives. It's an 36.__________ question. We ask the
question -- the whole debate in the Western world is about the level of 37.__________.
But I think there's another debate to be 38.__________, which is the level of control we
have over our 39.__________, that what costs us 10 pounds in one context can be a
40.__________; what costs us 10 pounds in a different context, we may actually
41.__________. You know, pay 20,000 pounds in tax toward 42.__________, and you're
merely feeling a 43.__________. Pay 20,000 pounds to endow a hospital ward, and
you're called a 44.__________. I'm probably in the wrong country to talk about
__________ to pay tax.

04:31

(Laughter)

04:33

So I'll give you one in return: how you frame things really matters. Do you call it "The
bailout of Greece"? Or "The bailout of a load of stupid banks which lent to Greece"?

04:44

(Laughter)

04:45

Because they are actually the same thing. What you call them actually 45.__________
how you react to them, viscerally and 46.__________. I think psychological value is great,
to be absolutely 47.__________. One of my great friends, a professor called Nick Chater,
who's the Professor of Decision Sciences in London, 48.__________ we should spend far
less time looking into humanity's hidden 50.__________, and spend much more time

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exploring the hidden 51.__________. I think that's true, actually. I think 52.__________ have
an insane effect on what we think and what we do. But what we don't have is a really
good 53.__________ of human 54.__________ -- at least pre-Kahneman, perhaps, we
didn't have a really good model of human psychology to put alongside models of
55.__________, of neoclassical economics.

05:31

So people who believed in psychological 56.__________ didn't have a model. We didn't

have a 57.__________. This is what Warren Buffett's business partner Charlie Munger
calls "a latticework on which to hang your ideas." Engineers, economists, classical
economists all had a very, very 58.__________ existing latticework on which practically
every idea could be hung. We merely have a 59.__________ of random individual
60.__________ without an overall model. And what that means is that, in looking at
solutions, we've probably given too much 61.__________ to what I call technical
engineering solutions, Newtonian solutions, and not nearly enough to the
62.__________ ones.

06:10

You know my example of the Eurostar: six million pounds spent to reduce the
63.__________ time between Paris and London by about 40 minutes. For 0.01 percent
of this money, you could have put wi-fi on the 64.__________, which wouldn't have
reduced the 65.__________ of the journey, but would have improved its 66.__________
and its usefulness far more. For maybe 10 percent of the money, you could have paid
all of the world's top male and female 67.__________ to walk up and down the train
handing out free Château Pétrus to all the 68.__________.

06:40

(Laughter)

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06:41

You'd still have five million pounds in change, and people would ask for the trains to
be slowed down.

06:46

(Laughter)

06:51

Why were we not given the chance to solve that problem 69.__________? I think it's
because there's an 70.__________, an asymmetry in the way we treat 71.__________,
emotionally driven psychological ideas versus the way we treat 72.__________,
numerical, spreadsheet-driven ideas. If you're a creative person, I think, quite rightly,
you have to share all your ideas for 73.__________ with people much more rational than
you. You have to go in and have a cost-benefit 74.__________, a feasibility 75.__________,
an ROI study and 76.__________. And I think that's probably right. But this does not
apply the other way around. People who have an 77.__________ framework -- an
economic framework, an engineering framework -- feel that, actually, 78.__________ is
its own answer. What they don't say is, "Well, the numbers all seem to add up, but
before I present this 79.__________, I'll show it to some really crazy people to see if they
can come up with something 80.__________." And so we – 81.__________, I think --
prioritize what I'd call mechanistic ideas over psychological ideas.

07:51

An 82.__________ of a great psychological idea: the single best improvement in

passenger 83.__________ on the London Underground, per pound spent, came when
they didn't add any extra, nor change the frequency of the trains; they put dot matrix
84.__________ on the platforms -- because the nature of a wait is not just dependent
on its numerical 85.__________, its duration, but on the level of 86.__________ you
experience during that wait. Waiting seven minutes for a train with a 87.__________ is

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less frustrating and irritating than waiting four minutes, knuckle biting, going,
"When's this train going to damn well arrive?"

08:26

Here's a beautiful example of a psychological solution 88.__________ in Korea. Red

traffic lights have a countdown 89.__________. It's proven to reduce the accident rate
in 90.__________. Why? Because road rage, 91.__________ and general irritation are
92.__________ reduced when you can actually see the time you have to wait. In China,
not really understanding the principle behind this, they applied the same
93.__________ to green traffic lights --

08:49

(Laughter)

08:53

Which isn't a great idea. You're 200 yards away, you realize you've got five seconds to
go, you floor it.

08:59

(Laughter)

09:02

The Koreans, very assiduously, did test both. The accident rate goes down when you
apply this to red traffic lights; it goes up when you apply it to green traffic lights.

09:11

This is all I'm asking for, really, in human 94.__________, is the consideration of these

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three things. I'm not asking for the 95.__________ primacy of one over the other. I'm
merely saying that when you 96.__________ problems, you should look at all three of
these 97.__________, and you should seek as far as 98.__________ to find solutions which
sit in the sweet spot in the middle.

09:29

If you actually look at a great 99.__________, you'll nearly always see all of these three
things coming into play. Really successful businesses -- Google is a great, great
technological success, but it's also based on a very good psychological 100.__________:
people believe something that only does one thing is better at that thing than
something that does that thing and something else. It's an 101.__________ thing called
"goal dilution." Ayelet Fishbach has written a paper about this.

09:55

Everybody else at the time of Google, more or less, was trying to be a 102.__________.
Yes, there's a search function, but you also have weather, sports scores, bits of news.
Google understood that if you're just a 103.__________, people assume you're a very,
very good search engine. All of you know this, actually, from when you go in to buy a
104.__________, and in the shabbier end of the row of flat-screen TVs, you can see, are
these rather despised things called "combined TV and DVD players." And we have no
105.__________ whatsoever of the quality of those things, but we look at a combined TV
and DVD player and we go, "Uck. It's probably a bit of a crap telly and a bit
106.__________ as a DVD player." So we walk out of the 107.__________ with one of each.
Google is as much a psychological 108.__________ as it is a technological one.

10:42

I propose that we can use 109.__________ to solve problems that we didn't even
110.__________ were problems at all. This is my 111.__________ for getting people to finish
their course of 112.__________. Don't give them 24 white 113.__________; give them 18

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white pills and six blue ones and tell them to take the white pills 114.__________, and
then take the blue ones. It's called "chunking." The 115.__________ that people will get
to the end is much greater when there is a 116.__________ somewhere in the middle.

11:08

One of the great mistakes, I think, of economics is it fails to understand that what
something is -- whether it's retirement, unemployment, cost -- is a function, not only
of its amount, but also its meaning.

11:21

This is a toll crossing in Britain. Quite 117.__________ queues happen at the tolls.
Sometimes you get very, very 118.__________ queues. You could apply the same
119.__________, actually, to the security lanes in 120.__________. What would happen if
you could actually pay twice as much money to cross the 121.__________, but go
through a lane that's an 122.__________ lane? It's not an 123.__________ thing to do; it's
an 124.__________ efficient thing to do. Time means more to some people than others.
If you're waiting trying to get to a 125.__________, you'd patiently pay a couple of pounds
more to go through the 126.__________ lane. If you're on the way to visit your mother-
in-law, you'd probably prefer --

11:55

(Laughter)

11:57

you'd probably prefer to stay on the left.

11:59

The only problem is if you introduce this economically 127.__________ solution, people

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hate it ... because they think you're deliberately creating 128.__________ at the bridge in
order to maximize your 129.__________, and, "Why on earth should I pay to subsidize
your incompetence?" On the other hand, change the frame 130.__________ and create
charitable yield 131.__________, so the extra money you get goes not to the
132.__________ company, it goes to charity ... and the mental willingness to pay
133.__________ changes. You have a relatively economically efficient solution, but one
that actually 134.__________ with public approval and even a small degree of
135.__________, rather than being seen as bastardy.

12:38

So where economists make the 136.__________ mistake is they think that money is
money. Actually, my pain experienced in paying five pounds is not just 137.__________
to the amount, but where I think that money is going. And I think 138.__________ that
could revolutionize 139.__________. It could revolutionize the 140.__________. It could
actually change things quite 141.__________.

13:00

[Ludwig Von Mises is my hero.]

13:01

Here's a guy you all need to 142.__________. He's an Austrian School economist who was
first active in the 143.__________ of the 20th century in Vienna. What was interesting
about the Austrian School is they actually grew up alongside Freud. And so they're
144.__________ interested in psychology. They believed that there was a 145.__________
called praxeology, which is a 146.__________ discipline to the study of economics.
Praxeology is the study of human 147.__________, action and 148.__________. I think
they're right. I think the 149.__________ we have in today's world is that the study of
economics considers itself to be a 150.__________ discipline to the study of human
psychology. But as Charlie Munger says, "If economics isn't behavioural, I don't know

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what the hell is."

13:45

Von Mises, 151.__________, believes economics is just a 152.__________ of psychology. I

think he just 153.__________ to economics as "the study of human praxeology under
conditions of scarcity." But Von Mises, among many other things, I think uses an
154.__________ which is probably the best 155.__________ and explanation for the value
of 156.__________, the value of perceived value and the fact that we should treat it as
being absolutely 157.__________ to any other kind of value.

14:14

We tend to, all of us, even those of us who work in 158.__________, think of value in two
ways: the real value, which is when you make something in a factory or provide a
159.__________, and then there's a 160.__________ value, which you create by
161.__________ the way people look at things. Von Mises completely rejected this
162.__________. And he used this following 163.__________: he referred to strange
economists called the French physiocrats, who believed that the only 164.__________
value was what you 165.__________ from the land. So if you're a 166.__________ or a
quarryman or a farmer, you created true value. If however, you 167.__________ some
wool from the shepherd and 168.__________ a premium for 169.__________ it into a hat,
you weren't actually creating value, you were 170.__________ the shepherd.

14:54

Now, Von Mises said that modern economists make exactly the same 171.__________
with regard to 172.__________ and marketing. He says if you run a restaurant, there is
no 173.__________ distinction to be made between the value you create by
174.__________ the food and the value you create by 175.__________ the floor. One of
them creates, perhaps, the primary product -- the thing we think we're paying for --
the other one creates a 176.__________ within which we can enjoy and 177.__________

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that product. And the idea that one of them should have priority over the other is
188.__________ wrong.

15:24

Try this quick thought experiment: imagine a restaurant that serves Michelin-starred
food, but where the restaurant smells of sewage and there's human faeces on the
floor.

15:33

(Laughter)

15:35

The best thing you can do there to create value is not actually to 189.__________ the
food still further, it's to 190.__________ the smell and clean up the floor. And it's
191.__________ we understand this.

15:48

If that seems like a sort of 192._________, abstruse thing -- in the UK, the post office had
a 98 percent success rate at delivering 193.__________ mail the next day. They decided
this wasn't good 194.__________, and they wanted to get it up to 99. The 195.__________
to do that almost broke the 200.__________. If, at the same time, you'd gone and asked
people, "What percentage of first-class mail arrives the next day?" the 201.__________
answer, or the modal answer, would have been "50 to 60 percent." Now, if your
perception is much worse than your 202.__________, what on earth are you doing
203.__________ to change the reality? That's like trying to improve the food in a
restaurant that 204.__________. What you need to do is, first of all, tell people that 98
percent of first-class mail gets there the next day. That's pretty good. I would
205.__________, in Britain, there's a much better frame of 206.__________, which is to tell

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people that more first-class mail arrives the next day in the UK than in Germany,
because 207.__________, in Britain, if you want to make us 208.__________ about
something, just tell us we do it better than the Germans.

16:50

(Laughter)

16:52

(Applause)

16:54

Choose your frame of reference and the 209.__________ value, and 210.__________, the
actual value is completely 211.__________. It has to be said of the Germans that the
Germans and the French are doing a 212.__________ job of creating a united Europe.
The only thing they didn't 213.__________ is they're uniting Europe through a shared
mild 214.__________ of the French and Germans. But I'm British; that's the way we like
it.

17:15

(Laughter)

17:17

What you'll also notice is that, in any case, our 215.__________ is leaky. We can't tell the
216.__________ between the quality of the food and the 217.__________ in which we
consume it. All of you will have seen this 218.__________ if you have your car washed or
valeted. When you drive away, your car feels as if it drives better.

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17:33

(Laughter)

17:34

And the reason for this -- unless my car valet 219.__________ is changing the oil and
220.__________ work which I'm not paying him for and I'm 221.__________ -- is because
perception is, in any case, leaky.

17:44

Analgesics that are branded are more effective at 222.__________ pain than analgesics
that are not branded. I don't just mean through 223.__________ pain reduction -- actual
measured pain reduction. And so 224.__________ actually is leaky in any case. So if you
do something that's perceptually bad in one 225.__________, you can damage the
other.

18:03

Thank you very much.

18:04

(Applause)

3. My stroke of insight
00:03

I (1) __________ to study the brain because I have a brother who has been (2)__________
with a brain disorder, schizophrenia. And as a sister and later, as a (3)__________, I
wanted to understand, why is it that I can take my (4)__________, I can connect them
to my __________, and I can make my dreams come true? What is it about my brother's
brain and his schizophrenia that he cannot (5)__________ his dreams to a common and

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shared reality, so they instead become (6)__________?

00:35

So I dedicated my career to research into the severe mental (7)__________. And I moved
from my home state of Indiana to Boston, where I was working in the (8)__________ of
Dr. Francine Benes, in the Harvard Department of Psychiatry. And in the lab, we were
asking the (9)__________, "What are the biological differences between the brains of (10
)__________ who would be diagnosed as normal (11 )__________, as compared with the
brains of (12)__________ diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective or
(13)__________?"

01:08

So we were (14 )__________ mapping the microcircuitry of the (15)__________: which cells
are communicating with which cells, with which (16)__________, and then in what
(17)__________ of those chemicals? So there was a lot of (18)__________ in my life
because I was performing this type of research during the day, but then in the
evenings and on the (19)__________, I travelled as an (20)__________ for NAMI, the
National Alliance on Mental Illness.

01:35

But on the morning of December 10, 1996, I woke up to (21)__________ that I had a brain
disorder of my own. A blood vessel (22)__________ in the left half of my brain. And in the
(23)__________ of four hours, I watched my brain completely (24)__________ in its ability
to process all information. On the morning of the haemorrhage, I could not walk, talk,
read, write or (25)__________ any of my life. I essentially became an (26)__________ in a
woman's body.

02:08

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If you've ever seen a human brain, it's obvious that the two hemispheres are
completely (27 )__________ from one another. And I have brought for you a real human
brain.

02:20

(Groaning, laughter)

02:28

So this is a real human brain. This is the (28)__________ of the brain, the (29)__________
of brain with the spinal cord (30)__________ down, and this is how it would be
(31)__________ inside of my head. And when you look at the brain, it's (32)__________ that
the two cerebral cortices are (33)__________ separate from one another.

02:49

For those of you who understand (34)__________, our right hemisphere

(35)__________like a (36)__________ processor, while our left hemisphere functions like a
(37)__________ processor. The two hemispheres do (38)__________ with one another
through the corpus callosum, which is made up of some 300 (39)__________ axonal
fibres. But other than that, the two hemispheres are completely separate. Because
they process information (40)__________, each of our hemispheres (41)__________
about different things, they (42 )__________ about different things, and, dare I say, they
have very different (43)__________. Excuse me. Thank you. It's been a joy.

03:32

Assistant: It has been.

03:33

(Laughter)

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03:36

Our right human hemisphere is all about this (44)__________ moment. It's all about
"right here, right now." Our right hemisphere, it thinks in (45)__________ and it learns
kinaesthetically through the movement of our (46)__________. Information, in the form
of energy, (47)__________ in simultaneously through all of our sensory 48 __________
and then it explodes into this (49 )__________ collage of what this present moment
looks like, what this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and
what it sounds like. I am an energy-being (50)__________ to the energy all around me
through the (51)__________ of my right hemisphere. We are energy-beings connected
to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human
(52)__________. And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet,
here to make the world a (53)__________. And in this moment we are (54)__________, we
are whole and we are (55)__________.

04:47

My left hemisphere, our left hemisphere, is a very different (56)__________. Our left
hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the
(57)__________ and it's all about the (58)__________. Our left hemisphere is (59)__________
to take that enormous collage of the present moment and start (60)__________ details,
and more details about those details. It then (61)__________ and organizes all that
(62)__________, associates it with everything in the past we've ever (63)__________, and
projects into the future all of our (64)__________. And our left hemisphere thinks in
(65)__________. It's that ongoing brain chatter that (66)__________ me and my internal
world to my external world. It's that little (67)__________ that says to me, "Hey, you've
got to remember to pick up bananas on your way home. I need them in the morning."
It's that calculating (68)__________ that reminds me when I have to do my
(69)__________. But perhaps most (70)__________, it's that little voice that says to me, "I
am. I am."

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05:58

And as soon as my left hemisphere says to me "I am," I become (71)__________. I become
a single (72)__________ individual, separate from the (73)__________ around me and
separate from you. And this was the (74)__________ of my brain that I lost on the
morning of my (75)__________.

06:15

On the morning of the stroke, I woke up to a (76)__________ pain behind my left

(77)__________. And it was the kind of (78)___________ pain that you get when you bite
into (79)__________. And it just (80)__________ me -- and then it (81)__________ me. And
then it just gripped me -- and then it released me. And it was very unusual for me to
ever (82)__________ any kind of pain, so I thought, "OK, I'll just start my normal routine."

06:43

So I got up and I jumped onto my cardio (83)__________, which is a full-body, full-

exercise (84)__________. And I'm jamming away on this thing, and I'm (85)__________
that my hands look like primitive (86)__________ grasping onto the (87)__________. And
I thought, "That's very peculiar." And I looked down at my body and I thought, "Whoa,
I'm a weird-looking thing." And it was as though my (88)__________ had shifted away
from my normal (89)__________ of reality, where I'm the person on the machine having
the (90)__________, to some esoteric space where I'm (91)__________ myself having this
experience.

07:20

And it was all very peculiar, and my (92)__________ was just getting worse. So I get off
the machine, and I'm walking (93)__________ my living room floor, and I realize that
everything inside of my body has (94)__________ way down. And every step is very
(95)__________ and very deliberate. There's no fluidity to my (96)__________, and there's
this constriction in my area of (97)__________, so I'm just focused on internal systems.

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And I'm standing in my (98)__________ getting ready to step into the (99)__________,
and I could actually hear the (100)__________ inside of my body. I heard a little voice
saying, "OK. You muscles, you've got to (101)__________. You muscles, you
(102)__________."

07:55

And then I lost my (103)__________, and I'm propped up against the (104)___________.
And I look down at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the (105)__________
of my body. I can't define where I begin and where I end, because the atoms and the
molecules of my arm (106)__________ with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all
I could (107)__________ was this energy -- energy.

08:21

And I'm asking myself, "What is wrong with me? What is going on?" And in that
moment, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally (108)__________. Just like
someone took a (109)__________ and pushed the (110)__________ button. Total silence.
And at first I was (111)__________ to find myself inside of a silent (112)__________. But then
I was immediately (113)__________ by the magnificence of the (114)__________ around
me. And because I could no longer identify the (115)__________ of my body, I felt
enormous and (116)__________. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was
beautiful there.

09:01

Then all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back (117)__________ and it says to me,
"Hey! We've got a problem! We've got to get some help." And I'm going, "Ahh! I've got
a problem!"

09:10

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(Laughter)

09:12

So it's like, "OK, I've got a problem." But then I (118)__________ drifted right back out into
the (119)__________ -- and I affectionately (120)__________ to this space as La La Land. But
it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally (121)__________ from
your brain chatter that connects you to the (122)__________ world.

09:31

So here I am in this (123)__________, and my job, and any stress related to my job -- it
was (124)__________. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine all of the (125)__________
in the external world and any stressors (126)__________ to any of those -- they were
gone. And I felt this sense of (127)__________. And imagine what it would feel like to lose
37 years of emotional (128)__________! (Laughter) Oh! I felt euphoria -- euphoria. It was
beautiful.

10:06

And again, my left hemisphere comes online and it says, "Hey! You've got to
(129)__________. We've got to get help." And I'm thinking, "I've got to get help. I've got
to (130)__________." So I get out of the shower and I (131)__________ dress and I'm walking
around my (132)__________, and I'm thinking, "I've got to get to work. Can I drive?"

10:23

And in that moment, my right arm went totally (133)__________ by my side. Then I
(134)__________, "Oh my gosh! I'm having a stroke!" And the next thing my brain says
to me is, Wow! This is so cool!

10:36

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(Laughter)

10:38

This is so cool! How many brain scientists have the (135)__________ to study their own
brain from the inside out?"

10:45

(Laughter)

10:47

And then it crosses my mind, "But I'm a very busy woman!"

10:51

(Laughter)

10:52

"I don't have time for a stroke!" So I'm like, "OK, I can't stop the stroke from
(136)__________, so I'll do this for a week or two, and then I'll get back to my
(137)__________. OK. So I've got to call help. I've got to call work." I couldn't remember
the number at work, so I remembered, in my office I had a (138)__________ with my
number. So I go into my business room, I (139) __________ a three-inch stack of business
cards. And I'm looking at the card on top and (140__________ I could see (141)__________
in my mind's eye what my business card looked like, I couldn't tell if this was my card
or not, because all I could see were (142)__________. And the pixels of the (143)__________
blended with the pixels of the (144)__________ and the pixels of the symbols, and I just
couldn't tell. And then I would (145)__________ for what I call a wave of (146)__________.
And in that moment, I would be able to (147)__________ to normal reality and I could
tell that's not the card... that's not the card. It took me 45 minutes to get one inch

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down inside of that stack of cards. In the (148)__________, for 45 minutes, the
haemorrhage is getting (149)__________ in my left hemisphere. I do not understand
(150)__________, I do not understand the (151)__________, but it's the only plan I have.

11:59

So I take the phone pad and I put it right here. I take the business card, I put it right
here, and I'm matching the shape of the squiggles on the card to the shape of the
squiggles on the phone pad. But then I would (152)__________ out into La La Land, and
not remember when I came back if I'd already (153)__________ those numbers. So I had
to wield my (154)__________ arm like a stump and (155)__________ the numbers as I went
along and (156)__________ them, so that as I would come back to (157)__________ reality,
I'd be able to tell, "Yes, I've already dialled that number."

12:33

Eventually, the whole number gets dialled and I'm listening to the phone, and my
(158)__________ picks up the phone and he says to me, "Woo woo woo woo." (Laughter)

12:42

(Laughter)

12:46

And I think to myself, "Oh my gosh, he sounds like a Golden Retriever!"

12:51

(Laughter)

12:52

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And so I say to him -- clear in my mind, I say to him: "This is Jill! I need (159)__________!"
And what comes out of my (160)__________ is, "Woo woo woo woo woo." I'm thinking,
"Oh my gosh, I sound like a Golden Retriever." So I couldn't know -- I didn't know that
I couldn't speak or understand (161)__________ until I tried. So he (162)__________ that I
need help and he gets me help.

13:13

And a little while (163)__________, I am riding in an (164)__________ from one hospital

across Boston to [Massachusetts] General Hospital. And I (165)___________ into a little
fetal ball. And just like a balloon}} with the last bit of (166)__________, just right out of
the balloon, I just felt my (167)__________ lift and just I felt my (168) __________ surrender.

13:39

And in that moment, I knew that I was (169)__________ the choreographer of my life.
And either the doctors (170)__________ my body and give me a second (171)__________
at life, or this was perhaps my moment of (172)__________.

13:58

When I woke later that afternoon, I was shocked to (173)__________ that I was still
(174)__________. When I felt my spirit surrender, I said (175)__________ to my life. And my
mind was now (176)__________ between two very opposite (177)__________ of reality.
(178)__________ coming in through my sensory (179)__________ felt like pure pain. Light
burned my brain like (180)__________, and sounds were so (181)__________ and chaotic
that I could not pick a voice out from the (182)__________, and I just wanted to
(183)__________. Because I could not identify the position of my body in (184)__________,
I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie just (185)__________ from her bottle. And my
spirit soared (186)__________, like a great (187)__________ gliding through the sea of
silent euphoria. Nirvana. I found Nirvana. And I remember (188)__________, there's no
way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this

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(189)__________ little body.

15:17

But then I (190)___________, "But I'm still alive! I'm still alive, and I have found Nirvana.
And if I have found Nirvana and I'm still alive, then everyone who is alive can find
Nirvana." And I (191)__________ a world filled with beautiful, (192)__________,
compassionate, (193)__________ people who knew that they could come to this space
at any time. And that they could (194)__________ choose to step to the right of their left
hemispheres -- and find this peace. And then I realized what a (195)__________ gift this
experience could be, what a stroke of (196)__________ this could be to how we live our
lives. And it motivated me to (197)__________.

16:13

Two and a half weeks after the haemorrhage, the (198)__________ went in, and they
removed a (199)__________ clot the size of a (200)__________ ball that was pushing on
my (201)__________ centres. Here I am with my mama, who is a true (202)__________ in
my life. It took me eight years to completely (203)__________.

16:32

So who are we? We are the life-force (204)__________ of the universe, with manual
dexterity and two cognitive (205)__________. And we have the power to (206)__________,
moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the (207)__________. Right here,
right now, I can step into the (208)__________ of my right hemisphere, where we are. I
am the life-force power of the universe. I am the life-force power of the 50 trillion
beautiful molecular (209)__________ that make up my form, at one with all that is. Or, I
can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a
(210)__________ individual, a (211)__________. Separate from the flow, separate from you.
I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor: intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me.
Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And (212)__________? I believe that

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the more time we spend (213)__________ to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our
right hemispheres, the more (214)__________ we will project into the (215)__________,
and the more (216)__________ our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth
(217)__________.

18:04

Thank you.

4. The global food waste scandal

00:04

The job of uncovering the global food waste 1.__________ started for me when I was 15
years old. I bought some 2.__________. I was living in Sussex. And I started to feed them
in the most traditional and 3.__________ way. I went to my 4.__________, and I said, "Give
me the scraps that my school friends have turned their noses up at." I went to the local
5.__________ and took their 6.__________ bread. I went to the local greengrocer, and I
went to a farmer who was throwing away 7.__________ because they were the wrong
shape or size for supermarkets. This was great. My pigs turned that food waste into
9.__________ pork. I sold that pork to my school friends' parents, and I made a good
10.__________ addition to my teenage allowance.

00:44

But I noticed that most of the food that I was giving my pigs was in fact fit for
11.__________, and that I was only 12.__________ the surface, and that right the way up
the 13.__________ chain, in supermarkets, greengrocers, bakers, in our homes, in
factories and farms, we were haemorrhaging out food. Supermarkets didn't even
want to talk to me about how much food they were 14.__________. I'd been round the
back. I'd seen bins full of food being locked and then trucked off to 15.__________, and I
thought, surely there is something more 16.__________to do with food than waste it.

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01:16

One morning, when I was feeding my pigs, I noticed a 17.__________tasty-looking sun

18.__________tomato loaf that used to crop up from time to time. I grabbed hold of it,
sat down, and ate my breakfast with my pigs. (Laughter) That was the first
19.__________of what I later learned to call freeganism, really an 20.__________of the
injustice of 21.__________, and the 22.__________ of the solution to food waste, which is
simply to sit down and eat food, rather than throwing it away. That became, as it were,
a way of confronting 23.__________in the business of wasting food, and 24.__________,
most importantly, to the public, that when we're talking about food being thrown
away, we're not talking about 25.__________stuff, we're not talking about stuff that's
beyond the pale. We're talking about good, fresh food that is being wasted on a
26.__________scale.

02:04

Eventually, I set about writing my book, really to 27.__________ the extent of this
problem on a global scale. What this shows is a nation-by-nation 28.__________of the
likely level of food waste in each country in the world. Unfortunately, 29.__________
data, good, hard stats, don't exist, and therefore to prove my point, I first of all had to
find some 30.__________way of uncovering how much food was being wasted. So I took
the food supply of every single country and I 31.__________it to what was actually likely
to be being consumed in each country. That's based on diet intake 32.__________, it's
based on levels of 33.__________, it's based on a range of factors that gives you an
34.__________ guess as to how much food is actually going into people's 35.__________.
That black line in the middle of that table is the likely level of 36.__________ with an
37.__________ for certain levels of inevitable waste. There will always be waste. I'm not
that 38.__________that I think we can live in a 39.__________ world. But that black line
shows what a 40.__________should be in a country if they allow for a good, stable,
secure, 41.__________diet for every person in that country. Any dot above that line, and
you'll quickly notice that that includes most countries in the world, represents
42.__________surplus, and is likely to 43.__________levels of waste in each country.

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03:25

As a country gets 44.__________, it invests more and more in getting more and more
surplus into its shops and 45.__________, and as you can see, most European and
46.__________countries fall between 150 and 200 percent of the nutritional
requirements of their 47.__________. So a country like America has twice as much food
on its shop 48.__________and in its restaurants than is actually required to feed the
American people.

03:51

But the thing that really struck me, when I 49.__________all this data, and it was a lot of
numbers, was that you can see how it 50.__________. Countries rapidly shoot towards
that 150 mark, and then they level off, and they don't really go on rising as you might
expect. So I decided to 51.__________ that data a little bit further to see if that was true
or false. And that's what I came up with. If you 52.__________not just the food that ends
up in shops and restaurants, but also the food that people feed to 53.__________the
maize, the soy, the wheat, that humans could eat but choose to 54.__________livestock
instead to produce increasing amounts of meat and 55.__________, what you find is
that most rich countries have between three and four times the 56.__________of food
that their population needs to 57.__________itself. A country like America has four times
the amount of food that it needs.

04:44

When people talk about the need to increase global food 58.__________to feed those
nine billion people that are 59.__________on the planet by 2050, I always think of these
60.__________The fact is, we have an 61.__________buffer in rich countries between
ourselves and 62.__________. We've never had such gargantuan surpluses before. In
many ways, this is a great 63.__________story of human civilization, of the agricultural
surpluses that we set out to achieve 12,000 years ago. It is a success story. It has been
a success story. But what we have to 64.__________now is that we are reaching the
65.__________limits that our planet can bear, and when we chop down 66.__________, as

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we are every day, to grow more and more food, when we 67.__________water from
depleting water reserves, when we emit 68.__________emissions in the quest to grow
more and more food, and then we throw away so much of it, we have to think about
what we can start 69.__________.

05:44

And yesterday, I went to one of the local supermarkets that I often visit to inspect, if
you like, what they're throwing away. I found quite a few packets of biscuits amongst
all the fruit and vegetables and everything else that was in there. And I thought, well
this could serve as a symbol for today.

06:01

So I want you to imagine that these nine biscuits that I found in the bin represent the
global food supply, okay? We start out with nine. That's what's in 70.__________around
the world every single year. The first biscuit we're going to lose before we even
71.__________the farm. That's a problem primarily 72.__________with developing work
73.__________, whether it's a lack of infrastructure, 74.__________, pasteurization, grain
stores, even basic 75.__________, which means that food goes to waste before it even
leaves the fields. The next three biscuits are the foods that we decide to feed to
livestock, the maize, the wheat and the soya. 76.__________, our beasts are inefficient
animals, and they turn 77.__________of that into faeces and heat, so we've lost those
two, and we've only kept this one in meat and dairy products. Two more we're going
to throw away 78.__________into bins. This is what most of us think of when we think
of food waste, what ends up in the 79.__________, what ends up in supermarket bins,
what ends up in restaurant bins. We've lost another two, and we've left
80.__________with just four biscuits to feed on. That is not a superlatively 81.__________
use of global resources, especially when you think of the billion hungry people that
82.__________ already in the world.

07:15

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Having gone through the data, I then needed to demonstrate where that food ends
up. Where does it end up? We're used to seeing the stuff on our plates, but what about
all the stuff that goes missing in between?

07:27

Supermarkets are an easy place to start. This is the result of my hobby, which is
83.__________bin inspections. (Laughter) 84.__________you might think, but if we could
rely on 85.__________ to tell us what they were doing in the back of their stores, we
wouldn't need to go 86.__________around the back, opening up bins and having a look
at what's inside. But this is what you can see more or less on every 87.__________ in
Britain, in Europe, in North America. It represents a 88.__________waste of food, but
what I discovered whilst I was writing my book was that this very
89.__________abundance of waste was actually the tip of the 90.__________. When you
start going up the supply chain, you find where the real food waste is 91.__________on
a gargantuan scale.

08:11

Can I have a show of hands if you have a 92.__________ of sliced bread in your house?
Who lives in a 93.__________where that crust -- that slice at the first and last end of each
loaf -- who lives in a household where it does get 94.__________? Okay, most people,
not everyone, but most people, and this is, I'm glad to say, what I see 95.__________the
world, and yet has anyone seen a supermarket or sandwich shop anywhere in the
world that 96.__________sandwiches with crusts on it? (Laughter) I certainly haven't. So
I 97.__________thinking, where do those crusts go? (Laughter) This is the answer,
unfortunately: 13,000 slices of fresh bread coming out of this one single factory every
single day, day-fresh bread. In the same year that I visited this 98.__________, I went to
Pakistan, where people in 2008 were going hungry as a result of a squeeze on global
food supplies. We 99.__________ to that squeeze by 100.__________food in bins here in
Britain and elsewhere in the world. We take food off the market 101.__________that
hungry people 102.__________.

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09:13

Go one step up, and you get to farmers, who throw away 103.__________ a third or even
more of their harvest because of 104.__________ standards. This farmer, for example,
has invested 16,000 pounds in growing 105.__________, not one leaf of which he
harvested, because there was a little bit of 106.__________growing in amongst it.
Potatoes that are cosmetically 107.__________, all going for pigs. Parsnips that are
108.__________for supermarket specifications, tomatoes in Tenerife, oranges in Florida,
bananas in Ecuador, where I visited last year, all being discarded. This is one day's
waste from one banana 109.__________in Ecuador. All being discarded, perfectly
110.__________, because they're the wrong shape or size.

09:53

If we do that to fruit and vegetables, you bet we can do it to 111.__________too. Liver,

lungs, heads, 112.__________, kidneys, testicles, all of these things which are
113.__________, delicious and 114.__________parts of our gastronomy go to waste. Offal
consumption has 115.__________ in Britain and America in the last 30 years. As a result,
this stuff gets fed to 116.__________at best, or is incinerated. This man, in Kashgar,
Xinjiang province, in Western China, is serving up his national dish. It's called sheep's
117.__________. It's delicious, it's nutritious, and as I learned when I went to Kashgar, it
symbolizes their taboo 118.__________ food waste. I was sitting in a 119.__________cafe. A
chef came to talk to me, I finished my bowl, and halfway through the 120.__________,
he 121.__________talking and he started frowning into my bowl. I thought, "My
goodness, what taboo have I broken? How have I insulted my host?" He pointed at
three grains of 122.__________at the bottom of my bowl, and he said, "Clean." (Laughter)
I thought, "My God, you know, I go around the world telling people to stop wasting
food. This guy has thrashed me at my own game." (Laughter)

10:59

But it gave me faith. It gave me faith that we, the people, do have the 123.__________to

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stop this 124.__________ waste of resources if we regard it as socially 125.__________to
waste food on a colossal scale, if we make 126.__________ about it, tell corporations
about it, tell governments we want to see an end to food waste, we do have the power
to 127.__________that change.

11:18

Fish, 40 to 60 percent of European fish are discarded 128.__________, they don't even
get landed. In our homes, we've lost 129__________with food. This is an 130__________I
did on three lettuces. Who keeps lettuces in their fridge? Most people. The one on the
left was kept in a fridge for 10 days. The one in the middle, on my kitchen table. Not
much difference. The one on the right I 131.__________like cut flowers. It's a living
organism, cut the slice off, stuck it in a vase of water, it was all right for another two
weeks after this.

11:49

Some food waste, as I said at the beginning, will 132.__________arise, so the question is,
what is the best thing to do with it? I answered that question when I was 15. In fact,
humans answered that question 6,000 years ago: We 133.__________pigs to turn food
waste back into food. And yet, in Europe, that practice has become 134.__________since
2001 as a result of the foot-and-mouth 135.__________. It's unscientific. It's unnecessary.
If you cook food for pigs, just as if you cook food for humans, it is 136.__________safe. It's
also a massive saving of 137.__________. At the moment, Europe depends on importing
millions of tons of 138.__________from South America, where its production contributes
to 139.__________, to deforestation, to biodiversity loss, to feed livestock here in Europe.
At the same time we 140.__________millions of tons of food waste which we could and
should be feeding them. If we did that, and fed it to pigs, we would save that amount
of 141.__________. If we feed our food waste which is the current government favourite
way of getting rid of food waste, to anaerobic digestion, which turns food waste into
gas to produce 142.__________, you save a paltry 448 kilograms of carbon dioxide per
ton of food waste. It's much better to feed it to pigs. We knew that during the war.

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(Laughter)

13:08

A silver lining: It has kicked off 143.__________, the quest to tackle food waste. Feeding
the 5,000 is an 144.__________I first organised in 2009. We fed 5,000 people all on food
that 145.__________would have been wasted. Since then, it's happened again in
London, it's happening 146.__________, and across the country. It's a way of
organisations coming together to 147.__________food, to say the best thing to do with
food is to eat and enjoy it, and to 148.__________wasting it. For the sake of the
149.__________we live on, for the sake of our 150.__________, for the sake of all the other
151.__________that share our planet with us, we are a terrestrial animal, and we
152.__________our land for food. At the moment, we are trashing our land to grow food
that no one eats. Stop wasting food. Thank you very much. (Applause) (Applause)

5. The missing link to renewable energy

The 1---_________ powering the lights in this theater was generated just moments ago.
Because the way things stand today, electricity demand must be in 2_________ balance
with electricity supply. If in the time that it took me to walk out here on this stage,
some tens of megawatts of wind power stopped pouring into the grid, the difference
would have to be made up from other 4____________ immediately. But coal plants,
3___________ can't respond fast enough. A giant battery could. With a giant battery,
we'd be able to address the problem of intermittency that prevents wind and solar
from contributing to the grid in the same way that coal, gas and nuclear do today.

00:53

You see, the battery is the key enabling device here. With it, we could draw electricity
from the sun even when the sun doesn't shine. And that changes everything. Because
then renewables such as wind and solar come out from the wings, here to center
stage. Today I want to tell you about such a device. It's called the liquid 5____________ .

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It's a new form of 6___________ that I invented at MIT along with a team of my students
and post-docs.

01:28

Now the theme of this year's TED Conference is Full Spectrum. The OED defines
spectrum as "The 7____________ of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, from the
longest radio waves to the shortest gamma rays of which the range of visible light is
only a small part." So I'm not here today only to tell you how my team at MIT has drawn
out of nature a solution to one of the world's 8___________. I want to go full spectrum
and tell you how, in the process of developing this new technology, we've uncovered
some surprising heterodoxies that can serve as lessons for 9__________, ideas worth
spreading. And you know, if we're going to get this country out of its current energy
situation, we can't just conserve our way out; we can't just drill our way out; we can't
bomb our way out. We're going to do it the 10__________ American way, we're going to
invent our way out, working together.

02:31

(Applause)

02:34

Now let's get started. The battery was invented about 200 years ago by a professor,
Alessandro Volta, at the University of Padua in Italy. His 11____________ gave birth to a
new field of science, electrochemistry, and new technologies such as electroplating.
Perhaps overlooked, Volta's invention of the battery for the first time also
demonstrated the 12_________ of a professor. (Laughter) Until Volta, nobody could
imagine a professor could be of any use.

03:07

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Here's the first battery -- a stack of coins, zinc and silver, separated by cardboard
soaked in brine. This is the starting point for designing a battery -- two electrodes, in
this case metals of different composition, and an electrolyte, in this case salt dissolved
in water. The science is that simple. Admittedly, I've left out a few details.

03:33

Now I've taught you that battery science is 13____________ and the need for grid-level
storage is compelling, but the fact is that today there is simply no battery technology
capable of meeting the demanding 14______________ of the grid -- namely
uncommonly high power, long service lifetime and super-low cost. We need to think
about the problem differently. We need to think big, we need to think cheap.

04:05

So let's abandon the paradigm of let's search for the coolest chemistry and then
hopefully we'll chase down the cost curve by just making lots and lots of product.
Instead, let's invent to the price point of the electricity market. So that means that
certain parts of the periodic table are axiomatically off-limits. This battery needs to be
made out of earth-abundant 15_________. I say, if you want to make something dirt
cheap, make it out of dirt -- (Laughter) preferably dirt that's locally sourced. And we
need to be able to build this thing using simple manufacturing 16__________ and
factories that don't cost us a fortune.

04:52

So about six years ago, I started thinking about this problem. And in order to adopt a
fresh 17___________, I sought 18_____________ from beyond the field of electricity
storage. In fact, I looked to a technology that neither stores nor generates electricity,
but instead consumes electricity, huge amounts of it. I'm talking about the production
of aluminum. The process was invented in 1886 by a couple of 22-year-olds -- Hall in
the United States and Heroult in France. And just a few short years following their

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discovery, aluminum changed from a 19_______________ metal costing as much as
silver to a common 20_____________ material.

05:35

You're looking at the cell house of a modern aluminum smelter. It's about 50 feet wide
and recedes about half a mile -- row after row of cells that, inside, resemble Volta's
battery, with three important 21_____________ Volta's battery works at room
temperature. It's fitted with solid electrodes and an electrolyte that's a 22_____________
of salt and water. The Hall-Heroult cell 23_____________ at high temperature, a
temperature high enough that the aluminum metal product is liquid. The electrolyte
is not a solution of salt and water, but rather salt that's melted. It's this 24_____________
of liquid metal, molten salt and high 25_____________ that allows us to send high
current through this thing. Today, we can produce virgin metal from ore at a cost of
less than 50 cents a pound. That's the 26_____________ miracle of modern
electrometallurgy.

06:32

It is this that caught and held my 27_____________ to the point that I became obsessed
with 28_____________ a battery that could capture this gigantic economy of scale. And
I did. I made the battery all liquid -- liquid metals for both electrodes and a molten salt
for the electrolyte. I'll show you how. So I put low-density liquid metal at the top, put a
high-density liquid metal at the 29_____________ and molten salt in between.

07:31

So now, how to choose the metals? For me, the design exercise always begins here
with the periodic table, enunciated by another professor, Dimitri Mendeleyev.
Everything we know is made of some 30_____________ of what you see depicted here.
And that includes our own bodies. I recall the very moment one day when I was
searching for a pair of metals that would meet the constraints of earth abundance,

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different, opposite 31_____________ and high 32_____________ reactivity. I felt the thrill of
33_____________ when I knew I'd come upon the answer. Magnesium for the top layer.
And antimony for the bottom layer. You know, I've got to tell you, one of the greatest
34_____________ of being a professor: colored chalk.

08:32

(Laughter)

08:35

So to produce current, magnesium loses two electrons to become magnesium ion,

which then migrates 35_____________ the electrolyte, accepts two electrons from the
antimony, and then mixes with it to form an alloy. The electrons go to work in the real
world out here, powering our 36_____________ . Now to 37_____________ the battery, we
connect a 38_____________ of electricity. It could be something like a wind farm. And
then we 39_____________ the current. And this forces magnesium to de-alloy and
return to the upper electrode, restoring the initial constitution of the battery. And the
current passing between the electrodes 40_____________ enough heat to keep it at
41_____________.

09:35

It's pretty cool, at least in theory. But does it really work? So what to do next? We go
to the 42_____________. Now do I hire seasoned 43_____________? No, I hire a student
and mentor him, teach him how to think about the 44_____________ to see it from my
perspective and then turn him loose. This is that student, David Bradwell, who, in this
45_____________, appears to be wondering if this thing will ever work. What I didn't tell
David at the time was I myself wasn't 46_____________ it would work.

10:14

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But David's young and he's smart and he wants a Ph.D., and he proceeds to build --
(Laughter) He proceeds to build the first ever liquid metal battery of this
47_____________. And based on David's 48_____________ promising results, which were
paid with seed funds at MIT, I was able to attract major research funding from the
private sector and the federal 49_____________. And that allowed me to expand my
group to 20 people, a mix of 50_____________ students, post-docs and even some
51_____________.

10:50

And I was able to attract really, really good people, people who share my
52_____________ for science and service to society, not science and service for
53_____________ building. And if you ask these people why they work on liquid metal
battery, their answer would hearken back to President Kennedy's remarks at Rice
University in 1962 when he said -- and I'm taking liberties here -- "We choose to work
on grid-level 54_____________, not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

11:20

(Applause)

11:27

So this is the 55_____________ of the liquid metal battery. We start here with our
workhorse one watt-hour cell. I called it the shotglass. We've operated over 400 of
these, perfecting their 56_____________ with a plurality of chemistries -- not just
magnesium and antimony. Along the way we scaled up to the 20 watt-hour cell. I call
it the hockey puck. And we got the same 57_____________ results. And then it was onto
the saucer. That's 200 watt-hours. The technology was proving itself to be robust and
scalable. But the pace wasn't fast enough for us. So a year and a half ago, David and I,
along with another research 58_____________, formed a company to accelerate the rate
of 59_____________ and the race to 60_____________ product.

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12:13

So today at LMBC, we're building cells 16 inches in diameter with a capacity of one
kilowatt-hour -- 1,000 times the capacity of that initial shotglass cell. We call that the
pizza. And then we've got a four kilowatt-hour cell on the 61_____________. It's going to
be 36 inches in diameter. We call that the bistro table, but it's not ready yet for prime-
time viewing. And one variant of the technology has us stacking these bistro tabletops
into modules, aggregating the modules into a giant battery that fits in a 40-foot
shipping 62_____________ for 62_____________ in the field. And this has a nameplate
capacity of two megawatt-hours -- two million watt-hours. That's enough
63_____________ to meet the daily 64_____________ needs of 200 American households.
So here you have it, grid-level storage: 65_____________, emissions-free, no moving
parts, remotely controlled, designed to the 66_____________ price point without
subsidy.

13:15

So what have we learned from all this? (Applause) So what have we learned from all
this? Let me share with you some of the 67_____________, the heterodoxies. They lie
beyond the 68_____________. Temperature: Conventional wisdom says set it low, at or
near room 69_____________, and then install a control system to keep it there.
70_____________ thermal runaway. Liquid metal battery is designed to operate at
elevated temperature with minimum 71_____________. Our battery can handle the very
high temperature 72_____________ come from current surges. Scaling: Conventional
wisdom says 73_____________ cost by producing many. Liquid metal battery is
designed to reduce cost by producing fewer, but they'll be larger. And finally, human
74_____________: Conventional wisdom says hire battery 75_____________, seasoned
professionals, who can draw upon their vast 76_____________ and 76_____________. To
77_____________ liquid metal battery, I hired students and post-docs and mentored
them. In a battery, I strive to maximize electrical potential; when mentoring, I strive to
maximize human potential. So you see, the liquid metal battery story is more than an
78_____________ of inventing 79_____________, it's a blueprint for inventing inventors,

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full-spectrum.

6. Do schools kill creativity?

00:05

Good morning. How are you?

00:08

(Audience) Good.

00:09

It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving.

00:15

(Laughter)

00:21

There have been three 1_________ running through the conference, which are
2_________ to what I want to talk about. One is the extraordinary 3_________ of human
4_________ in all of the 5_________ that we've had and in all of the people here; just the
6_________ of it and the 7_________ of it. The second is that it's 8_________ us in a place
where we have no 9_________ what's going to happen in terms of the future. No idea
how this may play out.

00:48

I have an interest in 10_________. Actually, what I find is, everybody has an interest in
education. Don't you? I find this very 11_________. If you're at a dinner party, and you say
you work in education -- actually, you're not often at dinner 12_________, frankly.

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01:04

(Laughter)

01:08

If you work in education, you're not asked.

01:10

(Laughter)

01:13

And you're never asked back, 13_________. That's strange to me. But if you are, and you
say to 14_________, you know, they say, "What do you do?" and you say you work in
15_________, you can see the 16_________ run from their face. They're like, "Oh my God.
Why me?"

01:27

(Laughter)

01:29

"My one night out all week."

01:31

(Laughter)

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01:33

But if you ask about their 17_________, they pin you to the wall, because it's one of those
things that goes deep with people, am I right? Like 18_________ and money and other
things. So I have a big 19_________ in education, and I think we all do. We have a huge
vested interest in it 20_________ because it's education that's 21_________ to take us into
this future that we can't grasp. If you think of it, 22_________ starting school this year
will be 23_________ in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the 24_________ that's been
on 25_________ for the past four days, what the world will look like in five years' time.
And yet, we're meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is
26_________.

02:16

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed, 27_________, on the really
extraordinary 28_________ that children have -- their capacities for 29_________. I mean,
Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she? Just seeing what she could do. And she's
30_________, but I think she's not, so to speak, exceptional in the whole of childhood.
What you have there is a person of extraordinary 31_________who found a talent. And
my contention is, all kids have tremendous 32_________, and we squander them, pretty
ruthlessly.

02:49

So I want to talk about education, and I want to talk about 33_________. My contention
is that creativity now is as important in education as 34_________, and we should
35_________ with the same status.

03:02

(Applause)

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03:03

Thank you.

03:04

(Applause)

03:08

That was it, by the way. Thank you very much.

03:11

(Laughter)

03:13

So, 15 minutes left.

03:15

(Laughter)

03:18

"Well, I was born ... "

03:20

(Laughter)

03:23

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I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it -- of a little girl who was in a 36 _________
lesson. She was six, and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this girl
hardly ever paid 37_________, and in this drawing lesson, she did. The teacher was
38_________. She went over to her, and she said, "What are you 39_________?" And the
girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what
God looks like." And the girl said, "They will in a minute."

03:48

(Laughter)

04:00

When my son was four in England -- actually, he was four everywhere, to be honest.

04:05

(Laughter)

04:06

If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the
Nativity play. Do you remember the story?

04:12

(Laughter)

04:14

No, it was big, it was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel, you may have seen it.

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04:18

(Laughter)

04:19

"Nativity II." But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about. We
40_________ this to be one of the 41_________ parts. We had the place crammed full of
42_________ in T-shirts: "James Robinson IS Joseph!" (Laughter) He didn't have to
speak, but you know the bit where the three 43_________ come in? They come in
bearing 44_________, gold, frankincense and myrrh. This really happened. We were
sitting there, and I think they just went out of 45_________, because we talked to the
little boy afterward and said, "You OK with that?" They said, "Yeah, why? Was that
wrong?" They just switched. The three boys came in, four-year-olds with tea
46_________ on their heads. They put these 47_________ down, and the first boy said, "I
bring you 48_________." And the second boy said, "I bring you myrrh." And the third boy
said, "Frank sent this."

05:01

(Laughter)

05:14

What these things have in 50_________is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know,
they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not 51_________ of being wrong. I don't mean to
say that being wrong is the same thing as being 52_________. What we do know is, if
you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything 53_________ -- if
you're not 54_________ to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids
have 55_________that 56_________. They have become frightened of being wrong. And
we run our 57_________like this. We stigmatize 60_________. And we're now running
58_________systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result
is that we are 59_________ people out of their creative capacities.

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05:57

Picasso once said this, he said that all 61_________ are 62_________ artists. The problem
is to 63_________ an artist as we grow up. I believe this 64_________, that we don't grow
into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get 65_________ out of it. So why is this?

06:15

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford
to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition this was.

06:24

(Laughter)

06:25

Actually, we lived in a place called Snitterfield, just outside Stratford, which is where
Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don't
think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of
Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it. I
mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he?

06:47

(Laughter)

06:54

How annoying would that be?

06:55

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(Laughter)

07:03

"Must try harder."

07:04

(Laughter)

07:09

Being sent to bed by his dad, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now!" To William
Shakespeare. "And put the pencil down!"

07:14

(Laughter)

07:15

"And stop speaking like that."

07:17

(Laughter)

07:20

"It's confusing everybody."

07:22

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(Laughter)

07:27

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to 66_________ , and I just want to say a word about
the 67_________ . Actually, my son didn't want to come. I've got two kids; he's 21 now,
my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it, but he had a
68_________ in England. This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd 69_________ her for a
month.

07:49

(Laughter)

07:51

Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary, because it's a long time when you're 16.
He was really upset on the plane. He said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah." And
we were rather pleased about that, frankly --

08:02

(Laughter)

08:10

because she was the main reason we were leaving the country.

08:13

(Laughter)

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08:19

But something strikes you when you move to America and travel around the world:
every 70_________ system on earth has the same hierarchy of 71_________. Every one.
Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't. At the top
are 72_________ and 73_________, then the humanities. At the bottom are the arts.
Everywhere on earth. And in pretty much every 74_________, too, there's a hierarchy
within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher 75_________ in schools than
drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance
every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think
this is rather 76_________. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children
dance all the time if they're 77_________ to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we?
Did I miss a meeting?

09:02

(Laughter)

09:06

Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them
progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one
side.

09:15

If you were to visit education as an 78_________ and say "What's it for, 79_________?" I
think you'd have to 80_________, if you look at the output, who really 81_________ by this,
who does everything they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the
82_________ -- I think you'd have to conclude the whole 83_________ of public
education 84_________ the world is to produce 85_________. Isn't it? They're the people
who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there.

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09:41

(Laughter)

09:44

And I like university professors, but, you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high-
water mark of all human 86_________. They're just a form of life. Another form of life.
But they're rather 87_________. And I say this out of affection for them: there's
something curious about 88_________. In my 89_________ -- not all of them, but
typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there and slightly to one side. They're
disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form
of 90_________ for their heads.

10:13

(Laughter)

10:19

Don't they? It's a way of getting their head to meetings.

10:23

(Laughter)

10:28

If you want real 91_________ of out-of-body 92_________, by the way, get yourself along
to a 93_________ conference of senior 94_________ and pop into the discotheque on
the final night.

10:38

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(Laughter)

10:40

And there, you will see it. Grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the
beat.

10:46

(Laughter)

10:49

Waiting until it ends, so they can go home and write a paper about it.

10:52

(Laughter)

10:54

Our education system is predicated on the idea of 95_________ ability. And there's a
reason. Around the world, there were no 96_________ of education, really, before the
19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of 97_________. So the
hierarchy is rooted on two ideas.

11:10

Number one, that the most useful 98_________ for work are at the top. So you were
99_________ steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things
you liked, on the 100_________ you would never get a job doing that. Is that right?
"Don't do music, you're not going to be a 101_________; don't do art, you won't be an
artist." Benign advice -- now, profoundly 102_________. The whole world is engulfed in

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a revolution.

11:33

And the second is 102_________ ability, which has really come to dominate our view of
103_________, because the universities 104_________ the system in their image. If you
think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted
process of university 105_________. And the consequence is that many highly
106_________, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were
good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't
107_________ to go on that way.

11:59

In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO, more people 108_________ will be

109_________ through education than since the 110_________ of history. More people.
And it's the 111_________of all the things we've talked about: 112_________ and its
transformational effect on work, and demography and the huge explosion in
113_________.

12:16

Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you
had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job, it's because you didn't want one.
And I didn't want one, frankly.

12:28

(Laughter)

12:30

But now kids with degrees are often 114_________ home to carry on playing video

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games, because you need an MA where the 115_________ job required a BA, and now
you need a PhD for the other. It's a 116_________ of 117_________ inflation. And it
indicates the whole 118_________ of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to
radically rethink our view of 119_________ .

12:48

We know three things about 120_________. One, it's diverse. We think about the world
in all the ways that we 121_________ it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think
kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in 122_________. Secondly,
intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the 123_________ of a human brain, as we heard
yesterday from a number of 124_________, intelligence is wonderfully 125_________. The
brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, 126_________ -- which I define as the
127_________ of having 128_________ ideas that have value -- more often than not
comes about through the 129_________ of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

13:25

By the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain, called the
corpus callosum. It's thicker in women. Following off from Helen yesterday, this is
130_________why women are better at 131_________ . Because you are, aren't you?
There's a raft of 132_________, but I know it from my 133_________. If my wife is cooking
a meal at home, which is not often ... thankfully.

13:48

(Laughter)

13:51

No, she's good at some things. But if she's cooking, she's dealing with people on the
phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling --

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13:58

(Laughter)

13:59

She's doing open-heart 134_________ over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids
are out, the phone's on the hook, if she comes in, I get 135_________. I say, "Terry, please,
I'm trying to fry an egg in here."

14:10

(Laughter)

14:17

"Give me a break."

14:18

(Laughter)

14:20

136_________ , do you know that old philosophical thing, "If a tree falls in a forest, and
nobody 137_________ it, did it happen?" Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great T-
shirt 138_________, which said, "If a man speaks his mind in a 139_________, and no
woman hears him, is he still wrong?"

14:35

(Laughter)

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14:43

And the third thing about 140_________ is, it's 141_________ . I'm doing a new book at
the moment called "Epiphany," which is 142_________ on a series of interviews with
people about how they 143_________ their talent. I'm 144_________ by how people got
to be there. It's really prompted by a 145_________ I had with a wonderful woman who
maybe most people have 146_________ heard of, Gillian Lynne. Have you heard of her?
Some have. She's a choreographer, and 147_________ knows her work. She did "Cats"
and "Phantom of the Opera." She's 148_________ . I used to be on the board of The
Royal Ballet, as you can see.

15:12

(Laughter)

15:14

Gillian and I had lunch one day. I said, "How did you get to be a dancer?" It was
149_________ . When she was at school, she was really 150_________. And the school, in
the '30s, wrote to her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a 151_________ disorder."
She couldn't 152_________ ; she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD.
Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been 153_________ at this
point. It wasn't an available 154_________.

15:38

(Laughter)

15:41

People weren't aware they could have that.

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15:43

(Laughter)

15:46

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled 155_________, and she was
there with her mother, and she was led and sat on this chair at the end, and she
156_________ on her hands for 20 minutes, while this man talked to her mother about
all the 157_________Gillian was having at school, because she was disturbing people,
her 158_________ was always late, and so on. Little kid of eight. In the end, the doctor
went and sat next to Gillian and said, "I've listened to all these things your mother's
told me. I need to speak to her 159_________ . Wait here. We'll be back. We won't be
very long," and they went and left her.

16:19

But as they went out of the room, he 160_________ the radio that was sitting on his
desk. And when they got 161_________ the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand
and watch her." And 162_________ they left the room, she was on her feet, 163_________
to the music. And they watched for a few minutes, and he turned to her mother and
said, "Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."

16:43

I said, "What happened?" She said, "She did. I can't tell you how 164_________ it was.
We walked in this room, and it was full of people like me -- people who couldn't sit
still, people who had to 165_________ to think." Who had to move to think. They did
166_________ , they did tap, jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary. She was
eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School. She became a soloist; she had a
wonderful 167_________ at the Royal Ballet. She eventually 168_________ from the Royal
Ballet School, 169_________ the Gillian Lynne Dance Company, met Andrew Lloyd
Webber. She's been 170_________ for some of the most successful musical theater

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productions in history, she's given 171_________ to millions, and she's a
multimillionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to
calm down.

17:24

(Applause)

17:32

What I think it 172_________ to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology
and the 173_________ that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for
the future is to 174_________ a new conception of human ecology, one in which we
start to reconstitute our conception of the 175_________ of human capacity. Our
education system has mined our 176_________ in the way that we strip-mine the earth
for a particular commodity. And for the 177_________ , it won't serve us. We have to
rethink the fundamental principles on which we're 178_________ our children.

18:05

There was a wonderful 179_________ by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the 180_________
were to disappear from the Earth, within 50 years, all life on 181_________ would end.
If all 182_________ disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years, all 183_________ of life
would flourish." And he's right.

18:25

What TED celebrates is the gift of the 184_________ . We have to be 185_________ now
that we use this gift wisely, and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've talked
about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our 186_________ capacities for the
187_________ they are and seeing our children for the 188_________ that they are. And
our 189_________ is to 190_________ their whole being, so they can face this future. By

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the way -- we may not see this 191_________ , but they will. And our job is to help them
make something of it.

18:57

Thank you very much.

18:58

(Applause)

7. The rise of the new global super-rich

00:04

So here's the most important 1. _______________ fact of our time. We are living in an 2.
_______________ of surging 3. _______________ inequality, 4. _______________ between
those at the very top and everyone else. This shift is the most 5. _______________ in the
U.S. and in the U.K., but it's a global 5. _______________ . It's happening in communist
China, in formerly communist Russia, it's happening in 6. _______________ , in my own
7. _______________ Canada. We're even seeing it in 8. _______________ social democracies
like Sweden, Finland and 9. _______________ .

00:38

Let me give you a few 10. _______________ to place what's happening. In the 11.
_______________, the One Percent accounted for about 12. _______________ of the 13.
_______________ income in the United States. Today, their share has more than 14.
_______________ to above 20 percent. But what's even more 15. _______________ is what's
happening at the very tippy top of the income 16. _______________ . The 0.1 percent in
the U.S. today account for more than eight percent of the national income. They are
where the One Percent was 17. _______________ ago. Let me give you another number
to put that in perspective, and this is a figure that was 18. _______________ in 2005 by
Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Reich took the 19.

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_______________ of two admittedly very rich men, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and he
found that it was equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. 20.
_______________ , 120 million people. Now, as it happens, Warren Buffett is not only
himself a plutocrat, he is one of the most astute 21. _______________ of that
phenomenon, and he has his own favorite 22. _______________ . Buffett likes to point
out that in 23. _______________, the combined wealth of the people on the Forbes 400
list -- and this is the list of the 400 richest Americans -- was 300 billion dollars. Just
think about it. You didn't even need to be a billionaire to get on that list in 1992. Well,
today, that 24. _______________ has more than quintupled to 1.7 trillion, and I probably
don't need to tell you that we haven't seen anything 25. _______________ happen to the
middle class, whose wealth has stagnated if not actually 26. _______________ .

02:36

So we're living in the age of the 27. _______________ plutocracy, but we've been slow to
28. _______________ it. One of the reasons, I think, is a sort of boiled frog phenomenon.
29. _______________ which are slow and gradual can be hard to notice even if their
ultimate 30. _______________ is quite dramatic. Think about what happened, after all, to
the poor frog. But I think there's something else going on. Talking about income 31.
_______________, even if you're not on the Forbes 400 list, can make us feel 32.
_______________ . It feels less 33. _______________, less optimistic, to talk about how the
pie is sliced than to think about how to make the pie bigger. And if you do happen to
be on the Forbes 400 list, talking about income distribution, and inevitably its cousin,
income redistribution, can be downright 34. _______________.

03:27

So we're living in the age of surging income inequality, especially at the top. What's
driving it, and what can we do about it?

03:37

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One set of causes is political: lower taxes, deregulation, particularly of 35.
_______________ services, privatization, weaker legal 36. _______________ for trade unions,
all of these have contributed to more and more income going to the very, very top.

03:58

A lot of these 37. _______________ factors can be broadly lumped under the 38.
_______________ of "crony capitalism," political changes that 39. _______________ a group
of well-connected 40. _______________ but don't actually do much good for the rest of
us. In practice, getting rid of crony capitalism is incredibly 41. _______________. Think of
all the years reformers of 42. _______________ stripes have tried to get rid of corruption
in Russia, for instance, or how hard it is to re-regulate the banks even after the most
profound financial 43. _______________ since the Great Depression, or even how difficult
it is to get the big multinational 44. _______________, including those whose motto
might be "don't do evil," to pay taxes at a rate even approaching that paid by the 45.
_______________. But while getting rid of crony capitalism in practice is really, really
hard, at least intellectually, it's an 46. _______________ problem. After all, no one is
actually in favor of crony capitalism. Indeed, this is one of those rare issues that unites
the left and the right. A critique of crony capitalism is as central to the Tea Party as it
is to Occupy Wall Street.

05:13

But if crony capitalism is, intellectually at least, the easy part of the 47. _______________,
things get trickier when you look at the economic drivers of surging income 48.
_______________. In and of themselves, these aren't too 49. _______________.
Globalization and the technology 50. _______________, the twin economic
transformations which are changing our lives and transforming the 51. _______________
economy, are also powering the 52. _______________ of the super-rich. Just think about
it. For the first time in history, if you are an 53. _______________ entrepreneur with a
brilliant new idea or a fantastic new 54. _______________, you have almost instant,
almost frictionless access to a global market of more than a billion people. As a result,

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if you are very, very smart and very, very lucky, you can get very, very rich very, very
quickly. The latest poster boy for this phenomenon is David Karp. The 26-year-old
founder of Tumblr recently sold his company to Yahoo for 1.1 billion dollars. Think about
that for a minute: 1.1 billion dollars, 26 years old. It's easiest to see how the 55.
_______________ revolution and globalization are creating this sort of 56. _______________
effect in highly visible fields, like sports and 57. _______________. We can all watch how
a fantastic 58. _______________ or a fantastic 59. _______________ can today leverage his
or her skills across the global economy as never before. But today, that superstar effect
is happening across the 60. _______________ economy. We have superstar
technologists. We have superstar bankers. We have superstar 61. _______________ and
superstar architects. There are superstar cooks and 62. _______________. There are even,
and this is my 63. _______________ favorite example, superstar dentists, the most
dazzling exemplar of whom is Bernard Touati, the Frenchman who ministers to the
smiles of fellow superstars like Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich or European-
born American fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.

07:29

But while it's pretty easy to see how 64. _______________ and the technology 65.
_______________ are creating this global plutocracy, what's a lot harder is figuring out
what to think about it. And that's because, in contrast with crony capitalism, so much
of what globalization and the technology revolution have done is highly 66.
_______________. Let's start with technology. I love the Internet. I love my 67.
_______________. I love the fact that they mean that whoever chooses to will be able to
watch this talk far beyond this auditorium. I'm even more of a fan of globalization. This
is the 68. _______________which has lifted hundreds of millions of the world's poorest
people out of 69. _______________ and into the middle class, and if you happen to live
in the rich part of the world, it's made many new products 70. _______________ -- who
do you think built your iPhone? — and things that we've relied on for a long time much
cheaper. Think of your dishwasher or your t-shirt.

08:31

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So what's not to like? Well, a few things. One of the things that worries me is how
easily what you might call meritocratic plutocracy can become crony plutocracy.
Imagine you're a brilliant entrepreneur who has 71. _______________ sold that idea or
that product to the 72. _______________ billions and become a billionaire in the process.
It gets tempting at that point to use your economic nous to manipulate the 73.
_______________ of the global political economy in your own favor. And that's no mere
hypothetical 74. _______________. Think about Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks.
These are among the world's most admired, most beloved, most innovative 75.
_______________. They also happen to be particularly adept at working the international
tax system so as to lower their tax bill very, very significantly. And why stop at just
playing the global political and economic system as it exists to your own 76.
_______________ advantage? Once you have the tremendous economic power that
we're seeing at the very, very top of the income distribution and the political power
that inevitably entails, it becomes tempting as well to start trying to 77. _______________
the rules of the game in your own favor. Again, this is no mere hypothetical. It's what
the Russian oligarchs did in creating the sale-of-the-century privatization of Russia's
natural 78. _______________ It's one way of describing what happened with
deregulation of the financial services in the U.S. and the U.K.

10:11

A second thing that worries me is how easily meritocratic plutocracy can become
aristocracy. One way of describing the plutocrats is as alpha geeks, and they are
people who are acutely aware of how 79. _______________ highly sophisticated
analytical and quantitative skills are in today's 80. _______________. That's why they are
spending unprecedented time and resources 81. _______________ their own children.
The middle class is spending more on schooling too, but in the global educational
arms race that starts at nursery school and ends at Harvard, Stanford or MIT, the 82.
_______________ is increasingly outgunned by the One Percent. The 83. _______________
is something that economists Alan Krueger and Miles Corak call the Great Gatsby
Curve. As income inequality increases, social mobility 84. _______________. The
plutocracy may be a meritocracy, but increasingly you have to be born on the top rung

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of the ladder to even take part in that race.

11:17

The third thing, and this is what 85. _______________ me the most, is the extent to which
those same largely positive forces which are driving the rise of the global plutocracy
also happen to be hollowing out the middle class in Western industrialized
economies. Let's start with 86. _______________. Those same forces that are creating
billionaires are also devouring many 87. _______________ middle-class jobs. When's the
last time you used a travel agent? And in contrast with the 88. _______________
revolution, the titans of our new economy aren't creating that many new jobs. At its
zenith, G.M. employed hundreds of thousands, Facebook fewer than 89.
_______________. The same is true of globalization. For all that it is raising hundreds of
millions of people out of poverty in the emerging markets, it's also outsourcing a lot
of jobs from the developed Western economies. The terrifying 90. _______________ is
that there is no economic rule which automatically translates increased economic
growth into widely shared prosperity. That's shown in what I consider to be the most
scary economic statistic of our time. Since the late 1990s, increases in productivity
have been decoupled from increases in wages and employment. That means that our
countries are getting richer, our companies are getting more efficient, but we're not
creating more jobs and we're not paying people, as a whole, more.

12:52

One scary conclusion you could draw from all of this is to worry about structural
unemployment. What worries me more is a different nightmare scenario. After all, in
a totally free labor market, we could find jobs for pretty much everyone. The dystopia
that worries me is a universe in which a few geniuses invent Google and its ilk and the
rest of us are employed giving them massages.

13:23

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So when I get really depressed about all of this, I comfort myself in 91. _______________
about the Industrial Revolution. After all, for all its grim, satanic mills, it worked out
pretty well, didn't it? After all, all of us here are richer, healthier, taller -- well, there are
a few exceptions — and live longer than our 92. _______________ in the early 19th
century. But it's important to remember that before we learned how to share the fruits
of the Industrial Revolution with the broad swathes of 93. _______________, we had to
go through two depressions, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Long Depression
of the 1870s, two world wars, communist revolutions in Russia and in China, and an
era of tremendous social and political upheaval in the West. We also, not
coincidentally, went through an era of tremendous 94. _______________ and political
inventions. We created the 95. _______________ welfare state. We created public
education. We created public 96. _______________. We created public pensions. We
created unions.

14:35

Today, we are living through an era of economic transformation comparable in its

scale and its scope to the Industrial Revolution. To be sure that this new economy
benefits us all and not just the plutocrats, we need to embark on an era of comparably
ambitious social and political change. We need a new New Deal.

14:59

(Applause)

8. Why I must speak out about climate change

00:03

What do I know that would cause me, a reticent, Midwestern scientist, to get myself
1___________ in front of the White House protesting? And what would you do if you
knew what I know? Let's start with how I got to this point. I was 2___________ to grow
up at a time when it was not 3___________ for the child of a tenant farmer to make his
way to the state university.

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00:32

And I was really lucky to go to the University of Iowa where I could study under
Professor James Van Allen who built 4___________ for the first U.S. satellites. Professor
Van Allen told me about 5___________ of Venus, that there was intense microwave
radiation. Did it mean that Venus had an ionosphere? Or was Venus 6___________ hot?
The right answer, confirmed by the Soviet Venera spacecraft, was that Venus was very
hot -- 7___________ degrees Fahrenheit. And it was kept hot by a thick carbon dioxide
8___________.

01:14

I was 9___________ to join NASA and successfully propose an 10___________ to fly to

Venus. Our instrument took this image of the veil of Venus, which turned out to be a
smog of sulfuric acid. But while our instrument was being built, I became involved in
calculations of the 11___________ effect here on Earth, because we realized that our
atmospheric composition was 12___________. Eventually, I resigned as principal
investigator on our Venus experiment because a 13___________ changing before our
eyes is more interesting and important. Its changes will affect all of 14___________.

01:58

The greenhouse effect had been well 15___________ for more than a 16___________.
British physicist John Tyndall, in the 1850's, made 17___________ measurements of the
infrared radiation, which is heat. And he showed that gasses such as CO2 absorb heat,
thus acting like a blanket warming Earth's surface.

02:20

I worked with other 18___________ to analyze Earth 19___________ observations. In 1981,

we published an article in Science 20___________ concluding that observed warming
of 0.4 degrees Celsius in the prior century was consistent with the 21___________effect

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of increasing CO2. That Earth would likely warm in the 22___________, and warming
would exceed the noise level of random weather by the end of the century. We also
said that the 21st century would see shifting climate zones, creation of drought-prone
regions in 23___________ and Asia, erosion of ice sheets, rising sea levels and opening
of the fabled Northwest Passage. All of these impacts have since either happened or
are now well under way.

03:11

That paper was 24___________ on the front page of the New York Times and led to me
testifying to Congress in the 1980's, testimony in which I emphasized that global
warming increases both extremes of the Earth's water cycle. Heatwaves and
25___________ on one hand, directly from the warming, but also, because a warmer
26___________ holds more water vapor with its latent energy, 27___________ will become
in more extreme events. There will be stronger storms and greater flooding. Global
warming hoopla became time-consuming and distracted me from doing science --
partly because I had complained that the White House altered my testimony. So I
decided to go back to strictly doing science and leave the 28___________ to others.

04:05

By 15 years later, evidence of 29___________ was much stronger. Most of the things
mentioned in our 30___________ paper were facts. I had the privilege to speak twice to
the president's climate task force. But energy policies continued to 31___________ on
finding more 32___________ . By then we had two grandchildren, Sophie and Connor. I
decided that I did not want them in the future to say, "Opa understood what was
happening, but he didn't make it clear." So I decided to give a 33___________ talk
criticizing the lack of an appropriate energy policy.

04:46

I gave the talk at the University of Iowa in 2004 and at the 2005 meeting of the

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American Geophysical Union. This led to calls from the White House to NASA
headquarters and I was told that I could not give any talks or speak with 34___________
without prior explicit 35___________ by NASA headquarters. After I informed the New
York Times about these restrictions, NASA was forced to end the censorship. But there
were consequences. I had been using the first line of the NASA mission statement, "To
36___________ and 37___________ the home planet," to justify my talks. Soon the first
line of the mission statement was deleted, never to appear again.

05:32

Over the next few years I was drawn more and more into trying to 38___________ the
urgency of a change in energy policies, while still 39___________ the physics of climate
change. Let me describe the most important 40___________ from the physics -- first,
from Earth's energy 41___________ and, second, from Earth's climate history.

05:55

Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed. It reduces Earth's
heat radiation to space, so there's a 42___________ energy imbalance. More energy is
coming in than going out, until Earth warms up enough to again radiate to space as
much 43___________ as it absorbs from the Sun. So the key quantity is Earth's energy
imbalance. Is there more energy coming in than going out? If so, more 44___________
is in the pipeline. It will occur without adding any more greenhouse 45___________.

06:32

Now finally, we can measure Earth's energy imbalance precisely by measuring the
46___________ content in Earth's heat reservoirs. The biggest reservoir, the
47___________, was the least well measured, until more than 3,000 Argo floats were
distributed 48___________ the world's ocean. These floats reveal that the upper half of
the ocean is gaining heat at a substantial rate. The deep ocean is also 49___________
heat at a smaller rate, and 50___________ is going into the net 51___________ of ice all

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around the planet. And the land, to depths of tens of meters, is also warming.

07:12

The total energy imbalance now is about six-tenths of a watt per square meter. That
may not sound like much, but when added up over the whole world, it's 52___________
. It's about 20 times greater than the 53___________ of energy use by all of 54___________.
It's equivalent to exploding 55___________ Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days
per year. That's how much extra energy Earth is gaining each day. This imbalance, if
we want to stabilize 56___________, means that we must reduce CO2 from 391 ppm,
parts per million, back to 57___________ ppm. That is the change needed to
58___________ energy balance and 59___________ further warming.

08:03

60___________ deniers argue that the Sun is the main cause of climate change. But the
measured energy imbalance occurred during the deepest solar minimum in the
record, when the Sun's energy reaching 61___________ was least. Yet, there was more
energy coming in than going out. This shows that the 62___________ of the Sun's
variations on climate is overwhelmed by the increasing greenhouse gasses, mainly
from burning 63___________ .

08:32

Now consider Earth's climate history. These curves for global 64___________,
atmospheric CO2 and sea level were derived from ocean cores and Antarctic ice cores,
from ocean sediments and snowflakes that piled up year after year over 65___________
years forming a two-mile thick ice sheet. As you see, there's a high correlation
between temperature, CO2 and 66___________. Careful examination shows that the
temperature changes 67___________ lead the CO2 changes by a few 68___________.
Climate change deniers like to use this fact to confuse and trick the public by saying,
"Look, the temperature causes CO2 to change, not vice versa." But that lag is exactly

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what is expected.

09:23

Small changes in Earth's orbit that occur over tens to hundreds of 69___________ of
years alter the distribution of 70___________ on Earth. When there is more sunlight at
high latitudes in summer, 71___________ sheets melt. Shrinking ice sheets make the
planet darker, so it absorbs more 72___________ and becomes 73___________. A warmer
ocean releases CO2, just as a warm Coca-Cola does. And more CO2 causes more
warming. So CO2, methane, and ice sheets were feedbacks that amplified global
temperature change causing these ancient climate oscillations to be 74___________,
even though the climate change was initiated by a very weak forcing.

10:10

The important point is that these same amplifying 75___________ will occur today. The
physics does not change. As Earth 76___________, now because of extra CO2 we put in
the 77___________, ice will melt, and CO2 and methane will be released by warming
ocean and melting permafrost. While we can't say 78___________ how fast these
amplifying feedbacks will occur, it is certain they will occur, unless we stop the
warming. There is 79___________ that feedbacks are already beginning. Precise
measurements by GRACE, the gravity satellite, reveal that both Greenland and
Antarctica are now losing mass, several hundred cubic kilometers per year. And the
rate has accelerated since the measurements began 80___________ years ago.
Methane is also beginning to 81___________ from the permafrost.

11:09

What sea level rise can we look forward to? The last time CO2 was 390 ppm, today's
value, sea level was higher by at least 15 meters, 50 feet. Where you are sitting now
would be under water. Most estimates are that, this century, we will get at least one
meter. I think it will be more if we keep burning fossil fuels, perhaps even five meters,

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which is 18 feet, this century or shortly thereafter.

11:42

The important point is that we will have 82___________ a process that is out of
humanity's control. Ice sheets would 83___________ to disintegrate for centuries. There
would be no stable shoreline. The economic consequences are almost 84___________.
Hundreds of New Orleans-like devastations around the world. What may be more
reprehensible, if climate denial continues, is extermination of 85___________. The
monarch butterfly could be one of the 20 to 50 percent of all species that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates will be ticketed for
86___________ by the end of the century if we stay on business-as-usual fossil fuel use.

12:28

Global warming is already 87___________ people. The Texas, Oklahoma, Mexico

heatwave and drought last year, Moscow the year before and Europe in 88___________,
were all exceptional events, more than three standard deviations outside the norm.
Fifty years ago, such anomalies covered only two- to three-tenths of one percent of
the land area. In recent years, because of global warming, they now cover about
89___________ -- an increase by a factor of 25 to 50. So we can say with a high degree
of 90___________ that the severe Texas and Moscow heatwaves were not natural; they
were caused by global warming. An important impact, if global warming continues,
will be on the breadbasket of our nation and the world, the Midwest and Great Plains,
which are expected to become prone to extreme droughts, worse than the Dust Bowl,
within just a few decades, if we let 91___________ continue.

13:34

How did I get dragged deeper and deeper into an attempt to communicate, giving
talks in 10 countries, getting arrested, burning up the vacation time that I had
accumulated over 30 years? More grandchildren helped me along. Jake is a super-

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positive, enthusiastic boy. Here at age two and a half years, he thinks he can protect
his two and a half-day-old little sister. It would be immoral to leave these young people
with a climate system spiraling out of control.

14:11

Now the tragedy about climate change is that we can solve it with a simple, honest
approach of a gradually rising carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies and
distributed 100 percent electronically every month to all legal residents on a per capita
basis, with the government not keeping one dime. Most people would get more in
the monthly dividend than they'd pay in increased prices. This fee and dividend would
stimulate the economy and innovations, creating millions of jobs. It is the principal
requirement for moving us rapidly to a clean energy future.

14:55

Several top economists are coauthors on this proposition. Jim DiPeso of Republicans
for Environmental Protection describes it thusly: "Transparent. Market-based. Does
not enlarge government. Leaves energy decisions to individual choices. Sounds like a
conservative climate plan."

15:16

But instead of placing a 92___________ fee on carbon emissions to make fossil fuels pay
their true cost to society, our 93___________ are forcing the public to subsidize fossil
fuels by 400 to 500 billion dollars per year 94___________ thus encouraging extraction
of every fossil fuel -- mountaintop removal, longwall mining, fracking, tar sands, tar
shale, deep ocean Arctic drilling. This path, if continued, guarantees that we will pass
tipping points leading to ice sheet disintegration that will accelerate 95___________ of
future generations. A large fraction of species will be committed to extinction. And
increasing intensity of 96___________ and 97___________ will severely impact
breadbaskets of the world, causing massive famines and economic decline. Imagine

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a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth.

16:21

That is the equivalent of what we face now. Yet, we dither, taking no action to divert
the asteroid, even though the longer we wait, the more 98___________ and
99___________ it becomes. If we had started in 2005, it would have 100___________
emission reductions of three percent per year to restore planetary energy balance and
stabilize climate this century. If we start next year, it is six percent per year. If we wait
10 years, it is 15 percent per year -- extremely 101___________ and expensive, perhaps
102___________. But we aren't even starting.

17:02

So now you know what I know that is moving me to sound this alarm. Clearly, I haven't
gotten this message across. The science is clear. I need your help to communicate the
gravity and the urgency of this situation and its solutions more effectively. We owe it
to our children and grandchildren.

17:26

Thank you.

17:28

(Applause)

9. How public spaces make cities work

00:04

When people think about cities, they tend to think of 1_____ things. They think of
buildings and streets and 2____________, noisy cabs. But when I think about cities, I
think about people. Cities are 3___________ about people, and where people go and

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where people meet are at the 4____ of what makes a city work. So even more
important than buildings in a city are the public 5______ in between them. And today,
some of the most 6___________ changes in cities are happening in these public spaces.

00:41

So I believe that lively, 7______ public spaces are the key to planning a great city. They
are what makes it come alive. But what makes a public space work? What 8______
people to successful public spaces, and what is it about 9______ places that keeps
people away? I thought, if I could answer those questions, I could make a huge
10______ to my city. But one of the more wonky things about me is that I am an 11______
behaviorist, and I use those skills not to study animal 12______ but to study how people
in cities use city public spaces.

01:25

One of the first spaces that I studied was this little vest pocket park called Paley Park
in 13______ Manhattan. This little space became a small 14______ , and because it had
such a 15______ impact on New Yorkers, it made an 16______ impression on me. I
studied this park very early on in my 17______ because it happened to have been
18______ by my stepfather, so I knew that places like Paley Park didn't happen by
19______ . I saw firsthand that they required incredible 20______ and enormous
attention to detail. But what was it about this space that made it 7______ and drew
people to it? Well, I would sit in the park and watch very 21______ , and first among
other things were the 22______ , movable chairs. People would come in, find their own
23______ , move it a bit, actually, and then stay a while, and then 24______ , people
themselves attracted other people, and ironically, I felt more 25______ if there were
other people around. And it was green. This little park 26______ what New Yorkers
crave: comfort and greenery. But my question was, why weren't there more places
with greenery and places to sit in the 27______ of the city where you didn't feel alone,
or like a trespasser? 28______ , that's not how cities were being designed.

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02:58

So here you see a 29______ sight. This is how plazas have been designed for 30______ .
They have that stylish, Spartan look that we often 31______ with modern architecture,
but it's not 32______ that people avoid spaces like this. They not only look desolate,
they feel downright dangerous. I mean, where would you sit here? What would you
do here? But 33______ love them. They are plinths for their creations. They might
34______ a sculpture or two, but that's about it. And for 35______ , they are ideal. There's
nothing to water, nothing to maintain, and no 36______ people to worry about. But
don't you think this is a 37______ ? For me, becoming a city planner meant being able
to truly change the city that I lived in and loved. I wanted to be able to create 38______
that would give you the feeling that you got in Paley Park, and not allow developers
to build bleak plazas like this. But over the many years, I have learned how hard it is to
39______ successful, 40______ , enjoyable public spaces. As I learned from my
stepfather, they certainly do not happen by accident, 41______ in a city like New York,
where public space has to be 42______ for to begin with, and then for them to be
successful, somebody has to think very hard about every 43______ .

04:34

Now, open spaces in cities are 44______ . Yes, they are opportunities for 45______
investment, but they are also opportunities for the 46______ good of the city, and
those two goals are often not aligned with one another, and therein lies the 47______
.

04:53

The first opportunity I had to fight for a great public open space was in the 48______
1980s, when I was leading a team of planners at a gigantic 49______ called Battery
Park City in lower Manhattan on the Hudson River. And this sandy 50______ had lain
barren for 10 years, and we were told, 51______ we found a developer in six months, it
would go 52______ . So we came up with a radical, almost 53______ idea. Instead of
building a park as a complement to 54______ development, why don't we reverse that

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55______ and build a small but very high-quality public open space first, and see if that
made a difference. So we only could 56______ to build a two-block section of what
would become a mile-long esplanade, so 57______ we built had to be perfect. So just
to make sure, I 58______ that we build a mock-up in wood, at scale, of the railing and
the sea wall. And when I sat down on that test 59______ with sand still swirling all
around me, the railing hit 60______ at eye level, blocking my view and ruining my
61_______ at the water's edge.

06:09

So you see, 62______ really do make a difference. But design is not just how something
looks, it's how your body feels on that seat in that space, and I 63______ that successful
design always depends on that very individual 64______ . In this photo, everything
looks very 65______ , but that granite edge, those 66______ the back on that bench, the
trees in planting, and the many different kinds of places to sit were all little 67______
that turned this project into a place that people 68______ to be.

06:49

Now, this proved very 69______ 20 years later when Michael Bloomberg asked me to
be his planning commissioner and put me in 70______ of shaping the entire city of
New York. And he said to me on that very day, he said that New York was 71______ to
grow from eight to nine million people. And he asked me, "So where are you going to
put one 72______ additional New Yorkers?"

07:14

Well, I didn't have any idea. Now, you know that New York does place a high 73______
on attracting 74______ , so we were excited about the prospect of 75______ , but
honestly, where were we going to grow in a city that was already built out to its edges
and surrounded by water? How were we going to find 76______ for that many new
New Yorkers? And if we couldn't spread out, which was 77______ a good thing, where

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could new housing go? And what about cars? Our city couldn't possibly 78______ any
more cars.

07:50

So what were we going to do? If we couldn't 79______ out, we had to go up. And if we
had to go up, we had to go up in places where you wouldn't need to own a car. So that
80______ using one of our greatest 81______ : our transit system. But we had never
before thought of how we could make the most of it. So here was the 82______ to our
puzzle. If we were to channel and 83______ all new development around 84______ , we
could actually handle that 85______ increase, we thought. And so here was the plan,
what we really needed to do: We needed to redo our zoning -- and zoning is the city
planner's regulatory tool -- and basically reshape the entire city,86______ where new
development could go and 87______ any development at all in our car-oriented,
suburban-style neighborhoods. Well, this was an unbelievably 88______ idea,
ambitious because communities had to 89______ those plans.

08:57

So how was I going to get this done? By listening. So I began listening, in fact, 90______
of hours of listening just to 91______ trust. You know, communities can tell whether or
not you understand their neighborhoods. It's not something you can just fake. And so
I began 92______ . I can't tell you how many blocks I walked, in sweltering 93______ , in
freezing winters, year after year, just so I could get to understand the DNA of each
neighborhood and know what each 94______ felt like. I became an incredibly geeky
zoning 95______ , finding ways that zoning could address 96______ concerns. So little
by little, neighborhood by neighborhood, 97______ by block, we began to set height
98______ so that all new development would be 99______ and near transit. Over the
course of 12 years, we were able to 100______ 124 neighborhoods, 40 percent of the
city, 12,500 blocks, so that now, 90 percent of all new development of New York is
within a 10-minute walk of a 101______ . In other words, nobody in those new 102______
needs to own a car.

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10:16

Well, those rezonings were 103______ and enervating and important, but rezoning was
never my 104______ . You can't see zoning and you can't feel zoning. My mission was
always to create great public spaces. So in the areas where we zoned for 105______
development, I was determined to create places that would make a 106______ in
people's lives. Here you see what was two miles of abandoned, degraded 107______ in
the neighborhoods of Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, impossible to get to
and impossible to use. Now the zoning here was 108______ , so I felt an obligation to
create 109______ parks on these waterfronts, and I spent an incredible amount of time
on every square 110______ of these plans. I wanted to make sure that there were tree-
lined paths from the 111______ to the water, that there were trees and plantings
everywhere, and, of course, lots and lots of places to sit. Honestly, I had no idea how it
would turn out. I had to have 112______ . But I put everything that I had 113______ and
learned into those plans.

11:29

And then it 114______ , and I have to tell you, it was incredible. People came from all
over the city to be in these parks. I know they 115______ the lives of the people who live
there, but they also changed New Yorkers' whole 116______ of their city. I often come
down and watch people get on this little ferry that now runs between the boroughs,
and I can't tell you why, but I'm 117______ moved by the fact that people are 118______
it as if it had always been there.

11:58

And here is a new park in 119______ Manhattan. Now, the water's edge in lower
Manhattan was a 120______ mess before 9/11. Wall Street was essentially landlocked
because you couldn't get anywhere near this edge. And after 9/11, the city had very
little 121______ . But I thought if we went to the Lower Manhattan Development
Corporation and got money to reclaim this two miles of degraded waterfront that it

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would have an enormous 122______ on the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. And it did.
Lower Manhattan finally has a public waterfront on all three 123______ .

12:34

I really love this park. You know, railings have to be higher now, so we put bar seating
at the 124______ , and you can get so close to the water you're 125______ on it. And see
how the railing widens and 126______ out so you can lay down your lunch or your
laptop. And I love when people come there and look up and they say, "Wow, there's
Brooklyn, and it's so close."

12:58

So what's the trick? How do you turn a park into a place that people want to be? Well,
it's up to you, not as a city 127______ but as a human being. You don't tap into your
design expertise. You tap into your 128______ . I mean, would you want to go there?
Would you want to stay there? Can you see into it and out of it? Are there other people
there? Does it seem green and 129______ ? Can you find your very own seat?

13:34

Well now, all over New York City, there are places where you can find your very own
130______ . Where there used to be parking spaces, there are now pop-up 131______ .
Where Broadway traffic used to run, there are now tables and chairs. Where 12 years
ago, 132______ cafes were not allowed, they are now everywhere. But claiming these
spaces for public use was not simple, and it's even harder to keep them that way.

14:02

So now I'm going to tell you a story about a very 133______ park called the High Line.
The High Line was an elevated railway. (Applause) The High Line was an elevated
134______ that ran through three 135______ on Manhattan's West Side, and when the

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train stopped running, it became a self-seeded landscape, a kind of a 136______ in the
sky. And when I saw it the first time, honestly, when I went up on that old viaduct, I fell
in love the way you fall in love with a person, 137______ . And when I was 138______ ,
saving the first two sections of the High Line from demolition became my first priority
and my most important 139______. I knew if there was a day that I didn't worry about
the High Line, it would come down. And the High Line, even though it is widely
140______ now and phenomenally popular, it is the most 141______ public space in the
city. You might see a beautiful park, but not everyone does. You know, it's true,
commercial 142______ will always battle against public space. You might say, "How
143______ it is that more than four million people come from all over the world to visit
the High Line." Well, a developer sees just one thing: 144______ . Hey, why not take out
those 145______ and have shops all along the High Line? Wouldn't that be terrific and
won't it mean a lot more money for the city? Well no, it would not be 146______ . It
would be a 147______ , and not a park. (Applause) And you know what, it might mean
more money for the city, but a city has to take the long 148______ , the view for the
common good. Most recently, the last section of the High Line, the 149______ section
of the High Line, the final section of the High Line, has been pitted against 150______
interests, where some of the city's leading developers are building more than 17
million 151______ feet at the Hudson Yards. And they came to me and 152______ that
they "temporarily disassemble" that third and final 153______ . Perhaps the High Line
didn't fit in with their image of a gleaming city of skyscrapers on a hill. 154______ it was
just in their way. But in any case, it took nine months of nonstop daily 155______ to
finally get the signed agreement to prohibit its demolition, and that was only two
years ago.

16:48

So you see, no matter how 156______ and successful a public space may be, it can
never be taken for 157______ . Public spaces always -- this is it saved -- public spaces
always need vigilant 158______ , not only to claim them at the 159______ for public use,
but to design them for the people that use them, then to 160______ them to ensure
that they are for everyone, that they are not violated, invaded, abandoned or 161______

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. If there is any one lesson that I have learned in my life as a city planner, it is that public
spaces have 162______ . It's not just the number of people using them, it's the even 163
______ number of people who feel better about their city just knowing that they are
there. Public space can change how you live in a city, how you feel about a city,
whether you choose one city over another, and public space is one of the most
important 164______ why you stay in a city.

17:52

I believe that a successful city is like a 167______ party. People stay because they are
having a great time.

18:01

Thank you.

18:03

(Applause) Thank you. (Applause)

10. What do we do when antibiotics don't work any

more?
00:04

This is my great uncle, my father's father's 1_____ brother. His name was Joe McKenna.
He was a young husband and a semi-pro 2_____ player and a fireman in New York City.
Family 3_____ says he loved being a 4_____, and so in 1938, on one of his days off, he
elected to hang out at the firehouse. To make himself 5_____ that day, he started 6_____
all the brass, the railings on the fire truck, the fittings on the walls, and one of the fire
hose nozzles, a giant, heavy 7_____ of metal, toppled off a shelf and hit him. A few days
later, his 8 _____ started to hurt. Two days after that, he spiked a fever. The 9_____
climbed and climbed. His 10_____ was taking care of him, but nothing she did made a
11_____, and when they got the 12_____ doctor in, nothing he did mattered either.

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01:05

They flagged down a cab and took him to the 13_____. The nurses there recognized
right away that he had an 14_____, what at the time they would have called "blood
poisoning," and though they 15_____ didn't say it, they would have known right away
that there was nothing they could do.

01:25

There was nothing they could do 16 _____ the things we use now to cure infections
didn't exist yet. The first test of penicillin, the first 17_____, was three years in the future.
People who got infections either 18_____, if they were lucky, or they died. My great
uncle was not lucky. He was in the hospital for a week, shaking with chills, 19_____ and
delirious, sinking into a coma as his organs 20_____. His condition grew so desperate
that the people from his firehouse lined up to give him transfusions hoping to dilute
the infection 21_____ through his blood.

02:05

Nothing worked. He died. He was 30 years old.

02:11

If you look back 22_____ history, most people died the way my great uncle died. Most
people didn't die of cancer or heart disease, the lifestyle 23_____ that afflict us in the
West today. They didn't die of those diseases because they didn't live long enough to
develop them. They died of 24_____ -- being gored by an ox, shot on a 25_____, crushed
in one of the new factories of the Industrial 26 _____ -- and most of the time from
infection, which finished what those injuries began.

02:47

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All of that changed when antibiotics arrived. Suddenly, infections that had been a
death sentence became something you recovered from in days. It seemed like a
miracle, and ever since, we have been living inside the golden epoch of the miracle
drugs.

03:08

And now, we are coming to an end of it. My great uncle 27_____ in the last days of the
pre-antibiotic era. We stand today on the threshold of the post-antibiotic era, in the
28_____ days of a time when 29_____ infections such as the one Joe had will kill people
once again.

03:32

In fact, they already are. People are 30_____ of infections again because of a
phenomenon called antibiotic resistance. Briefly, it works like this. Bacteria compete
against each other for 31_____, for food, by 32_____ lethal compounds that they direct
against each other. Other bacteria, to protect themselves, evolve defenses against
that 33_____ attack. When we first made antibiotics, we took those 34_____ into the lab
and made our own versions of them, and bacteria 35_____ to our attack the way they
always had.

04:11

Here is what happened next: Penicillin was distributed in 1943, and 36_____ penicillin
37_____ arrived by 1945. Vancomycin arrived in 1972, vancomycin resistance in 1988.
Imipenem in 1985, and resistance to in 1998. Daptomycin, one of the most 38 _____
drugs, in 2003, and resistance to it just a year later in 2004.

04:42

For 70 years, we played a game of leapfrog -- our 39_____ and their resistance, and

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then another drug, and then resistance again -- and now the game is ending. Bacteria
develop resistance so quickly that 40_____ companies have decided making
antibiotics is not in their best 41_____, so there are infections moving across the world
for which, out of the more than 100 antibiotics available on the 42_____, two drugs
might work with side effects, or one drug, or none.

05:19

This is what that looks like. In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and 43_____, the
CDC, 44_____ a single case in a hospital in North Carolina of an infection resistant to all
but two drugs. Today, that infection, known as KPC, has spread to every 45_____ but
three, and to South America, Europe and the Middle East. In 2008, doctors in Sweden
diagnosed a man from India with a different infection 46_____ to all but one drug that
time. The gene that creates that resistance, known as NDM, has now 47 _____ from
India into China, Asia, Africa, Europe and Canada, and the United States.

06:08

It would be 48_____ to hope that these infections are extraordinary cases, but in fact,
in the United States and Europe, 50,000 people a year die of infections which no drugs
can help. A 49_____ chartered by the British 50 _____ known as the Review on
Antimicrobial Resistance estimates that the 51_____ toll right now is 700,000 deaths a
year.

06:41

That is a lot of deaths, and yet, the 52_____ are good that you don't feel at risk, that you
imagine these people were hospital patients in 53_____ care units or nursing home
residents near the ends of their lives, people whose infections are 54 _____ from us, in
situations we can't identify with.

07:05

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What you didn't think about, none of us do, is that antibiotics support almost all of
55_____ life.

07:15

If we lost antibiotics, here's what else we'd lose: First, any protection for people with
56_____ immune 57_____ -- cancer patients, AIDS patients, transplant recipients,
premature babies.

07:31

Next, any treatment that installs 58_____ objects in the body: stents for stroke, pumps
for diabetes, dialysis, 59_____ replacements. How many athletic baby boomers need
new hips and knees? A recent study 60_____ that without antibiotics, one out of ever
six would die.

07:54

Next, we'd probably lose 61_____. Many operations are preceded by prophylactic doses
of antibiotics. Without that protection, we'd lose the 62_____ to open the hidden
spaces of the body. So no heart 63_____, no prostate biopsies, no Cesarean sections.
We'd have to learn to fear infections that now seem 64_____. Strep throat used to
cause heart failure. Skin infections led to amputations. Giving birth killed, in the
cleanest hospitals, almost one 65_____ out of every 100. Pneumonia took three children
out of every 10.

08:40

More than anything else, we'd lose the confident way we live our everyday 66_____. If
you knew that any injury could kill you, would you ride a motorcycle, bomb down a ski
slope, climb a 67_____to hang your Christmas 68_____, let your kid slide into home
plate? After all, the first person to receive penicillin, a British 69_____ named Albert

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Alexander, who was so ravaged by infection that his scalp oozed pus and 70_____ had
to take out an eye, was infected by doing something very simple. He 71_____ into his
garden and scratched his face on a thorn. That British project I mentioned which
estimates that the worldwide toll right now is 700,000 deaths a year also 72_____ that
if we can't get this under 73_____ by 2050, not long, the worldwide toll will be 10 million
deaths a year.

09:53

How did we get to this point where what we have to look forward to is those 74 _____
numbers? The difficult answer is, we did it to 75_____. Resistance is an inevitable
biological process, but we bear the 76_____ for accelerating it. We did this by
squandering antibiotics with a heedlessness that now seems shocking. Penicillin was
sold over the 77_____ until the 1950s. In much of the 78_____ world, most antibiotics
still are. In the United States, 50 percent of the antibiotics given in hospitals are
unnecessary. Forty-five percent of the79 _____ written in doctor's offices are for 80_____
that antibiotics cannot help. And that's just in healthcare. On much of the 81_____,
most meat animals get antibiotics every day of their lives, not to cure illnesses, but to
fatten them up and to protect them 82_____ the factory farm conditions they are
raised in. In the United States, 83_____ 80 percent of the antibiotics sold every year go
to farm animals, not to humans, creating resistant 84_____ that move off the farm in
water, in dust, in the meat the animals become. Aquaculture depends on antibiotics
too, 85_____ in Asia, and fruit growing relies on antibiotics to 86_____ apples, pears,
citrus, against disease. And because bacteria can pass their DNA to each other like a
87_____ handing off a suitcase at an airport, once we have 88 _____ that resistance into
existence, there is no knowing where it will spread.

11:57

This was predictable. In fact, it was predicted by Alexander Fleming, the man who
89_____ penicillin. He was 90_____ the Nobel Prize in 1945 in recognition, and in an
interview shortly after, this is what he said:

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12:14

"The 91_____ person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the
death of a man who succumbs to infection with a pencillin-resistant 92_____." He
added, "I hope this evil can be averted."

12:32

Can we avert it? There are companies working on 93_____ antibiotics, things the
superbugs have never seen before. We need those new drugs badly, and we need
94_____: discovery grants, extended 95_____, prizes, to lure other companies into
making antibiotics again.

12:56

But that probably won't be enough. Here's why: Evolution always 96_____ . Bacteria
birth a new 97_____ every 20 minutes. It takes pharmaceutical chemistry 10 years to
derive a new drug. Every time we use an antibiotic, we give the bacteria billions of
chances to crack the codes of the defenses we've 98_____ . There has never yet been
a drug they could not defeat.

13:28

This is asymmetric warfare, but we can change the outcome. We could build systems
to 99_____ data to tell us automatically and 100_____ how antibiotics are being used.
We could build gatekeeping into drug order systems so that every prescription gets a
second look. We could require 101_____ to give up antibiotic use. We could build
surveillance systems to tell us where resistance is 102_____ next.

14:07

Those are the tech 103_____ . They probably aren't enough either, unless we help.

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Antibiotic resistance is a habit. We all know how hard it is to change a habit. But as a
society, we've 104_____that in the past. People used to toss litter into the 105 _____,
used to not wear seatbelts, used to smoke inside 106_____ buildings. We don't do those
things anymore. We don't trash the environment or court devastating accidents or
expose others to the 107_____ of cancer, because we decided those things were
108_____, destructive, not in our best interest. We changed social norms. We could
change 109_____ norms around antibiotic use too.

15:09

I know that the 110_____ of antibiotic resistance seems overwhelming, but if you've
ever bought a fluorescent lightbulb because you were 111_____ about climate change,
or read the label on a box of crackers because you think about the deforestation from
palm oil, you already know what it feels like to take a tiny step to address an 112_____
problem. We could take those kinds of steps for antibiotic use too. We could forgo
giving an antibiotic if we're not sure it's the right one. We could stop insisting on a
prescription for our kid's ear infection before we're sure what 113_____ it. We could ask
every 114_____ , every supermarket, where their meat comes from. We could promise
each other never again to buy chicken or shrimp or fruit 115_____ with routine
antibiotic use, and if we did those things, we could slow down the 116_____ of the post-
antibiotic world.

16:21

But we have to do it soon. Penicillin began the antibiotic era in 1943. In just 70 years,
we walked ourselves up to the edge of 117 _____ . We won't get 70 years to find our way
back out again.

16:42

Thank you very much.

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16:44

(Applause)

11. The worldwide web of belief and ritual

00:03

You know, culture was born of the 1_________, and the imagination -- the imagination
as we know it -- came into being when our 2_________, descended from our
progenitor, Homo erectus, and, infused with 3_________, began a journey that would
carry it to every corner of the habitable world. For a time, we shared the stage with our
distant 4_________,Neanderthal, who clearly had some spark of 5_________, but --
whether it was the increase in the size of the brain, or the development of language,
or some other evolutionary catalyst -- we quickly left Neanderthal gasping for
6_________. By the time the last Neanderthal 7_________, in Europe, 27,000 years ago,
our direct ancestors had already, and for 5,000 years, been crawling into the belly of
the 8 _________, where in the light of the flickers of tallow 9_________, they had brought
into being the great art of the Upper Paleolithic.

00:56

And I spent two 10_________ in the caves of southwest France with the 11_________
Clayton Eshleman, who wrote a beautiful book 12_________ "Juniper Fuse." And you
could look at this art and you could, of course, see the complex social organization of
the people who 13_________ it into being. But more importantly, it spoke of a deeper
14_________, something far more sophisticated than hunting 15_________. And the way
Clayton put it was this way. He said, "You know, clearly at some point, we were all of
an animal 16_________, and at some point, we weren't." And he viewed proto-
shamanism as a kind of original attempt, through 17_________, to rekindle a
18_________ that had been irrevocably lost. So, he saw this art not as 19_________ magic,
but as postcards of nostalgia. And viewed in that light, it 20_________ on a whole other
resonance.

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01:40

And the most amazing thing about the Upper Paleolithic art is that as an aesthetic
21_________, it 22_________ for almost 20,000 years. If these were postcards of nostalgia,
ours was a very long 23_________ indeed. And it was also the beginning of our
24_________, because if you wanted to distill all of our 25_________ since the Paleolithic,
it would come down to two 26_________: how and why. And these are the slivers of
insight upon which 27_________ have been forged. Now, all people share the same
raw, 28_________imperatives. We all have children. We all have to deal with the
29_________ of death, the world that waits beyond death, the elders who fall away into
their 30_________ years. All of this is part of our 31_________ experience, and this
shouldn't 32_________ us, because, after all, biologists have finally proven it to be true,
something that philosophers have always 33 _________ to be true. And that is the fact
that we are all brothers and sisters. We are all cut from the same 34_________ cloth. All
of humanity, probably, is 35_________ from a thousand people who left Africa roughly
70,000 years ago.

02:39

But the corollary of that is that, if we all are brothers and sisters and 36_________ the
same genetic material, all human 37_________ share the same raw human genius, the
same intellectual acuity. And so whether that genius is placed into -- 38_________
wizardry has been the great 39_________ of the West -- or by contrast, into unraveling
the complex threads of 40_________inherent in a myth, is simply a 41_________ of
choice and cultural orientation. There is no 42_________ of affairs in human experience.
There is no trajectory of progress. There's no 43_________ that conveniently places
44_________ England at the apex and descends down the flanks to the so-called
primitives of the world. All peoples are simply 45_________ options, different visions of
life itself. But what do I mean by different 46_________ of life making for completely
different 47________ for existence?

03:27

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Well, let's slip for a moment into the 48_________ culture sphere ever brought into
being by the imagination, that of Polynesia. 10,000 square kilometers, tens of 49
_________ of islands flung like jewels upon the 50_________ sea. I recently sailed on the
Hokulea, named after the sacred star of Hawaii, 51_________ the South Pacific to make
a film about the navigators. These are men and women who, even today, can name
250 stars in the night sky. These are men and 52_________ who can sense the
53_________ of distant atolls of islands beyond the visible 54_________, simply by
watching the reverberation of waves across the hull of their vessel, knowing full well
that every 55 _________ group in the Pacific has its 56_________ refractive pattern that
can be read with the same perspicacity with which a forensic scientist would read a
57_________. These are sailors who in the darkness, in the hull of the vessel, can
58_________ as many as 32 different sea swells moving through the canoe at any one
point in time, distinguishing local wave disturbances from the great 59_________ that
pulsate 60_________ the ocean, that can be 61_________ with the same ease that a
terrestrial explorer would follow a river to the sea. Indeed, if you took all of the genius
that allowed us to put a man on the moon and 62_________ it to an understanding of
the ocean, what you would get is Polynesia.

04:38

And if we slip from the realm of the sea into the 63_________ of the spirit of the
imagination, you enter the realm of Tibetan Buddhism. And I recently made a film
called "The Buddhist 64_________ of the Mind." Why did we use that word, science?
What is science but the empirical 65 _________ of the truth? What is Buddhism but
2,500 years of 66_________ observation as to the nature of mind? I travelled for a month
in Nepal with our good friend, Matthieu Ricard, and you'll remember Matthieu
67_________ said to all of us here once at TED, "Western science is a major 68_________
to minor needs." We spend all of our 69 _________ trying to live to be 100 without losing
our teeth. The Buddhist spends all their lifetime trying to understand the nature of
70_________.

05:16

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Our billboards 71_________ naked children in underwear. Their billboards are manuals,
prayers to the well-being of all sentient 72_________. And with the blessing of Trulshik
Rinpoche, we began a pilgrimage to a curious destination, accompanied by a great
doctor. And the 73_________ was a 74_________ room in a nunnery, where a woman
had gone into 75_________ retreat 55 years before. And en route, we took darshan from
Rinpoche, and he sat with us and told us about the Four Noble Truths, the 76_________
of the Buddhist path. All life is suffering. That doesn't mean all life is 77_________. It
means things happen. The cause of 78_________ is ignorance. By that, the Buddha did
not mean stupidity; he meant clinging to the illusion that life is 79_________ and
predictable. The third noble truth said that 80_________ can be overcome. And the
fourth and most important, of course, was the delineation of a contemplative
81_________ that not only had the possibility of a transformation of the human heart,
but had 2,500 years of empirical evidence that such a 82_________ was a certainty.

06:14

And so, when this door opened 83_________ the face of a woman who had not been
out of that room in 55 years, you did not see a mad woman. You saw a woman who
was more clear than a 84_________ of water in a 85_________ stream. And of course,
this is what the Tibetan monks told us. They said, at one point, you know, we don't
really believe you went to the 86_________, but you did. You may not believe that we
achieve 87_________ in one lifetime, but we do. And if we move from the realm of the
88_________ to the realm of the physical, to the sacred 89_________ of Peru -- I've always
been interested in the 90_________ of indigenous people that literally believe that the
Earth is alive, responsive to all of their aspirations, all of their needs. And, of course, the
human population has its own reciprocal 91_________.

06:59

I spent 30 years living 92_________ the people of Chinchero and I always heard about
an event that I always 93_________ to participate in. Once each year, the 94 _________
young boy in each hamlet is given the honor of becoming a woman. And for one day,

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he wears the 95_________ of his sister and he becomes a transvestite, a waylaka. And
for that day, he 96_________ all able-bodied men on a run, but it's not your 97_________
run. You start off at 11,500 feet. You run down to the base of the 98_________ mountain,
Antakillqa. You run up to 15,000 feet, descend 3,000 feet. Climb again over the 99
_________ of 24 hours. And of course, the waylakama spin, the trajectory of the
100_________, is marked by holy mounds of Earth, where coke is given to the Earth,
libations of 101_________ to the wind, the vortex of the feminine is brought to the
102_________. And the 103_________ is clear: you go into the mountain as an individual,
but through 104_________, through sacrifice, you emerge as a community that has
once again reaffirmed its 105_________ of place in the planet. And at 48, I was the only
outsider ever to go through this, only one to finish it. I only 106_________ to do it by
chewing more coca leaves in one day than anyone in the 4,000-year history of the
107_________.

08:10

But these 108_________ rituals become pan-Andean, and these fantastic festivals, like
that of the Qoyllur Rit'i, which 109_________ when the Pleiades reappear in the winter
sky. It's kind of like an Andean Woodstock: 60,000 Indians on pilgrimage to the end of
a dirt road that leads to the sacred 111_________, called the Sinakara, which is
110_________ by three tongues of the great glacier. The metaphor is so clear. You bring
the crosses from your 112_________, in this wonderful fusion of Christian and pre-
Columbian 113_________. You place the cross into the ice, in the 114_________of
Ausangate, the most sacred of all Apus, or sacred 115_________ of the Inca. And then
you do the ritual dances that empower the crosses.

08:48

Now, these ideas and these 116_________ allow us even to deconstruct 117_________
places that many of you have been to, like Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was never a
118_________ city. On the contrary, it was 119_________ linked in to the 14,000 kilometers
of royal roads the Inca made in less than a 120_________. But more importantly, it was

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linked in to the Andean 121_________ of sacred geography. The intiwatana, the hitching
122_________ to the sun, is actually an obelisk that constantly reflects the light that
123_________ on the sacred Apu of Machu Picchu, which is Sugarloaf Mountain,
124_________ Huayna Picchu. If you come to the south of the intiwatana, you find an
125_________. Climb Huayna Picchu, find another altar. Take a direct north-south
126_________, you find to your astonishment that it bisects the intiwatana stone,
127_________ to the 128_________, hits the heart of Salcantay, the second of the most
important mountains of the Incan empire. And then beyond Salcantay, of course,
when the southern cross 129_________ the 130_________ point in the sky, directly in that
same alignment, the Milky Way overhead. But what is enveloping Machu Picchu from
below? The sacred river, the Urubamba, or the Vilcanota, which is itself the Earthly
131_________ of the Milky Way, but it's also the trajectory that Viracocha walked at the
dawn of time when he brought the 132_________ into being. And where does the river
rise? Right on the slopes of the Koariti.

10:08

So, 500 years after Columbus, these 133_________ rhythms of landscape are played out
in ritual. Now, when I was here at the first TED, I showed this 134_________: two men of
the Elder Brothers, the descendants, 135_________ of El Dorado. These, of course, are
the 136_________ of the ancient Tairona civilization. If those of you who are here
remember that I 137_________ that they remain ruled by a ritual priesthood, but the
training for the priesthood is 138_________. Taken from their families, sequestered in a
shadowy world of 139_________ for 18 years -- two nine-year periods deliberately
chosen to 140_________ the nine months they spend in the natural mother's womb.
All that time, the world only exists as an 141_________, as they are taught the values of
their society. Values that maintain the proposition that their prayers, and their prayers
alone, 142_________ the cosmic balance. Now, the 143_________ of a society is not only
what it does, but the quality of its aspirations.

11:02

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And I always wanted to go back into these mountains, to see if this could 144_________
be true, as indeed had been 145_________ by the great anthropologist, Reichel-
Dolmatoff. So, literally two weeks ago, I 146_________ from having spent six weeks with
the Elder Brothers on what was clearly the most extraordinary trip of my life. These
really are a people who live and 147_________ the realm of the sacred, a baroque
religiosity that is simply 148_________. They consume more coca leaves than any
human population, half a pound per man, per day. The gourd you see here is --
everything in their 149_________ is 150_________. Their central metaphor is a loom. They
say, "Upon this loom, I weave my life." They refer to the movements as they exploit the
151_________ niches of the gradient as "threads." When they pray for the dead, they
make these 152_________ with their hands, spinning their thoughts into the
153_________.

11:54

You can see the calcium 154________ on the head of the poporo gourd. The gourd is
155_________ aspect; the stick is a male. You put the stick in the 156_________ to take
the sacred ashes -- well, they're not ashes, they're 157_________ limestone -- to
empower the coca leaf, to change the pH of the mouth to facilitate the absorption of
cocaine hydrochloride. But if you break a gourd, you cannot simply throw it away,
because every 158_________ of that stick that has built up that calcium, the
159_________ of a man's life, has a thought behind it. Fields are 160_________ in such an
extraordinary way, that the one side of the 161_________ is planted like that by the
women. The other side is planted like that by the men. Metaphorically, you turn it on
the side, and you have a 162_________ of cloth. And they are the descendants of the
ancient Tairona 163_________, the greatest goldsmiths of South America, who in the
wake of the conquest, retreated into this isolated 164_________ massif that soars to
20,000 feet above the Caribbean 165_________ plain.

12:49

There are four 166_________: the Kogi, the Wiwa, the Kankwano and the Arhuacos. I

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traveled with the Arhuacos, and the wonderful thing about this story was that this
man, Danilo Villafane -- if we just jump back here for a second. When I first met Danilo,
in the Colombian 167_________ in Washington, I couldn't help but say, "You know, you
look a lot like an old friend of mine." Well, it 168_________ out he was the son of my
friend, Adalberto, from 1974, who had been 169_________ by the FARC. And I said,
"Danilo, you won't remember this, but when you were an 170_________, I carried you on
my back, up and down the mountains." And because of that, Danilo 171_________ us to
go to the very heart of the world, a place where no 172_________ had ever been
permitted. Not simply to the flanks of the mountains, but to the very iced peaks which
are the 173_________ of the pilgrims.

13:35

And this man 174_________ cross-legged is now a grown-up Eugenio, a man who I've
known since 1974. And this is one of those initiates. No, it's not true that they're
175_________ in the darkness for 18 years, but they are kept within the confines of the
ceremonial men's 176_________ for 18 years. This little boy will never step 177_________
of the sacred fields that surround the men's hut for all that time, until he begins his
journey of initiation. For that 178_________ time, the world only exists as an abstraction,
as he is taught the 179_________ of society, including this notion that their 180_________
alone maintain the cosmic balance. Before we could begin our 181_________, we had
to be cleansed at the portal of the Earth. And it was extraordinary to be taken by a
priest. And you see that the priest never 182_________ shoes because holy feet -- there
must be nothing between the 183_________ and the Earth for a mamo. And this is
actually the place where the Great Mother sent the spindle into the world that
elevated the mountains and created the 184_________ that they call the heart of the
world.

14:35

We traveled high into the paramo, and as we crested the 185_________, we realized
that the men were interpreting every single bump on the 186_________ in terms of

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their own intense religiosity. And then of course, as we 187_________ our final
destination, a place called Mamancana, we were in for a surprise, because the FARC
were waiting to kidnap us. And so we 188_________ up being taken aside into these
huts, 189_________ away until the darkness. And then, abandoning all our gear, we
were forced to ride out in the middle of the night, in a quite 190_________ scene. It's
going to look like a John Ford Western. And we ran into a FARC patrol at dawn, so it
was quite harrowing. It will be a very interesting film. But what was 191_________ is that
the minute there was a sense of 192_________, the mamos went into a circle of
divination.

15:20

And of course, this is a photograph literally taken the night we were in hiding, as they
193_________ their route to take us out of the mountains. We were able to, because we
had 194_________ people in filmmaking, 195_________ with our work, and send our
Wiwa and Arhuaco 196_________ to the final sacred lakes to get the last 197_________
for the film, and we followed the rest of the Arhuaco back to the sea, taking the
198_________ from the highlands to the sea. And here you see how their sacred
landscape has been 199_________ by brothels and hotels and casinos, and yet, still they
pray. And it's an amazing thing to think that this 200_________ to Miami, two hours
from Miami, there is an entire civilization of people praying every day for your
201_________. They call themselves the Elder Brothers. They dismiss the rest of us who
have 202_________ the world as the Younger Brothers. They cannot understand why
it is that we do what we do to the Earth.

16:15

Now, if we slip to another end of the world, I was up in the high Arctic to tell a story
about 203_________ warming,204 _________ in part by the former Vice President's
wonderful book. And what struck me so extraordinary was to be again with the Inuit
-- a people who don't _________ the cold, but take advantage of it. A people who find
a way, with their 205_________, to carve life out of that very frozen. A people for whom

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206_________ on ice is not a sign of death, but an affirmation of life. And yet tragically,
when you now go to those northern communities, you find to your 207_________ that
whereas the sea ice used to come in in September and stay till July, in a place like
Kanak in 208_________ Greenland, it literally comes in now in November and
209_________ until March. So, their entire year has been cut in half.

17:01

Now, I want to 210_________ that none of these peoples that I've been quickly talking
about here are disappearing worlds. These are not 211_________ peoples. On the
contrary, you know, if you have the 212_________ to feel and the eyes to see, you
213_________ that the world is not flat. The world remains a rich tapestry. It 214_________
a rich topography of the spirit. These myriad voices of humanity are not failed
attempts at being new, failed 215_________ at being modern. They're unique facets of
the human imagination. They're unique 216_________ to a fundamental question: what
does it mean to be human and alive? And when asked that question, they respond
with 6,000 different 217_________. And 218_________, those voices become our human
repertoire for dealing with the challenges that will 219_________ us in the ensuing
millennia.

17:46

Our 220_________ society is scarcely 300 years old. That shallow history shouldn't
221_________ to anyone that we have all of the answers for all of the questions that will
confront us in the ensuing millennia. The myriad voices of 222_________ are not failed
attempts at being us. They are unique answers to that fundamental question: what
does it mean to be human and alive? And there is 223_________ a fire burning over the
Earth, taking with it not only plants and 224_________, but the legacy of humanity's
brilliance.

18:14

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Right now, as we sit here in this room, of those 6,000 225_________ spoken the day
that you were born, fully 226_________ aren't being taught to children. So, you're living
through a time when virtually half of humanity's 227_________, social and spiritual
legacy is being allowed to slip away. This does not have to happen. These peoples are
not failed attempts at being modern -- quaint and 228_________ and destined to fade
away as if by 229 _________ law.

18:39

In every case, these are 230_________, living peoples being driven out of existence by
identifiable forces. That's actually an optimistic 231_________, because it suggests that
if human beings are the agents of cultural destruction, we can also be, and must be,
the facilitators of cultural 232_________.

18:55

Thank you very much.

12. Why we all need to practice emotional first aid

00:06

I grew up with my 1________ twin, who was an incredibly loving brother. Now, one thing
about being a twin is, it makes you an expert at spotting favoritism. If his cookie was
even 2________ bigger than my cookie, I had 3________. And clearly, I wasn't starving.

00:29

(Laughter)

00:32

When I became a 4________, I began to notice favoritism of a different kind; and that
is, how much more we 5________ the body than we do the mind. I spent nine years at

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university 6________my doctorate in psychology, and I can't tell you how many people
look at my 7________ card and say, "Oh -- a psychologist. So, not a 8________ doctor," as
if it should say that on my card.

01:01

[Dr. Guy Winch, Just a Psychologist (Not a Real Doctor)]

01:04

(Laughter)

01:06

This favoritism we show the body over the mind -- I see it everywhere.

01:13

I 9________ was at a friend's house, and their five-year-old was getting ready for bed.
He was standing on a stool by the sink, brushing his 10________, when he slipped and
scratched his leg on the stool when he 11________. He cried for a minute, but then he
got back up, got 12________ on the stool, and 13________ out for a box of Band-Aids to
put one on his cut. Now, this kid could 14________ tie his 15________, but he knew you
have to cover a cut so it doesn't become 16________, and you have to care for your teeth
by brushing twice a day. We all know how to maintain our 17________ health and how
to practice dental 18________, right? We've known it since we were five years old. But
what do we know about maintaining our 19________ health? Well, nothing. What do
we teach our children about 20________ hygiene? Nothing. How is it that we spend
more time taking care of our teeth than we do our minds? Why is it that our physical
21________ is so much more important to us than our psychological health?

02:24

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We sustain psychological 22________ even more often than we do physical ones,
injuries like failure or rejection or 23________. And they can also get worse if we ignore
them, and they can impact our lives in dramatic ways. And yet, even though there are
scientifically proven 24________ we could use to treat these 25________ of psychological
injuries, we don't. It doesn't even 26________ to us that we should. "Oh, you're feeling
27________? Just shake it off; it's all in your head." Can you imagine saying that to
somebody with a 28________ leg: "Oh, just walk it off; it's all in your leg."

03:04

(Laughter)

03:06

It is time we 29________ the gap between our physical and our psychological health.
It's time we made them more 30________, more like twins.

03:18

Speaking of which, my brother is also a psychologist. So he's not a real doctor,

31________.

03:24

(Laughter)

03:27

We didn't study together, though. In fact, the 32________ thing I've ever done in my life
is move across the Atlantic to New York City to get my doctorate in psychology. We
were 33________ then for the first time in our 34________, and the separation was brutal
for both of us. But while he remained among family and friends, I was alone in a new
country. We missed each other 35________, but international phone calls were really

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expensive then, and we could only 36________ to speak for five minutes a week. When
our birthday 37________ around, it was the first we wouldn't be spending together. We
decided to splurge, and that week, we would 38________ for 10 minutes.

04:09

(Laughter)

04:10

I 39________ the morning pacing around my room, waiting for him to call -- and waiting
... and waiting. But the phone didn't ring. Given the time 40________, I assumed, "OK,
he's out with friends, he'll call later." There were no cell phones then. But he didn't. And
I began to 41________ that after being away for over 10 42________, he no longer missed
me the way I missed him. I knew he would call in the morning, but that night was one
of the saddest and longest 43________ of my life. I woke up the next morning. I
44________ down at the phone, and I realized I had kicked it off the hook when pacing
the day before. I 45________ out of bed, I put the phone back on the receiver, and it
rang a second later. And it was my brother, and boy, was he 46________.

05:06

(Laughter)

05:08

It was the 47________ and longest night of his life as well. Now, I tried to explain what
happened, but he said, "I don't understand. If you saw I wasn't calling you, why didn't
you just 48________ up the phone and call me?" He was right. Why didn't I call him? I
didn't have an answer then. But I do today, and it's a 49________ one: loneliness.

05:35

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Loneliness creates a deep psychological wound, one that 50________ our perceptions
and scrambles our thinking. It makes us 51________ that those around us care much
less than they actually do. It make us really 52________ to reach out, because why set
yourself up for rejection and 53________ when your heart is already 54________ more
than you can stand? I was in the grips of real loneliness back then, but I was 55________
by people all day, so it never occurred to me. But loneliness is 56________ purely
subjectively. It depends 57________ on whether you feel emotionally or socially
disconnected from those around you. And I did. There is a lot of research on loneliness,
and all of it is 58________. Loneliness won't just make you 59________; it will kill you. I'm
not kidding. Chronic loneliness increases your 60________ of an early death by 14
percent. Fourteen percent! Loneliness causes high blood pressure, high cholesterol. It
even suppress the functioning of your 61________ system, making you vulnerable to all
kinds of 62________ and diseases. In fact, scientists have concluded that taken
together, chronic loneliness 63________ as significant a risk for your long-term health
and longevity as 64________ smoking. Now, cigarette packs come with warnings
saying, "This could kill you." But loneliness doesn't. And that's why it's so important
that we 65________ our psychological health, that we 66________ emotional hygiene.
Because you can't treat a psychological wound if you don't even know you're
67________. Loneliness isn't the only psychological wound that distorts our perceptions
and 68________ us.

07:32

Failure does that as well. I once visited a day care center, where I saw three toddlers
play with identical 69________ toys. You had to slide the red 70________, and a cute
doggie would pop out. One little girl tried pulling the purple button, then pushing it,
and then she just sat back and 71________ at the box with her lower lip 72________. The
little boy next to her watched this happen, then turned to his box and burst into tears
without even touching it. Meanwhile, 73________ little girl tried everything she could
think of until she slid the red button, the cute doggie popped out, and she squealed
with delight. So: three toddlers with 74________ plastic toys, but with very different
75________ to failure. The first two toddlers were perfectly 76________ of sliding a red

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button. The only thing that prevented them from succeeding was that their mind
77________ them into believing they could not. Now, adults get tricked this way as well,
all the time. In fact, we all have a 78________ set of feelings and beliefs that gets
79________ whenever we encounter frustrations and setbacks.

08:46

Are you aware of how your mind 80________ to failure? You need to be. Because if your
mind tries to convince you you're 81________ of something, and you believe it, then like
those two toddlers, you'll begin to feel 82________ and you'll stop trying too soon, or
you won't even try at all. And then you'll be even more convinced you can't 83________.
You see, that's why so many people 84________ below their actual 85________. Because
somewhere along the way, sometimes a single failure convinced them that they
couldn't succeed, and they believed it.

09:20

Once we become convinced of something, it's very difficult to change our mind. I
86________ that lesson the hard way when I was a teenager with my brother. We were
driving with friends down a dark 87________ at night, when a police car 88________ us.
There had been a robbery in the area and they were looking for suspects. The officer
approached the car, and 89________ his flashlight on the driver, then on my brother in
the front seat, and then on me. And his eyes opened 90________ and he said, "Where
have I seen your face before?"

09:50

(Laughter)

09:53

And I said, "In the front seat."

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09:56

(Laughter)

09:59

But that made no sense to him 91________, so now he thought I was on drugs.

10:04

(Laughter)

10:05

So he drags me out of the car, he 92________ me, he marches me over to the police car,
and only when he 93________ I didn't have a police record, could I show him I had a
twin in the 94________ seat. But even as we were driving away, you could see by the
look on his face he was convinced that I was getting away with something.

10:24

(Laughter)

10:26

Our mind is hard to change once we become 95________. So it might be very natural
to feel demoralized and 96________ after you fail. But you cannot allow yourself to
become convinced you can't succeed. You have to fight feelings of 97________. You
have to gain control over the situation. And you have to break this kind of negative
98________ before it begins.

10:49

[Stop Emotional Bleeding]

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10:51

Our minds and our feelings -- they're not the 99________ friends we thought they were.
They're more like a really 100________ friend, who can be totally supportive one minute,
and really unpleasant the next. I once worked with this woman who, after 20 years
101________ and an extremely ugly 102________, was finally ready for her first date. She
had met this guy online, and he 103________ nice and he seemed successful, and most
importantly, he seemed really into her. So she was very excited, she bought a new
dress, and they met at an upscale New York City bar for a 104________. Ten minutes
into the date, the man 105________ up and says, "I'm not interested," and walks out.
Rejection is extremely 106________. The woman was so hurt she couldn't move. All she
could do was call a friend. Here's what the friend said: "Well, what do you 107________?
You have big hips, you have nothing interesting to say. Why would a handsome,
successful man like that ever go out with a _108_______ like you?" Shocking, right, that
a friend could be so 109________? But it would be much less shocking if I told you it
wasn't the friend who said that. It's what the woman said to herself. And that's
something we all do, especially after a 110________. We all start thinking of all our
111________ and all our shortcomings, what we 112________ we were, what we wish we
weren't. We call ourselves names. Maybe not as harshly, but we all do it. And it's
interesting that we do, because our self-esteem is already hurting. Why would we
want to go and 113________ it even further? We wouldn't make a physical injury worse
on purpose. You wouldn't get a cut on your arm and decide, "Oh! I know -- I'm going
to take a knife and see how much 114________ I can make it."

12:43

But we do that with psychological 115________ all the time. Why? Because of poor
emotional hygiene. Because we don't prioritize our psychological health. We know
from dozens of 116________ that when your self-esteem is lower, you are more
vulnerable to stress and to anxiety; that failures and rejections hurt more, and it takes
longer to recover from them. So when you get 117________, the first thing you should
be doing is to revive your 118________, not join Fight Club and beat it into a pulp. When

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you're in emotional pain, treat yourself with the same 119________ you would expect
from a truly good friend.

13:24

[Protect Your Self-Esteem]

13:26

We have to catch our unhealthy psychological habits and change them. And one of
120________ and most common is called rumination. To ruminate 121________ to chew
over. It's when your boss yells at you or your 122________ makes you feel stupid in class,
or you have big fight with a friend and you just can't stop replaying the scene in your
head for days, sometimes for 123________ on end. Now, ruminating about 124________
events in this way can easily become a habit, and it's a very costly one, because by
spending so much time focused on upsetting and negative 125________, you are
actually putting yourself at significant risk for developing clinical depression,
alcoholism, eating 126________, and even cardiovascular disease.

14:14

The problem is, the 127________ to ruminate can feel really strong and really important,
so it's a difficult habit to stop. I know this for a fact, because a little over a year ago, I
developed the habit myself. You see, my twin brother was 128________ with stage 3
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. His cancer was extremely aggressive. He had 129________
tumors all over his body. And he had to start a harsh course of chemotherapy. And I
couldn't stop thinking about what he was going through. I couldn't stop thinking
about how much he was 130________, even though he never complained, not
131________. He had this incredibly positive 132________. His psychological health was
amazing. I was physically healthy, but psychologically, I was a 133________. But I knew
what to do. Studies tell us that even a two-minute distraction is 134________ to break
the urge to ruminate in that moment. And so each time I had a worrying, upsetting,

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negative thought, I forced myself to 135________ on something else until the urge
passed. And within one week, my whole 136________ changed and became more
positive and more hopeful.

15:33

[Battle Negative Thinking]

15:34

Nine weeks after he started chemotherapy, my brother had a CAT scan, and I was by
his side when he got the 137________. All the tumors were gone. He still had three more
138________ of chemotherapy to go, but we knew he would 139________. This picture
was taken two weeks ago.

15:57

By taking action when you're lonely, by changing your responses to 140________, by

protecting your self-esteem, by battling 141________ thinking, you won't just heal your
psychological wounds, you will build emotional resilience, you will thrive. A hundred
142________ ago, people began practicing personal hygiene, and life 143________ rates
rose by over 50 percent in just a matter of decades. I believe our quality of life could
rise just as 144________ if we all began practicing emotional hygiene.

16:35

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone was psychologically
145________? If there were less loneliness and less 146________? If people knew how to
overcome failure? If they felt better about themselves and more 147________? If they
were happier and more 148________? I can, because that's the world I want to live in.
And that's the world my brother wants to live in as well. And if you just become
149_______ and change a few simple habits, well -- that's the world we can all live in.

17:10

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Thank you very much.

17:12

(Applause)

13. How great leaders inspire action

How do you explain when things don't go as we 1 _________? Or better, how do you
explain when others are able to 2 _________ things that seem to defy all of the 3
________? For example: Why is Apple so 4 __________? Year after year, after year, they're
more innovative than all their 5 __________. And yet, they're just a computer company.
They're just like everyone else. They have the same 6 _______ to the same talent, the
same 7 ________, the same consultants, the same media. Then why is it that they seem
to have something 8 _________? Why is it that Martin Luther King 9 ________ the Civil
Rights Movement? He wasn't the only man who 10 ________ in pre-civil rights America,
and he certainly wasn't the only great 11 _________ of the day. Why him? And why is it
that the Wright brothers were able to figure out controlled, 12 ________ man flight
when there were certainly other teams who were better 13 ________, better 14 ________
and they didn't achieve powered man flight, and the Wright brothers 15 _______ them
to it. There's something else at play here.

01:14

About three and a half years ago, I made a discovery. And this discovery 16 ________
changed my view on how I thought the world worked, and it even profoundly
changed the way in which I 17 _______ in it. As it turns out, there's a 18 ________. As it
turns out, all the great 19 ________ leaders and organizations in the world, whether it's
Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers, they all think, act and
communicate the 20 ________ same way. And it's the complete 21 ________ to everyone
else. All I did was codify it, and it's probably the world's 22 ________ idea. I call it the 23
________ circle.

02:04

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Why? How? What? This 24 ________ idea explains why some organizations and some
leaders are able to inspire where others aren't. Let me 25 ________ the terms really
quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the 26 ________ knows what
they do, 100 percent. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your 27 ________
value proposition or your proprietary 28 ________ or your USP. But very, very few people
or organizations know why they do what they do. And by "why" I don't mean "to make
a 29 ________." That's a result. It's always a result. By "why," I mean: What's your
purpose? What's your cause? What's your 30 ________? Why does your organization
31 ________? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?
As a result, the way we think, we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in,
it's 32 ________. We go from the 33 ________ thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired
leaders and the inspired organizations -- regardless of their size, regardless of their 34
________ all think, act and communicate from the 35 ________ out.

03:11

Let me give you an 36 ________. I use Apple because they're easy to understand and
everybody gets it. If Apple were like everyone else, a 37 ________ message from them
might sound like this: "We make great computers. They're 38 ________ designed,
simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?" "Meh." That's how most of us
communicate. That's how most marketing and 39 ________ are done, that's how we
communicate 40 ________. We say what we do, we say how we're 41 ________ or better
and we expect some sort of a behavior, a 42 ________, a vote, something like that. Here's
our new law firm: We have the best lawyers with the biggest clients, we always 43
________ for our clients. Here's our new car: It gets great gas mileage, it has 44 ________
seats. Buy our car. But it's 45 ________.

03:57

Here's how Apple actually 46 ________. "Everything we do, we believe in 47 ________

the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status
quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly.

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We just 48 ________ to make great computers. Want to buy one?" 49 ________ different,
right? You're ready to buy a computer from me. I just 50 ________ the order of the
information. What it 51 ________ to us is that people don't buy what you do; people buy
why you do it.

04:33

This explains why every single person in this room is perfectly 52 ________ buying a
computer from Apple. But we're also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player
from Apple, or a phone from Apple, or a DVR from Apple. As I said before, Apple's just
a computer company. Nothing 53 ________ them structurally from any of their 54
________. Their competitors are equally 55 ________ to make all of these products. In
fact, they tried. A few years ago, Gateway came out with 56 ________ TVs. They're
eminently qualified to make flat-screen TVs. They've been making flat-screen
monitors for years. Nobody 57 ________ one. Dell came out with MP3 players and PDAs,
and they make great quality products, and they can make perfectly 58 ________
products -- and nobody bought one. In fact, talking about it now, we can't even 59
________ buying an MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy one from a computer
company? But we do it every day. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do
it. The 60 ________ is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The
goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.

05:44

Here's the best part: None of what I'm telling you is my opinion. It's all 61 _______ in the
tenets of biology. Not 62 ________, biology. If you look at a cross-section of the human
brain, from the top down, the human brain is actually 63 ________ into three major 64
________ that correlate perfectly with the golden circle. Our newest brain, our Homo
sapien brain, our neocortex, 65 ________ with the "what" level. The neocortex is 66
________ for all of our rational and 67 ________ thought and language. The middle two
sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our

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68 ________, like trust and loyalty. It's also responsible for all human 69 ________, all
decision-making, and it has no 70________ for language.

06:32

In other words, when we communicate from the outside in, yes, people can
understand vast amounts of 71 ________ information like features and benefits and
facts and figures. It just doesn't 72 ________ behavior. When we can communicate from
the inside out, we're talking 73 ________ to the part of the brain that controls behavior,
and then we allow people to 74 ________ it with the tangible things we say and do. This
is where gut 75 ________ come from. Sometimes you can give somebody all the facts
and 76 ________, and they say, "I know what all the facts and details say, but it just
doesn't feel right." Why would we use that 77 ________, it doesn't "feel" right? Because
the part of the brain that controls 78 ________ doesn't control language. The best we
can muster up is, "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right." Or sometimes you say you're
79 ________ with your heart or soul. I hate to 80 _______ it to you, those aren't other body
parts controlling your behavior. It's all happening here in your limbic brain, the part of
the brain that controls decision-making and not 81 ________.

07:27

But if you don't know why you do what you do, and people 82 ________ to why you do
what you do, then how will you ever get people to 83 ________ for you, or buy
something from you, or, more importantly, be 84 ________ and want to be a part of
what it is that you do. The goal is not just to sell to people who need what you have;
the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to 85
________ people who need a job; it's to hire people who believe what you believe. I
always say that, you know, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll
work for your money, but if they believe what you believe, they'll work for you with
blood and 86 ________ and tears. Nowhere else is there a better 87 ________ than with
the Wright brothers.

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08:11

Most people don't know about Samuel Pierpont Langley. And back in the early 20th
century, the pursuit of powered man 88 ________ was like the dot com of the day.
Everybody was trying it. And Samuel Pierpont Langley had, what we 89 ________,
to be the recipe for 90 ________. Even now, you ask people, "Why did your product or
why did your company 91 ________?" and people always give you the same
permutation of the same three things: under-capitalized, the wrong people, bad
market 92 ________. It's always the same three things, so let's 93________ that. Samuel
Pierpont Langley was given 50,000 dollars by the War Department to 94 ________ out
this flying machine. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at
the Smithsonian and was extremely 95 ________; he knew all the big 96 ________ of the
day. He hired the best minds money could find and the market conditions were 97
________. The New York Times followed him around everywhere, and everyone was 98
________ for Langley. Then how come we've never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley?

09:13

A few hundred miles away in Dayton, Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, they had none
of what we 99 ________ to be the recipe for 100 ________. They had no money; they paid
for their dream with the 101 ________ from their bicycle shop. Not a single person on
the Wright brothers' team had a college 102 ________, not even Orville or Wilbur. And
The New York Times 103 ________ them around nowhere.

09:35

The difference was, Orville and Wilbur were 104 ________ by a cause, by a purpose, by
a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying 105 ________, it'll
change the 106 ________ of the world. Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He
wanted to be rich, and he wanted to be famous. He was in pursuit of the 107 ________.
He was in pursuit of the 108 ________. And lo and behold, look what happened. The
people who believed in the Wright brothers' dream worked with them with blood and
sweat and tears. The others just worked for the 109 ________. They tell stories of how

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every time the Wright brothers went out, they would have to take five sets of parts,
because that's how many times they would 110 ________ before supper.

10:17

And, eventually, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight, and no one
was there to even 111 ________ it. We found out about it a few days later. And further
proof that Langley was 112 ________ by the wrong thing: the day the Wright brothers
took flight, he 113 ________. He could have said, "That's an amazing discovery, guys, and
I will improve upon your 114 ________," but he didn't. He wasn't first, he didn't get rich,
he didn't get 115 ________, so he quit.

10:48

People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. If you talk about what you
believe, you will 116 ________ those who believe what you believe.

10:55

But why is it important to attract those who believe what you believe? Something
called the law of diffusion of 117 ________, if you don't know the law, you know the
terminology. The first 2.5% of our 118 ________ are our innovators. The next 13.5% of our
population are our early 119 ________. The next 34% are your early majority, your
120________ majority and your laggards. The only reason these people buy touch-tone
phones is because you can't buy rotary phones anymore.

11:25

(Laughter)

11:27

We all sit at various places at various times on this 121 ________, but what the law of

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diffusion of 122 ________ tells us is that if you want mass-market success or mass-
market 123 ________ of an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve this tipping point
between 15 and 18 percent market penetration, and then the 124 ________ tips. I love
asking businesses, "What's your conversion on new business?" They love to tell you,
"It's about 10 percent," 125 ________. Well, you can trip over 10% of the 126 ________. We
all have about 10% who just "get it." That's how we 127 ________ them, right? That's like
that gut feeling, "Oh, they just get it."

12:02

The problem is: How do you find the ones that get it before doing 128 ________ versus
the ones who don't get it? So it's this here, this little 129 ________ that you have to close,
as Jeffrey Moore calls it, "Crossing the Chasm" -- because, you see, the early majority
will not try something until someone else has tried it first. And these guys, the 130
________ and the early adopters, they're comfortable making those gut decisions.
They're more comfortable making those 131 ________ decisions that are driven by what
they believe about the world and not just what product is 132 ________. These are the
people who stood in line for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out, when
you could have bought one off the shelf the next week. These are the people who
spent 40,000 dollars on flat-screen TVs when they first came out, even though the
technology was 133 ________. And, by the way, they didn't do it because the technology
was so great; they did it for 134 ________. It's because they wanted to be first. People
don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do 135 ________ proves
what you believe. In fact, people will do the things that prove what they believe. The
136 ________ that person bought the iPhone in the first six hours, stood in line for six
hours, was because of what they believed about the 137 ________, and how they
wanted everybody to see them: they were first. People don't buy what you do; they
buy why you do it.

13:24

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So let me give you a famous example, a famous failure and a famous success of the
law of diffusion of innovation. First, the famous failure. It's a 138 ________ example. As
we said before, the recipe for success is money and the right people and the right
market conditions. You should have success then. Look at TiVo. From the time TiVo
came out about eight or nine years ago to this 139 ________ day, they are the single 140
________ product on the market, hands down, there is no 141 ________. They were
extremely well-funded. Market conditions were fantastic. I mean, we use TiVo as verb.
I TiVo 142 ________ on my piece-of-junk Time Warner DVR all the time.

14:05

But TiVo's a commercial failure. They've never made money. And when they went IPO,
their 143 ________ was at about 30 or 40 dollars and then 144 ________, and it's never
traded above 10. In fact, I don't think it's even traded above six, 145 ________ for a couple
of little spikes.

14:20

Because you see, when TiVo 146 ________ their product, they told us all what they had.
They said, "We have a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, 147 ________ live
TV and memorizes your viewing habits without you even asking." And the cynical 148
________ said, "We don't believe you. We don't need it. We don't like it. You're 149
________ us."

14:45

What if they had said, "If you're the kind of person who likes to have 150 _______ control
over every 151 ________ of your life, boy, do we have a product for you. It pauses live TV,
skips commercials, memorizes your viewing habits, etc., etc." People don't buy what
you do; they buy why you do it, and what you do simply 152 ________ as the 153 ________
of what you believe.

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15:09

Now let me give you a 154 _______ example of the law of diffusion of innovation. In the
summer of 1963, 250,000 people 155 _______ up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr.
King speak. They sent out no 156 ________, and there was no 157 ________ to check
the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn't the only man in America who was
a great orator. He wasn't the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights
America. In fact, some of his ideas were bad. But he had a 158 ________. He didn't go
around telling people what needed to 159 ________ in America. He went around and
told people what he believed. "I believe, I believe, I believe," he told people. And people
who believed what he believed took his 160 ________, and they made it their own, and
they told people. And some of those people created 161 ________ to get the word out
to even more people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day
at the right time to hear him 162 ________.

16:13

How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for themselves. It's
what they believed about America that got them to 163 ________ in a bus for eight
hours to stand in the sun in Washington in the 164 ________ of August. It's what they
believed, and it wasn't about black versus white: 25% of the 165 ________ was white.

16:35

Dr. King believed that there are two 166 ________ of laws in this world: those that are
made by a higher authority and those that are made by men. And not until all the laws
that are made by men are 167 ________ with the laws made by the higher authority will
we live in a 168 ________ world. It just so happened that the Civil Rights 169 ________ was
the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We 170 ________, not for him, but
for ourselves. By the way, he gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a 171
________" speech.

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17:08

Listen to politicians now, with their 172 ________ 12-point plans. They're not inspiring
anybody. Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a 173
________ of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us. Whether they're 174
________or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but
because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for 175 ________. And
it's those who start with "why" that have the 176 ________ to inspire those around them
or find others who inspire them. Thank you very much.

14. Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

00:09

So in college, I was a 1 ________ major, which means I had to write a lot of 2 ________.
Now, when a normal student writes a paper, they might 3 ________ the work out a little
like this. So, you know --

00:23

you get started maybe a little 4 _________, but you get enough done in the first week
that, with some 5 _________ days later on, everything gets done, things stay 6 _________.

00:32

And I would want to do that like that. That would be the 7 _________. I would have it all
ready to go, but then, 8 _________, the paper would come along, and then I would kind
of do this.

00:45

And that would happen every single paper.

00:48

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But then came my 90-page 9 _________ thesis, a paper you're supposed to spend a
year on. And I knew for a paper like that, my normal work 10 _________ was not an
option. It was way too big a 11 _________. So I planned things out, and I decided I kind
of had to go something like this. This is how the year would go. So I'd start off light,
and I'd 12 _________ it up in the middle months, and then at the end, I would kick it up
into high 13 _________ just like a little staircase. How hard could it be to walk up the
stairs? No big deal, right?

01:19

But then, the 14 _________ thing happened. Those first few months? They came and
went, and I couldn't quite do stuff. So we had an awesome new 15 _________ plan.

01:29

And then --

01:32

But then those middle months actually went by, and I didn't really write 16 ______, and
so we were here. And then two months turned into one month, which turned into two
weeks. And one day I woke up with three days until the 17 _________, still not having
written a word, and so I did the only thing I could: I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours,
pulling not one but two all-nighters -- 18 _________ are not 19 _________ to pull two
all-nighters -- sprinted across campus, dove in slow 20 _________, and got it in just
at the deadline.

02:08

I 21 _________ that was the end of everything. But a week later I got a call, and it's the
school. And they say, "Is this Tim Urban?" And I say, "Yeah." And they say, "We need to

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talk about your 22 _________." And I say, "OK." And they say, "It's the 23 _________ one
we've ever seen."

02:33

That did not happen.

02:36

It was a very, very bad thesis.

02:41

I just wanted to enjoy that one moment when all of you thought, "This guy is 24
_________!"

02:49

No, no, it was very, very bad. Anyway, today I'm a writer-blogger guy. I write the blog
Wait But Why. And a couple of years ago, I 25 _________ to write about procrastination.
My 26 _________ has always perplexed the non-procrastinators around me, and I
wanted to 27 _________ to the non-procrastinators of the world what goes on in the 28
_________ of procrastinators, and why we are the way we are. Now, I had a hypothesis
that the brains of procrastinators were actually 29 _________ than the brains of
other people. And to test this, I found an MRI lab that actually let me 30 _________ both
my brain and the brain of a 31 _________ non-procrastinator, so I could 32 _________
them. I actually brought them here to show you today. I want you to take a look 33
_________ to see if you can notice a difference. I know that if you're not a trained brain
34 ________ , it's not that 35 ________, but just take a look, OK? So here's the brain
of a non-procrastinator.

03:42

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Now ... here's my brain.

03:52

There is a difference. Both brains have a 36 _________ Decision-Maker in them, but the
procrastinator's brain also has an 37 _________ Gratification Monkey. Now, what does
this mean for the procrastinator? Well, it means everything's fine until this happens.

04:06

[This is a perfect time to get some work done.] [Nope!]

04:08

So the Rational Decision-Maker will make the rational decision to do something 38

_________, but the Monkey doesn't like that plan, so he actually takes the 39
_________, and he says, "Actually, let's read the 40 _________ Wikipedia page of the
Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding 41 _________, because I just remembered that that
happened.

04:25

Then --

04:28

Then we're going to go over to the 42 _________, to see if there's anything new in there
since 10 minutes ago. After that, we're going to go on a YouTube spiral that starts with
videos of Richard Feynman talking about 43 _________ and ends much, much later
with us watching 44 _________ with Justin Bieber's mom.

04:45

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"All of that's going to take a while, so we're not going to really have room on the 45
_________ for any work today. Sorry!"

04:54

Now, what is going on here? The Instant Gratification Monkey does not seem like a
guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely in the 46 _________ moment. He has
no 47 _________ of the past, no 48 _________ of the future, and he only cares about two
things: easy and 49 _________.

05:12

Now, in the animal world, that 50 _________ fine. If you're a dog and you spend your
whole life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you're a 51 ________ success!

05:23

And to the Monkey, humans are just another animal 52 _________. You have to keep
well-slept, well-fed and propagating into the next 53 _________, which in tribal times
might have worked OK. But, if you haven't 54 _________, now we're not in tribal times.
We're in an 55 _________ civilization, and the Monkey does not know what that is.
Which is why we have another guy in our brain, the Rational Decision-Maker, who
gives us the 56 _________ to do things no other animal can do. We can 57 _________ the
future. We can see the big picture. We can make 58 _________ plans. And he wants
to take all of that into 59 _________. And he wants to just have us do whatever makes
sense to be doing right now. Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing things that
are easy and fun, like when you're having dinner or going to bed or enjoying 60
_________ leisure time. That's why there's an 61 _________. Sometimes they agree. But
other times, it makes much more sense to be doing things that are harder and less 62
_________, for the sake of the big picture. And that's when we have a 63 _________. And
for the procrastinator, that conflict tends to end a 64 _________ way every time, leaving
him spending a lot of time in this orange 65 _________, an easy and fun place that's

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entirely out of the Makes Sense circle. I call it the Dark Playground.

06:40

Now, the Dark Playground is a place that all of you procrastinators out there know
very well. It's where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not
supposed to be 66 _________. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually
fun, because it's completely 67 _________, and the air is filled with guilt, dread, 68
_________, self-hatred -- all of those good procrastinator 69 _________. And the question
is, in this situation, with the Monkey behind the wheel, how does the procrastinator
ever get himself over here to this blue zone, a less pleasant place, but where really 70
_________ things happen?

07:13

Well, turns out the procrastinator has a 71 _________ angel, someone who's always
looking down on him and watching over him in his 72 _________ moments -- someone
called the Panic Monster.

07:30

Now, the Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up
anytime a deadline gets too close or there's danger of public 73 _________, a career
disaster or some other scary 74 _________. And importantly, he's the only thing the
Monkey is 75 _________ of. Now, he became very 76 _________ in my life pretty recently,
because the people of TED reached out to me about six months ago and 77 _________
me to do a TED Talk.

08:03

Now, of course, I said yes. It's always been a 78 _________ of mine to have done a TED
Talk in the past.

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08:13

(Applause) But in the middle of all this 79 ________, the Rational Decision-Maker
seemed to have something else on his mind. He was saying, "Are we clear on what we
just 80 _________? Do we get what's going to be now happening one day in the future?
We need to sit down and 81 _________ on this right now." And the Monkey said, "Totally
agree, but let's just open Google Earth and zoom in to the 82 _________ of India, like
200 feet above the ground, and scroll up for two and a half hours til we get to the top
of the 83 _________, so we can get a better 84 ________ for India."

08:51

So that's what we did that day.

08:57

As six months turned into four and then two and then one, the people of TED decided
to 85 _________ the speakers. And I opened up the website, and there was my face 86
_________ right back at me. And 87 _________ who woke up?

09:13

So the Panic Monster starts 88 _________ his mind, and a few seconds later, the whole
89 _________'s in mayhem.

09:24

And the Monkey -- 90 _________, he's terrified of the Panic Monster -- boom, he's up
the tree! And finally, finally, the Rational Decision-Maker can take the wheel and I can
start working on the 91 _________.

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09:33

Now, the Panic Monster 92 _________ all kinds of pretty insane procrastinator behavior,
like how someone like me could spend two weeks 93 _________ to start the 94 ________
sentence of a paper, and then miraculously find the 95_________ work ethic to stay up
all night and write eight pages. And this entire 96 _________, with the three characters
-- this is the procrastinator's 97 _________. It's not pretty, but in the end, it works. This is
what I decided to write about on the blog a couple of years ago.

10:06

When I did, I was amazed by the 98 _________. Literally thousands of emails came in,
from all different kinds of people from all over the world, doing all different kinds of
things. These are people who were nurses, bankers, painters, 99 _________ and lots
and lots of PhD 100 _________.

10:23

And they were all writing, saying the same thing: "I have this 101 _________ too." But
what struck me was the 102 _________ between the light 103 _________ of the post and
the 104 _________ of these emails. These people were writing with intense 105 _________
about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done
to them. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if the procrastinator's system works,
then what's going on? Why are all of these people in such a 106 _________ place?

10:52

Well, it turns out that there's two kinds of procrastination. Everything I've talked about
today, the examples I've given, they all have deadlines. And when there's deadlines,
the 107 _________ of procrastination are 108 _________ to the short term because the
Panic Monster gets 109 _________. But there's a second kind of procrastination that
happens in situations when there is no deadline. So if you wanted a career where
you're a self-starter -- something in the arts, something 110 _________ -- there's no

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deadlines on those things at first, because nothing's happening, not until you've gone
out and done the hard 111 _________ to get momentum, get things going. There's also
all kinds of important things outside of your 112 _________ that don't involve any
deadlines, like seeing your family or exercising and taking care of your 113 _________,
working on your relationship or getting out of a relationship that isn't working.

11:36

Now if the procrastinator's only 114 _________ of doing these hard things is the Panic
Monster, that's a 115 _________, because in all of these non-deadline situations, the
Panic Monster doesn't show up. He has nothing to wake up for, so the effects of
procrastination, they're not contained; they just 116 _________ outward forever. And it's
this 117 _________ kind of procrastination that's much less 118 _________ and much less
119 _________ about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It's usually
suffered quietly and 120 _________. And it can be the 121 _________ of a huge amount of
long-term unhappiness, and 122 _________. And I thought, that's why those people are
emailing, and that's why they're in such a bad place. It's not that they're cramming for
some project. It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a 123 _______,
at times, in their own lives. The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their
124________; it's that they weren't even able to start 125 _________ them.

12:33

So I read these emails and I had a little bit of an epiphany -- that I don't think non-
procrastinators 126 _________. That's right -- I think all of you are procrastinators. Now,
you might not all be a 127 _________, like some of us,

12:51

and some of you may have a 128 _________ relationship with deadlines, but remember:
the Monkey's sneakiest 129 _________ is when the deadlines aren't there.

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12:59

Now, I want to show you one last thing. I call this a 130 _________ Calendar. That's one
box for every week of a 90-year life. That's not that many boxes, especially since we've
already used a 131 _________ of those. So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at
that calendar. We need to think about what we're really procrastinating on, because
132 _________ is procrastinating on something in life. We need to stay 133 _________ of
the Instant Gratification Monkey. That's a job for all of us. And because there's not that
many boxes on there, it's a job that should 134 _________ start today.

13:41

Well, maybe not today, but ...

13:46

You know. Sometime soon. Thank you.

15. Why our screens make us less happy

00:10

So, a few years ago I heard an interesting 1 ________. Apparently, the head of a large
pet food company would go into the 2 ________ shareholder's meeting with a can of
dog food. And he would eat the can of dog food. And this was his way of 1 3 ________
them that if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for their pets. This
strategy is now known as "dogfooding," and it's a 4 ________ strategy in the 5 ________
world. It doesn't mean everyone goes in and eats dog food, but businesspeople will
use their own products to 6 ________ that they feel -- that they're 7 ________ in them.
Now, this is a 8 ________ practice, but I think what's really interesting is when you find
9 ________ to this rule, when you find cases of businesses or people in businesses who
don't use their own products. Turns out there's one 10 ________ where this happens in
a common way, in a pretty regular way, and that is the 11 ________ tech industry.

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00:57

So, in 2010, Steve Jobs, when he was 12 ________ the iPad, described the iPad as a device
that was "13 ________." "The best browsing experience you've ever had; way better than
a laptop, way better than a smartphone. It's an 14 ________ experience." A couple of
months later, he was 15 ________ by a journalist from the New York Times, and they had
a long phone call. At the end of the call, the journalist 16 ________ in a question that
seemed like a sort of softball. He said to him, "Your kids must love the iPad." There's an
17 ________ answer to this, but what Jobs said really staggered the journalist. He was
very 18 ________, because he said, "They haven't used it. We 19 ________ how much
technology our kids use at home."

01:37

This is a very 20 ________ thing in the tech world. In fact, there's a school quite near
Silicon Valley called the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, and they don't 21 ________
screens until the eighth grade. What's really interesting about the school is that 75
percent of the kids who go there have 22 ________ who are 23 ________ Silicon Valley
tech execs. So when I heard about this, I thought it was interesting and surprising, and
it 24 ________ me to consider what screens were doing to me and to my family and the
people I loved, and to people at large.

02:06

So for the last five years, as a 25 ________ of business and psychology, I've been studying
the 26 ________ of screens on our lives. And I want to start by just 27 ________ on
how much time they take from us, and then we can talk about what that time looks
like. What I'm showing you here is the 28 ________ 24-hour workday at three different
29 ________ in history: 2007 -- 10 years ago -- 2015 and then data that I collected,
actually, only last week. And a lot of things haven't 30 ________ all that much. We sleep
31 ________ seven-and-a-half to eight hours a day; some people say that's 32 ________
slightly, but it hasn't changed much. We work eight-and-a-half to nine hours a day.

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We engage in 33 ________ activities -- these are things like eating and bathing and
looking after kids -- about three hours a day.

02:52

That leaves this white space. That's our 34 ________ time. That space is incredibly
important to us. That's the space where we do things that make us 35 ________. That's
where 36 ________ happen, where we have close relationships, where we really think
about our lives, where we get 37 ________, where we zoom back and try to work out
whether our lives have been 38 ________. We get some of that from work as well, but
when people look back on their lives and 39 ________ what their lives have been like at
the end of their lives, you look at the last things they say -- they are talking about those
40 ________ that happen in that white personal space. So it's 41 ________; it's important
to us.

03:26

Now, what I'm going to do is show you how much of that space is 42 ________ up by
screens across time. In 2007, this much. That was the year that Apple 43 ________
the first iPhone. Eight years later, this much. Now, this much. That's how much time
we spend of that free time in front of our screens. This yellow area, this thin sliver, is
where the 44 ________ happens. That's where your 45 ________ lives. And right now, it's
in a very small box.

03:53

So what do we do about this? Well, the first question is: What does that red space look
like? Now, of course, screens are 46 ________ in a lot of ways. I live in New York, a lot of
my family lives in Australia, and I have a one-year-old son. The way I've been able to
introduce them to him is with 47 ________. I couldn't have done that 15 or 20 years ago
in quite the same way. So there's a lot of 48 ________ that comes from them.

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04:16

One thing you can do is ask yourself: What goes on during that time? How enriching
are the 49 ________ that we're using? And some are enriching. If you stop people while
they're using them and say, "Tell us how you feel right now," they say they feel pretty
good about these apps -- those that focus on 50 ________, exercise, weather, reading,
51 ________ and health. They spend an average of nine minutes a day on each of these.
These apps make them much less happy. About half the people, when you 52 ________
them and say, "How do you feel?" say they don't feel good about using them. What's
interesting about these -- dating, social 53 ________, gaming, entertainment, news,
web 54 ________ -- people spend 27 minutes a day on each of these. We're spending
three times longer on the apps that don't make us happy. That doesn't seem very 55
________ .

05:02

One of the reasons we spend so much time on these apps that make us unhappy is
they 56 ________ us of stopping cues. Stopping cues were everywhere in the 20th
century. They were 57 ________ into everything we did. A stopping cue is basically a 58
________ that it's time to move on, to do something new, to do something 59 ________.
And -- think about newspapers; eventually you get to the end, you 60 ________ the
newspaper away, you put it aside. The same with 61 ________, books -- you get to
the end of a chapter, 62 ________ you to consider whether you want to continue. You
watched a show on TV, eventually the show would end, and then you'd have a week
until the next one came. There were stopping cues everywhere. But the way we 63
________ media today is such that there are no stopping cues. The news feed just rolls
on, and everything's 64 ________: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, email, text
messaging, the news. And when you do check all sorts of other 65 ________, you can
just keep going on and on and on.

05:55

So, we can get a 66 ________ about what to do from Western Europe, where they seem

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to have a number of pretty good ideas in the 67 ________. Here's one example. This is a
Dutch 68 ________ firm. And what they've done is rigged the desks to the ceiling. And
at 6pm every day, it doesn't matter who you're emailing or what you're doing, the
desks 69 ________ to the ceiling.

06:16

Four days a week, the space turns into a yoga studio, one day a week, into a dance
club. It's really up to you which ones you 70 ________ around for. But this is a great
stopping 71 ________, because it means at the end of the day, everything stops, there's
no way to work. At Daimler, the German car company, they've got another great 72
________. When you go on vacation, instead of saying, "This person's on vacation, they'll
get back to you 73 ________," they say, "This person's on vacation, so we've 74 ________
your email. This person will never see the email you just sent."

06:46

"You can email back in a couple of weeks, or you can email someone else."

06:52

And so --

06:58

You can 75 ________ what that's like. You go on vacation, and you're 76 ________
on vacation. The people who work at this company feel that they actually get a 77
________ from work.

07:06

But of course, that doesn't tell us much about what we should do at home in our own
lives, so I want to make some 78 ________. It's easy to say, between 5 and 6pm, I'm

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going to not use my phone. The 79 ________ is, 5 and 6pm looks different on different
days. I think a far better 80 ________ is to say, I do certain things every day, there are
certain 81 ________ that happen every day, like eating dinner. Sometimes I'll be alone,
sometimes with other people, sometimes in a restaurant, sometimes at home, but the
rule that I've 82 ________ is: I will never use my phone at the table. It's far away, as far
away as possible. Because we're really bad at 83 ________ temptation. But when you
have a stopping cue that, every time dinner begins, my phone goes far away, you 84
________ temptation all together.

07:48

At first, it hurts. I had 85 ________ FOMO.

07:53

I 86 ________.

07:54

But what happens is, you get used to it. You 87 ________ the withdrawal the same way
you would from a drug, and what happens is, life becomes more 88 ________, richer,
more interesting -- you have better 89 ________. You really connect with the people
who are there with you. I think it's a 90 ________ strategy, and we know it works,
because when people do this -- and I've 91 ________ a lot of people who have tried this
-- it 92 ________. They feel so good about it, they start doing it for the first hour of the
day in the morning. They start putting their phones on airplane 93 ________ on the
weekend. That way, your phone 94 ________ a camera, but it's no longer a phone. It's a
really 95 ________ idea, and we know people feel much better about their 96 ________
when they do this.

08:33

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So what's the take home here? Screens are miraculous; I've already said that, and I feel
that it's true. But the way we use them is a lot like 97 ________ down a really fast, long
road, and you're in a car where the 98 ________ is mashed to the floor, it's kind of hard
to 99 ________ the brake pedal. You've got a choice. You can either glide by, past, say,
the beautiful ocean 100 ________ and take snaps out the window -- that's the 101
________ thing to do -- or you can go out of your way to move the car to the side of the
road, to 102 ________ that brake pedal, to get out, take off your shoes and socks, take a
couple of 103 ________ onto the sand, feel what the sand feels like under your feet, walk
to the ocean, and let the ocean 104 ________ at your ankles. Your life will be richer
and more 105 ________ because you 106 ________ in that experience, and because
you've left your phone in the car.

09:22

Thank you.

16. In praise of conflict

00:10

Twenty years ago, when I was a barrister and human 1 ________ lawyer in full-time 2
________ practice in London, and the highest court in the land still convened, some
would say by an 3 ________ of history, in this building here, I met a young man who had
just quit his job in the British Foreign Office. When I asked him, "Why did you leave,"
he told me this story.

00:36

He had gone to his boss one morning and said, "Let's do something about human
rights 4 ________ in China." And his boss had replied, "We can't do anything about
human rights abuses in China because we have 5 ________ relations with China."

00:52

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So my friend went away with his 6 ________ between his legs, and six months later, he
7 ________ again to his boss, and he said this time, "Let's do something about human
rights in Burma," as it was then called.

01:05

His boss once again 8 ________ and said, "Oh, but we can't do anything about human
rights in Burma because we don't have any trade 9 ________ with Burma."

01:17

This was the moment he knew he had to leave. It wasn't just the hypocrisy that got to
him. It was the 10 ________ of his government to engage in 11 ________ with other
governments, in 12 ________ discussions, all the while, 13 ________ people were being
harmed.

01:35

We are constantly told that conflict is bad that 14 ________ is good; that conflict is bad
but consensus is good; that conflict is bad and 15 ________ is good. But in my view,
that's far too simple a 16 ________ of the world. We cannot know whether conflict is bad
unless we know who is fighting, why they are fighting and how they are fighting. And
compromises can be 17 ________ rotten if they harm people who are not at the table,
people who are 18 ________, disempowered, people whom we have an 19 ________ to
protect.

02:21

Now, you might be somewhat 20 ________ of a lawyer arguing about the benefits of
conflict and creating 21 ________ for compromise, but I did also 22 ________ as a
mediator, and these days, I spend my time giving talks about 23 ________ for free. So
as my bank manager likes to remind me, I'm downwardly mobile. But if you accept

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my 24 ________, it should change not just the way we lead our 25 ________ lives,
which I wish to put to one side for the moment, but it will change the way we think
about 26________problems of public health and the 27 ________. Let me explain.

03:01

Every middle schooler in the United States, my 12-year-old daughter included, learns
that there are three 28 ________ of government, the legislative, the executive and the
judicial branch. James Madison wrote, "If there is any 29 ________ more sacred
in our Constitution, and indeed in any free constitution, than any other, it is that which
30 ________ the legislative, the executive and the judicial powers." Now, the framers
were not just concerned about the 31 ________ and exercise of power. They also
understood the perils of 32 ________. Judges cannot 33 ________ the constitutionality of
laws if they 34 ________ in making those laws, nor can they hold the other branches of
government 35 ________ if they collaborate with them or enter into close relationships
with them. The Constitution is, as one famous 36 ________ put it, "an 37 ________ to
struggle." And we the people are served when those branches do, indeed, struggle
with each other.

04:20

Now, we recognize the importance of struggle not just in the 38 ________ sector
between our branches of government. We also know it too in the 39 ________ sector,
in relationships among 40 ________. Let's imagine that two American airlines get
together and agree that they will not 41 ________ the price of their economy class
airfares below 250 dollars a ticket. That is 42 ________, some would say collusion, not 43
________, and we the people are harmed because we pay more for our tickets. Imagine
44 ________ two airlines were to say, "Look, Airline A, we'll take the route from LA to
Chicago," and Airline B says, "We'll take the route from Chicago to DC, and we won't
45 ________." Once again, that's collaboration or collusion instead of competition, and
we the people are 46 ________.

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05:21

So we understand the importance of 47 ________ when it comes to relationships

between branches of government, the public sector. We also understand the
importance of 48 ________ when it comes to relationships among corporations, the
private sector. But where we have 49 ________ it is in the relationships between the
public and the private. And governments all over the world are collaborating with 50
________ to solve problems of public health and the environment, often collaborating
with the very corporations that are 51 ________ or exacerbating the problems they are
trying to solve. We are told that these relationships are a win-win. But what if someone
is 52 ________ out?

06:19

Let me give you some examples. A United Nations agency decided to 53 _______ a
serious problem: poor 54 ________ in schools in rural India. They did so not just in
collaboration with national and local governments but also with a television company
and with a major 55 ________ soda company. In 56 ________ for less than one million
dollars, that corporation received the 57 ________ of a months-long 58 ________
campaign including a 12-hour telethon all using the company's logo and color
scheme. This was an 59 ________ which was totally 60 ________ from the corporation's
point of view. It enhances the 61 ________ of the company and it creates brand 62
________ for its products. But in my view, this is profoundly 63 ________ for the
intergovernmental agency, an agency that has a mission to promote 64 ________
living. By increasing 65 ________ of sugar-sweetened beverages made from scarce
local water 66 ________ and drunk out of plastic bottles in a country that is already
grappling with 67 ________, this is neither sustainable from a public health nor an
environmental point of view. And in order to solve one public health problem, the
agency is 68 ________ the seeds of another.

07:46

This is just one example of dozens I 69 ________ in researching a book on the

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relationships between government and industry. I could also have told you about the
70 ________ in parks in London and throughout Britain, involving the same company,
promoting 71 ________, or indeed of the British government creating voluntary pledges
in 72 ________ with industry instead of 73 ________ industry. These collaborations or
partnerships have become the paradigm in public health, and once again, they make
74 ________ from the point of view of industry. It allows them to 75 ________ public
health problems and their solutions in ways that are least 77 ________ to, most
consonant with their commercial 76 ________. So obesity becomes a problem of
individual 78 ________, of personal behavior, personal 79 ________ and lack of physical
activity. It is not a problem, when framed this way, of a multinational food 80 _______
involving major corporations.

08:52

And again, I don't blame industry. Industry naturally 1 ________ in strategies of 1 ________
to promote its commercial interests. But governments have a responsibility to
develop 1 ________ to protect us and the common good.

09:11

The mistake that governments are making when they collaborate in this way with
industry is that they conflate the common good with common 81 ________. When you
collaborate with industry, you 82 ________ put off the table things that might promote
the common good to which industry will not agree. Industry will not agree to 83
________ regulation unless it believes this will stave off even more regulation or
perhaps knock some 84 ________ out of the market. Nor can companies agree to do
certain things, for example raise the prices of their 85 ________ products, because
that would 86 ________ competition law, as we've established. So our governments
should not confound the common good and common ground, especially when
common ground means reaching 87 ________ with industry.

10:10

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I want to give you another example, moving from 88 ________ collaboration to
something that is below ground both literally and 89 ________: the hydraulic fracturing
of natural gas. Imagine that you 90 ________ a plot of land not knowing the 91 ________
rights have been sold. This is before the fracking boom. You build your dream home
on that 92 ________, and shortly afterwards, you discover that a gas company is
building a well pad on your 93 ________. That was the plight of the Hallowich family.
Within a very short period of time, they began to 94 ________ of headaches, of sore
throats, of itchy eyes, in addition to the 95 ________ of the noise, 96 ________ and
the bright lights from the flaring of natural gas. They were very vocal in their 97
________, and then they fell silent. And thanks to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where
this image 98 ________, and one other newspaper, we discovered why they fell silent.
The newspapers went to the court and said, "What happened to the Hallowiches?"
And it turned out the Hallowiches had made a secret settlement with the gas 99
________, and it was a take-it-or-leave-it settlement. The gas company said, you can
have a six-figure sum to move elsewhere and start your lives again, but in 100 ________
you must promise not to speak of your experience with our company, not to speak of
your experience with fracking, not to speak about the health 101 ________ that might
have been 102 ________ by a medical examination. Now, I do not blame the Hallowiches
for accepting a take-it-or-leave-it settlement and starting their lives elsewhere. And
one can understand why the company would wish to 103 _______ a squeaky wheel.
What I want to point the finger at is the legal and 104 ________ system, a system in
which there are 105 ________ of agreements just like this one which 106 ________ to
silence people and seal off data points from public health 107 ________ and
epidemiologists, a system in which regulators will even refrain from 108 ________ a 109
________ notice in the event of pollution if the landowner and the gas company agree
to settle. This is a system which isn't just bad from a public health point of view; it
exposes 110 ________to local families who remain in the 111 ________.

12:36

Now, I have given you two examples not because they are 112 _______ examples. They
are examples of a 113 ________ problem. I could share some counterexamples, the case

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for example of the public official who 114 ________ the pharmaceutical company for 115
________ the fact that its antidepressant increases suicidal thoughts in 116 ________. I
can tell you about the regulator who went after the food company for 117 ________ the
purported health benefits of its yogurt. And I can tell you about the legislator who
despite heavy lobbying directed at both sides of the aisle 118 ________ for
environmental 119 ________. These are isolated examples, but they are beacons of light
in the darkness, and they can show us the way.

13:31

I began by suggesting that sometimes we need to 120 ________ in conflict.

Governments should tussle with, struggle with, at times engage in 121 ________ conflict
with corporations. This is not because governments are inherently good and
corporations are inherently 122 ________. Each is capable of good or ill. But corporations
123 ________ act to promote their commercial interests, and they do so either
sometimes undermining or promoting the common good. But it is the 124 ________
of governments to 125 ________ and promote the common good. And we should 126
________ that they fight to do so. This is because governments are the guardians of
public health; governments are the guardians of the environment; and it is
governments that are guardians of these 127 ________ parts of our common good.
Thank you.

17. The happy secret to better work

00:04

When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we were playing on
top of a 1 ___________. I was two years older than my sister at the time -- I mean, I'm two
years older than her now -- but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I
wanted to do, and I wanted to play war. So we were up on top of our bunk beds. And
on one side of the bunk bed, I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and 2___________ .
And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies ready for a cavalry charge.

There are differing {{accounts}} of what actually happened that afternoon, but since
my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story… which is my sister's

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a little on the clumsy side. Somehow, 3____________ any help or push from her older
brother at all, Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this
crash on the floor. I 4____________ peered over the side of the bed to see what had
befallen my fallen sister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and
knees on all fours on the ground.

00:58

I was nervous because my parents had 5___________ me with making sure that my
sister and I played as safely and as quietly as possible. And seeing as how I had
accidentally broken Amy's arm just one week before 6____________ pushing her out of
the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet, for which I have yet to be thanked, I
was trying as hard as I could -- she didn't even see it coming -- I was trying hard to be
on my best 7_____________ .

And I saw my sister's face, this wail of pain and suffering and surprise threatening to
erupt from her mouth and wake my parents from the long winter's nap for which they
had settled. So I did the only thing my frantic seven year-old brain could think to do
to 8__________ this tragedy. And if you have children, you've seen this hundreds of
times. I said, "Amy, wait. Don't cry. Did you see how you landed? No human lands on
all fours like that. Amy, I think this means you're a unicorn."

01:58

Now, that was cheating, because there was nothing she would want more than not
to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister, but Amy the special unicorn. Of course,
this option was open to her brain at no point in the past. And you could see how my
poor, 9___________ sister faced conflict, as her little brain attempted to devote
resources to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise she just experienced, or
10_______________ her new-found identity as a unicorn. And the latter won. Instead of
crying or 11___________ our play, instead of waking my parents, with all the negative
consequences for me, a smile spread across her face and she scrambled back up onto
the bunk bed with all the grace of a baby unicorn with one broken leg.

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02:37

What we 12___________ across at this tender age of just five and seven -- we had no
idea at the time -- was was going be at the vanguard of a
13______________________ occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the
human brain. We had stumbled across something called 14___________________, which
is the reason I'm here today and the reason that I wake up every morning.

When I started talking about this research outside of 15______________ with companies
and schools, the first thing they said to never do is to start with a graph. The first thing
I want to do is start with a graph. This graph looks boring, but it is the reason I get
excited and wake up every morning. And this graph doesn't even mean anything; it's
fake 16__________. What we found is… If I got this data studying you, I would be
thrilled, because there's a trend there, and that means that I can get
17_____________, which is all that really matters. There is one weird red dot above the
18,___________, there's one weirdo in the room -- I know who you are, I saw you earlier
-- that's no problem. That's no problem, as most of you know, because I can just delete
that dot. I can delete that dot because that's clearly a 19,____________ error. And we
know that's a measurement error because it's messing up my data.

03:47

So one of the first things we teach people in economics, 20_____________, business and
psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do we 21______________ the
weirdos. How do we eliminate the outliers so we can find the line of best fit? Which is
fantastic if I'm trying to find out how many Advil the average person should be taking
-- two.

But if I'm interested in your 22________________ or for happiness or productivity or

energy or creativity, we're creating the cult of the average with science. If I asked a
question like, "How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?" scientists
change the answer to "How fast does the average child learn how to read in that
classroom?" and we 23____________ the class towards the average. If you fall below the

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average, then psychologists get thrilled, because that means you're depressed or
have a 24____________ or hopefully both. We're hoping for both because our business
model is, if you come into a therapy session with one problem, we want to make sure
you leave knowing you have ten, so you keep coming back. We'll go back into your
childhood if 25_______________, but eventually we want to make you normal again. But
normal is merely average.

04:45

And positive psychology posits that if we study what is 26____________ average, we will
remain merely average. Then instead of deleting those positive outliers, what I
intentionally do is come into a 27_____________ like this one and say, why? Why are
some of you high above the curve in terms of intellectual, athletic, musical
ability, creativity, energy levels, 28____________ in the face of challenge, sense of
humor? Whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you. Because
maybe we can glean information, not just how to move people up to the average, but
move the 29____________ average up in our companies and schools worldwide.

The reason this graph is important to me is, when I turn on the news, the
30_____________ of the information is not positive. In fact it's negative. Most of it's about
murder, 31____________, diseases, natural disasters. And very quickly, my brain starts to
think that's the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world. What’s that doing?
This creates "the medical school 32____________." During the first year of medical
training, as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases, suddenly you
realize you have all of them.

05:42
I have a brother in-law named Bobo, which is a whole another story. Bobo married
Amy the unicorn. Bobo called me on the phone from Yale Medical School, and Bobo
said, "Shawn, I have leprosy." Which, even at Yale, is 33________________________. But I
had no idea how to console poor Bobo because he had just gotten over an entire week
of menopause.

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See, what we're finding it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens
through which your brain 34________ the world that 35_________ your reality. And if we
can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every
single educational and business 36__________ at the same time.

06:20

When I applied to Harvard, I applied on a dare. I didn't expect to get in, and my family
had no money for college. When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they
allowed me to go. Something that wasn't even a 37_______________ became a reality.
When I went there, I assumed everyone there would see it as a privilege as well, that
they'd be excited to be there. Even in a classroom full of people smarter than you, I felt
you'd be happy just to be in that classroom, which is what I felt. But what I found is,
while some people experience that, when I 38______________ after my four years and
then spent the next eight years living in the dorms with the students -- Harvard asked
me to; I wasn't that guy.
I was an officer to 39___________ students through the difficult four years. And what I
found in my research and my teaching, I found that these students, no matter how
happy they were with their 40_______________ of getting into the school, two weeks
later their brains were focused, not on the 41___________ of being there, nor on their
philosophy or physics, but on the competition, the workload, the hassles, stresses,
complaints.

07:12
When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall, which is where my
friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up -- I know some of you heard of
it. When they come to visit me, they'd look around, and say, "This 42_____________ looks
like something out of Hogwarts." It does, because that was Hogwarts in the movie
Harry Potter, which it does, and that's Harvard. And when they see this, they say, "Why
do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard? Seriously, what does a
Harvard student possibly have to be 43___________ about?"

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Embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science of
happiness. Because what that question assumes is that our 44____________ is
predictive of our happiness levels, when in reality, if I know everything about your
external world, I can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness. 90 percent of your
long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain
45_____________ the world. And if we change it, if we change our 46____________ for
happiness and success, what we can do is to change the way that we can then
47_________ reality. What we found is that only 25% of job successes are predicted by
IQ, 75 percent of job successes are predicted by your 48_____________ levels, your social
support and your ability to see stress as a 49_____________ instead of as a threat.

I talked to a New England boarding school, probably the most 50_____________

one, and they said, "We already know that. So every year, instead of just teaching our
students, we have a wellness week. And we're so excited. Monday night we have the
world's leading expert coming to speak about 51______________________. Tuesday night
it's school violence and bullying. Wednesday night is eating disorders. Thursday night
is illicit drug use. And Friday night we're trying to decide between risky sex or
happiness."

I said, "That's most people's Friday nights."

08:47

Which I'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all. Silence on the phone. And
into the 52____________, I said, "I'd be happy to speak at your school, but that's not a
53___________ week, that's a sickness week. What you’ve done is you've outlined all the
negative things that can happen, but not talked about the positive."

The 54___________ of disease is not health. Here's how we get to health: We need to
55___________ the formula for happiness and success. In the last three years, I've
traveled to 45 countries, working with schools and companies in the midst of an
economic downturn. And I found that most companies and schools follow a formula
for success, which is this: If I work harder, I'll be more successful. And if I'm more
successful, then I'll be happier. That undergirds most of our 56_____________ and

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managing styles, the way that we motivate our behavior. And the problem is it's
scientifically broken and 57___________ for two reasons.

First, every time your brain has a success, you just changed the goalpost of what
success looked like. You got good grades, now you have to get better grades, you got
into a good school and after you get into a better one, you got a good job, now you
have to get a better job, you hit your 58__________, we're going to change it. And if
happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there. We've
pushed happiness over the 59____________ horizon, as a society. And that's because we
think we have to be successful, then we'll be happier.

09:57

But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order. If you can 60__________
somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we
now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs
61________________ than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your
creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, we've found that every single business
outcome improves. Your brain at positive is 31% more {{productive}} than your brain at
negative, neutral or stressed. You're 37% better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster,
more accurate at coming up with the correct 62_________________ when positive
instead of negative, neutral or stressed.

Which means we can reverse the formula. If we can find a way of becoming positive
in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we're able to work
harder, faster and more intelligently. We need to be able to reverse this formula so we
can start to see what our brains are actually 63_______________. Because dopamine,
which floods into your system when you're positive, has two 64_____________. Not only
does it make you happier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain allowing
you to adapt to the world in a different way.

10:56

We've found there are ways that you can train your brain to be able to become more

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positive. In just a two-minute 65__________________ done for 21 days in a row, we can
actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and
more successfully. We've done these things in research now in every single company
that I've worked with, getting them to write down three new things that they're
grateful for for 21 days in a row, three new things each day. And at the end of that, their
brain starts to 66____________________ of scanning the world not for the negative, but
for the positive first.

Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours allows
your brain to relive it. Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters. We find
that 67________________ allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we've
been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on
the task at hand. And finally, random acts of kindness are 68____________ acts of
kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive
email praising or thanking somebody in their support network.

And by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we train our
bodies, what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and
success, and in doing so, not only create 69_________ of positivity, but a real revolution.
Thank you very much.

18. How to make stress your friend

00:04

I have a confession to make. But first, I want you to make a little confession to me. In
the past year, I want you to just raise your hand if you've experienced 1____________
little stress. Anyone?

How about a moderate amount of stress?

Who has experienced a lot of stress? Yeah. Me too.

But that is not my confession. My 2_____________ is this: I am a health psychologist, and

my mission is to help people be happier and healthier. But I fear that something I've
been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harm than good, and it has to do
with stress. For years I've been telling people, stress makes you sick. It 3___________ the

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risk of everything from the common cold to 4 ___________ disease. Basically, I've turned
stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I want to
change yours.

Let me start with the study that made me 5__________ my whole approach to
stress. This study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years, and they
started by asking people, "How much stress have you experienced in the last
year?" They also asked, "Do you believe that stress is 6___________ for your health?" And
then they used public death 7____________ to find out who died.

(Laughter)

Okay. Some bad news first. People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous
year had a 43 percent increased 8___________ of dying. But that was only true for the
people who also believed that stress is harmful for your health.

(Laughter)

02:02

People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no
more 9_________ to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the
study, including people who had relatively little stress.

Now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were tracking
deaths, 182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the belief that
stress is bad for you.

That is over 20,000 deaths a year. Now, if that estimate is correct, that would make
believing stress is bad for you the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last
year, killing more people than skin cancer, HIV/AIDS and 10____________ .

You can see why this study freaked me out. Here I've been spending so much
11__________ telling people stress is bad for your health.

So this study got me wondering: Can changing how you think about stress make you
healthier? And here the 12__________ says yes. When you change your mind about
stress, you can change your body's response to stress.

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03:13

Now to explain how this works, I want you all to pretend that you are 13___________ in
a study designed to stress you out. It's called the social stress test. You come into the
laboratory, and you're told you have to give a five-minute impromptu speech on your
personal 14____________ to a panel of expert 15___________ sitting right in front of
you, and to make sure you feel the pressure, there are bright lights and a camera in
your face, kind of like this.

And the evaluators have been trained to give you discouraging, 16__________
feedback, like this.

(Exhales)

(Laughter)

Now that you're 17_____________ demoralized, time for part two: a math test. And
unbeknownst to you, the experimenter has been trained to harass you during it. Now
we're going to all do this together. It's going to be fun. For me.

Okay.

I want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of seven. You're going to do
this out loud, as fast as you can, starting with 996. Go!

(Audience counting)

Go faster. Faster please. You're going too slow.

Stop. Stop, stop, stop. That guy made a mistake. We are going to have to start all over
again.

4:44

You're not very good at this, are you? Okay, so you get the idea. If you were actually in
this study, you'd probably be a little 18_______________. Your heart might be
pounding, you might be breathing faster, maybe breaking out into a sweat. And
normally, we interpret these physical changes as anxiety or signs that we aren't

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19_________ very well with the pressure.

But what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized, was
preparing you to meet this challenge? Now that is exactly what participants were
told in a study 20___________ at Harvard University. Before they went through the
social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. That
21_____________ is preparing you for action. If you're breathing faster, it's no
problem. It's getting more oxygen to your brain. And participants who learned to view
the stress response as helpful for their performance, well, they were less stressed out,
less anxious, more confident, but the most fascinating finding to me was how their
physical stress 22____________ changed.

05:47

Now, in a typical stress response, your heart 23_______ goes up, and your blood vessels
constrict like this. And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes
associated with cardiovascular disease. It's not really healthy to be in this state all the
time. But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their
blood vessels stayed relaxed like this. Their heart was still pounding, but this is a much
healthier cardiovascular 24____________. It actually looks a lot like what happens in
moments of joy and courage. Over a lifetime of stressful experiences, this one
25_____________ could be the difference between a 26____________ heart attack at age
50 and living well into your 90s. And this is really what the new science of stress
reveals, that how you think about stress matters.

So my goal as a health psychologist has changed. I no longer want to 27____________

your stress. I want to make you better at stress. And we just did a little intervention. If
you raised your hand and said you'd had a lot of stress in the last year, we could have
saved your life, because hopefully the next time your heart is pounding from
stress, you're going to remember this talk and you're going to think to yourself, this is
my body helping me 28_________ to this challenge. And when you view stress in that
way, your body believes you, and your stress response becomes healthier.

Now I said I have over a 29____________ of demonizing stress to redeem myself from, so

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we are going to do one more intervention. I want to tell you about one of the most
30______________ aspects of the stress response, and the idea is this: Stress makes you
social.

To understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin, and I
know oxytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get. It even has its
own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it's 31_________ when you hug
someone. But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in.

08:01

Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you

to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave
32____________ with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes
you more willing to help and support the people you care about. Some people have
even 33__________ we should snort oxytocin... to become more compassionate and
caring. But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress
hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It's
as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart
pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is 34______________ you
to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how
you feel, instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you
notice when someone else in your life is 35_____________ so that you can support each
other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by
people who care about you.

Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier? Well, oxytocin
doesn't only act on your 36__________. It also acts on your body, and one of its main
roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of
stress. It's a natural 37_______________. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed
during stress. But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart. Your heart
has receptors for this hormone, and oxytocin helps heart cells 38____________ and heal
from any stress-induced damage. This stress hormone 39___________ your heart.

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10:07

And the cool thing is that all of these physical benefits of oxytocin are 40____________
by social contact and social support. So when you 41____________ to others under
stress, either to seek support or to help someone else, you release more of this
hormone, your stress response becomes healthier, and you actually 42___________
faster from stress. I find this amazing, that your stress response has a built-in
43______________ for stress resilience, and that mechanism is 44_________ connection.

I want to finish by telling you about one more study. And listen up, because this study
could also save a life. This study 45____________ about 1,000 adults in the United
States, and they ranged in age from 34 to 93, and they started the study by
asking, "How much stress have you experienced in the last year?" They also
asked, "How much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors, people in your
46______________?" And then they used public records for the next five years to find out
who died.

Okay, so the bad news first: For every 47___________ stressful life experience, like
financial difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent. But
-- and I hope you are expecting a "but" by now -- but that wasn't true for
everyone. People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no
48_____________ increase in dying. Zero. Caring created 49_______________ .

11:51

And so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on your health are not
50__________. How you think and how you act can transform your experience of
stress. When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you 51_________ the
biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you
can create resilience. Now I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in
my life, but this science has given me a whole new 52_____________ for stress. Stress
gives us 53____________ to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds joy and
meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding physical heart, working

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so hard to give you strength and energy. And when you choose to view stress in this
way, you're not just getting better at stress, you're actually making a pretty
54___________ statement. You're saying that you can trust yourself to 55________ life's
challenges. And you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.

Thank you.

19. Your body language may shape who you are

00:09

So I want to start by offering you a free no-tech life hack, and all it 1________ of you is
this: that you change your 2________ for two minutes. But before I give it away, I want
to ask you to right now do a little 3________ of your body and what you're doing with
your body. So how many of you are sort of making yourselves smaller? Maybe you're
4________, crossing your legs, maybe wrapping your ankles. Sometimes we hold onto
our arms like this. Sometimes we spread out. (Laughter) I see you. So I want you to pay
5________ to what you're doing right now. We're going to come back to that in a few
minutes, and I'm hoping that if you learn to 6________ this a little bit, it could
significantly change the way your life 7________.

(Laughter) (Applause)

01:35

Amy Cuddy: So a handshake, or the lack of a handshake, can have us talking for weeks
and weeks and weeks. Even the BBC and The New York Times. So 8________ when we
think about 9________ behavior, or body language -- but we call it nonverbals as social
10________ -- it's language, so we think about communication. When we think about
communication, we think about 11________. So what is your body language
communicating to me? What's mine communicating to you?

02:02

And there's a lot of reason to believe that this is a 12________ way to look at this. So

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social scientists have spent a lot of time looking at the 13________ of our body language,
or other people's body language, on 14________. And we make sweeping judgments
and 15________ from body language. And those judgments can 16________ really
meaningful life 17________ like who we hire or 18________, who we ask out on a date. For
example, Nalini Ambady, a 19________ at Tufts University, shows that when people
watch 30-second 20________ clips of real 21________ interactions, their judgments of
the physician's 22________ predict whether or not that physician will be 23________. So
it doesn't have to do so much with whether or not that physician was 24________, but
do we like that person and how they interacted? Even more 25________, Alex Todorov
at Princeton has shown us that judgments of 26________ candidates' faces in just one
second predict 70 percent of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial race outcomes, and even,
let's go 27________, emoticons used well in online 28________ can lead you to claim
more value from that negotiation. If you use them poorly, bad idea. Right?

03:17

So when we think of nonverbals, we think of how we judge others, how they judge us
and what the outcomes are. We tend to forget, though, the other 29________ that's
30________ by our nonverbals, and that's ourselves. We are also influenced by our
nonverbals, our thoughts and our feelings and our 31________.

03:34

So what nonverbals am I talking about? I'm a 32________ psychologist. I study

33________, and I teach at a 34________ business school, so it was 35________ that I would
become interested in power 36________. I became especially interested in nonverbal
expressions of power and 37________.

03:53

And what are nonverbal expressions of power and dominance? Well, this is what they
are. So in the animal kingdom, they are about 38________. So you make yourself big,

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you 39________ out, you take up space, you're 40________ opening up. It's about
opening up. And this is true across the animal kingdom. It's not just limited to
41________. And humans do the same thing. (Laughter) So they do this both when they
have power sort of 42________, and also when they're feeling powerful in the moment.
And this one is especially interesting because it really shows us how 43________ and
old these expressions of power are. This expression, which is known as 44________,
Jessica Tracy has studied. She shows that people who are born with sight and people
who are 45________ blind do this when they win at a 46________ competition. So when
they cross the finish line and they've won, it doesn't matter if they've never seen
anyone do it. They do this. So the arms up in the V, the chin is 47________ lifted.

04:53

What do we do when we feel 48________? We do exactly the 49________. We close up.

We wrap ourselves up. We make ourselves small. We don't want to 50________ into the
person next to us. So again, both animals and humans do the same thing. And this is
what happens when you put together high and low power. So what we tend to do
when it comes to power is that we 51________ the other's nonverbals. So if someone is
being really powerful with us, we tend to make ourselves smaller. We don't 52________
them. We do the opposite of them.

05:22

So I'm watching this behavior in the classroom, and what do I notice? I notice that
MBA students really 53________ the full range of power nonverbals. So you have people
who are like caricatures of 54________, really coming into the room, they get right into
the middle of the room before class even starts, like they really want to 55________
space. When they sit down, they're sort of spread out. They raise their hands like this.
You have other people who are 56________ collapsing when they come in. As soon they
come in, you see it. You see it on their faces and their bodies, and they sit in their chair
and they make themselves 57________, and they go like this when they raise their
hand.

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06:01

I notice a couple of things about this. One, you're not going to be 58________. It seems
to be 59________ to gender. So women are much more likely to do this kind of thing
than men. Women feel 60________ less powerful than men, so this is not surprising.

06:17

But the other thing I noticed is that it also seemed to be related to the 61________ to
which the students were 62________, and how well they were participating. And this is
really 63________ in the MBA classroom, because participation counts for half the
grade.

06:31

So business schools have been 64________ with this gender grade gap. You get these
equally 65________ women and men coming in and then you get these 66________ in
grades, and it seems to be partly 67________ to participation. So I started to wonder,
you know, okay, so you have these people coming in like this, and they're participating.
Is it 68________ that we could get people to fake it and would it lead them to participate
more?

06:55

So my main 69________ Dana Carney, who's at Berkeley, and I really wanted to know,
can you fake it till you make it? Like, can you do this just for a little while and actually
70________ a behavioral outcome that makes you seem more powerful? So we know
that our nonverbals 71________ how other people think and feel about us. There's a lot
of 72________. But our question really was, do our nonverbals govern how we think and
feel about ourselves?

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07:21

There's some evidence that they do. So, for example, we smile when we feel happy,
but also, when we're 73________ to smile by holding a pen in our teeth like this, it makes
us feel happy. So it goes both ways. When it comes to power, it also goes both ways.
So when you feel powerful, you're more likely to do this, but it's also possible that when
you 74________ to be powerful, you are more likely to 75________ feel powerful.

07:55

So the second question really was, you know, so we know that our minds change our
bodies, but is it also true that our bodies change our minds? And when I say minds, in
the case of the powerful, what am I talking about? So I'm talking about thoughts and
feelings and the sort of physiological things that make up our thoughts and feelings,
and in my case, that's 76________. I look at hormones. So what do the minds of the
powerful versus the powerless look like? So powerful people tend to be, not
surprisingly, more 77________ and more confident, more 78________. They actually feel
they're going to win even at games of chance. They also tend to be able to think more
79________. So there are a lot of differences. They take more 80________. There are a lot
of differences between powerful and powerless people. Physiologically, there also are
differences on two key hormones: testosterone, which is the 81________ hormone, and
cortisol, which is the 82________ hormone.

08:54

So what we find is that high-power alpha males in primate 83________ have high
testosterone and low cortisol, and powerful and effective 84________ also have high
testosterone and low cortisol. So what does that mean? When you think about power,
people tended to think only about testosterone, because that was about dominance.
But really, power is also about how you react to stress. So do you want the high-power
leader that's 85________, high on testosterone, but really stress 86________? Probably
not, right? You want the person who's powerful and assertive and dominant, but not
very stress reactive, the person who's 87________.

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09:35

So we know that in 88________ hierarchies, if an alpha needs to take over, if an

89________ needs to take over an alpha role sort of 90________, within a few days, that
individual's testosterone has gone up significantly and his cortisol has 91________
significantly. So we have this evidence, both that the body can shape the mind, at least
at the 92________ level, and also that role changes can shape the mind. So what
happens, okay, you take a role change, what happens if you do that at a really
93________ level, like this tiny 94________, this tiny 95________? "For two minutes," you
say, "I want you to stand like this, and it's going to make you feel more powerful."

10:17

So this is what we did. We decided to bring people into the lab and run a little
96________, and these people 97________, for two minutes, either high-power poses or
low-power poses, and I'm just going to show you five of the 98________, although they
took on only two. So here's one. A couple more. This one has been 99________ the
"Wonder Woman" by the media. Here are a couple more. So you can be standing or
you can be sitting. And here are the low-power poses. So you're 100________ up, you're
making yourself small. This one is very low-power. When you're touching your neck,
you're really 101________ yourself.

11:00

So this is what happens. They come in, they spit into a 102________, for two minutes,
we say, "You need to do this or this." They don't look at pictures of the poses. We don't
want to 103________ them with a 104________ of power. We want them to be feeling
power. So two minutes they do this. We then ask them, "How powerful do you feel?"
on a series of 104________, and then we give them an opportunity to 105________, and
then we take another saliva sample. That's it. That's the whole experiment.

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11:26

So this is what we find. Risk 106________, which is the gambling, we find that when you
are in the high-power pose 107________, 86 percent of you will gamble. When you're in
the low-power pose condition, only 60 percent, and that's a 108________ significant
difference.

11:41

Here's what we find on testosterone. From their 109________ when they come in, high-
power people experience about a 20-percent 110________, and low-power people
experience about a 10-percent 111________. So again, two minutes, and you get these
changes. Here's what you get on cortisol. High-power people experience about a 25-
percent decrease, and the low-power people experience about a 15-percent increase.
So two minutes lead to these hormonal changes that 112________ your brain to
basically be either assertive, confident and 113________, or really stress-reactive, and
feeling sort of 114________. And we've all had the feeling, right? So it seems that our
nonverbals do govern how we think and feel about ourselves, so it's not just others,
but it's also ourselves. Also, our bodies change our minds.

12:34

But the next question, of course, is, can power posing for a few minutes really change
your life in 115________ ways? This is in the lab, it's this little task, it's just a couple of
minutes. Where can you actually 116________ this? Which we cared about, of course.
And so we think where you want to use this is 117________ situations, like social threat
situations. Where are you being evaluated, either by your friends? For 118________, it's
at the lunchroom table. For some people it's speaking at a school board meeting. It
might be giving a 119________ or giving a talk like this or doing a job 120________. We
decided that the one that most people could relate to because most people had been
through, was the job interview.

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13:18

So we 121________ these findings, and the 122________ are all over it, and they say, Okay,
so this is what you do when you go in for the job interview, right?

13:27

(Laughter)

13:28

You know, so we were of course 123________, and said, Oh my God, no, that's not what
we meant at all. For 124________ reasons, no, don't do that. Again, this is not about you
talking to other people. It's you talking to yourself. What do you do before you go into
a job interview? You do this. You're sitting down. You're looking at your iPhone -- or
your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You're looking at your notes, you're
hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is
this, like, in the bathroom, right? Do that. Find two minutes. So that's what we want
to test. Okay? So we bring people into a 125________, and they do either high- or low-
power poses again, they go through a very 126________ job interview. It's five minutes
long. They are being 127________. They're being judged also, and the judges are
128________ to give no nonverbal 129________, so they look like this. 130________ this is
the person interviewing you. So for five minutes, nothing, and this is worse than being
131________. People hate this. It's what Marianne LaFrance calls "standing in social
quicksand." So this really 132________ your cortisol. So this is the job interview we put
them through, because we really wanted to see what happened. We then have these
133________ look at these tapes, four of them. They're blind to the 134________. They're
blind to the conditions. They have no idea who's been posing in what pose, and they
end up looking at these sets of 135________, and they say, "We want to hire these
people," all the high-power posers. "We don't want to hire these people. We also
evaluate these people much more 136________ overall." But what's driving it? It's not
about the 137________ of the speech. It's about the 138________ that they're bringing to
the speech. Because we rate them on all these 139________ related to competence, like,

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how well-structured is the speech? How good is it? What are their 140________? No
effect on those things. This is what's affected. These kinds of things. People are
bringing their true selves, basically. They're bringing themselves. They bring their
ideas, but as themselves, with no, you know, 141________ over them. So this is what's
driving the effect, or 142________ the effect.

15:32

So when I tell people about this, that our bodies change our minds and our minds can
change our behavior, and our behavior can change our outcomes, they say to me, "It
feels fake." Right? So I said, fake it till you make it. It's not me. I don't want to get there
and then still feel like a 143________. I don't want to feel like an 144________. I don't want
to get there only to feel like I'm not 145________ to be here. And that really resonated
with me, because I want to tell you a little story about being an impostor and feeling
like I'm not supposed to be here.

16:04

When I was 19, I was in a really bad car 146________. I was thrown out of a car, rolled
147________ times. I was thrown from the car. And I woke up in a head 148________
rehab ward, and I had been 149________ from college, and I learned that my IQ had
dropped by two 150________ deviations, which was very 151________. I knew my IQ
because I had 152________ with being smart, and I had been called 153________ as a
child. So I'm taken out of college, I keep trying to go back. They say, "You're not going
to finish college. Just, you know, there are other things for you to do, but that's not
going to work out for you."

16:41

So I really struggled with this, and I have to say, having your identity taken from you,
your core identity, and for me it was being smart, having that taken from you, there's
nothing that leaves you feeling more powerless than that. So I felt 154________

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powerless. I worked and worked, and I got lucky, and worked, and got lucky, and
worked.

16:59

155________ I graduated from college. It took me four years longer than my peers, and
I 156________ someone, my angel 157________, Susan Fiske, to take me on, and so I
ended up at Princeton, and I was like, I am not supposed to be here. I am an impostor.
And the night before my first-year talk, and the first-year talk at Princeton is a 20-
minute talk to 20 people. That's it. I was so 158________ of being found out the next day
that I called her and said, "I'm quitting." She was like, "You are not quitting, because I
took a gamble on you, and you're staying. You're going to stay, and this is what you're
going to do. You are going to fake it. You're going to do every talk that you ever get
asked to do. You're just going to do it and do it and do it, even if you're 159________ and
just 160________ and having an out-of-body experience, until you have this moment
where you say, 'Oh my gosh, I'm doing it. Like, I have become this. I am actually doing
this.'" So that's what I did. Five years in 161________ school, a few years, you know, I'm at
Northwestern, I moved to Harvard, I'm at Harvard, I'm not really thinking about it
anymore, but for a long time I had been thinking, "Not supposed to be here."

18:05

So at the end of my first year at Harvard, a student who had not talked in class the
entire 162________, who I had said, "Look, you've gotta participate or else you're going
to fail," came into my office. I really didn't know her at all. She came in totally
163________, and she said, "I'm not supposed to be here." And that was the 164________
for me. Because two things happened. One was that I realized, oh my gosh, I don't feel
like that anymore. I don't feel that anymore, but she does, and I get that feeling. And
the second was, she is supposed to be here! Like, she can fake it, she can become it.

18:43

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So I was like, "Yes, you are! You are supposed to be here! And 165________ you're going
to fake it, you're going to make yourself powerful, and, you know --

18:52

(Applause)

18:57

And you're going to go into the classroom, and you are going to give the best
comment ever." You know? And she gave the best comment ever, and people turned
around and were like, oh my God, I didn't even 166________ her sitting there. (Laughter)

19:11

She comes back to me months later, and I realized that she had not just faked it till
she made it, she had actually faked it till she 167________it. So she had changed. And
so I want to say to you, don't fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it. Do it
enough until you actually become it and 168________.

19:31

The last thing I'm going to leave you with is this. Tiny 169________ can lead to big
changes. So, this is two minutes. Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. Before you
go into the next stressful evaluative 170________, for two minutes, try doing this, in the
elevator, in a bathroom stall, at your desk behind closed doors. That's what you want
to do. 171________ your brain to cope the best in that situation. Get your testosterone
up. Get your cortisol down. Don't leave that situation feeling like, oh, I didn't show
them who I am. Leave that situation feeling like, I really feel like I got to say who I am
and show who I am.

20:07

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So I want to ask you first, you know, both to try power posing, and also I want to ask
you to share the science, because this is 172________. I don't have 173________ involved
in this. (Laughter) Give it away. Share it with people, because the people who can use
it the most are the ones with no 174________ and no technology and no 175________
and no power. Give it to them because they can do it in 176________. They need their
bodies, privacy and two minutes, and it can significantly change the 177________ of
their life.

20:39

Thank you.

20. How to speak so that people want to listen

00:05

The human voice: It's the 1________ we all play. It's the most powerful sound in the
world, 2________. It's the only one that can start a war or say "I love you." And yet many
people have the 3________ that when they speak, people don't listen to them. And why
is that? How can we speak powerfully to make change in the world?

00:24

What I'd like to suggest, there are a number of 4________ that we need to move away
from. I've 5________ for your pleasure here seven deadly 6________ of speaking. I'm not
pretending this is an 7________list, but these seven, I think, are pretty large habits that
we can all fall into.

00:40

First, gossip. Speaking ill of somebody who's not 8________. Not a nice habit, and we
know 9________ well the person gossiping, five minutes later, will be gossiping about
us.

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00:53

Second, judging. We know people who are like this in 10________, and it's very hard to
listen to somebody if you know that you're being 11________ and found wanting at the
same time.

01:03

Third, 12________. You can fall into this. My mother, in the last years of her life, became
very negative, and it's hard to listen. I remember one day, I said to her, "It's October 1
today," and she said, "I know, isn't it 13________?"

01:16

(Laughter)

01:18

It's hard to listen when somebody's that negative.

01:21

(Laughter)

01:22

And another form of negativity, 14________. Well, this is the national art of the U.K. It's
our national sport. We complain about the weather, sport, about 15________, about
everything, but actually, complaining is viral 16________. It's not spreading sunshine
and lightness in the world.

01:39

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Excuses.

01:41

We've all met this guy. Maybe we've all been this guy. Some people have a 17________.
They just pass it on to everybody else and don't take 18________ for their actions, and
again, hard to listen to somebody who is being like that.

01:54

Penultimate, the sixth of the seven, 19________, exaggeration. It demeans our

language, actually, sometimes. For example, if I see something that really is
20________, what do I call it?

02:06

(Laughter)

02:09

And then, of course, this 21________ becomes lying, and we don't want to listen to
people we know are lying to us.

02:15

And finally, dogmatism. The 22________ of facts with opinions. When those two things
get 23________, you're listening into the wind. You know, somebody is 24________ you
with their opinions as if they were true. It's difficult to listen to that.

02:32

So here they are, seven deadly sins of speaking. These are things I think we need to
25________. But is there a 26________ way to think about this? Yes, there is. I'd like to

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suggest that there are four really powerful cornerstones, 27________, that we can stand
on if we want our speech to be powerful and to make change in the world.
Fortunately, these things 28________ a word. The word is "hail," and it has a great
29________ as well. I'm not talking about the stuff that falls from the sky and hits you
on the head. I'm talking about this definition, to greet or 30________enthusiastically,
which is how I think our words will be 31________if we stand on these four things.

03:10

So what do they stand for? See if you can guess. The H, 32________, of course, being
true in what you say, being straight and clear. The A is 33________, just being yourself.
A friend of mine 34________ it as standing in your own truth, which I think is a lovely
way to put it. The I is 35________, being your word, actually doing what you say, and
being somebody people can trust. And the L is love. I don't mean 36________ love, but
I do mean wishing people well, for two reasons. First of all, I think 37________ honesty
may not be what we want. I mean, my goodness, you look ugly this morning. Perhaps
that's not necessary. 38________with love, of course, honesty is a great thing. But also,
if you're really wishing somebody well, it's very hard to judge them at the same time.
I'm not even sure you can do those two things 39________. So hail.

04:08

Also, now that's what you say, and it's like the old song, it is what you say, it's also the
way that you say it. You have an amazing 40________. This instrument is incredible, and
yet this is a toolbox that very few people have ever opened. I'd like to have a little
41________ in there with you now and just pull a few tools out that you might like to
take away and play with, which will 42________the power of your speaking.

04:29

Register, for example. Now, falsetto register may not be very 43________most of the
time, but there's a register in between. I'm not going to get very 44________about this

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for any of you who are voice 45________. You can locate your voice, however. So if I talk
up here in my nose, you can hear the 46________. If I go down here in my throat, which
is where most of us speak from most of the time. But if you want weight, you need to
go down here to the chest. You hear the difference? We vote for politicians with lower
voices, it's true, because we 47________ depth with power and with 48________. That's
register.

05:07

Then we have timbre. It's the way your voice feels. Again, the 49________ shows that
we prefer voices which are rich, smooth, warm, like hot chocolate. Well if that's not
you, that's not the end of the world, because you can train. Go and get a voice coach.
And there are amazing things you can do with breathing, with 50________, and with
exercises to improve the timbre of your voice.

05:30

Then prosody. I love prosody. This is the sing-song, the meta-language that we use in
order to 51________meaning. It's root one for meaning in conversation. People who
speak all on one note are really quite hard to listen to if they don't have any prosody
at all. That's where the word "monotonic" comes from, or monotonous, 52________.
Also, we have 53________ prosody now coming in, where every sentence ends as if it
were a question when it's actually not a question, it's a 54________?

06:00

(Laughter)

06:02

And if you repeat that one, it's actually 55________ your ability to communicate through
prosody, which I think is a 56________, so let's try and break that habit.

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06:12

Pace.

06:13

I can get very excited by saying something really quickly, or I can slow right down to
57________, and at the end of that, of course, is our old friend silence. There's nothing
wrong with a bit of silence in a talk, is there? We don't have to fill it with ums and ahs.
It can be very powerful.

06:35

Of course, pitch often goes along with pace to 58________ arousal, but you can do it
just with pitch. Where did you leave my keys? (Higher pitch) Where did you leave my
keys? So, slightly different meaning in those two 59________.

06:47

And finally, volume. (Loud) I can get really excited by using volume. Sorry about that,
if I 60________ anybody. Or, I can have you really pay attention by getting very quiet.
Some people 61________ the whole time. Try not to do that. That's called sodcasting,

07:05

(Laughter)

07:06

62________ your sound on people around you carelessly and 63________. Not nice.

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07:12

Of course, where this all comes into play most of all is when you've got something
really important to do. It might be standing on a stage like this and giving a talk to
people. It might be proposing 64________, asking for a raise, a wedding speech.
Whatever it is, if it's really important, you 65________ it to yourself to look at this toolbox
and the 66________ that it's going to work on, and no engine works well without being
warmed up. Warm up your voice.

07:38

Actually, let me show you how to do that. Would you all like to stand up for a 67________
? I'm going to show you the six vocal warm-up 68________ that I do before every talk I
ever do. Any time you're going to talk to anybody important, do these. First, arms up,
deep 69________ in, and sigh out, ahhhhh, like that. One more time. Ahhhh, very good.
Now we're going to warm up our lips, and we're going to go Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba,
Ba. Very good. And now, brrrrrrrrrr, just like when you were a kid. Brrrr. Now your lips
should be coming 70________ . We're going to do the tongue next with exaggerated
la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Beautiful. You're getting really good at this. And then, roll an
R. Rrrrrrr. That's like 71________for the tongue. Finally, and if I can only do one, the
72________call this the siren. It's really good. It starts with "we" and goes to "aw." The
"we" is high, the "aw" is low. So you go, weeeaawww, weeeaawww.

08:46

Fantastic. Give yourselves a round of 73________. Take a seat, thank you.

08:49

(Applause)

08:51

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Next time you speak, do those in 74________.

08:53

Now let me just put this in 75________to close. This is a serious point here. This is where
we are now, right? We speak not very well to people who simply aren't listening in an
76________ that's all about noise and bad 77________. I have talked about that on this
stage in different phases. What would the world be like if we were speaking powerfully
to people who were listening 78________ in environments which were actually fit for
purpose? Or to make that a bit larger, what would the world be like if we were
79________ sound consciously and 80________ sound consciously and designing all our
environments consciously for sound? That would be a world that does sound
beautiful, and one where understanding would be the 81________, and that is an idea
82________ spreading.

09:40

Thank you.

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KEY
1. How to raise successful kids without over parenting

00:04

You know, I didn't set out to be a parenting {{expert}}. In fact, I'm not very {{interested}}
in parenting, per se. It's just that there's a {{certain}} style of parenting these days that
is kind of {{messing up}} kids, impeding their chances to {{develop}} into themselves.
There's a certain style of parenting these days that's getting in the way.

00:28

I {{guess}} what I'm saying is, we {{spend}} a lot of time being very concerned about
parents who aren't {{involved}} enough in the lives of their kids and their {{education}}
or their {{upbringing}}, and rightly so. But at the other end of the {{spectrum}}, there's
a lot of harm going on there as well, where parents feel a kid can't be {{successful}}
unless the parent is protecting and {{preventing}} at every turn and hovering over
every {{happening}}, and micromanaging every {{moment}}, and steering their kid
towards some small subset of {{colleges}} and careers.

01:02

When we raise kids this way, and I'll say we, because Lord knows, in raising my two
teenagers, I've had these tendencies myself, our kids end up leading a kind of
checklisted childhood.

01:16

And here's what the checklisted {{childhood}} looks like. We keep them safe and
sound and fed and watered, and then we want to be {{sure}} they go to the right
schools, that they're in the right classes at the right schools, and that they get the right
grades in the right classes in the right schools. But not just the grades, the scores, and
not just the grades and scores, but the accolades and the {{awards}} and the sports,

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the activities, the {{leadership}}. We tell our kids, don't just join a club, {{start}} a club,
because colleges want to see that. And check the box for {{community service}}. I
mean, show the colleges you {{care}} about others.

01:49

(Laughter)

01:51

And all of this is done to some hoped-for {{degree}} of perfection. We expect our kids
to perform at a level of perfection we were never asked to perform at ourselves, and
so because so much is {{required}}, we think, well then, of course we parents have to
{{argue}} with every teacher and {{principal}} and coach and {{referee}} and act like our
kid's concierge and personal handler and secretary.

02:19

And then with our kids, our precious kids, we spend so much time nudging, cajoling,
hinting, {{helping}}, haggling, nagging as the case may be, to be sure they're not
screwing up, not closing doors, not {{ruining}} their future, some hoped-for
{{admission}} to a tiny handful of colleges that deny almost every applicant.

02:46

And here's what it feels like to be a kid in this checklisted childhood. First of all, there's
no time for free play. There's no room in the {{afternoons}}, because everything has to
be enriching, we think. It's as if every piece of {{homework}}, every quiz, every activity
is a make-or-break moment for this {{future}} we have in mind for them, and we
absolve them of {{helping out}} around the house, and we even absolve them of
getting enough {{sleep}} as long as they're {{checking off}} the items on their checklist.
And in the checklisted childhood, we say we just want them to be happy, but when

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they come home from school, what we ask about all too often first is their
{{homework}} and their {{grades}}. And they see in our faces that our {{approval}}, that
our love, that their very worth, comes from A's. And then we walk alongside them and
offer clucking praise like a {{trainer}} at the Westminster Dog Show --

03:45

(Laughter)

03:46

coaxing them to just jump a little higher and soar a little farther, day after day after
day. And when they get to high school, they don't say, "Well, what might I be
interested in studying or doing as an activity?" They go to {{counsellors}} and they say,
"What do I need to do to get into the right college?" And then, when the grades start
to roll in in high school, and they're getting some B's, or God forbid some C's, they
frantically {{text}} their friends and say, "Has anyone ever gotten into the right college
with these grades?"

04:21

And our kids, regardless of where they end up at the end of high school, they're
{{breathless}}. They're brittle. They're a little {{burned out}}. They're a little old before
their time, wishing the grown-ups in their lives had said, "What you've done is enough,
this effort you've put forth in childhood is enough." And they're withering now under
high rates of {{anxiety}} and depression and some of them are wondering, will this life
ever {{turn out}} to have been worth it?

04:53

Well, we parents, we parents are pretty sure it's all worth it. We seem to behave -- it's
like we literally think they will have no future if they don't get into one of these tiny

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sets of colleges or careers we have in mind for them.

05:09

Or maybe, maybe, we're just afraid they won't have a future we can brag about to our
friends and with stickers on the backs of our cars. Yeah.

05:22

(Applause)

05:28

But if you look at what we've done, if you have the {{courage}} to really look at it, you'll
see that not only do our kids think their worth comes from grades and scores, but that
when we live right up inside their {{precious}} developing minds all the time, like our
very own version of the movie "Being John Malkovich," we send our children the
{{message}}: "Hey kid, I don't think you can actually achieve any of this without me."
And so with our overhelp, our {{overprotection}} and overdirection and hand-holding,
we {{deprive}} our kids of the chance to build self-efficacy, which is a really
{{fundamental}} tenet of the human psyche, far more important than that {{self-
esteem}} they get every time we applaud. Self-efficacy is built when one sees that
one's own actions lead to outcomes, not -- There you go.

06:21

(Applause)

06:25

Not one's parents' actions on one's {{behalf}}, but when one's own actions lead to
{{outcomes}}. So simply put, if our children are to develop self-efficacy, and they must,
then they have to do a whole lot more of the thinking, planning, deciding, doing,

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hoping, {{coping}}, trial and error, dreaming and {{experiencing}} of life for themselves.

06:52

Now, am I saying every kid is hard-working and motivated and doesn't need a parent's
involvement or interest in their lives, and we should just back off and let go? Hell no.

07:04

(Laughter)

07:06

That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, when we treat grades and scores and
accolades and {{awards}} as the purpose of childhood, all in furtherance of some
hoped-for {{admission}} to a tiny number of colleges or {{entrance}} to a small number
of careers, that that's too {{narrow}} a definition of success for our kids. And even
though we might help them achieve some {{short-term}} wins by overhelping -- like
they get a better grade if we help them do their homework, they might end up with
a longer childhood {{résumé}} when we help -- what I'm saying is that all of this comes
at a long-term cost to their sense of self. What I'm saying is, we should be less
concerned with the {{specific}} set of colleges they might be able to apply to or might
get into and far more concerned that they have the {{habits}}, the mindset, the skill
set, the wellness, to be {{successful}} wherever they go. What I'm saying is, our kids
need us to be a little less {{obsessed}} with grades and scores and a whole lot more
interested in childhood providing a foundation for their success built on things like
love and chores.

08:19

(Laughter)

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08:22

(Applause)

08:26

Did I just say chores? Did I just say chores? I really did. But really, here's why. The
longest longitudinal {{study}} of humans ever {{conducted}} is called the Harvard Grant
Study. It found that professional success in life, which is what we want for our kids,
that professional success in life {{comes from}} having done chores as a kid, and the
earlier you started, the better, that a roll-up-your-sleeves- and-pitch-in mindset, a
mindset that says, there's some {{unpleasant}} work, someone's gotta do it, it might as
well be me, a mindset that says, I will {{contribute}} my effort to the {{betterment}} of
the whole, that that's what gets you ahead in the {{workplace}}. Now, we all know this.
You know this.

09:08

(Applause)

09:11

We all know this, and yet, in the checklisted childhood, we absolve our kids of doing
the work of chores around the house, and then they end up as {{young adults}} in the
workplace still waiting for a checklist, but it doesn't {{exist}}, and more importantly,
lacking the impulse, the {{instinct}} to roll up their sleeves and pitch in and look around
and wonder, how can I be useful to my {{colleagues}}? How can I {{anticipate}} a few
steps ahead to what my boss might need?

09:39

A second very important finding from the Harvard Grant Study said that {{happiness}}
in life comes from love, not love of work, love of humans: our spouse, our partner, our

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friends, our family. So childhood needs to teach our kids how to love, and they can't
love others if they don't first love themselves, and they won't love themselves if we
can't offer them {{unconditional}} love.

10:08

(Applause)

10:13

Right. And so, instead of being obsessed with grades and scores when our precious
{{offspring}} come home from school, or we come home from work, we need to close
our {{technology}}, put away our phones, and look them in the eye and let them see
the {{joy}} that fills our faces when we see our child for the first time in a few hours.
And then we have to say, "How was your day? What did you like about today?" And
when your teenage daughter says, "Lunch," like mine did, and I want to hear about
the math test, not lunch, you have to still {{take an interest}} in lunch. You gotta say,
"What was great about lunch today?" They need to know they matter to us as
{{humans}}, not because of their GPA.

11:03

All right, so you're thinking, chores and love, that sounds all well and good, but give
me a break. The colleges want to see top scores and grades and accolades and awards,
and I'm going to tell you, sort of. The very biggest brand-name schools are asking that
of our {{young adults}}, but here's the good news. Contrary to what the college
rankings racket would have us believe --

11:29

(Applause)

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11:35

you don't have to go to one of the biggest brand name schools to be happy and
successful in life. Happy and successful people went to {{state school}}, went to a small
college no one has heard of, went to {{community college}}, went to a college over
here and flunked out.

11:49

(Applause)

11:56

The evidence in this room is in our communities, that this is the truth. And if we could
widen our {{blinders}} and be willing to look at a few more colleges, maybe remove
our own {{egos}} from the equation, we could accept and {{embrace}} this truth and
then realize, it is hardly the end of the world if our kids don't go to one of those big
brand-name schools. And more {{importantly}}, if their childhood has not been lived
{{according to}} a tyrannical checklist then when they get to college, whichever one it
is, well, they'll have gone there on their own volition, fuelled by their own {{desire}},
capable and ready to thrive there.

12:40

I have to {{admit}} something to you. I've got two kids I mentioned, Sawyer and Avery.
They're teenagers. And once upon a time, I think I was treating my Sawyer and Avery
like little bonsai trees --

12:54

(Laughter)

12:56

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that I was going to carefully {{clip}} and prune and {{shape}} into some perfect form of
a human that might just be {{perfect}} enough to warrant them admission to one of
the most highly {{selective}} colleges. But I've come to realize, after working with
thousands of other people's kids --

13:15

(Laughter)

13:17

and raising two kids of my own, my kids aren't bonsai trees. They're {{wildflowers}} of
an unknown genus and species --

13:30

(Laughter)

13:32

and it's my job to provide a {{nourishing}} environment, to {{strengthen}} them

through chores and to love them so they can love others and {{receive}} love and the
college, the major, the career, that's up to them. My job is not to make them become
what I would have them become, but to {{support}} them in becoming their
{{glorious}} selves.

13:58

Thank you.

14:00

(Applause)

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2. Perspective is everything

00:04

What you have here is an {{electronic}} cigarette. It's something that, since it was
invented a year or two ago, has given me untold {{happiness}}.

00:15

(Laughter)

00:16

A little bit of it, I think, is the {{nicotine}}, but there's something much bigger than that;
which is, ever since, in the UK, they banned smoking in {{public places}}, I've never
enjoyed a drinks {{party}} ever again.

00:29

(Laughter)

00:31

And the reason, I only worked out just the other day, which is: when you go to a drinks
party and you {{stand up}} and hold a glass of red wine and you talk {{endlessly}} to
people, you don't actually want to spend all the time talking. It's really, really tiring.
Sometimes you just want to stand there {{silently}}, alone with your thoughts.
Sometimes you just want to stand in the corner and stare out of the window. Now the
problem is, when you can't {{smoke}}, if you stand and stare out of the window on your
own, you're an antisocial, {{friendless}} idiot.

01:02

(Laughter)

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01:04

If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a fucking
{{philosopher}}.

01:09

(Laughter)

01:12

(Applause)

01:18

So the power of reframing things cannot be {{overstated}}. What we have is exactly

the same thing, the same activity, but one of them makes you feel {{great}} and the
other one, with just a small {{change}} of posture, makes you feel terrible. And I think
one of the problems with {{classical}} economics is, it's absolutely preoccupied with
{{reality}}. And reality isn't a {{particularly}} good guide to human {{happiness}}. Why,
for example, are pensioners {{much happier}} than the young unemployed? Both of
them, after all, are in {{exactly}} the same stage of life. You both have too much time
on your hands and not much money. But pensioners are {{reportedly}} very, very
happy, whereas the unemployed are {{extraordinarily}} unhappy and depressed. The
reason, I think, is that the pensioners believe they've chosen to be pensioners, whereas
the young unemployed feel it's been {{thrust}} upon them.

02:18

In England, the upper-middle classes have actually solved this problem {{perfectly}},
because they've re-branded unemployment. If you're an upper-middle-class English
person, you call unemployment "a year off."

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02:29

(Laughter)

02:32

And that's because having a son who's unemployed in Manchester is really quite
{{embarrassing}}. But having a son who's unemployed in Thailand is really viewed as
quite an {{accomplishment}}.

02:42

(Laughter)

02:44

But actually, the power to re-brand things -- to understand that our {{experiences}},
costs, things don't actually much depend on what they really are, but on how we view
them -- I genuinely think can't be overstated.

02:59

There's an experiment I think Daniel Pink {{refers to}}, where you put two dogs in a box
and the box has an electric floor. Every now and then, an electric shock is {{applied}}
to the floor, which pains the dogs. The only difference is one of the dogs has a small
button in its half of the box. And when it nuzzles the button, the electric shock {{stops}}.
The other dog doesn't have the button. It's exposed to exactly the same level of pain
as the dog in the first box, but it has no control over the {{circumstances}}. Generally,
the first dog can be relatively {{content}}. The second dog lapses into complete
{{depression}}.

03:42

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The {{circumstances}} of our lives may actually matter less to our happiness than the
sense of {{control}} we feel over our lives. It's an {{interesting}} question. We ask the
question -- the whole debate in the Western world is about the level of {{taxation}}.
But I think there's another debate to be {{asked}}, which is the level of control we have
over our {{tax money}}, that what costs us 10 pounds in one context can be a {{curse}};
what costs us 10 pounds in a different context, we may actually {{welcome}}. You know,
pay 20,000 pounds in tax toward {{health}}, and you're merely feeling a {{mug}}. Pay
20,000 pounds to endow a hospital ward, and you're called a {{philanthropist}}. I'm
probably in the wrong country to talk about {{willingness}} to pay tax.

04:31

(Laughter)

04:33

So I'll give you one in return: how you frame things really matters. Do you call it "The
bailout of Greece"? Or "The bailout of a load of stupid banks which lent to Greece"?

04:44

(Laughter)

04:45

Because they are actually the same thing. What you call them actually {{affects}} how
you react to them, viscerally and {{morally}}. I think psychological value is great, to be
absolutely {{honest}}. One of my great friends, a professor called Nick Chater, who's
the Professor of Decision Sciences in London, {{believes}} we should spend far less
time looking into humanity's hidden {{depths}}, and spend much more time exploring
the hidden {{shallows}}. I think that's true, actually. I think {{impressions}} have an
insane effect on what we think and what we do. But what we don't have is a really

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good {{model}} of human {{psychology}} -- at least pre-Kahneman, perhaps, we didn't
have a really good model of human psychology to put alongside models of
{{engineering}}, of neoclassical economics.

05:31

So people who believed in psychological {{solutions}} didn't have a model. We didn't

have a {{framework}}. This is what Warren Buffett's business partner Charlie Munger
calls "a latticework on which to hang your ideas." Engineers, economists, classical
economists all had a very, very {{robust}} existing latticework on which practically
every idea could be hung. We merely have a {{collection}} of random individual
{{insights}} without an overall model. And what that means is that, in looking at
solutions, we've probably given too much {{priority}} to what I call technical
engineering solutions, Newtonian solutions, and not nearly enough to the
{{psychological}} ones.

06:10

You know my example of the Eurostar: six million pounds spent to reduce the
{{journey}} time between Paris and London by about 40 minutes. For 0.01 percent of
this money, you could have put wi-fi on the {{trains}}, which wouldn't have reduced
the {{duration}} of the journey, but would have improved its {{enjoyment}} and its
usefulness far more. For maybe 10 percent of the money, you could have paid all of
the world's top male and female {{supermodels}} to walk up and down the train
handing out free Château Pétrus to all the {{passengers}}.

06:40

(Laughter)

06:41

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You'd still have five million pounds in change, and people would ask for the trains to
be slowed down.

06:46

(Laughter)

06:51

Why were we not given the chance to solve that problem {{psychologically}}? I think
it's because there's an {{imbalance}}, an asymmetry in the way we treat {{creative}},
emotionally driven psychological ideas versus the way we treat {{rational}}, numerical,
spreadsheet-driven ideas. If you're a creative person, I think, quite rightly, you have to
share all your ideas for {{approval}} with people much more rational than you. You have
to go in and have a cost-benefit {{analysis}}, a feasibility {{study}}, an ROI study and {{so
forth}}. And I think that's probably right. But this does not apply the other way around.
People who have an {{existing}} framework -- an economic framework, an engineering
framework -- feel that, actually, {{logic}} is its own answer. What they don't say is, "Well,
the numbers all seem to add up, but before I present this {{idea}}, I'll show it to some
really crazy people to see if they can come up with something {{better}}." And so we -
- {{artificially}}, I think -- prioritize what I'd call mechanistic ideas over psychological
ideas.

07:51

An {{example}} of a great psychological idea: the single best improvement in

passenger {{satisfaction}} on the London Underground, per pound spent, came when
they didn't add any extra trains}}, nor change the frequency of the trains; they put dot
matrix {{display boards}} on the platforms -- because the nature of a wait is not just
dependent on its numerical {{quality}}, its duration, but on the level of {{uncertainty}}
you experience during that wait. Waiting seven minutes for a train with a {{countdown
clock}} is less frustrating and irritating than waiting four minutes, knuckle biting,

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going, "When's this train going to damn well arrive?"

08:26

Here's a beautiful example of a psychological solution {{deployed}} in Korea. Red traffic

lights have a countdown {{delay}}. It's proven to reduce the accident rate in
{{experiments}}. Why? Because road rage, {{impatience}} and general irritation are
{{massively}} reduced when you can actually see the time you have to wait. In China,
not really understanding the principle behind this, they applied the same {{principle}}
to green traffic lights --

08:49

(Laughter)

08:53

which isn't a great idea. You're 200 yards away, you realize you've got five seconds to
go, you floor it.

08:59

(Laughter)

09:02

The Koreans, very assiduously, did test both. The accident rate goes down when you
apply this to red traffic lights; it goes up when you apply it to green traffic lights.

09:11

This is all I'm asking for, really, in human {{decision making}}, is the consideration of
these three things. I'm not asking for the {{complete}} primacy of one over the other.

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I'm merely saying that when you {{solve}} problems, you should look at all three of
these {{equally}}, and you should seek as far as {{possible}} to find solutions which sit
in the sweet spot in the middle.

09:29

If you actually look at a great {{business}}, you'll nearly always see all of these three
things coming into play. Really successful businesses -- Google is a great, great
technological success, but it's also based on a very good psychological {{insight}}:
people believe something that only does one thing is better at that thing than
something that does that thing and something else. It's an {{innate}} thing called "goal
dilution." Ayelet Fishbach has written a paper about this.

09:55

Everybody else at the time of Google, more or less, was trying to be a {{portal}}. Yes,
there's a search function, but you also have weather, sports scores, bits of news.
Google understood that if you're just a {{search engine}}, people assume you're a very,
very good search engine. All of you know this, actually, from when you go in to buy a
{{television}}, and in the shabbier end of the row of flat-screen TVs, you can see, are
these rather despised things called "combined TV and DVD players." And we have no
{{knowledge}} whatsoever of the quality of those things, but we look at a combined
TV and DVD player and we go, "Uck. It's probably a bit of a crap telly and a bit
{{rubbish}} as a DVD player." So we walk out of the {{shops}} with one of each. Google
is as much a psychological {{success}} as it is a technological one.

10:42

I propose that we can use {{psychology}} to solve problems that we didn't even
{{realize}} were problems at all. This is my {{suggestion}} for getting people to finish
their course of {{antibiotics}}. Don't give them 24 white {{pills}}; give them 18 white pills
and six blue ones and tell them to take the white pills {{first}}, and then take the blue

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ones. It's called "chunking." The {{likelihood}} that people will get to the end is much
greater when there is a {{milestone}} somewhere in the middle.

11:08

One of the great mistakes, I think, of economics is it fails to understand that what
something is -- whether it's retirement, unemployment, cost -- is a function, not only
of its amount, but also its meaning.

11:21

This is a toll crossing in Britain. Quite {{often}} queues happen at the tolls. Sometimes
you get very, very {{severe}} queues. You could apply the same {{principle}}, actually, to
the security lanes in {{airports}}. What would happen if you could actually pay twice as
much money to cross the {{bridge}}, but go through a lane that's an {{express}} lane?
It's not an {{unreasonable}} thing to do; it's an {{economically}} efficient thing to do.
Time means more to some people than others. If you're waiting trying to get to a {{job
interview}}, you'd patiently pay a couple of pounds more to go through the {{fast}} lane.
If you're on the way to visit your mother-in-law, you'd probably prefer --

11:55

(Laughter)

11:57

you'd probably prefer to stay on the left.

11:59

The only problem is if you introduce this economically {{efficient}} solution, people
hate it ... because they think you're deliberately creating {{delays}} at the bridge in
order to maximize your {{revenue}}, and, "Why on earth should I pay to subsidize your

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incompetence?" On the other hand, change the frame {{slightly}} and create
charitable yield {{management}}, so the extra money you get goes not to the {{bridge}}
company, it goes to charity ... and the mental willingness to pay {{completely}}
changes. You have a relatively economically efficient solution, but one that actually
{{meets}} with public approval and even a small degree of {{affection}}, rather than
being seen as bastardy.

12:38

So where economists make the {{fundamental}} mistake is they think that money is
money. Actually, my pain experienced in paying five pounds is not just
{{proportionate}} to the amount, but where I think that money is going. And I think
{{understanding}} that could revolutionize {{tax policy}}. It could revolutionize the
{{public services}}. It could actually change things quite {{significantly}}.

13:00

[Ludwig Von Mises is my hero.]

13:01

Here's a guy you all need to {{study}}. He's an Austrian School economist who was first
active in the {{first half}} of the 20th century in Vienna. What was interesting about the
Austrian School is they actually grew up alongside Freud. And so they're
{{predominantly}} interested in psychology. They believed that there was a
{{discipline}} called praxeology, which is a {{prior}} discipline to the study of economics.
Praxeology is the study of human {{choice}}, action and {{decision-making}}. I think
they're right. I think the {{danger}} we have in today's world is we have the study of
economics considers itself to be a {{prior}} discipline to the study of human
psychology. But as Charlie Munger says, "If economics isn't behavioural, I don't know
what the hell is."

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13:45

Von Mises, {{interestingly}}, believes economics is just a {{subset}} of psychology. I think

he just {{refers}} to economics as "the study of human praxeology under conditions of
scarcity." But Von Mises, among many other things, I think uses an {{analogy}} which
is probably the best {{justification}} and explanation for the value of {{marketing}}, the
value of perceived value and the fact that we should treat it as being absolutely
{{equivalent}} to any other kind of value.

14:14

We tend to, all of us, even those of us who work in {{marketing}}, think of value in two
ways: the real value, which is when you make something in a factory or provide a
{{service}}, and then there's a {{dubious}} value, which you create by {{changing}} the
way people look at things. Von Mises completely rejected this {{distinction}}. And he
used this following {{analogy}}: he referred to strange economists called the French
physiocrats, who believed that the only {{true}} value was what you {{extracted}} from
the land. So if you're a {{shepherd}} or a quarryman or a farmer, you created true value.
If however, you {{bought}} some wool from the shepherd and {{charged}} a premium
for {{converting}} it into a hat, you weren't actually creating value, you were
{{exploiting}} the shepherd.

14:54

Now, Von Mises said that modern economists make exactly the same {{mistake}} with
regard to {{advertising}} and marketing. He says if you run a restaurant, there is no
{{healthy}} distinction to be made between the value you create by {{cooking}} the
food and the value you create by {{sweeping}} the floor. One of them creates, perhaps,
the primary product -- the thing we think we're paying for -- the other one creates a
{{context}} within which we can enjoy and {{appreciate}} that product. And the idea
that one of them should have priority over the other is {{fundamentally}} wrong.

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15:24

Try this quick thought experiment: imagine a restaurant that serves Michelin-starred
food, but where the restaurant smells of sewage and there's human faeces on the
floor.

15:33

(Laughter)

15:35

The best thing you can do there to create value is not actually to {{improve}} the food
still further, it's to {{get rid of}} the smell and clean up the floor. And it's {{vital}} we
understand this.

15:48

If that seems like a sort of {{strange}}, abstruse thing -- in the UK, the post office had a
98 percent success rate at delivering {{first-class}} mail the next day. They decided this
wasn't good {{enough}}, and they wanted to get it up to 99. The {{effort}} to do that
almost broke the {{organization}}. If, at the same time, you'd gone and asked people,
"What percentage of first-class mail arrives the next day?" the {{average}} answer, or
the modal answer, would have been "50 to 60 percent." Now, if your perception is
much worse than your {{reality}}, what on earth are you doing {{trying}} to change the
reality? That's like trying to improve the food in a restaurant that {{stinks}}. What you
need to do is, first of all, tell people that 98 percent of first-class mail gets there the
next day. That's pretty good. I would {{argue}}, in Britain, there's a much better frame
of {{reference}}, which is to tell people that more first-class mail arrives the next day in
the UK than in Germany, because {{generally}}, in Britain, if you want to make us
{{happy}} about something, just tell us we do it better than the Germans.

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16:50

(Laughter)

16:52

(Applause)

16:54

Choose your frame of reference and the {{perceived}} value, and {{therefore}}, the
actual value is completely {{transformed}}. It has to be said of the Germans that the
Germans and the French are doing a {{brilliant}} job of creating a united Europe. The
only thing they didn't {{expect}} is they're uniting Europe through a shared mild
{{hatred}} of the French and Germans. But I'm British; that's the way we like it.

17:15

(Laughter)

17:17

What you'll also notice is that, in any case, our {{perception}} is leaky. We can't tell the
{{difference}} between the quality of the food and the {{environment}} in which we
consume it. All of you will have seen this {{phenomenon}} if you have your car washed
or valeted. When you drive away, your car feels as if it drives better.

17:33

(Laughter)

17:34

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And the reason for this -- unless my car valet {{mysteriously}} is changing the oil and
{{performing}} work which I'm not paying him for and I'm {{unaware of}} -- is because
perception is, in any case, leaky.

17:44

Analgesics that are branded are more effective at {{reducing}} pain than analgesics
that are not branded. I don't just mean through {{reported}} pain reduction -- actual
measured pain reduction. And so {{perception}} actually is leaky in any case. So if you
do something that's perceptually bad in one {{respect}}, you can damage the other.

18:03

Thank you very much.

18:04

(Applause)

3. My stroke of insight

00:03

I {{grew up}} to study the brain because I have a brother who has been {{diagnosed}}
with a brain disorder, schizophrenia. And as a sister and later, as a {{scientist}}, I wanted
to understand, why is it that I can take my {{dreams}}, I can connect them to my
{{reality}}, and I can make my dreams come true? What is it about my brother's brain
and his schizophrenia that he cannot {{connect}} his dreams to a common and shared
reality, so they instead become {{delusion}}?

00:35

So I dedicated my career to research into the severe mental {{illnesses}}. And I moved
from my home state of Indiana to Boston, where I was working in the {{lab}} of Dr.
Francine Benes, in the Harvard Department of Psychiatry. And in the lab, we were

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asking the {{question}}, "What are the biological differences between the brains of
{{individuals}} who would be diagnosed as normal {{control}}, as compared with the
brains of {{individuals}} diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective or {{bipolar
disorder}}?

01:08

So we were {{essentially}} mapping the microcircuitry of the {{brain}}: which cells are
communicating with which cells, with which {{chemicals}}, and then in what
{{quantities}} of those chemicals? So there was a lot of {{meaning}} in my life because
I was performing this type of research during the day, but then in the evenings and
on the {{weekends}}, I travelled as an {{advocate}} for NAMI, the National Alliance on
Mental Illness.

01:35

But on the morning of December 10, 1996, I woke up to {{discover}} that I had a brain
disorder of my own. A blood vessel {{exploded}} in the left half of my brain. And in the
{{course}} of four hours, I watched my brain completely {{deteriorate}} in its ability to
process all information. On the morning of the haemorrhage, I could not walk, talk,
read, write or {{recall}} any of my life. I essentially became an {{infant}} in a woman's
body.

02:08

If you've ever seen a human brain, it's obvious that the two hemispheres are
completely {{separate}} from one another. And I have brought for you a real human
brain.

02:20

(Groaning, laughter)

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02:28

So this is a real human brain. This is the {{front}} of the brain, the {{back}} of brain with
the spinal cord {{hanging}} down, and this is how it would be {{positioned}} inside of
my head. And when you look at the brain, it's {{obvious}} that the two cerebral cortices
are {{completely}} separate from one another.

02:49

For those of you who understand {{computers}}, our right hemisphere {{functions}}
like a {{parallel}} processor, while our left hemisphere functions like a {{serial}}
processor. The two hemispheres do {{communicate}} with one another through the
corpus callosum, which is made up of some 300 {{million}} axonal fibres. But other
than that, the two hemispheres are completely separate. Because they process
information {{differently}}, each of our hemispheres {{think}} about different things,
they {{care}} about different things, and, dare I say, they have very different
{{personalities}}. Excuse me. Thank you. It's been a joy.

03:32

Assistant: It has been.

03:33

(Laughter)

03:36

Our right human hemisphere is all about this {{present}} moment. It's all about "right
here, right now." Our right hemisphere, it thinks in {{pictures}} and it learns
kinaesthetically through the movement of our {{bodies}}. Information, in the form of
energy, {{streams}} in simultaneously through all of our sensory {{systems}} and then

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it explodes into this {{enormous}} collage of what this present moment looks like, what
this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds
like. I am an energy-being {{connected}} to the energy all around me through the
{{consciousness}} of my right hemisphere. We are energy-beings connected to one
another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human {{family}}.
And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the
world a {{better place}}. And in this moment we are {{perfect}}, we are whole and we
are {{beautiful}}.

04:47

My left hemisphere, our left hemisphere, is a very different {{place}}. Our left
hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the
{{past}} and it's all about the {{future}}. Our left hemisphere is {{designed}} to take that
enormous collage of the present moment and start {{picking out}} details, and more
details about those details. It then {{categorizes}} and organizes all that {{information}},
associates it with everything in the past we've ever {{learned}}, and projects into the
future all of our {{possibilities}}. And our left hemisphere thinks in {{language}}. It's that
ongoing brain chatter that {{connects}} me and my internal world to my external
world. It's that little {{voice}} that says to me, "Hey, you've got to remember to pick up
bananas on your way home. I need them in the morning." It's that calculating
{{intelligence}} that reminds me when I have to do my {{laundry}}. But perhaps most
{{important}}, it's that little voice that says to me, "I am. I am."

05:58

And as soon as my left hemisphere says to me "I am," I become {{separate}}. I become
a single {{solid}} individual, separate from the {{energy flow}} around me and separate
from you. And this was the {{portion}} of my brain that I lost on the morning of my
{{stroke}}.

06:15

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On the morning of the stroke, I woke up to a {{pounding}} pain behind my left {{eye}}.
And it was the kind of {{caustic}} pain that you get when you bite into {{ice cream}}.
And it just {{gripped}} me -- and then it {{released}} me. And then it just gripped me --
and then it released me. And it was very unusual for me to ever {{experience}} any kind
of pain, so I thought, "OK, I'll just start my normal routine."

06:43

So I got up and I jumped onto my cardio {{glider}}, which is a full-body, full-exercise

{{machine}}. And I'm jamming away on this thing, and I'm {{realizing}} that my hands
look like primitive {{claws}} grasping onto the {{bar}}. And I thought, "That's very
peculiar." And I looked down at my body and I thought, "Whoa, I'm a weird-looking
thing." And it was as though my {{consciousness}} had shifted away from my normal
{{perception}} of reality, where I'm the person on the machine having the
{{experience}}, to some esoteric space where I'm {{witnessing}} myself having this
experience.

07:20

And it was all very peculiar, and my {{headache}} was just getting worse. So I get off
the machine, and I'm walking {{across}} my living room floor, and I realize that
everything inside of my body has {{slowed}} way down. And every step is very {{rigid}}
and very deliberate. There's no fluidity to my {{pace}}, and there's this constriction in
my area of {{perception}}, so I'm just focused on internal systems. And I'm standing in
my {{bathroom}} getting ready to step into the {{shower}}, and I could actually hear
the {{dialogue}} inside of my body. I heard a little voice saying, "OK. You muscles, you've
got to {{contract}}. You muscles, you {{relax}}."

07:55

And then I lost my {{balance}}, and I'm propped up against the {{wall}}. And I look down
at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the {{boundaries}} of my body. I

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can't define where I begin and where I end, because the atoms and the molecules of
my arm {{blended}} with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could {{detect}}
was this energy -- energy.

08:21

And I'm asking myself, "What is wrong with me? What is going on?" And in that
moment, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally {{silent}}. Just like someone
took a {{remote control}} and pushed the {{mute}} button. Total silence. And at first I
was {{shocked}} to find myself inside of a silent {{mind}}. But then I was immediately
{{captivated}} by the magnificence of the {{energy}} around me. And because I could
no longer identify the {{boundaries}} of my body, I felt enormous and {{expansive}}. I
felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there.

09:01

Then all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back {{online}} and it says to me, "Hey!
We've got a problem! We've got to get some help." And I'm going, "Ahh! I've got a
problem!"

09:10

(Laughter)

09:12

So it's like, "OK, I've got a problem." But then I {{immediately}} drifted right back out
into the {{consciousness}} -- and I affectionately {{refer}} to this space as La La Land.
But it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally {{disconnected}}
from your brain chatter that connects you to the {{external}} world.

09:31

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So here I am in this {{space}}, and my job, and any stress related to my job -- it was
{{gone}}. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine all of the {{relationships}} in the
external world and any stressors {{related}} to any of those -- they were gone. And I felt
this sense of {{peacefulness}}. And imagine what it would feel like to lose 37 years of
emotional {{baggage}}! (Laughter) Oh! I felt euphoria -- euphoria. It was beautiful.

10:06

And again, my left hemisphere comes online and it says, "Hey! You've got to {{pay
attention}}. We've got to get help." And I'm thinking, "I've got to get help. I've got to
{{focus}}." So I get out of the shower and I {{mechanically}} dress and I'm walking
around my {{apartment}}, and I'm thinking, "I've got to get to work. Can I drive?"

10:23

And in that moment, my right arm went totally {{paralyzed}} by my side. Then I
{{realized}}, "Oh my gosh! I'm having a stroke!" And the next thing my brain says to me
is, Wow! This is so cool!

10:36

(Laughter)

10:38

This is so cool! How many brain scientists have the {{opportunity}} to study their own
brain from the inside out?"

10:45

(Laughter)

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10:47

And then it crosses my mind, "But I'm a very busy woman!"

10:51

(Laughter)

10:52

"I don't have time for a stroke!" So I'm like, "OK, I can't stop the stroke from
{{happening}}, so I'll do this for a week or two, and then I'll get back to my {{routine}}.
OK. So I've got to call help. I've got to call work." I couldn't remember the number at
work, so I remembered, in my office I had a {{business card}} with my number. So I go
into my business room, I {{pull out}} a three-inch stack of business cards. And I'm
looking at the card on top and {{even though}} I could see {{clearly}} in my mind's eye
what my business card looked like, I couldn't tell if this was my card or not, because
all I could see were {{pixels}}. And the pixels of the {{words}} blended with the pixels of
the {{background}} and the pixels of the symbols, and I just couldn't tell. And then I
would {{wait}} for what I call a wave of {{clarity}}. And in that moment, I would be able
to {{reattach}} to normal reality and I could tell that's not the card... that's not the card.
It took me 45 minutes to get one inch down inside of that stack of cards. In the
{{meantime}}, for 45 minutes, the haemorrhage is getting {{bigger}} in my left
hemisphere. I do not understand {{numbers}}, I do not understand the {{telephone}},
but it's the only plan I have.

11:59

So I take the phone pad and I put it right here. I take the business card, I put it right
here, and I'm matching the shape of the squiggles on the card to the shape of the
squiggles on the phone pad. But then I would {{drift back}} out into La La Land, and
not remember when I came back if I'd already {{dialled}} those numbers. So I had to
wield my {{paralyzed}} arm like a stump and {{cover}} the numbers as I went along and

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{{pushed}} them, so that as I would come back to {{normal}} reality, I'd be able to tell,
"Yes, I've already dialled that number."

12:33

Eventually, the whole number gets dialled and I'm listening to the phone, and my
{{colleague}} picks up the phone and he says to me, "Woo woo woo woo." (Laughter)

12:42

(Laughter)

12:46

And I think to myself, "Oh my gosh, he sounds like a Golden Retriever!"

12:51

(Laughter)

12:52

And so I say to him -- clear in my mind, I say to him: "This is Jill! I need {{help}}!" And
what comes out of my {{voice}} is, "Woo woo woo woo woo." I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh,
I sound like a Golden Retriever." So I couldn't know -- I didn't know that I couldn't speak
or understand {{language}} until I tried. So he {{recognizes}} that I need help and he
gets me help.

13:13

And a little while {{later}}, I am riding in an {{ambulance}} from one hospital across
Boston to [Massachusetts] General Hospital. And I {{curl up}} into a little fetal ball. And
just like a balloon}} with the last bit of {{air}}, just right out of the balloon, I just felt my

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{{energy}} lift and just I felt my {{spirit}} surrender.

13:39

And in that moment, I knew that I was {{no longer}} the choreographer of my life. And
either the doctors {{rescue}} my body and give me a second {{chance}} at life, or this
was perhaps my moment of {{transition}}.

13:58

When I woke later that afternoon, I was shocked to {{discover}} that I was still {{alive}}.
When I felt my spirit surrender, I said {{goodbye}} to my life. And my mind was now
{{suspended}} between two very opposite {{planes}} of reality. {{Stimulation}} coming
in through my sensory {{systems}} felt like pure pain. Light burned my brain like
{{wildfire}}, and sounds were so {{loud}} and chaotic that I could not pick a voice out
from the {{background noise}}, and I just wanted to {{escape}}. Because I could not
identify the position of my body in {{space}}, I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie
just {{liberated}} from her bottle. And my spirit soared {{free}}, like a great {{whale}}
gliding through the sea of silent euphoria. Nirvana. I found Nirvana. And I remember
{{thinking}}, there's no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of
myself back inside this {{tiny}} little body.

15:17

But then I {{realized}}, "But I'm still alive! I'm still alive, and I have found Nirvana. And if
I have found Nirvana and I'm still alive, then everyone who is alive can find Nirvana."
And I {{pictured}} a world filled with beautiful, {{peaceful}}, compassionate, {{loving}}
people who knew that they could come to this space at any time. And that they could
{{purposely}} choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres -- and find this peace.
And then I realized what a {{tremendous}} gift this experience could be, what a stroke
of {{insight}} this could be to how we live our lives. And it motivated me to {{recover}}.

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16:13

Two and a half weeks after the haemorrhage, the {{surgeons}} went in, and they
removed a {{blood}} clot the size of a {{golf}} ball that was pushing on my {{language}}
centres. Here I am with my mama, who is a true {{angel}} in my life. It took me eight
years to completely {{recover}}.

16:32

So who are we? We are the life-force {{power}} of the universe, with manual dexterity
and two cognitive {{minds}}. And we have the power to {{choose}}, moment by
moment, who and how we want to be in the {{world}}. Right here, right now, I can step
into the {{consciousness}} of my right hemisphere, where we are. I am the life-force
power of the universe. I am the life-force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular
{{geniuses}} that make up my form, at one with all that is. Or, I can choose to step into
the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a {{single}} individual, a
{{solid}}. Separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor:
intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me. Which would you
choose? Which do you choose? And {{when}}? I believe that the more time we spend
{{choosing}} to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more
{{peace}} we will project into the {{world}}, and the more {{peaceful}} our planet will be.
And I thought that was an idea worth {{spreading}}.

18:04

Thank you.

4. The global food waste scandal

00:04

The job of uncovering the global food waste {{scandal}} started for me when I was 15
years old. I bought some {{pigs}}. I was living in Sussex. And I started to feed them in
the most traditional and {{environmentally friendly}} way. I went to my {{school
kitchen}}, and I said, "Give me the scraps that my school friends have turned their

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noses up at." I went to the local {{baker}} and took their {{stale}} bread. I went to the
local greengrocer, and I went to a farmer who was throwing away {{potatoes}} because
they were the wrong shape or size for supermarkets. This was great. My pigs turned
that food waste into {{delicious}} pork. I sold that pork to my school friends' parents,
and I made a good {{pocket money}} addition to my teenage allowance.

00:44

But I noticed that most of the food that I was giving my pigs was in fact fit for {{human
consumption}}, and that I was only {{scratching}} the surface, and that right the way
up the {{food supply} chain, in supermarkets, greengrocers, bakers, in our homes, in
factories and farms, we were haemorrhaging out food. Supermarkets didn't even
want to talk to me about how much food they were {{wasting}}. I'd been round the
back. I'd seen bins full of food being locked and then trucked off to {{landfill sites}}, and
I thought, surely there is something more {{sensible}} to do with food than waste it.

01:16

One morning, when I was feeding my pigs, I noticed a {{particularly}} tasty-looking

sun-{{dried}} tomato loaf that used to crop up from time to time. I grabbed hold of it,
sat down, and ate my breakfast with my pigs. (Laughter) That was the first {{act}} of
what I later learned to call freeganism, really an {{exhibition}} of the injustice of {{food
waste}}, and the {{provision}} of the solution to food waste, which is simply to sit down
and eat food, rather than throwing it away. That became, as it were, a way of
confronting {{large businesses}} in the business of wasting food, and {{exposing}}, most
importantly, to the public, that when we're talking about food being thrown away,
we're not talking about {{rotten}} stuff, we're not talking about stuff that's beyond the
pale. We're talking about good, fresh food that is being wasted on a {{colossal}} scale.

02:04

Eventually, I set about writing my book, really to {{demonstrate}} the extent of this

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problem on a global scale. What this shows is a nation-by-nation {{breakdown}} of the
likely level of food waste in each country in the world. Unfortunately, {{empirical}} data,
good, hard stats, don't exist, and therefore to prove my point, I first of all had to find
some {{proxy}} way of uncovering how much food was being wasted. So I took the
food supply of every single country and I {{compared}} it to what was actually likely to
be being consumed in each country. That's based on diet intake {{surveys}}, it's based
on levels of {{obesity}}, it's based on a range of factors that gives you an {{approximate}}
guess as to how much food is actually going into people's {{mouths}}. That black line
in the middle of that table is the likely level of {{consumption}} with an {{allowance}}
for certain levels of inevitable waste. There will always be waste. I'm not that
{{unrealistic}} that I think we can live in a {{waste-free}} world. But that black line shows
what a {{food supply}} should be in a country if they allow for a good, stable, secure,
{{nutritional}} diet for every person in that country. Any dot above that line, and you'll
quickly notice that that includes most countries in the world, represents
{{unnecessary}} surplus, and is likely to {{reflect}} levels of waste in each country.

03:25

As a country gets {{richer}}, it invests more and more in getting more and more surplus
into its shops and {{restaurants}}, and as you can see, most European and {{North
American}} countries fall between 150 and 200 percent of the nutritional requirements
of their {{populations}}. So a country like America has twice as much food on its shop
{{shelves}} and in its restaurants than is actually required to feed the American people.

03:51

But the thing that really struck me, when I {{plotted}} all this data, and it was a lot of
numbers, was that you can see how it {{levels off}}. Countries rapidly shoot towards
that 150 mark, and then they level off, and they don't really go on rising as you might
expect. So I decided to {{unpack}} that data a little bit further to see if that was true or
false. And that's what I came up with. If you {{include}} not just the food that ends up
in shops and restaurants, but also the food that people feed to {{livestock}}, the maize,

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the soy, the wheat, that humans could eat but choose to {{fatten}} livestock instead to
produce increasing amounts of meat and {{dairy products}}, what you find is that most
rich countries have between three and four times the {{amount}} of food that their
population needs to {{feed}} itself. A country like America has four times the amount
of food that it needs.

04:44

When people talk about the need to increase global food {{production}} to feed those
nine billion people that are {{expected}} on the planet by 2050, I always think of these
{{graphs}}. The fact is, we have an {{enormous}} buffer in rich countries between
ourselves and {{hunger}}. We've never had such gargantuan surpluses before. In many
ways, this is a great {{success}} story of human civilization, of the agricultural surpluses
that we set out to achieve 12,000 years ago. It is a success story. It has been a success
story. But what we have to {{recognize}} now is that we are reaching the {{ecological}}
limits that our planet can bear, and when we chop down {{forests}}, as we are every
day, to grow more and more food, when we {{extract}} water from depleting water
reserves, when we emit {{fossil fuel}} emissions in the quest to grow more and more
food, and then we throw away so much of it, we have to think about what we can start
{{saving}}.

05:44

And yesterday, I went to one of the local supermarkets that I often visit to inspect, if
you like, what they're throwing away. I found quite a few packets of biscuits amongst
all the fruit and vegetables and everything else that was in there. And I thought, well
this could serve as a symbol for today.

06:01

So I want you to imagine that these nine biscuits that I found in the bin represent the
global food supply, okay? We start out with nine. That's what's in {{fields}} around the

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world every single year. The first biscuit we're going to lose before we even {{leave}}
the farm. That's a problem primarily {{associated}} with developing work
{{agriculture}}, whether it's a lack of infrastructure, {{refrigeration}}, pasteurization,
grain stores, even basic {{fruit crates}}, which means that food goes to waste before it
even leaves the fields. The next three biscuits are the foods that we decide to feed to
livestock, the maize, the wheat and the soya. {{Unfortunately}}, our beasts are
inefficient animals, and they turn {{two-thirds}} of that into faeces and heat, so we've
lost those two, and we've only kept this one in meat and dairy products. Two more
we're going to throw away {{directly}} into bins. This is what most of us think of when
we think of food waste, what ends up in the {{garbage}}, what ends up in supermarket
bins, what ends up in restaurant bins. We've lost another two, and we've left
{{ourselves}} with just four biscuits to feed on. That is not a superlatively {{efficient}} use
of global resources, especially when you think of the billion hungry people that {{exist}}
already in the world.

07:15

Having gone through the data, I then needed to demonstrate where that food ends
up. Where does it end up? We're used to seeing the stuff on our plates, but what about
all the stuff that goes missing in between?

07:27

Supermarkets are an easy place to start. This is the result of my hobby, which is
{{unofficial}} bin inspections. (Laughter) {{Strange}} you might think, but if we could
rely on {{corporations}} to tell us what they were doing in the back of their stores, we
wouldn't need to go {{sneaking}} around the back, opening up bins and having a look
at what's inside. But this is what you can see more or less on every {{street corner}} in
Britain, in Europe, in North America. It represents a {{colossal}} waste of food, but what
I discovered whilst I was writing my book was that this very {{evident}} abundance of
waste was actually the tip of the {{iceberg}}. When you start going up the supply chain,
you find where the real food waste is {{happening}} on a gargantuan scale.

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08:11

Can I have a show of hands if you have a {{loaf}} of sliced bread in your house? Who
lives in a {{household}} where that crust -- that slice at the first and last end of each
loaf -- who lives in a household where it does get {{eaten}}? Okay, most people, not
everyone, but most people, and this is, I'm glad to say, what I see {{across}} the world,
and yet has anyone seen a supermarket or sandwich shop anywhere in the world that
{{serves}} sandwiches with crusts on it? (Laughter) I certainly haven't. So I {{kept on}}
thinking, where do those crusts go? (Laughter) This is the answer, unfortunately:
13,000 slices of fresh bread coming out of this one single factory every single day, day-
fresh bread. In the same year that I visited this {{factory}}, I went to Pakistan, where
people in 2008 were going hungry as a result of a squeeze on global food supplies. We
{{contribute}} to that squeeze by {{depositing}} food in bins here in Britain and
elsewhere in the world. We take food off the market {{shelves}} that hungry people
{{depend on}}.

09:13

Go one step up, and you get to farmers, who throw away {{sometimes}} a third or even
more of their harvest because of {{cosmetic}} standards. This farmer, for example, has
invested 16,000 pounds in growing {{spinach}}, not one leaf of which he harvested,
because there was a little bit of {{grass}} growing in amongst it. Potatoes that are
cosmetically {{imperfect}}, all going for pigs. Parsnips that are {{too small}} for
supermarket specifications, tomatoes in Tenerife, oranges in Florida, bananas in
Ecuador, where I visited last year, all being discarded. This is one day's waste from one
banana {{plantation}} in Ecuador. All being discarded, perfectly {{edible}}, because
they're the wrong shape or size.

09:53

If we do that to fruit and vegetables, you bet we can do it to {{animals}} too. Liver, lungs,
heads, {{tails}}, kidneys, testicles, all of these things which are {{traditional}}, delicious

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and {{nutritious}} parts of our gastronomy go to waste. Offal consumption has
{{halved}} in Britain and America in the last 30 years. As a result, this stuff gets fed to
{{dogs}} at best, or is incinerated. This man, in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, in Western
China, is serving up his national dish. It's called sheep's {{organs}}. It's delicious, it's
nutritious, and as I learned when I went to Kashgar, it symbolizes their taboo
{{against}} food waste. I was sitting in a {{roadside}} cafe. A chef came to talk to me, I
finished my bowl, and halfway through the {{conversation}}, he {{stopped}} talking and
he started frowning into my bowl. I thought, "My goodness, what taboo have I broken?
How have I insulted my host?" He pointed at three grains of {{rice}} at the bottom of
my bowl, and he said, "Clean." (Laughter) I thought, "My God, you know, I go around
the world telling people to stop wasting food. This guy has thrashed me at my own
game." (Laughter)

10:59

But it gave me faith. It gave me faith that we, the people, do have the {{power}} to stop
this {{tragic}} waste of resources if we regard it as socially {{unacceptable}} to waste
food on a colossal scale, if we make {{noise}} about it, tell corporations about it, tell
governments we want to see an end to food waste, we do have the power to {{bring
about}} that change.

11:18

Fish, 40 to 60 percent of European fish are discarded {{at sea}}, they don't even get
landed. In our homes, we've lost {{touch}} with food. This is an {{experiment}} I did on
three lettuces. Who keeps lettuces in their fridge? Most people. The one on the left
was kept in a fridge for 10 days. The one in the middle, on my kitchen table. Not much
difference. The one on the right I {{treated}} like cut flowers. It's a living organism, cut
the slice off, stuck it in a vase of water, it was all right for another two weeks after this.

11:49

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Some food waste, as I said at the beginning, will {{inevitably}} arise, so the question is,
what is the best thing to do with it? I answered that question when I was 15. In fact,
humans answered that question 6,000 years ago: We {{domesticated}} pigs to turn
food waste back into food. And yet, in Europe, that practice has become {{illegal}} since
2001 as a result of the foot-and-mouth {{outbreak}}. It's unscientific. It's unnecessary. If
you cook food for pigs, just as if you cook food for humans, it is {{rendered}} safe. It's
also a massive saving of {{resources}}. At the moment, Europe depends on importing
millions of tons of {{soy}} from South America, where its production contributes to
{{global warming}}, to deforestation, to biodiversity loss, to feed livestock here in
Europe. At the same time we {{throw away}} millions of tons of food waste which we
could and should be feeding them. If we did that, and fed it to pigs, we would save
that amount of {{carbon}}. If we feed our food waste which is the current government
favourite way of getting rid of food waste, to anaerobic digestion, which turns food
waste into gas to produce {{electricity}}, you save a paltry 448 kilograms of carbon
dioxide per ton of food waste. It's much better to feed it to pigs. We knew that during
the war. (Laughter)

13:08

A silver lining: It has kicked off {{globally}}, the quest to tackle food waste. Feeding the
5,000 is an {{event}} I first organised in 2009. We fed 5,000 people all on food that
{{otherwise}} would have been wasted. Since then, it's happened again in London, it's
happening {{internationally}}, and across the country. It's a way of organisations
coming together to {{celebrate}} food, to say the best thing to do with food is to eat
and enjoy it, and to {{stop}} wasting it. For the sake of the {{planet}} we live on, for the
sake of our {{children}}, for the sake of all the other {{organisms}} that share our planet
with us, we are a terrestrial animal, and we {{depend on}} our land for food. At the
moment, we are trashing our land to grow food that no one eats. Stop wasting food.
Thank you very much. (Applause) (Applause)

5. The missing link to renewable energy

The { {electricity} } powering the lights in this theater was generated just moments

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ago. Because the way things stand today, electricity demand must be in { {constant} }
balance with electricity supply. If in the time that it took me to walk out here on this
stage, some tens of megawatts of wind power stopped pouring into the grid, the
difference would have to be made up from other { {generators} } immediately. But coal
plants, { {nuclear plants} } can't respond fast enough. A giant battery could. With a
giant battery, we'd be able to address the problem of intermittency that prevents
wind and solar from contributing to the grid in the same way that coal, gas and
nuclear do today.

00:53

You see, the battery is the key enabling device here. With it, we could draw electricity
from the sun even when the sun doesn't shine. And that changes everything. Because
then renewables such as wind and solar come out from the wings, here to center
stage. Today I want to tell you about such a device. It's called the liquid { {metal battery}
}. It's a new form of { {energy storage} } that I invented at MIT along with a team of my
students and post-docs.

01:28

Now the theme of this year's TED Conference is Full Spectrum. The OED defines
spectrum as "The { {entire range} } of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, from
the longest radio waves to the shortest gamma rays of which the range of visible light
is only a small part." So I'm not here today only to tell you how my team at MIT has
drawn out of nature a solution to one of the world's { {great problems} }. I want to go
full spectrum and tell you how, in the process of developing this new technology,
we've uncovered some surprising heterodoxies that can serve as lessons for {
{innovation} }, ideas worth spreading. And you know, if we're going to get this country
out of its current energy situation, we can't just conserve our way out; we can't just
drill our way out; we can't bomb our way out. We're going to do it the { {old-fashioned}
} American way, we're going to invent our way out, working together.

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02:31

(Applause)

02:34

Now let's get started. The battery was invented about 200 years ago by a professor,
Alessandro Volta, at the University of Padua in Italy. His { {invention} } gave birth to a
new field of science, electrochemistry, and new technologies such as electroplating.
Perhaps overlooked, Volta's invention of the battery for the first time also
demonstrated the { {utility} } of a professor. (Laughter) Until Volta, nobody could
imagine a professor could be of any use.

03:07

Here's the first battery -- a stack of coins, zinc and silver, separated by cardboard
soaked in brine. This is the starting point for designing a battery -- two electrodes, in
this case metals of different composition, and an electrolyte, in this case salt dissolved
in water. The science is that simple. Admittedly, I've left out a few details.

03:33

Now I've taught you that battery science is { {straightforward} } and the need for grid-
level storage is compelling, but the fact is that today there is simply no battery
technology capable of meeting the demanding { {performance requirements} } of the
grid -- namely uncommonly high power, long service lifetime and super-low cost. We
need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big, we need to think
cheap.

04:05

So let's abandon the paradigm of let's search for the coolest chemistry and then
hopefully we'll chase down the cost curve by just making lots and lots of product.

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Instead, let's invent to the price point of the electricity market. So that means that
certain parts of the periodic table are axiomatically off-limits. This battery needs to be
made out of earth-abundant { {elements} }. I say, if you want to make something dirt
cheap, make it out of dirt -- (Laughter) preferably dirt that's locally sourced. And we
need to be able to build this thing using simple manufacturing { {techniques} } and
factories that don't cost us a fortune.

04:52

So about six years ago, I started thinking about this problem. And in order to adopt a
fresh { {perspective} }, I sought { {inspiration} } from beyond the field of electricity
storage. In fact, I looked to a technology that neither stores nor generates electricity,
but instead consumes electricity, huge amounts of it. I'm talking about the production
of aluminum. The process was invented in 1886 by a couple of 22-year-olds -- Hall in
the United States and Heroult in France. And just a few short years following their
discovery, aluminum changed from a { {precious} } metal costing as much as silver to
a common { {structural} } material.

05:35

You're looking at the cell house of a modern aluminum smelter. It's about 50 feet wide
and recedes about half a mile -- row after row of cells that, inside, resemble Volta's
battery, with three important { {differences} }. Volta's battery works at room
temperature. It's fitted with solid electrodes and an electrolyte that's a { {solution} } of
salt and water. The Hall-Heroult cell { {operates} } at high temperature, a temperature
high enough that the aluminum metal product is liquid. The electrolyte is not a
solution of salt and water, but rather salt that's melted. It's this { {combination} } of
liquid metal, molten salt and high { {temperature} } that allows us to send high current
through this thing. Today, we can produce virgin metal from ore at a cost of less than
50 cents a pound. That's the { {economic} } miracle of modern electrometallurgy.

06:32

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It is this that caught and held my { {attention} } to the point that I became obsessed
with { {inventing} } a battery that could capture this gigantic economy of scale. And I
did. I made the battery all liquid -- liquid metals for both electrodes and a molten salt
for the electrolyte. I'll show you how. So I put low-density liquid metal at the top, put a
high-density liquid metal at the { {bottom} }, and molten salt in between.

07:31

So now, how to choose the metals? For me, the design exercise always begins here
with the periodic table, enunciated by another professor, Dimitri Mendeleyev.
Everything we know is made of some { {combination} } of what you see depicted here.
And that includes our own bodies. I recall the very moment one day when I was
searching for a pair of metals that would meet the constraints of earth abundance,
different, opposite { {density} } and high { {mutual} } reactivity. I felt the thrill of {
{realization} } when I knew I'd come upon the answer. Magnesium for the top layer.
And antimony for the bottom layer. You know, I've got to tell you, one of the greatest
{ {benefits} } of being a professor: colored chalk.

08:32

(Laughter)

08:35

So to produce current, magnesium loses two electrons to become magnesium ion,

which then migrates { {across} } the electrolyte, accepts two electrons from the
antimony, and then mixes with it to form an alloy. The electrons go to work in the real
world out here, powering our { {devices} }. Now to { {charge} } the battery, we connect
a { {source} } of electricity. It could be something like a wind farm. And then we {
{reverse} } the current. And this forces magnesium to de-alloy and return to the upper
electrode, restoring the initial constitution of the battery. And the current passing
between the electrodes { {generates} } enough heat to keep it at { {temperature} }.

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09:35

It's pretty cool, at least in theory. But does it really work? So what to do next? We go
to the { {laboratory} }. Now do I hire seasoned { {professionals} }? No, I hire a student
and mentor him, teach him how to think about the { {problem} }, to see it from my
perspective and then turn him loose. This is that student, David Bradwell, who, in this
{ {image} }, appears to be wondering if this thing will ever work. What I didn't tell David
at the time was I myself wasn't { {convinced} } it would work.

10:14

But David's young and he's smart and he wants a Ph.D., and he proceeds to build --
(Laughter) He proceeds to build the first ever liquid metal battery of this { {chemistry}
}. And based on David's { {initial} } promising results, which were paid with seed funds
at MIT, I was able to attract major research funding from the private sector and the
federal { {government} }. And that allowed me to expand my group to 20 people, a mix
of { {graduate} } students, post-docs and even some { {undergraduates} }.

10:50

And I was able to attract really, really good people, people who share my { {passion} }
for science and service to society, not science and service for { {career} } building. And
if you ask these people why they work on liquid metal battery, their answer would
hearken back to President Kennedy's remarks at Rice University in 1962 when he said
-- and I'm taking liberties here -- "We choose to work on grid-level { {storage} }, not
because it is easy, but because it is hard."

11:20

(Applause)

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11:27

So this is the { {evolution} } of the liquid metal battery. We start here with our
workhorse one watt-hour cell. I called it the shotglass. We've operated over 400 of
these, perfecting their { {performance} } with a plurality of chemistries -- not just
magnesium and antimony. Along the way we scaled up to the 20 watt-hour cell. I call
it the hockey puck. And we got the same { {remarkable} } results. And then it was onto
the saucer. That's 200 watt-hours. The technology was proving itself to be robust and
scalable. But the pace wasn't fast enough for us. So a year and a half ago, David and I,
along with another research { {staff-member} }, formed a company to accelerate the
rate of { {progress} } and the race to { {manufacture} } product.

12:13

So today at LMBC, we're building cells 16 inches in diameter with a capacity of one
kilowatt-hour -- 1,000 times the capacity of that initial shotglass cell. We call that the
pizza. And then we've got a four kilowatt-hour cell on the { {horizon} }. It's going to be
36 inches in diameter. We call that the bistro table, but it's not ready yet for prime-
time viewing. And one variant of the technology has us stacking these bistro tabletops
into modules, aggregating the modules into a giant battery that fits in a 40-foot
shipping { {container} } for { {placement} } in the field. And this has a nameplate
capacity of two megawatt-hours -- two million watt-hours. That's enough { {energy} }
to meet the daily { {electrical} } needs of 200 American households. So here you have
it, grid-level storage: { {silent} }, emissions-free, no moving parts, remotely controlled,
designed to the { {market} } price point without subsidy.

13:15

So what have we learned from all this? (Applause) So what have we learned from all
this? Let me share with you some of the { {surprises} }, the heterodoxies. They lie
beyond the { {visible} }. Temperature: Conventional wisdom says set it low, at or near
room { {temperature} }, and then install a control system to keep it there. { {Avoid} }
thermal runaway. Liquid metal battery is designed to operate at elevated

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temperature with minimum { {regulation} }. Our battery can handle the very high
temperature { {rises that} } come from current surges. Scaling: Conventional wisdom
says { {reduce} } cost by producing many. Liquid metal battery is designed to reduce
cost by producing fewer, but they'll be larger. And finally, human { {resources} }:
Conventional wisdom says hire battery { {experts} }, seasoned professionals, who can
draw upon their vast { {experience} } and { {knowledge} }. To { {develop} } liquid metal
battery, I hired students and post-docs and mentored them. In a battery, I strive to
maximize electrical potential; when mentoring, I strive to maximize human potential.
So you see, the liquid metal battery story is more than an { {account} } of inventing {
{technology} }, it's a blueprint for inventing inventors, full-spectrum.

6. Do schools kill creativity?

00:05

Good morning. How are you?

00:08

(Audience) Good.

00:09

It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving.

00:15

(Laughter)

00:21

There have been three { {themes} } running through the conference, which are {
{relevant} } to what I want to talk about. One is the extraordinary { {evidence} } of
human { {creativity} } in all of the { {presentations} } that we've had and in all of the

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people here; just the { {variety} } of it and the { {range} } of it. The second is that it's {
{put} } us in a place where we have no { {idea} } what's going to happen in terms of the
future. No idea how this may play out.

00:48

I have an interest in { {education} }. Actually, what I find is, everybody has an interest in
education. Don't you? I find this very { {interesting} }. If you're at a dinner party, and
you say you work in education -- actually, you're not often at dinner { {parties} }, frankly.

01:04

(Laughter)

01:08

If you work in education, you're not asked.

01:10

(Laughter)

01:13

And you're never asked back, { {curiously} }. That's strange to me. But if you are, and
you say to { {somebody} }, you know, they say, "What do you do?" and you say you work
in { {education} }, you can see the { {blood} } run from their face. They're like, "Oh my
God. Why me?"

01:27

(Laughter)

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01:29

"My one night out all week."

01:31

(Laughter)

01:33

But if you ask about their { {education} }, they pin you to the wall, because it's one of
those things that goes deep with people, am I right? Like { {religion} } and money and
other things. So I have a big { {interest} } in education, and I think we all do. We have a
huge vested interest in it, { {partly} } because it's education that's { {meant} } to take us
into this future that we can't grasp. If you think of it, { {children} } starting school this
year will be { {retiring} } in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the { {expertise} } that's
been on { {parade} } for the past four days, what the world will look like in five years'
time. And yet, we're meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think,
is { {extraordinary} }.

02:16

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed, { {nonetheless} }, on the really
extraordinary { {capacities} } that children have -- their capacities for { {innovation} }. I
mean, Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she? Just seeing what she could do. And
she's { {exceptional} }, but I think she's not, so to speak, exceptional in the whole of
childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary { {dedication} } who found
a talent. And my contention is, all kids have tremendous { {talents} }, and we squander
them, pretty ruthlessly.

02:49

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So I want to talk about education, and I want to talk about { {creativity} }. My contention
is that creativity now is as important in education as { {literacy} }, and we should { {treat
it} } with the same status.

03:02

(Applause)

03:03

Thank you.

03:04

(Applause)

03:08

That was it, by the way. Thank you very much.

03:11

(Laughter)

03:13

So, 15 minutes left.

03:15

(Laughter)

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03:18

"Well, I was born ... "

03:20

(Laughter)

03:23

I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it -- of a little girl who was in a { {drawing}
} lesson. She was six, and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this girl
hardly ever paid { {attention} }, and in this drawing lesson, she did. The teacher was {
{fascinated} }. She went over to her, and she said, "What are you { {drawing} }?" And the
girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what
God looks like." And the girl said, "They will in a minute."

03:48

(Laughter)

04:00

When my son was four in England -- actually, he was four everywhere, to be honest.

04:05

(Laughter)

04:06

If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the

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Nativity play. Do you remember the story?

04:12

(Laughter)

04:14

No, it was big, it was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel, you may have seen it.

04:18

(Laughter)

04:19

"Nativity II." But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about. We {
{considered} } this to be one of the { {lead} } parts. We had the place crammed full of {
{agents} } in T-shirts: "James Robinson IS Joseph!" (Laughter) He didn't have to speak,
but you know the bit where the three { {kings} } come in? They come in bearing { {gifts}
}, gold, frankincense and myrrh. This really happened. We were sitting there, and I
think they just went out of { {sequence} }, because we talked to the little boy afterward
and said, "You OK with that?" They said, "Yeah, why? Was that wrong?" They just
switched. The three boys came in, four-year-olds with tea { {towels} } on their heads.
They put these { {boxes} } down, and the first boy said, "I bring you { {gold} }." And the
second boy said, "I bring you myrrh." And the third boy said, "Frank sent this."

05:01

(Laughter)

05:14

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What these things have in { {common} } is that kids will take a chance. If they don't
know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not { {frightened} } of being wrong. I don't
mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being { {creative} }. What we do
know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything {
{original} } -- if you're not { {prepared} } to be wrong. And by the time they get to be
adults, most kids have { {lost} } that { {capacity} }. They have become frightened of
being wrong. And we run our { {companies} } like this. We stigmatize { {mistakes} }.
And we're now running { {national education} } systems where mistakes are the worst
thing you can make. And the result is that we are { {educating} } people out of their
creative capacities.

05:57

Picasso once said this, he said that all { {children} } are { {born} } artists. The problem is
to { {remain} } an artist as we grow up. I believe this { {passionately} }, that we don't
grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get { {educated} } out of it. So why
is this?

06:15

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford
to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition this was.

06:24

(Laughter)

06:25

Actually, we lived in a place called Snitterfield, just outside Stratford, which is where
Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don't
think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of

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Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it. I
mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he?

06:47

(Laughter)

06:54

How annoying would that be?

06:55

(Laughter)

07:03

"Must try harder."

07:04

(Laughter)

07:09

Being sent to bed by his dad, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now!" To William
Shakespeare. "And put the pencil down!"

07:14

(Laughter)

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07:15

"And stop speaking like that."

07:17

(Laughter)

07:20

"It's confusing everybody."

07:22

(Laughter)

07:27

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to { {Los Angeles} }, and I just want to say a word
about the { {transition} }. Actually, my son didn't want to come. I've got two kids; he's
21 now, my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it, but he
had a { {girlfriend} } in England. This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd { {known} } her
for a month.

07:49

(Laughter)

07:51

Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary, because it's a long time when you're 16.
He was really upset on the plane. He said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah." And
we were rather pleased about that, frankly --

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08:02

(Laughter)

08:10

because she was the main reason we were leaving the country.

08:13

(Laughter)

08:19

But something strikes you when you move to America and travel around the world:
every { {education} } system on earth has the same hierarchy of { {subjects} }. Every one.
Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't. At the top
are { {mathematics} } and { {languages} }, then the humanities. At the bottom are the
arts. Everywhere on earth. And in pretty much every { {system} }, too, there's a
hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher { {status} } in
schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that
teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why
not? I think this is rather { {important} }. I think math is very important, but so is dance.
Children dance all the time if they're { {allowed} } to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't
we? Did I miss a meeting?

09:02

(Laughter)

09:06

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Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them
progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one
side.

09:15

If you were to visit education as an { {alien} } and say "What's it for, { {public education}
}?" I think you'd have to { {conclude} }, if you look at the output, who really { {succeeds}
} by this, who does everything they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are
the { {winners} } -- I think you'd have to conclude the whole { {purpose} } of public
education { {throughout} } the world is to produce { {university professors} }. Isn't it?
They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there.

09:41

(Laughter)

09:44

And I like university professors, but, you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high-
water mark of all human { {achievement} }. They're just a form of life. Another form of
life. But they're rather { {curious} }. And I say this out of affection for them: there's
something curious about { {professors} }. In my { {experience} } -- not all of them, but
typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there and slightly to one side. They're
disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form
of { {transport} } for their heads.

10:13

(Laughter)

10:19

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Don't they? It's a way of getting their head to meetings.

10:23

(Laughter)

10:28

If you want real { {evidence} } of out-of-body { {experiences} }, by the way, get yourself
along to a { {residential} } conference of senior { {academics} } and pop into the
discotheque on the final night.

10:38

(Laughter)

10:40

And there, you will see it. Grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the
beat.

10:46

(Laughter)

10:49

Waiting until it ends, so they can go home and write a paper about it.

10:52

(Laughter)

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10:54

Our education system is predicated on the idea of { {academic} } ability. And there's a
reason. Around the world, there were no { {public systems} } of education, really, before
the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of { {industrialism} }. So
the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas.

11:10

Number one, that the most useful { {subjects} } for work are at the top. So you were {
{probably} } steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things
you liked, on the { {grounds} } you would never get a job doing that. Is that right? "Don't
do music, you're not going to be a { {musician} }; don't do art, you won't be an artist."
Benign advice -- now, profoundly { {mistaken} }. The whole world is engulfed in a
revolution.

11:33

And the second is { {academic} } ability, which has really come to dominate our view
of { {intelligence} }, because the universities { {design} } the system in their image. If
you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted
process of university { {entrance} }. And the consequence is that many highly {
{talented} }, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were
good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't {
{afford} } to go on that way.

11:59

In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO, more people { {worldwide} } will be {

{graduating} } through education than since the { {beginning} } of history. More people.
And it's the { {combination} } of all the things we've talked about: { {technology} } and
its transformational effect on work, and demography and the huge explosion in {

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{population} }.

12:16

Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you
had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job, it's because you didn't want one.
And I didn't want one, frankly.

12:28

(Laughter)

12:30

But now kids with degrees are often { {heading} } home to carry on playing video
games, because you need an MA where the { {previous} } job required a BA, and now
you need a PhD for the other. It's a { {process} } of { {academic} } inflation. And it
indicates the whole { {structure} } of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need
to radically rethink our view of { {intelligence} }.

12:48

We know three things about { {intelligence} }. One, it's diverse. We think about the
world in all the ways that we { {experience} } it. We think visually, we think in sound,
we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in { {movement} }.
Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the { {interactions} } of a human brain,
as we heard yesterday from a number of { {presentations} }, intelligence is wonderfully
{ {interactive} }. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, { {creativity} } --
which I define as the { {process} } of having { {original} } ideas that have value -- more
often than not comes about through the { {interaction} } of different disciplinary ways
of seeing things.

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13:25

By the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain, called the
corpus callosum. It's thicker in women. Following off from Helen yesterday, this is {
{probably} } why women are better at { {multitasking} }. Because you are, aren't you?
There's a raft of { {research} }, but I know it from my { {personal life} }. If my wife is
cooking a meal at home, which is not often ... thankfully.

13:48

(Laughter)

13:51

No, she's good at some things. But if she's cooking, she's dealing with people on the
phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling --

13:58

(Laughter)

13:59

She's doing open-heart { {surgery} } over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids
are out, the phone's on the hook, if she comes in, I get { {annoyed} }. I say, "Terry, please,
I'm trying to fry an egg in here."

14:10

(Laughter)

14:17

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"Give me a break."

14:18

(Laughter)

14:20

{ {Actually} }, do you know that old philosophical thing, "If a tree falls in a forest, and
nobody { {hears} } it, did it happen?" Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great T-
shirt { {recently} }, which said, "If a man speaks his mind in a { {forest} }, and no woman
hears him, is he still wrong?"

14:35

(Laughter)

14:43

And the third thing about { {intelligence} } is, it's { {distinct} }. I'm doing a new book at
the moment called "Epiphany," which is { {based} } on a series of interviews with people
about how they { {discovered} } their talent. I'm { {fascinated} } by how people got to
be there. It's really prompted by a { {conversation} } I had with a wonderful woman
who maybe most people have { {never} } heard of, Gillian Lynne. Have you heard of
her? Some have. She's a choreographer, and { {everybody} } knows her work. She did
"Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera." She's { {wonderful} }. I used to be on the board of
The Royal Ballet, as you can see.

15:12

(Laughter)

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15:14

Gillian and I had lunch one day. I said, "How did you get to be a dancer?" It was {
{interesting} }. When she was at school, she was really { {hopeless} }. And the school, in
the '30s, wrote to her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a { {learning} } disorder."
She couldn't { {concentrate} }; she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD.
Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been { {invented} } at this
point. It wasn't an available { {condition} }.

15:38

(Laughter)

15:41

People weren't aware they could have that.

15:43

(Laughter)

15:46

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled { {room} }, and she was
there with her mother, and she was led and sat on this chair at the end, and she { {sat}
} on her hands for 20 minutes, while this man talked to her mother about all the {
{problems} } Gillian was having at school, because she was disturbing people, her {
{homework} } was always late, and so on. Little kid of eight. In the end, the doctor went
and sat next to Gillian and said, "I've listened to all these things your mother's told me.
I need to speak to her { {privately} }. Wait here. We'll be back. We won't be very long,"
and they went and left her.

16:19

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But as they went out of the room, he { {turned on} } the radio that was sitting on his
desk. And when they got { {out of} } the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and
watch her." And { {the minute} } they left the room, she was on her feet, { {moving} } to
the music. And they watched for a few minutes, and he turned to her mother and said,
"Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."

16:43

I said, "What happened?" She said, "She did. I can't tell you how { {wonderful} } it was.
We walked in this room, and it was full of people like me -- people who couldn't sit
still, people who had to { {move} } to think." Who had to move to think. They did {
{ballet} }, they did tap, jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary. She was
eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School. She became a soloist; she had a
wonderful { {career} } at the Royal Ballet. She eventually { {graduated} } from the Royal
Ballet School, { {founded} } the Gillian Lynne Dance Company, met Andrew Lloyd
Webber. She's been { {responsible} } for some of the most successful musical theater
productions in history, she's given { {pleasure} } to millions, and she's a multimillionaire.
Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

17:24

(Applause)

17:32

What I think it { {comes} } to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology and
the { {revolution} } that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for the
future is to { {adopt} } a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to
reconstitute our conception of the { {richness} } of human capacity. Our education
system has mined our { {minds} } in the way that we strip-mine the earth for a
particular commodity. And for the { {future} }, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the
fundamental principles on which we're { {educating} } our children.

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18:05

There was a wonderful { {quote} } by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the { {insects} } were to
disappear from the Earth, within 50 years, all life on { {Earth} } would end. If all { {human
beings} } disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years, all { {forms} } of life would
flourish." And he's right.

18:25

What TED celebrates is the gift of the { {human imagination} }. We have to be { {careful}
} now that we use this gift wisely, and that we avert some of the scenarios that we've
talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our { {creative} } capacities for
the { {richness} } they are and seeing our children for the { {hope} } that they are. And
our { {task} } is to { {educate} } their whole being, so they can face this future. By the
way -- we may not see this { {future} }, but they will. And our job is to help them make
something of it.

18:57

Thank you very much.

18:58

(Applause)

7. The rise of the new global super-rich

00:04

So here's the most important { {economic} } fact of our time. We are living in an { {age}
} of surging { {income} } inequality, { {particularly} } between those at the very top and
everyone else. This shift is the most { {striking} } in the U.S. and in the U.K., but it's a
global { {phenomenon} }. It's happening in communist China, in formerly communist

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Russia, it's happening in { {India} }, in my own { {native} } Canada. We're even seeing it
in { {cozy} } social democracies like Sweden, Finland and { {Germany} }.

00:38

Let me give you a few { {numbers} } to place what's happening. In the { {1970s} }, the
One Percent accounted for about { {10 percent} } of the { {national} } income in the
United States. Today, their share has more than { {doubled} } to above 20 percent. But
what's even more { {striking} } is what's happening at the very tippy top of the income
{ {distribution} }. The 0.1 percent in the U.S. today account for more than eight percent
of the national income. They are where the One Percent was { {30 years} } ago. Let me
give you another number to put that in perspective, and this is a figure that was {
{calculated} } in 2005 by Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration. Reich took the { {wealth} } of two admittedly very rich men, Bill Gates
and Warren Buffett, and he found that it was equivalent to the wealth of the bottom
40 percent of the U.S. { {population} }, 120 million people. Now, as it happens, Warren
Buffett is not only himself a plutocrat, he is one of the most astute { {observers} } of
that phenomenon, and he has his own favorite { {number} }. Buffett likes to point out
that in { {1992} }, the combined wealth of the people on the Forbes 400 list -- and this
is the list of the 400 richest Americans -- was 300 billion dollars. Just think about it.
You didn't even need to be a billionaire to get on that list in 1992. Well, today, that {
{figure} } has more than quintupled to 1.7 trillion, and I probably don't need to tell you
that we haven't seen anything { {similar} } happen to the middle class, whose wealth
has stagnated if not actually { {decreased} }.

02:36

So we're living in the age of the { {global} } plutocracy, but we've been slow to { {notice}
} it. One of the reasons, I think, is a sort of boiled frog phenomenon. { {Changes} } which
are slow and gradual can be hard to notice even if their ultimate { {impact} } is quite
dramatic. Think about what happened, after all, to the poor frog. But I think there's
something else going on. Talking about income { {inequality} }, even if you're not on

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the Forbes 400 list, can make us feel { {uncomfortable} }. It feels less { {positive} }, less
optimistic, to talk about how the pie is sliced than to think about how to make the pie
bigger. And if you do happen to be on the Forbes 400 list, talking about income
distribution, and inevitably its cousin, income redistribution, can be downright {
{threatening} }.

03:27

So we're living in the age of surging income inequality, especially at the top. What's
driving it, and what can we do about it?

03:37

One set of causes is political: lower taxes, deregulation, particularly of { {financial} }

services, privatization, weaker legal { {protections} } for trade unions, all of these have
contributed to more and more income going to the very, very top.

03:58

A lot of these { {political} } factors can be broadly lumped under the { {category} } of
"crony capitalism," political changes that { {benefit} } a group of well-connected {
{insiders} } but don't actually do much good for the rest of us. In practice, getting rid
of crony capitalism is incredibly { {difficult} }. Think of all the years reformers of {
{various} } stripes have tried to get rid of corruption in Russia, for instance, or how hard
it is to re-regulate the banks even after the most profound financial { {crisis} } since the
Great Depression, or even how difficult it is to get the big multinational { {companies}
}, including those whose motto might be "don't do evil," to pay taxes at a rate even
approaching that paid by the { {middle class} }. But while getting rid of crony
capitalism in practice is really, really hard, at least intellectually, it's an { {easy} }
problem. After all, no one is actually in favor of crony capitalism. Indeed, this is one of
those rare issues that unites the left and the right. A critique of crony capitalism is as
central to the Tea Party as it is to Occupy Wall Street.

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05:13

But if crony capitalism is, intellectually at least, the easy part of the { {problem} }, things
get trickier when you look at the economic drivers of surging income { {inequality} }.
In and of themselves, these aren't too { {mysterious} }. Globalization and the
technology { {revolution} }, the twin economic transformations which are changing
our lives and transforming the { {global} } economy, are also powering the { {rise} } of
the super-rich. Just think about it. For the first time in history, if you are an { {energetic}
} entrepreneur with a brilliant new idea or a fantastic new { {product} }, you have almost
instant, almost frictionless access to a global market of more than a billion people. As
a result, if you are very, very smart and very, very lucky, you can get very, very rich very,
very quickly. The latest poster boy for this phenomenon is David Karp. The 26-year-old
founder of Tumblr recently sold his company to Yahoo for 1.1 billion dollars. Think about
that for a minute: 1.1 billion dollars, 26 years old. It's easiest to see how the { {technology}
} revolution and globalization are creating this sort of { {superstar} } effect in highly
visible fields, like sports and { {entertainment} }. We can all watch how a fantastic {
{athlete} } or a fantastic { {performer} } can today leverage his or her skills across the
global economy as never before. But today, that superstar effect is happening across
the { {entire} } economy. We have superstar technologists. We have superstar bankers.
We have superstar { {lawyers} } and superstar architects. There are superstar cooks and
superstar { {farmers} }. There are even, and this is my { {personal} } favorite example,
superstar dentists, the most dazzling exemplar of whom is Bernard Touati, the
Frenchman who ministers to the smiles of fellow superstars like Russian oligarch
Roman Abramovich or European-born American fashion designer Diane von
Furstenberg.

07:29

But while it's pretty easy to see how { {globalization} } and the technology { {revolution}
} are creating this global plutocracy, what's a lot harder is figuring out what to think
about it. And that's because, in contrast with crony capitalism, so much of what
globalization and the technology revolution have done is highly { {positive} }. Let's start

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with technology. I love the Internet. I love my { {mobile devices} }. I love the fact that
they mean that whoever chooses to will be able to watch this talk far beyond this
auditorium. I'm even more of a fan of globalization. This is the { {transformation} }
which has lifted hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people out of { {poverty} }
and into the middle class, and if you happen to live in the rich part of the world, it's
made many new products { {affordable} } -- who do you think built your iPhone? —
and things that we've relied on for a long time much cheaper. Think of your
dishwasher or your t-shirt.

08:31

So what's not to like? Well, a few things. One of the things that worries me is how
easily what you might call meritocratic plutocracy can become crony plutocracy.
Imagine you're a brilliant entrepreneur who has { {successfully} } sold that idea or that
product to the { {global} } billions and become a billionaire in the process. It gets
tempting at that point to use your economic nous to manipulate the { {rules} } of the
global political economy in your own favor. And that's no mere hypothetical {
{example} }. Think about Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks. These are among the
world's most admired, most beloved, most innovative { {companies} }. They also
happen to be particularly adept at working the international tax system so as to lower
their tax bill very, very significantly. And why stop at just playing the global political
and economic system as it exists to your own { {maximum} } advantage? Once you
have the tremendous economic power that we're seeing at the very, very top of the
income distribution and the political power that inevitably entails, it becomes
tempting as well to start trying to { {change} } the rules of the game in your own favor.
Again, this is no mere hypothetical. It's what the Russian oligarchs did in creating the
sale-of-the-century privatization of Russia's natural { {resources} }. It's one way of
describing what happened with deregulation of the financial services in the U.S. and
the U.K.

10:11

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A second thing that worries me is how easily meritocratic plutocracy can become
aristocracy. One way of describing the plutocrats is as alpha geeks, and they are
people who are acutely aware of how { {important} } highly sophisticated analytical
and quantitative skills are in today's { {economy} }. That's why they are spending
unprecedented time and resources { {educating} } their own children. The middle class
is spending more on schooling too, but in the global educational arms race that starts
at nursery school and ends at Harvard, Stanford or MIT, the { {99 percent} } is
increasingly outgunned by the One Percent. The { {result} } is something that
economists Alan Krueger and Miles Corak call the Great Gatsby Curve. As income
inequality increases, social mobility { {decreases} }. The plutocracy may be a
meritocracy, but increasingly you have to be born on the top rung of the ladder to
even take part in that race.

11:17

The third thing, and this is what { {worries} } me the most, is the extent to which those
same largely positive forces which are driving the rise of the global plutocracy also
happen to be hollowing out the middle class in Western industrialized economies.
Let's start with { {technology} }. Those same forces that are creating billionaires are also
devouring many { {traditional} } middle-class jobs. When's the last time you used a
travel agent? And in contrast with the { {industrial} } revolution, the titans of our new
economy aren't creating that many new jobs. At its zenith, G.M. employed hundreds
of thousands, Facebook fewer than { {10,000} }. The same is true of globalization. For
all that it is raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the emerging
markets, it's also outsourcing a lot of jobs from the developed Western economies.
The terrifying { {reality} } is that there is no economic rule which automatically
translates increased economic growth into widely shared prosperity. That's shown in
what I consider to be the most scary economic statistic of our time. Since the late
1990s, increases in productivity have been decoupled from increases in wages and
employment. That means that our countries are getting richer, our companies are
getting more efficient, but we're not creating more jobs and we're not paying people,
as a whole, more.

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12:52

One scary conclusion you could draw from all of this is to worry about structural
unemployment. What worries me more is a different nightmare scenario. After all, in
a totally free labor market, we could find jobs for pretty much everyone. The dystopia
that worries me is a universe in which a few geniuses invent Google and its ilk and the
rest of us are employed giving them massages.

13:23

So when I get really depressed about all of this, I comfort myself in { {thinking} } about
the Industrial Revolution. After all, for all its grim, satanic mills, it worked out pretty
well, didn't it? After all, all of us here are richer, healthier, taller -- well, there are a few
exceptions — and live longer than our { {ancestors} } in the early 19th century. But it's
important to remember that before we learned how to share the fruits of the
Industrial Revolution with the broad swathes of { {society} }, we had to go through two
depressions, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Long Depression of the 1870s, two
world wars, communist revolutions in Russia and in China, and an era of tremendous
social and political upheaval in the West. We also, not coincidentally, went through an
era of tremendous { {social} } and political inventions. We created the { {modern} }
welfare state. We created public education. We created public { {health care} }. We
created public pensions. We created unions.

14:35

Today, we are living through an era of economic transformation comparable in its

scale and its scope to the Industrial Revolution. To be sure that this new economy
benefits us all and not just the plutocrats, we need to embark on an era of comparably
ambitious social and political change. We need a new New Deal.

14:59

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(Applause)

8. Why I must speak out about climate change

00:03

What do I know that would cause me, a reticent, Midwestern scientist, to get myself {
{arrested} } in front of the White House protesting? And what would you do if you
knew what I know? Let's start with how I got to this point. I was { {lucky} } to grow up
at a time when it was not { {difficult} } for the child of a tenant { {farmer} } to make his
way to the state university.

00:32

And I was really lucky to go to the University of Iowa where I could study under
Professor James Van Allen who built { {instruments} } for the first U.S. satellites.
Professor Van Allen told me about { {observations} } of Venus, that there was intense
microwave radiation. Did it mean that Venus had an ionosphere? Or was Venus {
{extremely} } hot? The right answer, confirmed by the Soviet Venera spacecraft, was
that Venus was very hot -- { {900} } degrees Fahrenheit. And it was kept hot by a thick
carbon dioxide { {atmosphere} }.

01:14

I was { {fortunate} } to join NASA and successfully propose an { {experiment} } to fly to

Venus. Our instrument took this image of the veil of Venus, which turned out to be a
smog of sulfuric acid. But while our instrument was being built, I became involved in
calculations of the { {greenhouse} } effect here on Earth, because we realized that our
atmospheric composition was { {changing} }. Eventually, I resigned as principal
investigator on our Venus experiment because a { {planet} } changing before our eyes
is more interesting and important. Its changes will affect all of { {humanity} }.

01:58

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The greenhouse effect had been well { {understood} } for more than a { {century} }.
British physicist John Tyndall, in the 1850's, made { {laboratory} } measurements of the
infrared radiation, which is heat. And he showed that gasses such as CO2 absorb heat,
thus acting like a blanket warming Earth's surface.

02:20

I worked with other { {scientists} } to analyze Earth { {climate} } observations. In 1981, we

published an article in Science { {magazine} } concluding that observed warming of
0.4 degrees Celsius in the prior century was consistent with the { {greenhouse} } effect
of increasing CO2. That Earth would likely warm in the { {1980's} }, and warming would
exceed the noise level of random weather by the end of the century. We also said that
the 21st century would see shifting climate zones, creation of drought-prone regions
in { {North America} } and Asia, erosion of ice sheets, rising sea levels and opening of
the fabled Northwest Passage. All of these impacts have since either happened or are
now well under way.

03:11

That paper was { {reported} } on the front page of the New York Times and led to me
testifying to Congress in the 1980's, testimony in which I emphasized that global
warming increases both extremes of the Earth's water cycle. Heatwaves and {
{droughts} } on one hand, directly from the warming, but also, because a warmer {
{atmosphere} } holds more water vapor with its latent energy, { {rainfall} } will become
in more extreme events. There will be stronger storms and greater flooding. Global
warming hoopla became time-consuming and distracted me from doing science --
partly because I had complained that the White House altered my testimony. So I
decided to go back to strictly doing science and leave the { {communication} } to
others.

04:05

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By 15 years later, evidence of { {global warming} } was much stronger. Most of the
things mentioned in our { {1981} } paper were facts. I had the privilege to speak twice
to the president's climate task force. But energy policies continued to { {focus} } on
finding more { {fossil fuels} }. By then we had two grandchildren, Sophie and Connor. I
decided that I did not want them in the future to say, "Opa understood what was
happening, but he didn't make it clear." So I decided to give a { {public} } talk criticizing
the lack of an appropriate energy policy.

04:46

I gave the talk at the University of Iowa in 2004 and at the 2005 meeting of the
American Geophysical Union. This led to calls from the White House to NASA
headquarters and I was told that I could not give any talks or speak with { {the media}
} without prior explicit { {approval} } by NASA headquarters. After I informed the New
York Times about these restrictions, NASA was forced to end the censorship. But there
were consequences. I had been using the first line of the NASA mission statement, "To
{ {understand} } and { {protect} } the home planet," to justify my talks. Soon the first line
of the mission statement was deleted, never to appear again.

05:32

Over the next few years I was drawn more and more into trying to { {communicate} }
the urgency of a change in energy policies, while still { {researching} } the physics of
climate change. Let me describe the most important { {conclusion} } from the physics
-- first, from Earth's energy { {balance} } and, second, from Earth's climate history.

05:55

Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on the bed. It reduces Earth's
heat radiation to space, so there's a { {temporary} } energy imbalance. More energy is
coming in than going out, until Earth warms up enough to again radiate to space as
much { {energy} } as it absorbs from the Sun. So the key quantity is Earth's energy

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imbalance. Is there more energy coming in than going out? If so, more { {warming} }
is in the pipeline. It will occur without adding any more greenhouse { {gasses} }.

06:32

Now finally, we can measure Earth's energy imbalance precisely by measuring the {
{heat} } content in Earth's heat reservoirs. The biggest reservoir, the { {ocean} }, was the
least well measured, until more than 3,000 Argo floats were distributed { {around} }
the world's ocean. These floats reveal that the upper half of the ocean is gaining heat
at a substantial rate. The deep ocean is also { {gaining} } heat at a smaller rate, and {
{energy} } is going into the net { {melting} } of ice all around the planet. And the land,
to depths of tens of meters, is also warming.

07:12

The total energy imbalance now is about six-tenths of a watt per square meter. That
may not sound like much, but when added up over the whole world, it's { {enormous}
}. It's about 20 times greater than the { {rate} } of energy use by all of { {humanity} }. It's
equivalent to exploding { {400,000} } Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per
year. That's how much extra energy Earth is gaining each day. This imbalance, if we
want to stabilize { {climate} }, means that we must reduce CO2 from 391 ppm, parts
per million, back to { {350} } ppm. That is the change needed to { {restore} } energy
balance and { {prevent} } further warming.

08:03

{ {Climate change} } deniers argue that the Sun is the main cause of climate change.
But the measured energy imbalance occurred during the deepest solar minimum in
the record, when the Sun's energy reaching { {Earth} } was least. Yet, there was more
energy coming in than going out. This shows that the { {effect} } of the Sun's variations
on climate is overwhelmed by the increasing greenhouse gasses, mainly from
burning { {fossil fuels} }.

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08:32

Now consider Earth's climate history. These curves for global { {temperature} },
atmospheric CO2 and sea level were derived from ocean cores and Antarctic ice cores,
from ocean sediments and snowflakes that piled up year after year over { {800,000} }
years forming a two-mile thick ice sheet. As you see, there's a high correlation
between temperature, CO2 and { {sea level} }. Careful examination shows that the
temperature changes { {slightly} } lead the CO2 changes by a few { {centuries} }.
Climate change deniers like to use this fact to confuse and trick the public by saying,
"Look, the temperature causes CO2 to change, not vice versa." But that lag is exactly
what is expected.

09:23

Small changes in Earth's orbit that occur over tens to hundreds of { {thousands} } of
years alter the distribution of { {sunlight} } on Earth. When there is more sunlight at
high latitudes in summer, { {ice} } sheets melt. Shrinking ice sheets make the planet
darker, so it absorbs more { {sunlight} } and becomes { {warmer} }. A warmer ocean
releases CO2, just as a warm Coca-Cola does. And more CO2 causes more warming.
So CO2, methane, and ice sheets were feedbacks that amplified global temperature
change causing these ancient climate oscillations to be { {huge} }, even though the
climate change was initiated by a very weak forcing.

10:10

The important point is that these same amplifying { {feedbacks} } will occur today. The
physics does not change. As Earth { {warms} }, now because of extra CO2 we put in the
{ {atmosphere} }, ice will melt, and CO2 and methane will be released by warming
ocean and melting permafrost. While we can't say { {exactly} } how fast these
amplifying feedbacks will occur, it is certain they will occur, unless we stop the
warming. There is { {evidence} } that feedbacks are already beginning. Precise
measurements by GRACE, the gravity satellite, reveal that both Greenland and

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Antarctica are now losing mass, several hundred cubic kilometers per year. And the
rate has accelerated since the measurements began { {nine} } years ago. Methane is
also beginning to { {escape} } from the permafrost.

11:09

What sea level rise can we look forward to? The last time CO2 was 390 ppm, today's
value, sea level was higher by at least 15 meters, 50 feet. Where you are sitting now
would be under water. Most estimates are that, this century, we will get at least one
meter. I think it will be more if we keep burning fossil fuels, perhaps even five meters,
which is 18 feet, this century or shortly thereafter.

11:42

The important point is that we will have { {started} } a process that is out of humanity's
control. Ice sheets would { {continue} } to disintegrate for centuries. There would be
no stable shoreline. The economic consequences are almost { {unthinkable} }.
Hundreds of New Orleans-like devastations around the world. What may be more
reprehensible, if climate denial continues, is extermination of { {species} }. The
monarch butterfly could be one of the 20 to 50 percent of all species that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates will be ticketed for {
{extinction} } by the end of the century if we stay on business-as-usual fossil fuel use.

12:28

Global warming is already { {affecting} } people. The Texas, Oklahoma, Mexico

heatwave and drought last year, Moscow the year before and Europe in { {2003} }, were
all exceptional events, more than three standard deviations outside the norm. Fifty
years ago, such anomalies covered only two- to three-tenths of one percent of the
land area. In recent years, because of global warming, they now cover about { {10
percent} } -- an increase by a factor of 25 to 50. So we can say with a high degree of {
{confidence} } that the severe Texas and Moscow heatwaves were not natural; they

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were caused by global warming. An important impact, if global warming continues,
will be on the breadbasket of our nation and the world, the Midwest and Great Plains,
which are expected to become prone to extreme droughts, worse than the Dust Bowl,
within just a few decades, if we let { {global warming} } continue.

13:34

How did I get dragged deeper and deeper into an attempt to { {communicate} }, giving
talks in 10 countries, getting arrested, burning up the { {vacation} } time that I had
accumulated over 30 years? More { {grandchildren} } helped me along. Jake is a super-
positive, enthusiastic boy. Here at age two and a half years, he thinks he can protect
his two and a half-day-old { {little sister} }. It would be immoral to leave these young
people with a climate system spiraling { {out of control} }.

14:11

Now the tragedy about climate change is that we can { {solve} } it with a simple, {
{honest} } approach of a gradually rising carbon fee collected from fossil fuel
companies and distributed 100 percent electronically every month to all legal {
{residents} } on a per capita basis, with the government not keeping one dime. Most
people would get more in the monthly dividend than they'd pay in increased prices.
This fee and dividend would stimulate the { {economy} } and innovations, creating
millions of jobs. It is the principal { {requirement} } for moving us rapidly to a clean
energy future.

14:55

Several top economists are coauthors on this proposition. Jim DiPeso of Republicans
for Environmental Protection describes it thusly: "Transparent. Market-based. Does
not enlarge government. Leaves energy decisions to individual choices. Sounds like a
conservative climate plan."

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15:16

But instead of placing a { {rising} } fee on carbon emissions to make fossil fuels pay
their true cost to society, our { {governments} } are forcing the public to subsidize fossil
fuels by 400 to 500 billion dollars per year { {worldwide} }, thus encouraging extraction
of every fossil fuel -- mountaintop removal, longwall mining, fracking, tar sands, tar
shale, deep ocean Arctic drilling. This path, if continued, guarantees that we will pass
tipping points leading to ice sheet disintegration that will accelerate { {out of control}
} of future generations. A large fraction of species will be committed to extinction. And
increasing intensity of { {droughts} } and { {floods} } will severely impact breadbaskets
of the world, causing massive famines and economic decline. Imagine a giant asteroid
on a direct collision course with Earth.

16:21

That is the equivalent of what we face now. Yet, we dither, taking no action to divert
the asteroid, even though the longer we wait, the more { {difficult} } and { {expensive}
} it becomes. If we had started in 2005, it would have { {required} } emission reductions
of three percent per year to restore planetary energy balance and stabilize climate this
century. If we start next year, it is six percent per year. If we wait 10 years, it is 15 percent
per year -- extremely { {difficult} } and expensive, perhaps { {impossible} }. But we aren't
even starting.

17:02

So now you know what I know that is moving me to sound this alarm. Clearly, I haven't
gotten this message across. The science is clear. I need your help to communicate the
gravity and the urgency of this situation and its solutions more effectively. We owe it
to our children and grandchildren.

17:26

Thank you.

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17:28

(Applause)

9. How public spaces make cities work

00:04

When people think about cities, they tend to think of {{certain}} things. They think of
buildings and streets and {{skyscrapers}}, noisy cabs. But when I think about cities, I
think about people. Cities are {{fundamentally}} about people, and where people go
and where people meet are at the {{core}} of what makes a city work. So even more
important than buildings in a city are the public {{spaces}} in between them. And
today, some of the most {{transformative}} changes in cities are happening in these
public spaces.

00:41

So I believe that lively, {{enjoyable}} public spaces are the key to planning a great city.
They are what makes it come alive. But what makes a public space work? What
{{attracts}} people to successful public spaces, and what is it about {{unsuccessful}}
places that keeps people away? I thought, if I could answer those questions, I could
make a huge{{ contribution}} to my city. But one of the more wonky things about me
is that I am an {{animal}} behaviorist, and I use those skills not to study animal
{{behavior}} but to study how people in cities use city public spaces.

01:25

One of the first spaces that I studied was this little vest pocket park called Paley Park
in {{midtown}} Manhattan. This little space became a small {{phenomenon}}, and
because it had such a {{profound}} impact on New Yorkers, it made an {{enormous}}
impression on me. I studied this park very early on in my {{career}} because it
happened to have been {{built}} by my stepfather, so I knew that places like Paley Park

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didn't happen by {{accident}}. I saw firsthand that they required incredible
{{dedication}} and enormous attention to detail. But what was it about this space that
made it {{special}} and drew people to it? Well, I would sit in the park and watch very
{{carefully}}, and first among other things were the {{comfortable, movable chairs.
People would come in, find their own {{seat, move it a bit, actually, and then stay a
while, and then {{interestingly, people themselves attracted other people, and
ironically, I felt more{{peaceful}} if there were other people around. And it was green.
This little park {{provided}} what New Yorkers crave: comfort and greenery. But my
question was, why weren't there more places with greenery and places to sit in the
{{middle}} of the city where you didn't feel alone, or like a trespasser? {{Unfortunately}},
that's not how cities were being designed.

02:58

So here you see a {{familiar}} sight. This is how plazas have been designed for
{{generations}}. They have that stylish, Spartan look that we often {{associate}} with
modern architecture, but it's not {{surprising}} that people avoid spaces like this. They
not only look desolate, they feel downright dangerous. I mean, where would you sit
here? What would you do here? But {{architects}} love them. They are plinths for their
creations. They might {{tolerate}} a sculpture or two, but that's about it. And for
{{developers}}, they are ideal. There's nothing to water, nothing to maintain, and no
{{undesirable}} people to worry about. But don't you think this is a {{waste}}? For me,
becoming a city planner meant being able to truly change the city that I lived in and
loved. I wanted to be able to create {{places}} that would give you the feeling that you
got in Paley Park, and not allow developers to build bleak plazas like this. But over the
many years, I have learned how hard it is to {{create}} successful, {{meaningful}},
enjoyable public spaces. As I learned from my stepfather, they certainly do not happen
by accident, {{especially}} in a city like New York, where public space has to be
{{fought}} for to begin with, and then for them to be successful, somebody has to think
very hard about every {{detail}}.

04:34

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Now, open spaces in cities are {{opportunities}}. Yes, they are opportunities for
{{commercial}} investment, but they are also opportunities for the {{common}} good
of the city, and those two goals are often not aligned with one another, and therein
lies the {{conflict}}.

04:53

The first opportunity I had to fight for a great public open space was in the {{early}}
1980s, when I was leading a team of planners at a gigantic {{landfill}} called Battery
Park City in lower Manhattan on the Hudson River. And this sandy {{wasteland}} had
lain barren for 10 years, and we were told, {{unless}} we found a developer in six
months, it would go {{bankrupt}}. So we came up with a radical, almost {{insane}} idea.
Instead of building a park as a complement to {{future}} development, why don't we
reverse that {{equation}} and build a small but very high-quality public open space
first, and see if that made a difference. So we only could {{afford}} to build a two-block
section of what would become a mile-long esplanade, so {{whatever}} we built had to
be perfect. So just to make sure, I {{insisted}} that we build a mock-up in wood, at scale,
of the railing and the sea wall. And when I sat down on that test {{bench}} with sand
still swirling all around me, the railing hit {{exactly}} at eye level, blocking my view and
ruining my {{experience}} at the water's edge.

06:09

So you see, {{details}} really do make a difference. But design is not just how something
looks, it's how your body feels on that seat in that space, and I {{believe}} that
successful design always depends on that very individual {{experience}}. In this photo,
everything looks very {{finished}}, but that granite edge, those {{lights}}, the back on
that bench, the trees in planting, and the many different kinds of places to sit were all
little {{battles}} that turned this project into a place that people {{wanted}} to be.

06:49

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Now, this proved very {{valuable}} 20 years later when Michael Bloomberg asked me
to be his planning commissioner and put me in {{charge}} of shaping the entire city of
New York. And he said to me on that very day, he said that New York was {{projected}}
to grow from eight to nine million people. And he asked me, "So where are you going
to put one {{million}} additional New Yorkers?"

07:14

Well, I didn't have any idea. Now, you know that New York does place a high {{value}}
on attracting {{immigrants}}, so we were excited about the prospect of {{growth}}, but
honestly, where were we going to grow in a city that was already built out to its edges
and surrounded by water? How were we going to find {{housing}} for that many new
New Yorkers? And if we couldn't spread out, which was {{probably}} a good thing,
where could new housing go? And what about cars? Our city couldn't possibly
{{handle}} any more cars.

07:50

So what were we going to do? If we couldn't {{spread}} out, we had to go up. And if we
had to go up, we had to go up in places where you wouldn't need to own a car. So that
{{meant}} using one of our greatest {{assets}}: our transit system. But we had never
before thought of how we could make the most of it. So here was the {{answer}} to our
puzzle. If we were to channel and {{redirect}} all new development around {{transit}},
we could actually handle that {{population}} increase, we thought. And so here was
the plan, what we really needed to do: We needed to redo our zoning -- and zoning is
the city planner's regulatory tool -- and basically reshape the entire city, {{targeting}}
where new development could go and {{prohibiting}} any development at all in our
car-oriented, suburban-style neighborhoods. Well, this was an unbelievably
{{ambitious}} idea, ambitious because communities had to {{approve}} those plans.

08:57

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So how was I going to get this done? By listening. So I began listening, in fact,
{{thousands}} of hours of listening just to {{establish}} trust. You know, communities
can tell whether or not you understand their neighborhoods. It's not something you
can just fake. And so I began {{walking}}. I can't tell you how many blocks I walked, in
sweltering {{summers}}, in freezing winters, year after year, just so I could get to
understand the DNA of each neighborhood and know what each {{street}} felt like. I
became an incredibly geeky zoning {{expert}}, finding ways that zoning could address
{{communities' concerns. So little by little, neighborhood by neighborhood, {{block}}
by block, we began to set height {{limits}} so that all new development would be
{{predictable}} and near transit. Over the course of 12 years, we were able to {{rezone}}
124 neighborhoods, 40 percent of the city, 12,500 blocks, so that now, 90 percent of all
new development of New York is within a 10-minute walk of a {{subway}}. In other
words, nobody in those new {{buildings}} needs to own a car.

10:16

Well, those rezonings were {{exhausting}} and enervating and important, but rezoning
was never my {{mission}}. You can't see zoning and you can't feel zoning. My mission
was always to create great public spaces. So in the areas where we zoned for
{{significant}} development, I was determined to create places that would make a
{{difference}} in people's lives. Here you see what was two miles of abandoned,
degraded {{waterfront}} in the neighborhoods of Greenpoint and Williamsburg in
Brooklyn, impossible to get to and impossible to use. Now the zoning here was
{{massive}}, so I felt an obligation to create {{magnificent}} parks on these waterfronts,
and I spent an incredible amount of time on every square {{inch}} of these plans. I
wanted to make sure that there were tree-lined paths from the {{upland}} to the water,
that there were trees and plantings everywhere, and, of course, lots and lots of places
to sit. Honestly, I had no idea how it would turn out. I had to have {{faith}}. But I put
everything that I had {{studied}} and learned into those plans.

11:29

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And then it {{opened}}, and I have to tell you, it was incredible. People came from all
over the city to be in these parks. I know they {{changed}} the lives of the people who
live there, but they also changed New Yorkers' whole {{image}} of their city. I often
come down and watch people get on this little ferry that now runs between the
boroughs, and I can't tell you why, but I'm {{completely}} moved by the fact that people
are {{using}} it as if it had always been there.

11:58

And here is a new park in {{lower}} Manhattan. Now, the water's edge in lower
Manhattan was a {{complete}} mess before 9/11. Wall Street was essentially landlocked
because you couldn't get anywhere near this edge. And after 9/11, the city had very
little {{control}}. But I thought if we went to the Lower Manhattan Development
Corporation and got money to reclaim this two miles of degraded waterfront that it
would have an enormous {{effect}} on the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. And it did.
Lower Manhattan finally has a public waterfront on all three {{sides}}.

12:34

I really love this park. You know, railings have to be higher now, so we put bar seating
at the {{edge}}, and you can get so close to the water you're {{practically}} on it. And
see how the railing widens and {{flattens}} out so you can lay down your lunch or your
laptop. And I love when people come there and look up and they say, "Wow, there's
Brooklyn, and it's so close."

12:58

So what's the trick? How do you turn a park into a place that people want to be? Well,
it's up to you, not as a city {{planner}} but as a human being. You don't tap into your
design expertise. You tap into your {{humanity}}. I mean, would you want to go there?
Would you want to stay there? Can you see into it and out of it? Are there other people
there? Does it seem green and {{friendly}}? Can you find your very own seat?

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13:34

Well now, all over New York City, there are places where you can find your very own
{{seat}}. Where there used to be parking spaces, there are now pop-up {{cafes}}. Where
Broadway traffic used to run, there are now tables and chairs. Where 12 years ago,
{{sidewalk}} cafes were not allowed, they are now everywhere. But claiming these
spaces for public use was not simple, and it's even harder to keep them that way.

14:02

So now I'm going to tell you a story about a very {{unusual}} park called the High Line.
The High Line was an elevated railway. (Applause) The High Line was an elevated
{{railway}} that ran through three {{neighborhoods}} on Manhattan's West Side, and
when the train stopped running, it became a self-seeded landscape, a kind of a
{{garden}} in the sky. And when I saw it the first time, honestly, when I went up on that
old viaduct, I fell in love the way you fall in love with a person, {{honestly}}. And when I
was {{appointed}}, saving the first two sections of the High Line from demolition
became my first priority and my most important {{project}}. I knew if there was a day
that I didn't worry about the High Line, it would come down. And the High Line, even
though it is widely {{known}} now and phenomenally popular, it is the most
{{contested}} public space in the city. You might see a beautiful park, but not everyone
does. You know, it's true, commercial {{interests}} will always battle against public
space. You might say, "How {{wonderful}} it is that more than four million people come
from all over the world to visit the High Line." Well, a developer sees just one thing:
{{customers}}. Hey, why not take out those {{plantings}} and have shops all along the
High Line? Wouldn't that be terrific and won't it mean a lot more money for the city?
Well no, it would not be {{terrific}}. It would be a {{mall}}, and not a park. (Applause)
And you know what, it might mean more money for the city, but a city has to take the
long {{view}}, the view for the common good. Most recently, the last section of the High
Line, the {{third section of the High Line, the final section of the High Line, has been
pitted against {{development}} interests, where some of the city's leading developers
are building more than 17 million {{square}} feet at the Hudson Yards. And they came

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to me and {{proposed}} that they "temporarily disassemble" that third and final
{{section}}. Perhaps the High Line didn't fit in with their image of a gleaming city of
skyscrapers on a hill. {{Perhaps}} it was just in their way. But in any case, it took nine
months of nonstop daily {{negotiation}} to finally get the signed agreement to prohibit
its demolition, and that was only two years ago.

16:48

So you see, no matter how {{popular}} and successful a public space may be, it can
never be taken for {{granted}}. Public spaces always -- this is it saved -- public spaces
always need vigilant {{champions}}, not only to claim them at the {{outset}} for public
use, but to design them for the people that use them, then to {{maintain}} them to
ensure that they are for everyone, that they are not violated, invaded, abandoned or
{{ignored}}. If there is any one lesson that I have learned in my life as a city planner, it
is that public spaces have {{power}}. It's not just the number of people using them, it's
the even {{greater}} number of people who feel better about their city just knowing
that they are there. Public space can change how you live in a city, how you feel about
a city, whether you choose one city over another, and public space is one of the most
important {{reasons}} why you stay in a city.

17:52

I believe that a successful city is like a {{fabulous}} party. People stay because they are
having a great time.

18:01

Thank you.

18:03

(Applause) Thank you. (Applause)

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10. What do we do when antibiotics don't work any

more?
00:04

This is my great uncle, my father's father's {{younger}} brother. His name was Joe
McKenna. He was a young husband and a semi-pro {{basketball}} player and a fireman
in New York City. Family {{history}} says he loved being a {{fireman}}, and so in 1938, on
one of his days off, he elected to hang out at the firehouse. To make himself {{useful}}
that day, he started {{polishing}} all the brass, the railings on the fire truck, the fittings
on the walls, and one of the fire hose nozzles, a giant, heavy {{piece}} of {{metal}},
toppled off a shelf and hit him. A few days later, his {{shoulder}} started to hurt. Two
days after that, he spiked a fever. The {{fever}} climbed and climbed. His {{wife}} was
taking care of him, but nothing she did made a {{difference}}, and when they got the
{{local}} doctor in, nothing he did mattered either.

01:05

They flagged down a cab and took him to the {{hospital}}. The nurses there recognized
right away that he had an {{infection}}, what at the time they would have called "blood
poisoning," and though they {{probably}} didn't say it, they would have known right
away that there was nothing they could do.

01:25

There was nothing they could do {{because}} the things we use now to cure infections
didn't exist yet. The first test of penicillin, the first {{antibiotic}}, was three years in the
future. People who got infections either {{recovered}}, if they were lucky, or they died.
My great uncle was not lucky. He was in the hospital for a week, shaking with chills,
{{dehydrated}} and delirious, sinking into a coma as his organs {{failed}}. His condition
grew so desperate that the people from his firehouse lined up to give him transfusions
hoping to dilute the infection {{surging}} through his blood.

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02:05

Nothing worked. He died. He was 30 years old.

02:11

If you look back {{through}} history, most people died the way my great uncle died.
Most people didn't die of cancer or heart disease, the lifestyle {{diseases}} that afflict
us in the West today. They didn't die of those diseases because they didn't live long
enough to develop them. They died of {{injuries}} -- being gored by an ox, shot on a
{{battlefield}}, crushed in one of the new factories of the Industrial {{Revolution}} -- and
most of the time from infection, which finished what those injuries began.

02:47

All of that changed when antibiotics arrived. Suddenly, infections that had been a
{{death}} sentence became something you recovered from in days. It seemed like a
{{miracle}}, and ever since, we have been living inside the {{golden}} epoch of the
miracle drugs.

03:08

And now, we are coming to an end of it. My great uncle {{died}} in the last days of the
pre-antibiotic era. We stand today on the threshold of the post-antibiotic era, in the
{{earliest}} days of a time when {{simple}} infections such as the one Joe had will kill
people once again.

03:32

In fact, they already are. People are {{dying}} of infections again because of a
phenomenon called antibiotic resistance. Briefly, it works like this. Bacteria compete
against each other for {{resources}}, for food, by {{manufacturing}} lethal compounds

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that they direct against each other. Other bacteria, to protect themselves, evolve
defenses against that {{chemical}} attack. When we first made antibiotics, we took
those {{compounds}} into the lab and made our own versions of them, and bacteria
{{responded}} to our attack the way they always had.

04:11

Here is what happened next: Penicillin was distributed in 1943, and {{widespread}}
penicillin {{resistance}} arrived by 1945. Vancomycin arrived in 1972, vancomycin
resistance in 1988. Imipenem in 1985, and resistance to in 1998. Daptomycin, one of the
most {{recent}} drugs, in 2003, and resistance to it just a year later in 2004.

04:42

For 70 years, we played a game of leapfrog -- our {{drug}} and their resistance, and
then another drug, and then resistance again -- and now the game is ending. Bacteria
develop resistance so quickly that {{pharmaceutical}} companies have decided
making antibiotics is not in their best {{interest}}, so there are infections moving across
the world for which, out of the more than 100 antibiotics available on the {{market}},
two drugs might work with side effects, or one drug, or none.

05:19

This is what that looks like. In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and {{Prevention}},
the CDC, {{identified}} a single case in a hospital in North Carolina of an infection
resistant to all but two drugs. Today, that infection, known as KPC, has spread to every
{{state}} but three, and to South America, Europe and the Middle East. In 2008, doctors
in Sweden diagnosed a man from India with a different infection {{resistant}} to all but
one drug that time. The gene that creates that resistance, known as NDM, has now
{{spread}} from India into China, Asia, Africa, Europe and Canada, and the United
States.

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06:08

It would be {{natural}} to hope that these infections are extraordinary cases, but in fact,
in the United States and Europe, 50,000 people a year die of infections which no drugs
can help. A {{project}} chartered by the British {{government}} known as the Review
on Antimicrobial Resistance estimates that the {{worldwide}} toll right now is 700,000
deaths a year.

06:41

That is a lot of deaths, and yet, the {{chances}} are good that you don't feel at risk, that
you imagine these people were hospital patients in {{intensive}} care units or nursing
home residents near the ends of their lives, people whose infections are {{remote}}
from us, in situations we can't identify with.

07:05

What you didn't think about, none of us do, is that antibiotics support almost all of
{{modern}} life.

07:15

If we lost antibiotics, here's what else we'd lose: First, any protection for people with
{{weakened}} immune {{systems}} -- cancer patients, AIDS patients, transplant
recipients, premature babies.

07:31

Next, any treatment that installs {{foreign}} objects in the body: stents for stroke,
pumps for diabetes, dialysis, {{joint}} replacements. How many athletic baby boomers
need new hips and knees? A recent study {{estimates}} that without antibiotics, one
out of ever six would die.

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07:54

Next, we'd probably lose {{surgery}}. Many operations are preceded by prophylactic
doses of antibiotics. Without that protection, we'd lose the {{ability}} to open the
hidden spaces of the body. So no heart {{operations}}, no prostate biopsies, no
Cesarean sections. We'd have to learn to fear infections that now seem {{minor}}. Strep
throat used to cause heart failure. Skin infections led to amputations. Giving birth
killed, in the cleanest hospitals, almost one {{woman}} out of every 100. Pneumonia
took three children out of every 10.

08:40

More than anything else, we'd lose the confident way we live our everyday {{lives}}. If
you knew that any injury could kill you, would you ride a motorcycle, bomb down a ski
slope, climb a {{ladder}} to hang your Christmas {{lights}}, let your kid slide into home
plate? After all, the first person to receive penicillin, a British {{policeman}} named
Albert Alexander, who was so ravaged by infection that his scalp oozed pus and
{{doctors}} had to take out an eye, was infected by doing something very simple. He
{{walked}} into his garden and scratched his face on a thorn. That British project I
mentioned which estimates that the worldwide toll right now is 700,000 deaths a year
also {{predicts}} that if we can't get this under {{control}} by 2050, not long, the
worldwide toll will be 10 million deaths a year.

09:53

How did we get to this point where what we have to look forward to is those
{{terrifying}} numbers? The difficult answer is, we did it to {{ourselves}}. Resistance is
an inevitable biological process, but we bear the {{responsibility}} for accelerating it.
We did this by squandering antibiotics with a heedlessness that now seems shocking.
Penicillin was sold over the {{counter}} until the 1950s. In much of the {{developing}}
world, most antibiotics still are. In the United States, 50 percent of the antibiotics given
in hospitals are unnecessary. Forty-five percent of the {{prescriptions}} written in
doctor's offices are for {{conditions}} that antibiotics cannot help. And that's just in

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healthcare. On much of the {{planet}}, most meat animals get antibiotics every day of
their lives, not to cure illnesses, but to fatten them up and to protect them {{against}}
the factory farm conditions they are raised in. In the United States, {{possibly}} 80
percent of the antibiotics sold every year go to farm animals, not to humans, creating
resistant {{bacteria}} that move off the farm in water, in dust, in the meat the animals
become. Aquaculture depends on antibiotics too, {{particularly}} in Asia, and fruit
growing relies on antibiotics to {{protect}} apples, pears, citrus, against disease. And
because bacteria can pass their DNA to each other like a {{traveler}} handing off a
suitcase at an airport, once we have {{encouraged}} that resistance into existence,
there is no knowing where it will spread.

11:57

This was predictable. In fact, it was predicted by Alexander Fleming, the man who
{{discovered}} penicillin. He was {{given}} the Nobel Prize in 1945 in recognition, and in
an interview shortly after, this is what he said:

12:14

"The {{thoughtless}} person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for
the death of a man who succumbs to infection with a pencillin-resistant {{organism}}."
He added, "I hope this evil can be averted."

12:32

Can we avert it? There are companies working on {{novel}} antibiotics, things the
superbugs have never seen before. We need those new drugs badly, and we need
{{incentives}}: discovery grants, extended {{patents}}, prizes, to lure other companies
into making antibiotics again.

12:56

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But that probably won't be enough. Here's why: Evolution always {{wins}}. Bacteria
birth a new {{generation}} every 20 minutes. It takes pharmaceutical chemistry 10
years to derive a new drug. Every time we use an antibiotic, we give the bacteria
billions of chances to crack the codes of the defenses we've {{constructed}}. There has
never yet been a drug they could not defeat.

13:28

This is asymmetric warfare, but we can change the outcome. We could build systems
to {{harvest}} data to tell us automatically and {{specifically}} how antibiotics are being
used. We could build gatekeeping into drug order systems so that every prescription
gets a second look. We could require {{agriculture}} to give up antibiotic use. We could
build surveillance systems to tell us where resistance is {{emerging}} next.

14:07

Those are the tech {{solutions}}. They probably aren't enough either, unless we help.
Antibiotic resistance is a habit. We all know how hard it is to change a habit. But as a
society, we've {{done}} that in the past. People used to toss litter into the {{streets}},
used to not wear seatbelts, used to smoke inside {{public}} buildings. We don't do
those things anymore. We don't trash the environment or court devastating accidents
or expose others to the {{possibility}} of cancer, because we decided those things were
{{expensive}}, destructive, not in our best interest. We changed social norms. We could
change {{social}} norms around antibiotic use too.

15:09

I know that the {{scale}} of antibiotic resistance seems overwhelming, but if you've ever
bought a fluorescent lightbulb because you were {{concerned}} about climate
change, or read the label on a box of crackers because you think about the
deforestation from palm oil, you already know what it feels like to take a tiny step to
address an {{overwhelming}} problem. We could take those kinds of steps for

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antibiotic use too. We could forgo giving an antibiotic if we're not sure it's the right
one. We could stop insisting on a prescription for our kid's ear infection before we're
sure what {{caused}} it. We could ask every {{restaurant}}, every supermarket, where
their meat comes from. We could promise each other never again to buy chicken or
shrimp or fruit {{raised}} with routine antibiotic use, and if we did those things, we
could slow down the {{arrival}} of the post-antibiotic world.

16:21

But we have to do it soon. Penicillin began the antibiotic era in 1943. In just 70 years,
we walked ourselves up to the edge of {{disaster}}. We won't get 70 years to find our
way back out again.

16:42

Thank you very much.

16:44

(Applause)

11. The worldwide web of belief and ritual

00:03

You know, culture was born of the {{imagination}}, and the imagination -- the
imagination as we know it -- came into being when our {{speciesv}} descended from
our progenitor, Homo erectus, and, infused with {{consciousness}}, began a journey
that would carry it to every corner of the habitable world. For a time, we shared the
stage with our distant {{cousins}}, Neanderthal, who clearly had some spark of
{{awareness}}, but -- whether it was the increase in the size of the brain, or the
development of language, or some other evolutionary catalyst -- we quickly left
Neanderthal gasping for {{survival}}. By the time the last Neanderthal {{disappeared}}
in Europe, 27,000 years ago, our direct ancestors had already, and for 5,000 years, been

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crawling into the belly of the {{earth}}, where in the light of the flickers of tallow
{{candles}}, they had brought into being the great art of the Upper Paleolithic.

00:56

And I spent two {{months}} in the caves of southwest France with the {{poet}} Clayton
Eshleman, who wrote a beautiful book {{called "Juniper Fuse." And you could look at
this art and you could, of course, see the complex social organization of the people
who {{brought}} it into being. But more importantly, it spoke of a deeper {{yearning,
something far more sophisticated than hunting {{magic}}. And the way Clayton put it
was this way. He said, "You know, clearly at some point, we were all of an animal
{{nature}}, and at some point, we weren't." And he viewed proto-shamanism as a kind
of original attempt, through {{ritual}}, to rekindle a {{connection}} that had been
irrevocably lost. So, he saw this art not as {{hunting}} magic, but as postcards of
nostalgia. And viewed in that light, it {{takes}} on a whole other resonance.

01:40

And the most amazing thing about the Upper Paleolithic art is that as an aesthetic
{{expression}}, it {{lasted}} for almost 20,000 years. If these were postcards of nostalgia,
ours was a very long {{farewell}} indeed. And it was also the beginning of our
{{discontent}}, because if you wanted to distill all of our {{experience}} since the
Paleolithic, it would come down to two {{words}}: how and why. And these are the
slivers of insight upon which {{cultures}} have been forged. Now, all people share the
same raw, {{adaptive}} imperatives. We all have children. We all have to deal with the
{{mystery}} of death, the world that waits beyond death, the elders who fall away into
their {{elderly years. All of this is part of our {{common}} experience, and this shouldn't
{{surprise}} us, because, after all, biologists have finally proven it to be true, something
that philosophers have always {{dreamt}} to be true. And that is the fact that we are all
brothers and sisters. We are all cut from the same {{genetic}} cloth. All of humanity,
probably, is {{descended}} from a thousand people who left Africa roughly 70,000
years ago.

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02:39

But the corollary of that is that, if we all are brothers and sisters and {{share}} the same
genetic material, all human {{populations}} share the same raw human genius, the
same intellectual acuity. And so whether that genius is placed into -- {{technological}}
wizardry has been the great {{achievement}} of the West -- or by contrast, into
unraveling the complex threads of {{memory}} inherent in a myth, is simply a
{{matter}} of choice and cultural orientation. There is no {{progression}} of affairs in
human experience. There is no trajectory of progress. There's no {{pyramid}} that
conveniently places {{Victorian}} England at the apex and descends down the flanks
to the so-called primitives of the world. All peoples are simply {{cultural}} options,
different visions of life itself. But what do I mean by different {{visions}} of life making
for completely different {{possibilities}} for existence?

03:27

Well, let's slip for a moment into the {{greatest}} culture sphere ever brought into
being by the imagination, that of Polynesia. 10,000 square kilometers, tens of
{{thousands}} of islands flung like jewels upon the {{southern}} sea. I recently sailed on
the Hokulea, named after the sacred star of Hawaii, {{throughout}} the South Pacific
to make a film about the navigators. These are men and women who, even today, can
name 250 stars in the night sky. These are men and {{women}} who can sense the
{{presence}} of distant atolls of islands beyond the visible {{horizon}}, simply by
watching the reverberation of waves across the hull of their vessel, knowing full well
that every {{island}} group in the Pacific has its {{unique refractive pattern that can be
read with the same perspicacity with which a forensic scientist would read a
{{fingerprint}}. These are sailors who in the darkness, in the hull of the vessel, can
{{distinguish}} as many as 32 different sea swells moving through the canoe at any one
point in time, distinguishing local wave disturbances from the great {{currents}} that
pulsate {{across}} the ocean, that can be {{followed}} with the same ease that a
terrestrial explorer would follow a river to the sea. Indeed, if you took all of the genius
that allowed us to put a man on the moon and {{applied}} it to an understanding of

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the ocean, what you would get is Polynesia.

04:38

And if we slip from the realm of the sea into the {{realm}} of the spirit of the
imagination, you enter the realm of Tibetan Buddhism. And I recently made a film
called "The Buddhist {{Science}} of the Mind." Why did we use that word, science?
What is science but the empirical {{pursuit}} of the truth? What is Buddhism but 2,500
years of {{empirical}} observation as to the nature of mind? I travelled for a month in
Nepal with our good friend, Matthieu Ricard, and you'll remember Matthieu
{{famously}} said to all of us here once at TED, "Western science is a major {{response}}
to minor needs." We spend all of our {{lifetimev trying to live to be 100 without losing
our teeth. The Buddhist spends all their lifetime trying to understand the nature of
{{existence}}.

05:16

Our billboards {{celebrate}} naked children in underwear. Their billboards are manuals,
prayers to the well-being of all sentient {{creatures}}. And with the blessing of Trulshik
Rinpoche, we began a pilgrimage to a curious destination, accompanied by a great
doctor. And the {{destination}} was a {{single}} room in a nunnery, where a woman had
gone into {{lifelong}} retreat 55 years before. And en route, we took darshan from
Rinpoche, and he sat with us and told us about the Four Noble Truths, the {{essence}}
of the Buddhist path. All life is suffering. That doesn't mean all life is {{negative}}. It
means things happen. The cause of {{suffering}} is ignorance. By that, the Buddha did
not mean stupidity; he meant clinging to the illusion that life is {{static}} and
predictable. The third noble truth said that {{ignorance}} can be overcome. And the
fourth and most important, of course, was the delineation of a contemplative
{{practice}} that not only had the possibility of a transformation of the human heart,
but had 2,500 years of empirical evidence that such a {{transformation}} was a
certainty.

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06:14

And so, when this door opened {{onto}} the face of a woman who had not been out of
that room in 55 years, you did not see a mad woman. You saw a woman who was more
clear than a {{pool}} of water in a {{mountain}} stream. And of course, this is what the
Tibetan monks told us. They said, at one point, you know, we don't really believe you
went to the {{moon}}, but you did. You may not believe that we achieve
{{enlightenment}} in one lifetime, but we do. And if we move from the realm of the
{{spirit}} to the realm of the physical, to the sacred {{geography}} of Peru -- I've always
been interested in the {{relationships}} of indigenous people that literally believe that
the Earth is alive, responsive to all of their aspirations, all of their needs. And, of course,
the human population has its own reciprocal {{obligations}}.

06:59

I spent 30 years living {{amongst}} the people of Chinchero and I always heard about
an event that I always {{wanted}} to participate in. Once each year, the {{fastest}} young
boy in each hamlet is given the honor of becoming a woman. And for one day, he
wears the {{clothing}} of his sister and he becomes a transvestite, a waylaka. And for
that day, he {{leads}} all able-bodied men on a run, but it's not your {{ordinary}} run.
You start off at 11,500 feet. You run down to the base of the {{sacred}} mountain,
Antakillqa. You run up to 15,000 feet, descend 3,000 feet. Climb again over the
{{course}} of 24 hours. And of course, the waylakama spin, the trajectory of the {{route}},
is marked by holy mounds of Earth, where coke is given to the Earth, libations of
{{alcohol}} to the wind, the vortex of the feminine is brought to the {{mountaintop}}.
And the {{metaphor}} is clear: you go into the mountain as an individual, but through
{{exhaustion}}, through sacrifice, you emerge as a community that has once again
reaffirmed its {{sense}} of place in the planet. And at 48, I was the only outsider ever to
go through this, only one to finish it. I only {{managed}} to do it by chewing more coca
leaves in one day than anyone in the 4,000-year history of the {{plant}}.

08:10

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But these {{localized}} rituals become pan-Andean, and these fantastic festivals, like
that of the Qoyllur Rit'i, which {{occurs}} when the Pleiades reappear in the winter sky.
It's kind of like an Andean Woodstock: 60,000 Indians on pilgrimage to the end of a
dirt road that leads to the sacred {{valley}}, called the Sinakara, which is {{dominated}}
by three tongues of the great glacier. The metaphor is so clear. You bring the crosses
from your {{community}}, in this wonderful fusion of Christian and pre-Columbian
{{ideas}}. You place the cross into the ice, in the {{shadow}} of Ausangate, the most
sacred of all Apus, or sacred {{mountains}} of the Inca. And then you do the ritual
dances that empower the crosses.

08:48

Now, these ideas and these {{events}} allow us even to deconstruct {{iconic}} places
that many of you have been to, like Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was never a {{lost}}
city. On the contrary, it was {{completely}} linked in to the 14,000 kilometers of royal
roads the Inca made in less than a {{centuryv. But more importantly, it was linked in
to the Andean {{notions}} of sacred geography. The intiwatana, the hitching {{post}} to
the sun, is actually an obelisk that constantly reflects the light that {{falls}} on the
sacred Apu of Machu Picchu, which is Sugarloaf Mountain, {{called}} Huayna Picchu. If
you come to the south of the intiwatana, you find an {{altar}}. Climb Huayna Picchu,
find another altar. Take a direct north-south {{bearing}}, you find to your astonishment
that it bisects the intiwatana stone, {{goes}} to the {{skyline}}, hits the heart of
Salcantay, the second of the most important mountains of the Incan empire. And then
beyond Salcantay, of course, when the southern cross {{reaches}} the {{southernmost}}
point in the sky, directly in that same alignment, the Milky Way overhead. But what is
enveloping Machu Picchu from below? The sacred river, the Urubamba, or the
Vilcanota, which is itself the Earthly {{equivalent}} of the Milky Way, but it's also the
trajectory that Viracocha walked at the dawn of time when he brought the {{universe}}
into being. And where does the river rise? Right on the slopes of the Koariti.

10:08

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So, 500 years after Columbus, these {{ancient}} rhythms of landscape are played out
in ritual. Now, when I was here at the first TED, I showed this {{photograph}}: two men
of the Elder Brothers, the descendants, {{survivors}} of El Dorado. These, of course, are
the {{descendants}} of the ancient Tairona civilization. If those of you who are here
remember that I {{mentioned}} that they remain ruled by a ritual priesthood, but the
training for the priesthood is {{extraordinary}}. Taken from their families, sequestered
in a shadowy world of {{darkness}} for 18 years -- two nine-year periods deliberately
chosen to {{evoke}} the nine months they spend in the natural mother's womb. All that
time, the world only exists as an {{abstraction}}, as they are taught the values of their
society. Values that maintain the proposition that their prayers, and their prayers
alone, {{maintain}} the cosmic balance. Now, the {{measure}} of a society is not only
what it does, but the quality of its aspirations.

11:02

And I always wanted to go back into these mountains, to see if this could {{possibly}}
be true, as indeed had been {{reported}} by the great anthropologist, Reichel-
Dolmatoff. So, literally two weeks ago, I {{returned}} from having spent six weeks with
the Elder Brothers on what was clearly the most extraordinary trip of my life. These
really are a people who live and {{breathe}} the realm of the sacred, a baroque
religiosity that is simply {{awesome}}. They consume more coca leaves than any
human population, half a pound per man, per day. The gourd you see here is --
everything in their {{lives}} is {{symbolic}}. Their central metaphor is a loom. They say,
"Upon this loom, I weave my life." They refer to the movements as they exploit the
{{ecological}} niches of the gradient as "threads." When they pray for the dead, they
make these {{gestures}} with their hands, spinning their thoughts into the {{heavens}}.

11:54

You can see the calcium {{buildup}} on the head of the poporo gourd. The gourd is a
{{feminine}} aspect; the stick is a male. You put the stick in the {{powder}} to take the
sacred ashes -- well, they're not ashes, they're {{burnt}} limestone -- to empower the

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coca leaf, to change the pH of the mouth to facilitate the absorption of cocaine
hydrochloride. But if you break a gourd, you cannot simply throw it away, because
every {{stroke}} of that stick that has built up that calcium, the {{measure}} of a man's
life, has a thought behind it. Fields are {{planted}} in such an extraordinary way, that
the one side of the {{field}} is planted like that by the women. The other side is planted
like that by the men. Metaphorically, you turn it on the side, and you have a {{piece}}
of cloth. And they are the descendants of the ancient Tairona {{civilization}}, the
greatest goldsmiths of South America, who in the wake of the conquest, retreated
into this isolated {{volcanic}} massif that soars to 20,000 feet above the Caribbean
{{coastal}} plain.

12:49

There are four {{societies}}: the Kogi, the Wiwa, the Kankwano and the Arhuacos. I
traveled with the Arhuacos, and the wonderful thing about this story was that this
man, Danilo Villafane -- if we just jump back here for a second. When I first met Danilo,
in the Colombian {{embassy}} in Washington, I couldn't help but say, "You know, you
look a lot like an old friend of mine." Well, it {{turns}} out he was the son of my friend,
Adalberto, from 1974, who had been {{killed}} by the FARC. And I said, "Danilo, you
won't remember this, but when you were an {{infant}}, I carried you on my back, up
and down the mountains." And because of that, Danilo {{invited}} us to go to the very
heart of the world, a place where no {{journalist}} had ever been permitted. Not simply
to the flanks of the mountains, but to the very iced peaks which are the {{destiny}} of
the pilgrims.

13:35

And this man {{sitting}} cross-legged is now a grown-up Eugenio, a man who I've
known since 1974. And this is one of those initiates. No, it's not true that they're {{kept}}
in the darkness for 18 years, but they are kept within the confines of the ceremonial
men's {{circle}} for 18 years. This little boy will never step {{outside}} of the sacred fields
that surround the men's hut for all that time, until he begins his journey of initiation.

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For that {{entire}} time, the world only exists as an abstraction, as he is taught the
{{values}} of society, including this notion that their {{prayers}} alone maintain the
cosmic balance. Before we could begin our {{journey}}, we had to be cleansed at the
portal of the Earth. And it was extraordinary to be taken by a priest. And you see that
the priest never {{wears}} shoes because holy feet -- there must be nothing between
the {{feet and the Earth for a mamo. And this is actually the place where the Great
Mother sent the spindle into the world that elevated the mountains and created the
{{homeland}} that they call the heart of the world.

14:35

We traveled high into the paramo, and as we crested the {{hills}}, we realized that the
men were interpreting every single bump on the {{landscape}} in terms of their own
intense religiosity. And then of course, as we {{reached}} our final destination, a place
called Mamancana, we were in for a surprise, because the FARC were waiting to
kidnap us. And so we {{ended}} up being taken aside into these huts, {{hidden}} away
until the darkness. And then, abandoning all our gear, we were forced to ride out in
the middle of the night, in a quite {{dramatic}} scene. It's going to look like a John Ford
Western. And we ran into a FARC patrol at dawn, so it was quite harrowing. It will be
a very interesting film. But what was {{fascinating}} is that the minute there was a
sense of {{dangers}}, the mamos went into a circle of divination.

15:20

And of course, this is a photograph literally taken the night we were in hiding, as they
{{divine}} their route to take us out of the mountains. We were able to, because we had
{{trained}} people in filmmaking, {{continue}} with our work, and send our Wiwa and
Arhuaco {{filmmakers}} to the final sacred lakes to get the last {{shots}} for the film, and
we followed the rest of the Arhuaco back to the sea, taking the {{elements}} from the
highlands to the sea. And here you see how their sacred landscape has been
{{covered}} by brothels and hotels and casinos, and yet, still they pray. And it's an
amazing thing to think that this {{close}} to Miami, two hours from Miami, there is an

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entire civilization of people praying every day for your {{well-being}}. They call
themselves the Elder Brothers. They dismiss the rest of us who have {{ruined}} the
world as the Younger Brothers. They cannot understand why it is that we do what we
do to the Earth.

16:15

Now, if we slip to another end of the world, I was up in the high Arctic to tell a story
about {{global}} warming, {{inspired}} in part by the former Vice President's wonderful
book. And what struck me so extraordinary was to be again with the Inuit -- a people
who don't {{fear}} the cold, but take advantage of it. A people who find a way, with their
{{imagination}}, to carve life out of that very frozen. A people for whom {{blood}} on ice
is not a sign of death, but an affirmation of life. And yet tragically, when you now go to
those northern communities, you find to your {{astonishment}} that whereas the sea
ice used to come in in September and stay till July, in a place like Kanak in {{northern}}
Greenland, it literally comes in now in November and {{stays}} until March. So, their
entire year has been cut in half.

17:01

Now, I want to {{stress}} that none of these peoples that I've been quickly talking about
here are disappearing worlds. These are not {{dying}} peoples. On the contrary, you
know, if you have the {{heart}} to feel and the eyes to see, you {{discover}} that the
world is not flat. The world remains a rich tapestry. It {{remains}} a rich topography of
the spirit. These myriad voices of humanity are not failed attempts at being new, failed
{{attempts}} at being modern. They're unique facets of the human imagination.
They're unique {{answers}} to a fundamental question: what does it mean to be
human and alive? And when asked that question, they respond with 6,000 different
{{voices}}. And {{collectively}}, those voices become our human repertoire for dealing
with the challenges that will {{confront}} us in the ensuing millennia.

17:46

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Our {{industrial}} society is scarcely 300 years old. That shallow history shouldn't
{{suggest}} to anyone that we have all of the answers for all of the questions that will
confront us in the ensuing millennia. The myriad voices of {{humanity}} are not failed
attempts at being us. They are unique answers to that fundamental question: what
does it mean to be human and alive? And there is {{indeed}} a fire burning over the
Earth, taking with it not only plants and {{animals}}, but the legacy of humanity's
brilliance.

18:14

Right now, as we sit here in this room, of those 6,000 {{languages}} spoken the day
that you were born, fully {{half}} aren't being taught to children. So, you're living
through a time when virtually half of humanity's {{intellectual}}, social and spiritual
legacy is being allowed to slip away. This does not have to happen. These peoples are
not failed attempts at being modern -- quaint and {{colorful}} and destined to fade
away as if by {{natura}}l law.

18:39

In every case, these are {{dynamic}}, living peoples being driven out of existence by
identifiable forces. That's actually an optimistic {{observation}}, because it suggests
that if human beings are the agents of cultural destruction, we can also be, and must
be, the facilitators of cultural {{survival}}.

18:55

Thank you very much.

12. Why we all need to practice emotional first aid

00:06

I grew up with my {{identical}} twin, who was an incredibly loving brother. Now, one
thing about being a twin is, it makes you an expert at spotting favoritism. If his cookie

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was even {{slightly}} bigger than my cookie, I had {{questions}}. And clearly, I wasn't
starving.

00:29

(Laughter)

00:32

When I became a {{psychologist}}, I began to notice favoritism of a different kind; and

that is, how much more we {{value}} the body than we do the mind. I spent nine years
at university {{earning}} my doctorate in psychology, and I can't tell you how many
people look at my {{business}} card and say, "Oh -- a psychologist. So, not a {{real}}
doctor," as if it should say that on my card.

01:01

[Dr. Guy Winch, Just a Psychologist (Not a Real Doctor)]

01:04

(Laughter)

01:06

This favoritism we show the body over the mind -- I see it everywhere.

01:13

I {{recently}} was at a friend's house, and their five-year-old was getting ready for bed.
He was standing on a stool by the sink, brushing his {{teeth}}, when he slipped and
scratched his leg on the stool when he {{fell}}. He cried for a minute, but then he got
back up, got {{back}} on the stool, and {{reached}} out for a box of Band-Aids to put

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one on his cut. Now, this kid could {{barely}} tie his {{shoelaces}}, but he knew you have
to cover a cut so it doesn't become {{infected}}, and you have to care for your teeth by
brushing twice a day. We all know how to maintain our {{physical}} health and how to
practice dental {{hygiene}}, right? We've known it since we were five years old. But
what do we know about maintaining our {{psychological}} health? Well, nothing.
What do we teach our children about {{emotional}} hygiene? Nothing. How is it that
we spend more time taking care of our teeth than we do our minds? Why is it that
our physical {{health}} is so much more important to us than our psychological health?

02:24

We sustain psychological {{injuries even more often than we do physical ones, injuries
like failure or rejection or {{loneliness}}. And they can also get worse if we ignore them,
and they can impact our lives in dramatic ways. And yet, even though there are
scientifically proven {{techniques}} we could use to treat these {{kinds}} of
psychological injuries, we don't. It doesn't even {{occur}} to us that we should. "Oh,
you're feeling {{depressed}}? Just shake it off; it's all in your head." Can you imagine
saying that to somebody with a {{broken}} leg: "Oh, just walk it off; it's all in your leg."

03:04

(Laughter)

03:06

It is time we {{closed}} the gap between our physical and our psychological health. It's
time we made them more {{equal}}, more like twins.

03:18

Speaking of which, my brother is also a psychologist. So he's not a real doctor,

{{either}}.

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03:24

(Laughter)

03:27

We didn't study together, though. In fact, the {{hardest}} thing I've ever done in my life
is move across the Atlantic to New York City to get my doctorate in psychology. We
were {{apart}} then for the first time in our {{lives}}, and the separation was brutal for
both of us. But while he remained among family and friends, I was alone in a new
country. We missed each other {{terribly}}, but international phone calls were really
expensive then, and we could only {{afford}} to speak for five minutes a week. When
our birthday {{rolled}} around, it was the first we wouldn't be spending together. We
decided to splurge, and that week, we would {{talk}} for 10 minutes.

04:09

(Laughter)

04:10

I {{spent}} the morning pacing around my room, waiting for him to call -- and waiting
... and waiting. But the phone didn't ring. Given the time {{difference}}, I assumed, "OK,
he's out with friends, he'll call later." There were no cell phones then. But he didn't. And
I began to {{realize}} that after being away for over 10 {{months}}, he no longer missed
me the way I missed him. I knew he would call in the morning, but that night was one
of the saddest and longest {{nights}} of my life. I woke up the next morning. I
{{glanced}} down at the phone, and I realized I had kicked it off the hook when pacing
the day before. I {{stumbled}} out of bed, I put the phone back on the receiver, and it
rang a second later. And it was my brother, and boy, was he {{pissed}}.

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05:06

(Laughter)

05:08

It was the {{saddest}} and longest night of his life as well. Now, I tried to explain what
happened, but he said, "I don't understand. If you saw I wasn't calling you, why didn't
you just {{pick}} up the phone and call me?" He was right. Why didn't I call him? I didn't
have an answer then. But I do today, and it's a {{simple}} one: loneliness.

05:35

Loneliness creates a deep psychological wound, one that {{distorts}} our perceptions
and scrambles our thinking. It makes us {{believe}} that those around us care much
less than they actually do. It make us really {{afraid}} to reach out, because why set
yourself up for rejection and {{heartache}} when your heart is already {{aching}} more
than you can stand? I was in the grips of real loneliness back then, but I was
{{surrounded}} by people all day, so it never occurred to me. But loneliness is
{{defined}} purely subjectively. It depends {{solely}} on whether you feel emotionally or
socially disconnected from those around you. And I did. There is a lot of research on
loneliness, and all of it is {{horrifying}}. Loneliness won't just make you {{miserable}}; it
will kill you. I'm not kidding. Chronic loneliness increases your {{likelihood}} of an early
death by 14 percent. Fourteen percent! Loneliness causes high blood pressure, high
cholesterol. It even suppress the functioning of your {{immune}} system, making you
vulnerable to all kinds of {{illnesses}} and diseases. In fact, scientists have concluded
that taken together, chronic loneliness {{poses}} as significant a risk for your long-term
health and longevity as {{cigarette}} smoking. Now, cigarette packs come with
warnings saying, "This could kill you." But loneliness doesn't. And that's why it's so
important that we {{prioritize}} our psychological health, that we {{practice}} emotional
hygiene. Because you can't treat a psychological wound if you don't even know you're
{{injured}}. Loneliness isn't the only psychological wound that distorts our perceptions
and {{misleads}} us.

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07:32

Failure does that as well. I once visited a day care center, where I saw three toddlers
play with identical {{plastic}} toys. You had to slide the red {{button}}, and a cute doggie
would pop out. One little girl tried pulling the purple button, then pushing it, and then
she just sat back and {{looked at the box with her lower lip {{trembling}}. The little boy
next to her watched this happen, then turned to his box and burst into tears without
even touching it. Meanwhile, {{another}} little girl tried everything she could think of
until she slid the red button, the cute doggie popped out, and she squealed with
delight. So: three toddlers with {{identical}} plastic toys, but with very different
{{reactions}} to failure. The first two toddlers were perfectly {{capable}} of sliding a red
button. The only thing that prevented them from succeeding was that their mind
{{tricked}} them into believing they could not. Now, adults get tricked this way as well,
all the time. In fact, we all have a {{default set of feelings and beliefs that gets
{{triggered}} whenever we encounter frustrations and setbacks.

08:46

Are you aware of how your mind {{reacts}} to failure? You need to be. Because if your
mind tries to convince you you're {{incapable}} of something, and you believe it, then
like those two toddlers, you'll begin to feel {{helpless}} and you'll stop trying too soon,
or you won't even try at all. And then you'll be even more convinced you can't
{{succeed}}. You see, that's why so many people {{function}} below their actual
{{potential}}. Because somewhere along the way, sometimes a single failure
convinced them that they couldn't succeed, and they believed it.

09:20

Once we become convinced of something, it's very difficult to change our mind. I
{{learned}} that lesson the hard way when I was a teenager with my brother. We were
driving with friends down a dark {{road}} at night, when a police car {{stopped}} us.
There had been a robbery in the area and they were looking for suspects. The officer

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approached the car, and {{shined}} his flashlight on the driver, then on my brother in
the front seat, and then on me. And his eyes opened {{wide}} and he said, "Where have
I seen your face before?"

09:50

(Laughter)

09:53

And I said, "In the front seat."

09:56

(Laughter)

09:59

But that made no sense to him {{whatsoever}}, so now he thought I was on drugs.

10:04

(Laughter)

10:05

So he drags me out of the car, he {{searches}} me, he marches me over to the police
car, and only when he {{verified}} I didn't have a police record, could I show him I had
a twin in the {{front}} seat. But even as we were driving away, you could see by the look
on his face he was convinced that I was getting away with something.

10:24

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(Laughter)

10:26

Our mind is hard to change once we become {{convinced}}. So it might be very natural
to feel demoralized and {{defeated}} after you fail. But you cannot allow yourself to
become convinced you can't succeed. You have to fight feelings of {{helplessness}}.
You have to gain control over the situation. And you have to break this kind of negative
{{cycle}} before it begins.

10:49

[Stop Emotional Bleeding]

10:51

Our minds and our feelings -- they're not the {{trustworthy}} friends we thought they
were. They're more like a really {{moody}} friend, who can be totally supportive one
minute, and really unpleasant the next. I once worked with this woman who, after 20
years {{marriage}} and an extremely ugly {{divorce}}, was finally ready for her first date.
She had met this guy online, and he {{seemed}} nice and he seemed successful, and
most importantly, he seemed really into her. So she was very excited, she bought a
new dress, and they met at an upscale New York City bar for a {{drink}}. Ten minutes
into the date, the man {{stands}} up and says, "I'm not interested," and walks out.
Rejection is extremely {{painful}}. The woman was so hurt she couldn't move. All she
could do was call a friend. Here's what the friend said: "Well, what do you {{expect}}?
You have big hips, you have nothing interesting to say. Why would a handsome,
successful man like that ever go out with a {{loser}} like you?" Shocking, right, that a
friend could be so {{cruel}}? But it would be much less shocking if I told you it wasn't
the friend who said that. It's what the woman said to herself. And that's something we
all do, especially after a {{rejection}}. We all start thinking of all our {{faults}} and all our
shortcomings, what we {{wish}} we were, what we wish we weren't. We call ourselves

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names. Maybe not as harshly, but we all do it. And it's interesting that we do, because
our self-esteem is already hurting. Why would we want to go and {{damage}} it even
further? We wouldn't make a physical injury worse on purpose. You wouldn't get a cut
on your arm and decide, "Oh! I know -- I'm going to take a knife and see how much
{{deeper}} I can make it."

12:43

But we do that with psychological {{injuries}} all the time. Why? Because of poor
emotional hygiene. Because we don't prioritize our psychological health. We know
from dozens of {{studies}} that when your self-esteem is lower, you are more
vulnerable to stress and to anxiety; that failures and rejections hurt more, and it takes
longer to recover from them. So when you get {{rejected}}, the first thing you should
be doing is to revive your {{self-esteem}}, not join Fight Club and beat it into a pulp.
When you're in emotional pain, treat yourself with the same {{compassion}} you would
expect from a truly good friend.

13:24

[Protect Your Self-Esteem]

13:26

We have to catch our unhealthy psychological habits and change them. And one of
{{unhealthiest}} and most common is called rumination. To ruminate {{means}} to
chew over. It's when your boss yells at you or your {{professor}} makes you feel stupid
in class, or you have big fight with a friend and you just can't stop replaying the scene
in your head for days, sometimes for {{weeks}} on end. Now, ruminating about
{{upsetting}} events in this way can easily become a habit, and it's a very costly one,
because by spending so much time focused on upsetting and negative {{thoughts}},
you are actually putting yourself at significant risk for developing clinical depression,
alcoholism, eating {{disorders}}, and even cardiovascular disease.

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14:14

The problem is, the {{urge}} to ruminate can feel really strong and really important, so
it's a difficult habit to stop. I know this for a fact, because a little over a year ago, I
developed the habit myself. You see, my twin brother was {{diagnosed}} with stage 3
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. His cancer was extremely aggressive. He had {{visible}}
tumors all over his body. And he had to start a harsh course of chemotherapy. And I
couldn't stop thinking about what he was going through. I couldn't stop thinking
about how much he was {{suffering}}, even though he never complained, not {{once}}.
He had this incredibly positive {{attitude}}. His psychological health was amazing. I was
physically healthy, but psychologically, I was a {{mess}}. But I knew what to do. Studies
tell us that even a two-minute distraction is {{sufficient}} to break the urge to ruminate
in that moment. And so each time I had a worrying, upsetting, negative thought, I
forced myself to {{concentrate}} on something else until the urge passed. And within
one week, my whole {{outlook}} changed and became more positive and more
hopeful.

15:33

[Battle Negative Thinking]

15:34

Nine weeks after he started chemotherapy, my brother had a CAT scan, and I was by
his side when he got the {{results}}. All the tumors were gone. He still had three more
{{rounds}} of chemotherapy to go, but we knew he would {{recover}}. This picture was
taken two weeks ago.

15:57

By taking action when you're lonely, by changing your responses to {{failure}}, by

protecting your self-esteem, by battling {{negative}} thinking, you won't just heal your

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psychological wounds, you will build emotional resilience, you will thrive. A hundred
{{years}} ago, people began practicing personal hygiene, and life {{expectancy}} rates
rose by over 50 percent in just a matter of decades. I believe our quality of life could
rise just as {{dramatically}} if we all began practicing emotional hygiene.

16:35

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone was psychologically
{{healthier}}? If there were less loneliness and less {{depression}}? If people knew how
to overcome failure? If they felt better about themselves and more {{empowered}}? If
they were happier and more {{fulfilled}}? I can, because that's the world I want to live
in. And that's the world my brother wants to live in as well. And if you just become
{{informed}} and change a few simple habits, well -- that's the world we can all live in.

17:10

Thank you very much.

17:12

(Applause)

13. How great leaders inspire action

How do you explain when things don't go as we {{assume}}? Or better, how do you
explain when others are able to {{achieve}} things that seem to defy all of the
{{assumptions}}? For example: Why is Apple so {{innovative}}? Year after year, after
year, they're more innovative than all their {{competition}}. And yet, they're just a
computer company. They're just like everyone else. They have the same {{access}} to
the same talent, the same {{agencies}}, the same consultants, the same media. Then
why is it that they seem to have something {{different}}? Why is it that Martin Luther
King {{led}} the Civil Rights Movement? He wasn't the only man who {{suffered}} in
pre-civil rights America, and he certainly wasn't the only great {{orator}} of the day.

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Why him? And why is it that the Wright brothers were able to figure out controlled,
{{powered}} man flight when there were certainly other teams who were better
{{qualified}}, better {{funded}} -- and they didn't achieve powered man flight, and the
Wright brothers {{beat}} them to it. There's something else at play here.

01:14

About three and a half years ago, I made a discovery. And this discovery {{profoundly}}
changed my view on how I thought the world worked, and it even profoundly
changed the way in which I {{operate}} in it. As it turns out, there's a {{pattern}}. As it
turns out, all the great {{inspiring}} leaders and organizations in the world, whether it's
Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers, they all think, act and
communicate the {{exact}} same way. And it's the complete {{opposite}} to everyone
else. All I did was codify it, and it's probably the world's {{simplest}} idea. I call it the
{{golden}} circle.

02:04

Why? How? What? This {{little}} idea explains why some organizations and some
leaders are able to inspire where others aren't. Let me {{define}} the terms really
quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the {{planet}} knows what
they do, 100 percent. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your
{{differentiated}} value proposition or your proprietary {{process}} or your USP. But
very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by "why"
I don't mean "to make a {{profit}}." That's a result. It's always a result. By "why," I mean:
What's your purpose? What's your cause? What's your {{belief}}? Why does your
organization {{exist}}? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should
anyone care? As a result, the way we think, we act, the way we communicate is from
the outside in, it's {{obvious}}. We go from the {{clearest}} thing to the fuzziest thing.
But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations -- regardless of their size,
regardless of their {{industry}} -- all think, act and communicate from the {{inside}} out.

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03:11

Let me give you an {{example}}. I use Apple because they're easy to understand and
everybody gets it. If Apple were like everyone else, a {{marketing}} message from them
might sound like this: "We make great computers. They're {{beautifully}} designed,
simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?" "Meh." That's how most of us
communicate. That's how most marketing and {{sales}} are done, that's how we
communicate {{interpersonally}}. We say what we do, we say how we're {{different}} or
better and we expect some sort of a behavior, a {{purchase}}, a vote, something like
that. Here's our new law firm: We have the best lawyers with the biggest clients, we
always {{perform}} for our clients. Here's our new car: It gets great gas mileage, it has
{{leather}} seats. Buy our car. But it's {{uninspiring}}.

03:57

Here's how Apple actually {{communicates}}. "Everything we do, we believe in

{{challenging}} the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we
challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to
use and user friendly. We just {{happen}} to make great computers. Want to buy one?"
{{Totally}} different, right? You're ready to buy a computer from me. I just {{reversed}}
the order of the information. What it {{proves}} to us is that people don't buy what you
do; people buy why you do it.

04:33

This explains why every single person in this room is perfectly {{comfortable}} buying
a computer from Apple. But we're also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player
from Apple, or a phone from Apple, or a DVR from Apple. As I said before, Apple's just
a computer company. Nothing {{distinguishes}} them structurally from any of their
{{competitors}}. Their competitors are equally {{qualified}} to make all of these
products. In fact, they tried. A few years ago, Gateway came out with {{flat-screen}}
TVs. They're eminently qualified to make flat-screen TVs. They've been making flat-

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screen monitors for years. Nobody {{bought}} one. Dell came out with MP3 players and
PDAs, and they make great quality products, and they can make perfectly {{well-
designed}} products -- and nobody bought one. In fact, talking about it now, we can't
even {{imagine}} buying an MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy one from a
computer company? But we do it every day. People don't buy what you do; they buy
why you do it. The {{goal}} is not to do business with everybody who needs what you
have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.

05:44

Here's the best part: None of what I'm telling you is my opinion. It's all {{grounded}} in
the tenets of biology. Not {{psychology}}, biology. If you look at a cross-section of the
human brain, from the top down, the human brain is actually {{broken}} into three
major {{components}} that correlate perfectly with the golden circle. Our newest
brain, our Homo sapien brain, our neocortex, {{corresponds}} with the "what" level. The
neocortex is {{responsible}} for all of our rational and {{analytical}} thought and
language. The middle two sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains
are responsible for all of our {{feelings}}, like trust and loyalty. It's also responsible for
all human {{behavior}}, all decision-making, and it has no {{capacity}} for language.

06:32

In other words, when we communicate from the outside in, yes, people can
understand vast amounts of {{complicated}} information like features and benefits
and facts and figures. It just doesn't {{drive}} behavior. When we can communicate
from the inside out, we're talking {{directly}} to the part of the brain that controls
behavior, and then we allow people to {{rationalize}} it with the tangible things we say
and do. This is where gut {{decisions}} come from. Sometimes you can give somebody
all the facts and {{figures}}, and they say, "I know what all the facts and details say, but
it just doesn't feel right." Why would we use that {{verb}}, it doesn't "feel" right?
Because the part of the brain that controls {{decision-making}} doesn't control
language. The best we can muster up is, "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right." Or

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sometimes you say you're {{leading}} with your heart or soul. I hate to {{break}} it to
you, those aren't other body parts controlling your behavior. It's all happening here in
your limbic brain, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and not
{{language}}.

07:27

But if you don't know why you do what you do, and people {{respond}} to why you do
what you do, then how will you ever get people to {{vote}} for you, or buy something
from you, or, more importantly, be {{loyal}} and want to be a part of what it is that you
do. The goal is not just to sell to people who need what you have; the goal is to sell to
people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to {{hire}} people who need
a job; it's to hire people who believe what you believe. I always say that, you know, if
you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money, but if they
believe what you believe, they'll work for you with blood and {{sweat}} and tears.
Nowhere else is there a better {{example}} than with the Wright brothers.

08:11

Most people don't know about Samuel Pierpont Langley. And back in the early 20th
century, the pursuit of powered man {{flight}} was like the dot com of the day.
Everybody was trying it. And Samuel Pierpont Langley had, what we {{assume}}, to be
the recipe for {{success}}. Even now, you ask people, "Why did your product or why did
your company {{fail}}?" and people always give you the same permutation of the same
three things: under-capitalized, the wrong people, bad market {{conditions}}. It's
always the same three things, so let's {{explore}} that. Samuel Pierpont Langley was
given 50,000 dollars by the War Department to {{figure}} out this flying machine.
Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian and
was extremely {{well-connected}}; he knew all the big {{minds}} of the day. He hired
the best minds money could find and the market conditions were {{fantastic}}. The
New York Times followed him around everywhere, and everyone was {{rooting}} for
Langley. Then how come we've never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley?

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09:13

A few hundred miles away in Dayton, Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, they had none
of what we {{consider}} to be the recipe for {{success}}. They had no money; they paid
for their dream with the {{proceeds}} from their bicycle shop. Not a single person on
the Wright brothers' team had a college {{education}}, not even Orville or Wilbur. And
The New York Times {{followed}} them around nowhere.

09:35

The difference was, Orville and Wilbur were {{driven}} by a cause, by a purpose, by a
belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying {{machine}}, it'll change the
{{course}} of the world. Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich,
and he wanted to be famous. He was in pursuit of the {{result}}. He was in pursuit of
the {{riches}}. And lo and behold, look what happened. The people who believed in the
Wright brothers' dream worked with them with blood and sweat and tears. The others
just worked for the {{paycheck}}. They tell stories of how every time the Wright
brothers went out, they would have to take five sets of parts, because that's how many
times they would {{crash}} before supper.

10:17

And, eventually, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight, and no one
was there to even {{experience}} it. We found out about it a few days later. And further
proof that Langley was {{motivated}} by the wrong thing: the day the Wright brothers
took flight, he {{quit}}. He could have said, "That's an amazing discovery, guys, and I will
improve upon your {{technology}}," but he didn't. He wasn't first, he didn't get rich, he
didn't get {{famous}}, so he quit.

10:48

People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. If you talk about what you

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believe, you will {{attract}} those who believe what you believe.

10:55

But why is it important to attract those who believe what you believe? Something
called the law of diffusion of {{innovation}}, if you don't know the law, you know the
terminology. The first 2.5% of our {{population}} are our innovators. The next 13.5% of
our population are our early {{adopters}}. The next 34% are your early majority, your
{{late}} majority and your laggards. The only reason these people buy touch-tone
phones is because you can't buy rotary phones anymore.

11:27

We all sit at various places at various times on this {{scale}}, but what the law of
diffusion of {{innovation}} tells us is that if you want mass-market success or mass-
market {{acceptance}} of an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve this tipping
point between 15 and 18 percent market penetration, and then the {{system}} tips. I
love asking businesses, "What's your conversion on new business?" They love to tell
you, "It's about 10 percent," {{proudly}}. Well, you can trip over 10% of the {{customers}}.
We all have about 10% who just "get it." That's how we {{describe}} them, right? That's
like that gut feeling, "Oh, they just get it."

12:02

The problem is: How do you find the ones that get it before doing {{business}} versus
the ones who don't get it? So it's this here, this little {{gap}} that you have to close, as
Jeffrey Moore calls it, "Crossing the Chasm" -- because, you see, the early majority will
not try something until someone else has tried it first. And these guys, the
{{innovators}} and the early adopters, they're comfortable making those gut decisions.
They're more comfortable making those {{intuitive}} decisions that are driven by what
they believe about the world and not just what product is {{available}}. These are the
people who stood in line for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out, when

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you could have bought one off the shelf the next week. These are the people who
spent 40,000 dollars on flat-screen TVs when they first came out, even though the
technology was {{substandard}}. And, by the way, they didn't do it because the
technology was so great; they did it for {{themselves}}. It's because they wanted to be
first. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do {{simply}}
proves what you believe. In fact, people will do the things that prove what they believe.
The {{reason}} that person bought the iPhone in the first six hours, stood in line for six
hours, was because of what they believed about the {{world}}, and how they wanted
everybody to see them: they were first. People don't buy what you do; they buy why
you do it.

13:24

So let me give you a famous example, a famous failure and a famous success of the
law of diffusion of innovation. First, the famous failure. It's a {{commercial}} example.
As we said before, the recipe for success is money and the right people and the right
market conditions. You should have success then. Look at TiVo. From the time TiVo
came out about eight or nine years ago to this {{current}} day, they are the single
{{highest-quality}} product on the market, hands down, there is no {{dispute}}. They
were extremely well-funded. Market conditions were fantastic. I mean, we use TiVo as
verb. I TiVo {{stuff}} on my piece-of-junk Time Warner DVR all the time.

14:05

But TiVo's a commercial failure. They've never made money. And when they went IPO,
their {{stock}} was at about 30 or 40 dollars and then {{plummeted}}, and it's never
traded above 10. In fact, I don't think it's even traded above six, {{except}} for a couple
of little spikes.

14:20

Because you see, when TiVo {{launched}} their product, they told us all what they had.

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They said, "We have a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, {{rewinds}} live
TV and memorizes your viewing habits without you even asking." And the cynical
{{majority}} said, "We don't believe you. We don't need it. We don't like it. You're
{{scaring}} us."

14:45

What if they had said, "If you're the kind of person who likes to have {{total}} control
over every {{aspect}} of your life, boy, do we have a product for you. It pauses live TV,
skips commercials, memorizes your viewing habits, etc., etc." People don't buy what
you do; they buy why you do it, and what you do simply {{serves}} as the {{proof}} of
what you believe.

15:09

Now let me give you a {{successful}} example of the law of diffusion of innovation. In
the summer of 1963, 250,000 people {{showed}} up on the mall in Washington to hear
Dr. King speak. They sent out no {{invitations}}, and there was no {{website}} to check
the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn't the only man in America who was
a great orator. He wasn't the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights
America. In fact, some of his ideas were bad. But he had a {{gift}}. He didn't go around
telling people what needed to {{change}} in America. He went around and told people
what he believed. "I believe, I believe, I believe," he told people. And people who
believed what he believed took his {{cause}}, and they made it their own, and they told
people. And some of those people created {{structures}} to get the word out to even
more people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day at the
right time to hear him {{speak}}.

16:13

How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for themselves. It's
what they believed about America that got them to {{travel}} in a bus for eight hours

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to stand in the sun in Washington in the {{middle}} of August. It's what they believed,
and it wasn't about black versus white: 25% of the {{audience}} was white.

16:35

Dr. King believed that there are two {{types}} of laws in this world: those that are made
by a higher authority and those that are made by men. And not until all the laws that
are made by men are {{consistent}} with the laws made by the higher authority will
we live in a {{just}} world. It just so happened that the Civil Rights {{Movement}} was
the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We {{followed}}, not for him, but
for ourselves. By the way, he gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a
{{plan}}" speech.

17:08

Listen to politicians now, with their {{comprehensive}} 12-point plans. They're not
inspiring anybody. Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders
hold a {{position}} of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us. Whether they're
{{individuals}} or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but
because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for {{ourselves}}. And
it's those who start with "why" that have the {{ability}} to inspire those around them or
find others who inspire them. Thank you very much.

14. Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

00:09

So in college, I was a {{government}} major, which means I had to write a lot of

{{papers}}. Now, when a normal student writes a paper, they might {{spread}} the work
out a little like this. So, you know --

00:23

you get started maybe a little {{slowly}}, but you get enough done in the first week

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that, with some {{heavier}} days later on, everything gets done, things stay {{civil}}.

00:32

And I would want to do that like that. That would be the {{plan}}. I would have it all
ready to go, but then, {{actually}}, the paper would come along, and then I would kind
of do this.

00:45

And that would happen every single paper.

00:48

But then came my 90-page {{senior}} thesis, a paper you're supposed to spend a year
on. And I knew for a paper like that, my normal work {{flow}} was not an option. It was
way too big a {{project}}. So I planned things out, and I decided I kind of had to go
something like this. This is how the year would go. So I'd start off light, and I'd {{bump}}
it up in the middle months, and then at the end, I would kick it up into high {{gear}}
just like a little staircase. How hard could it be to walk up the stairs? No big deal, right?

01:19

But then, the {{funniest}} thing happened. Those first few months? They came and
went, and I couldn't quite do stuff. So we had an awesome new {{revised}} plan.

01:29

And then --

01:32

But then those middle months actually went by, and I didn't really write {{words}}, and

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so we were here. And then two months turned into one month, which turned into two
weeks. And one day I woke up with three days until the {{deadline}}, still not having
written a word, and so I did the only thing I could: I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours,
pulling not one but two all-nighters -- {{humans}} are not {{supposed}} to pull two all-
nighters -- sprinted across campus, dove in slow {{motion}}, and got it in just at the
deadline.

02:08

I {{thought}} that was the end of everything. But a week later I got a call, and it's the
school. And they say, "Is this Tim Urban?" And I say, "Yeah." And they say, "We need to
talk about your {{thesis}}." And I say, "OK." And they say, "It's the {{best}} one we've ever
seen."

02:33

That did not happen.

02:36

It was a very, very bad thesis.

02:41

I just wanted to enjoy that one moment when all of you thought, "This guy is
{{amazing}}!"

02:49

No, no, it was very, very bad. Anyway, today I'm a writer-blogger guy. I write the blog
Wait But Why. And a couple of years ago, I {{decided}} to write about procrastination.
My {{behavior}} has always perplexed the non-procrastinators around me, and I
wanted to {{explain}} to the non-procrastinators of the world what goes on in the

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{{heads}} of procrastinators, and why we are the way we are. Now, I had a hypothesis
that the brains of procrastinators were actually {{different}} than the brains of other
people. And to test this, I found an MRI lab that actually let me {{scan}} both my brain
and the brain of a {{proven}} non-procrastinator, so I could {{compare}} them. I actually
brought them here to show you today. I want you to take a look {{carefully}} to see if
you can notice a difference. I know that if you're not a trained brain {{expert}}, it's not
that {{obvious}}, but just take a look, OK? So here's the brain of a non-procrastinator.

03:42

Now ... here's my brain.

03:52

There is a difference. Both brains have a {{Rational}} Decision-Maker in them, but the
procrastinator's brain also has an {{Instant}} Gratification Monkey. Now, what does this
mean for the procrastinator? Well, it means everything's fine until this happens.

04:06

[This is a perfect time to get some work done.] [Nope!]

04:08

So the Rational Decision-Maker will make the rational decision to do something

{{productive}}, but the Monkey doesn't like that plan, so he actually takes the {{wheel}},
and he says, "Actually, let's read the {{entire}} Wikipedia page of the Nancy Kerrigan/
Tonya Harding {{scandal}}, because I just remembered that that happened.

04:25

Then --

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04:28

Then we're going to go over to the {{fridge}}, to see if there's anything new in there
since 10 minutes ago. After that, we're going to go on a YouTube spiral that starts with
videos of Richard Feynman talking about {{magnets}} and ends much, much later
with us watching {{interviews}} with Justin Bieber's mom.

04:45

"All of that's going to take a while, so we're not going to really have room on the
{{schedule}} for any work today. Sorry!"

04:54

Now, what is going on here? The Instant Gratification Monkey does not seem like a
guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely in the {{present}} moment. He has no
{{memory}} of the past, no {{knowledge}} of the future, and he only cares about two
things: easy and {{fun}}.

05:12

Now, in the animal world, that {{works}} fine. If you're a dog and you spend your whole
life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you're a {{huge}} success!

05:23

And to the Monkey, humans are just another animal {{species}}. You have to keep well-
slept, well-fed and propagating into the next {{generation}}, which in tribal times
might have worked OK. But, if you haven't {{noticed}}, now we're not in tribal times.
We're in an {{advanced}} civilization, and the Monkey does not know what that is.
Which is why we have another guy in our brain, the Rational Decision-Maker, who
gives us the {{ability}} to do things no other animal can do. We can {{visualize}} the

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future. We can see the big picture. We can make {{long-term}} plans. And he wants to
take all of that into {{account}}. And he wants to just have us do whatever makes sense
to be doing right now. Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing things that are
easy and fun, like when you're having dinner or going to bed or enjoying {{well-
earned}} leisure time. That's why there's an {{overlap}}. Sometimes they agree. But
other times, it makes much more sense to be doing things that are harder and less
{{pleasant}}, for the sake of the big picture. And that's when we have a {conflict}}. And
for the procrastinator, that conflict tends to end a {{certain}} way every time, leaving
him spending a lot of time in this orange {{zone}}, an easy and fun place that's entirely
out of the Makes Sense circle. I call it the Dark Playground.

06:40

Now, the Dark Playground is a place that all of you procrastinators out there know
very well. It's where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not
supposed to be {{happening}}. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually
fun, because it's completely {{unearned}}, and the air is filled with guilt, dread,
{{anxiety}}, self-hatred -- all of those good procrastinator {{feelings}}. And the question
is, in this situation, with the Monkey behind the wheel, how does the procrastinator
ever get himself over here to this blue zone, a less pleasant place, but where really
{{important}} things happen?

07:13

Well, turns out the procrastinator has a {{guardian}} angel, someone who's always
looking down on him and watching over him in his {{darkest}} moments -- someone
called the Panic Monster.

07:30

Now, the Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up
anytime a deadline gets too close or there's danger of public {{embarrassment}}, a

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career disaster or some other scary {{consequence}}. And importantly, he's the only
thing the Monkey is {{terrified}} of. Now, he became very {{relevant}} in my life pretty
recently, because the people of TED reached out to me about six months ago and
{{invited}} me to do a TED Talk.

08:03

Now, of course, I said yes. It's always been a {{dream}} of mine to have done a TED Talk
in the past.

08:13

(Applause) But in the middle of all this {{excitement}}, the Rational Decision-Maker
seemed to have something else on his mind. He was saying, "Are we clear on what we
just {{accepted}}? Do we get what's going to be now happening one day in the future?
We need to sit down and {{work}} on this right now." And the Monkey said, "Totally
agree, but let's just open Google Earth and zoom in to the {{bottom}} of India, like 200
feet above the ground, and scroll up for two and a half hours til we get to the top of
the {{country}}, so we can get a better {{feel}} for India."

08:51

So that's what we did that day.

08:57

As six months turned into four and then two and then one, the people of TED decided
to {{release}} the speakers. And I opened up the website, and there was my face
{{staring}} right back at me. And {{guess}} who woke up?

09:13

So the Panic Monster starts {{losing}} his mind, and a few seconds later, the whole

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{{system}}'s in mayhem.

09:24

And the Monkey -- {{remember}}, he's terrified of the Panic Monster -- boom, he's up
the tree! And finally, finally, the Rational Decision-Maker can take the wheel and I can
start working on the {{talk}}.

09:33

Now, the Panic Monster {{explains}} all kinds of pretty insane procrastinator behavior,
like how someone like me could spend two weeks {{unable}} to start the {{opening}}
sentence of a paper, and then miraculously find the {{unbelievable}} work ethic to stay
up all night and write eight pages. And this entire {{situation}}, with the three
characters -- this is the procrastinator's {{system}}. It's not pretty, but in the end, it
works. This is what I decided to write about on the blog a couple of years ago.

10:06

When I did, I was amazed by the {{response}}. Literally thousands of emails came in,
from all different kinds of people from all over the world, doing all different kinds of
things. These are people who were nurses, bankers, painters, {{engineers}} and lots
and lots of PhD {{students}}.

10:23

And they were all writing, saying the same thing: "I have this {{problem}} too." But what
struck me was the {{contrast}} between the light {{tone}} of the post and the
{{heaviness}} of these emails. These people were writing with intense {{frustration}}
about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done
to them. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if the procrastinator's system works,
then what's going on? Why are all of these people in such a {{dark}} place?

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10:52

Well, it turns out that there's two kinds of procrastination. Everything I've talked about
today, the examples I've given, they all have deadlines. And when there's deadlines,
the {{effects}} of procrastination are {{contained}} to the short term because the Panic
Monster gets {{involved}}. But there's a second kind of procrastination that happens in
situations when there is no deadline. So if you wanted a career where you're a self-
starter -- something in the arts, something {{entrepreneurial}} -- there's no deadlines
on those things at first, because nothing's happening, not until you've gone out and
done the hard {{work}} to get momentum, get things going. There's also all kinds of
important things outside of your {{career}} that don't involve any deadlines, like seeing
your family or exercising and taking care of your {{health}}, working on your
relationship or getting out of a relationship that isn't working.

11:36

Now if the procrastinator's only {{mechanism}} of doing these hard things is the Panic
Monster, that's a {{problem}}, because in all of these non-deadline situations, the Panic
Monster doesn't show up. He has nothing to wake up for, so the effects of
procrastination, they're not contained; they just {{extend}} outward forever. And it's
this {{long-term}} kind of procrastination that's much less {{visible}} and much less
{{talked}} about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It's usually suffered
quietly and {{privately}}. And it can be the {{source}} of a huge amount of long-term
unhappiness, and {{regrets}}. And I thought, that's why those people are emailing, and
that's why they're in such a bad place. It's not that they're cramming for some project.
It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a {{spectator}}, at times, in
their own lives. The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their {{dreams}}; it's
that they weren't even able to start {{chasing}} them.

12:33

So I read these emails and I had a little bit of an epiphany -- that I don't think non-

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procrastinators {{exist}}. That's right -- I think all of you are procrastinators. Now, you
might not all be a {{mess}}, like some of us,

12:51

and some of you may have a {{healthy}} relationship with deadlines, but remember:
the Monkey's sneakiest {{trick}} is when the deadlines aren't there.

12:59

Now, I want to show you one last thing. I call this a {{Life}} Calendar. That's one box for
every week of a 90-year life. That's not that many boxes, especially since we've already
used a {{bunch}} of those. So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at that
calendar. We need to think about what we're really procrastinating on, because
{{everyone}} is procrastinating on something in life. We need to stay {{aware}} of the
Instant Gratification Monkey. That's a job for all of us. And because there's not that
many boxes on there, it's a job that should {{probably}} start today.

13:41

Well, maybe not today, but ...

13:46

You know. Sometime soon. Thank you.

15. Why our screens make us less happy

00:10

So, a few years ago I heard an interesting {{rumor}}. Apparently, the head of a large pet
food company would go into the {{annual}} shareholder's meeting with a can of dog
food. And he would eat the can of dog food. And this was his way of {{convincing}}
them that if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for their pets. This

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strategy is now known as "dogfooding," and it's a {{common}} strategy in the
{{business}} world. It doesn't mean everyone goes in and eats dog food, but
businesspeople will use their own products to {{demonstrate}} that they feel -- that
they're {{confident}} in them. Now, this is a {{widespread}} practice, but I think what's
really interesting is when you find {{exceptions}} to this rule, when you find cases of
businesses or people in businesses who don't use their own products. Turns out
there's one {{industry}} where this happens in a common way, in a pretty regular way,
and that is the {{screen-based}} tech industry.

00:57

So, in 2010, Steve Jobs, when he was {{releasing}} the iPad, described the iPad as a
device that was "{{extraordinary}}." "The best browsing experience you've ever had;
way better than a laptop, way better than a smartphone. It's an {{incredible}}
experience." A couple of months later, he was {{approached}} by a journalist from the
New York Times, and they had a long phone call. At the end of the call, the journalist
{{threw}} in a question that seemed like a sort of softball. He said to him, "Your kids
must love the iPad." There's an {{obvious}} answer to this, but what Jobs said really
staggered the journalist. He was very {{surprised}}, because he said, "They haven't used
it. We {{limit}} how much technology our kids use at home."

01:37

This is a very {{common}} thing in the tech world. In fact, there's a school quite near
Silicon Valley called the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, and they don't {{introduce}}
screens until the eighth grade. What's really interesting about the school is that 75
percent of the kids who go there have {{parents}} who are {{high-level}} Silicon Valley
tech execs. So when I heard about this, I thought it was interesting and surprising, and
it {{pushed}} me to consider what screens were doing to me and to my family and the
people I loved, and to people at large.

02:06

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So for the last five years, as a {{professor}} of business and psychology, I've been
studying the {{effect}} of screens on our lives. And I want to start by just {{focusing}} on
how much time they take from us, and then we can talk about what that time looks
like. What I'm showing you here is the {{average}} 24-hour workday at three different
{{points}} in history: 2007 -- 10 years ago -- 2015 and then data that I collected, actually,
only last week. And a lot of things haven't {{changed}} all that much. We sleep
{{roughly}} seven-and-a-half to eight hours a day; some people say that's {{declined}}
slightly, but it hasn't changed much. We work eight-and-a-half to nine hours a day.
We engage in {{survival}} activities -- these are things like eating and bathing and
looking after kids -- about three hours a day.

02:52

That leaves this white space. That's our {{personal}} time. That space is incredibly
important to us. That's the space where we do things that make us {{individuals}}.
That's where {{hobbies}} happen, where we have close relationships, where we really
think about our lives, where we get {{creative}}, where we zoom back and try to work
out whether our lives have been {{meaningful}}. We get some of that from work as
well, but when people look back on their lives and {{wonder}} what their lives have
been like at the end of their lives, you look at the last things they say -- they are talking
about those {{moments}} that happen in that white personal space. So it's {{sacred}};
it's important to us.

03:26

Now, what I'm going to do is show you how much of that space is {{taken}} up by
screens across time. In 2007, this much. That was the year that Apple {{introduced}}
the first iPhone. Eight years later, this much. Now, this much. That's how much time
we spend of that free time in front of our screens. This yellow area, this thin sliver, is
where the {{magic}} happens. That's where your {{humanity}} lives. And right now, it's
in a very small box.

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03:53

So what do we do about this? Well, the first question is: What does that red space look
like? Now, of course, screens are {{miraculous}} in a lot of ways. I live in New York, a lot
of my family lives in Australia, and I have a one-year-old son. The way I've been able to
introduce them to him is with {{screens}}. I couldn't have done that 15 or 20 years ago
in quite the same way. So there's a lot of {{good}} that comes from them.

04:16

One thing you can do is ask yourself: What goes on during that time? How enriching
are the {{apps}} that we're using? And some are enriching. If you stop people while
they're using them and say, "Tell us how you feel right now," they say they feel pretty
good about these apps -- those that focus on {{relaxation}}, exercise, weather, reading,
{{education}} and health. They spend an average of nine minutes a day on each of
these. These apps make them much less happy. About half the people, when you
{{interrupt}} them and say, "How do you feel?" say they don't feel good about using
them. What's interesting about these -- dating, social {{networking}}, gaming,
entertainment, news, web {{browsing}} -- people spend 27 minutes a day on each of
these. We're spending three times longer on the apps that don't make us happy. That
doesn't seem very {{wise}}.

05:02

One of the reasons we spend so much time on these apps that make us unhappy is
they {{rob}} us of stopping cues. Stopping cues were everywhere in the 20th century.
They were {{baked}} into everything we did. A stopping cue is basically a {{signal}} that
it's time to move on, to do something new, to do something {{different}}. And -- think
about newspapers; eventually you get to the end, you {{fold}} the newspaper away,
you put it aside. The same with {{magazines}}, books -- you get to the end of a chapter,
{{prompts}} you to consider whether you want to continue. You watched a show on
TV, eventually the show would end, and then you'd have a week until the next one
came. There were stopping cues everywhere. But the way we {{consume}} media

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today is such that there are no stopping cues. The news feed just rolls on, and
everything's {{bottomless}}: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, email, text messaging, the
news. And when you do check all sorts of other {{sources}}, you can just keep going on
and on and on.

05:55

So, we can get a {{cue}} about what to do from Western Europe, where they seem to
have a number of pretty good ideas in the {{workplace}}. Here's one example. This is a
Dutch {{design}} firm. And what they've done is rigged the desks to the ceiling. And at
6pm every day, it doesn't matter who you're emailing or what you're doing, the desks
{{rise}} to the ceiling.

06:16

Four days a week, the space turns into a yoga studio, one day a week, into a dance
club. It's really up to you which ones you {{stick}} around for. But this is a great stopping
{{rule}}, because it means at the end of the day, everything stops, there's no way to
work. At Daimler, the German car company, they've got another great {{strategy}}.
When you go on vacation, instead of saying, "This person's on vacation, they'll get back
to you {{eventually}}," they say, "This person's on vacation, so we've {{deleted}} your
email. This person will never see the email you just sent."

06:46

"You can email back in a couple of weeks, or you can email someone else."

06:52

And so --

06:58

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You can {{imagine}} what that's like. You go on vacation, and you're {{actually}} on
vacation. The people who work at this company feel that they actually get a {{break}}
from work.

07:06

But of course, that doesn't tell us much about what we should do at home in our own
lives, so I want to make some {{suggestions}}. It's easy to say, between 5 and 6pm, I'm
going to not use my phone. The {{problem}} is, 5 and 6pm looks different on different
days. I think a far better {{strategy}} is to say, I do certain things every day, there are
certain {{occasions}} that happen every day, like eating dinner. Sometimes I'll be alone,
sometimes with other people, sometimes in a restaurant, sometimes at home, but the
rule that I've {{adopted}} is: I will never use my phone at the table. It's far away, as far
away as possible. Because we're really bad at {{resisting}} temptation. But when you
have a stopping cue that, every time dinner begins, my phone goes far away, you
{{avoid}} temptation all together.

07:48

At first, it hurts. I had {{massive}} FOMO.

07:53

I {{struggled}}.

07:54

But what happens is, you get used to it. You {{overcome}} the withdrawal the same
way you would from a drug, and what happens is, life becomes more {{colorful}}, richer,
more interesting -- you have better {{conversations}}. You really connect with the
people who are there with you. I think it's a {{fantastic}} strategy, and we know it works,
because when people do this -- and I've {{tracked}} a lot of people who have tried this

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-- it {{expands}}. They feel so good about it, they start doing it for the first hour of the
day in the morning. They start putting their phones on airplane {{mode}} on the
weekend. That way, your phone {{remains}} a camera, but it's no longer a phone. It's a
really {{powerful}} idea, and we know people feel much better about their {{lives}}
when they do this.

08:33

So what's the take home here? Screens are miraculous; I've already said that, and I feel
that it's true. But the way we use them is a lot like {{driving}} down a really fast, long
road, and you're in a car where the {{accelerator}} is mashed to the floor, it's kind of
hard to {{reach}} the brake pedal. You've got a choice. You can either glide by, past,
say, the beautiful ocean {{scenes}} and take snaps out the window -- that's the {{easy}}
thing to do -- or you can go out of your way to move the car to the side of the road, to
{{push}} that brake pedal, to get out, take off your shoes and socks, take a couple of
{{steps}} onto the sand, feel what the sand feels like under your feet, walk to the ocean,
and let the ocean {{lap}} at your ankles. Your life will be richer and more {{meaningful}}
because you {{breathe}} in that experience, and because you've left your phone in the
car.

09:22

Thank you.

16. In praise of conflict

00:10

Twenty years ago, when I was a barrister and human {{rights}} lawyer in full-time
{{legal}} practice in London, and the highest court in the land still convened, some
would say by an {{accident}} of history, in this building here, I met a young man who
had just quit his job in the British Foreign Office. When I asked him, "Why did you
leave," he told me this story.

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00:36

He had gone to his boss one morning and said, "Let's do something about human
rights {{abuses}} in China." And his boss had replied, "We can't do anything about
human rights abuses in China because we have {{trade}} relations with China."

00:52

So my friend went away with his {{tail}} between his legs, and six months later, he
{{returned}} again to his boss, and he said this time, "Let's do something about human
rights in Burma," as it was then called.

01:05

His boss once again {{paused}} and said, "Oh, but we can't do anything about human
rights in Burma because we don't have any trade {{relations}} with Burma."

01:17

This was the moment he knew he had to leave. It wasn't just the hypocrisy that got to
him. It was the {{unwillingness}} of his government to engage in {{conflict}} with other
governments, in {{tense}} discussions, all the while, {{innocent}} people were being
harmed.

01:35

We are constantly told that conflict is bad that {{compromise}} is good; that conflict is
bad but consensus is good; that conflict is bad and {{collaboration}} is good. But in my
view, that's far too simple a {{vision}} of the world. We cannot know whether conflict is
bad unless we know who is fighting, why they are fighting and how they are fighting.
And compromises can be {{thoroughly}} rotten if they harm people who are not at the
table, people who are {{vulnerable}}, disempowered, people whom we have an
{{obligation}} to protect.

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02:21

Now, you might be somewhat {{skeptical}} of a lawyer arguing about the benefits of
conflict and creating {{problems}} for compromise, but I did also {{qualify}} as a
mediator, and these days, I spend my time giving talks about {{ethics}} for free. So as
my bank manager likes to remind me, I'm downwardly mobile. But if you accept my
{{argument}}, it should change not just the way we lead our {{personal}} lives, which I
wish to put to one side for the moment, but it will change the way we think about
{{major}} problems of public health and the {{environment}}. Let me explain.

03:01

Every middle schooler in the United States, my 12-year-old daughter included, learns
that there are three {{branches}} of government, the legislative, the executive and the
judicial branch. James Madison wrote, "If there is any {{principle}} more sacred in our
Constitution, and indeed in any free constitution, than any other, it is that which
{{separates}} the legislative, the executive and the judicial powers." Now, the framers
were not just concerned about the {{concentration}} and exercise of power. They also
understood the perils of {{influence}}. Judges cannot {{determine}} the
constitutionality of laws if they {{participate}} in making those laws, nor can they hold
the other branches of government {{accountable}} if they collaborate with them or
enter into close relationships with them. The Constitution is, as one famous {{scholar}}
put it, "an {{invitation}} to struggle." And we the people are served when those
branches do, indeed, struggle with each other.

04:20

Now, we recognize the importance of struggle not just in the {{public}} sector between
our branches of government. We also know it too in the {{private}} sector, in
relationships among {{corporations}}. Let's imagine that two American airlines get
together and agree that they will not {{drop}} the price of their economy class airfares
below 250 dollars a ticket. That is {{collaboration}}, some would say collusion, not

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{{competition}}, and we the people are harmed because we pay more for our tickets.
Imagine {{similarly}} two airlines were to say, "Look, Airline A, we'll take the route from
LA to Chicago," and Airline B says, "We'll take the route from Chicago to DC, and we
won't {{compete}}." Once again, that's collaboration or collusion instead of
competition, and we the people are {{harmed}}.

05:21

So we understand the importance of {{struggle}} when it comes to relationships

between branches of government, the public sector. We also understand the
importance of {{conflict}} when it comes to relationships among corporations, the
private sector. But where we have {{forgotten}} it is in the relationships between the
public and the private. And governments all over the world are collaborating with
{{industry}} to solve problems of public health and the environment, often
collaborating with the very corporations that are {{creating}} or exacerbating the
problems they are trying to solve. We are told that these relationships are a win-win.
But what if someone is {{losing}} out?

06:19

Let me give you some examples. A United Nations agency decided to {{address}} a
serious problem: poor {{sanitation}} in schools in rural India. They did so not just in
collaboration with national and local governments but also with a television company
and with a major {{multinational}} soda company. In {{exchange}} for less than one
million dollars, that corporation received the {{benefits}} of a months-long
{{promotional}} campaign including a 12-hour telethon all using the company's logo
and color scheme. This was an {{arrangement}} which was totally {{understandable}}
from the corporation's point of view. It enhances the {{reputation}} of the company
and it creates brand {{loyalty}} for its products. But in my view, this is profoundly
{{problematic}} for the intergovernmental agency, an agency that has a mission to
promote {{sustainable}} living. By increasing {{consumption}} of sugar-sweetened
beverages made from scarce local water {{supplies}} and drunk out of plastic bottles

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in a country that is already grappling with {{obesity}}, this is neither sustainable from
a public health nor an environmental point of view. And in order to solve one public
health problem, the agency is {{sowing}} the seeds of another.

07:46

This is just one example of dozens I {{discovered}} in researching a book on the

relationships between government and industry. I could also have told you about the
{{initiatives}} in parks in London and throughout Britain, involving the same company,
promoting {{exercise}}, or indeed of the British government creating voluntary
pledges in {{partnership}} with industry instead of {{regulating}} industry. These
collaborations or partnerships have become the paradigm in public health, and once
again, they make {{sense}} from the point of view of industry. It allows them to {{frame}}
public health problems and their solutions in ways that are least {{threatening}} to,
most consonant with their commercial {{interests}}. So obesity becomes a problem of
individual {{decision-making}}, of personal behavior, personal {{responsibility}} and
lack of physical activity. It is not a problem, when framed this way, of a multinational
food {{system}} involving major corporations.

08:52

And again, I don't blame industry. Industry naturally {{engages}} in strategies of

{{influence}} to promote its commercial interests. But governments have a
responsibility to develop {{counterstrategies}} to protect us and the common good.

09:11

The mistake that governments are making when they collaborate in this way with
industry is that they conflate the common good with common {{ground}}. When you
collaborate with industry, you {{necessarily}} put off the table things that might
promote the common good to which industry will not agree. Industry will not agree
to {{increased}} regulation unless it believes this will stave off even more regulation or

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perhaps knock some {{competitors}} out of the market. Nor can companies agree to
do certain things, for example raise the prices of their {{unhealthy}} products, because
that would {{violate}} competition law, as we've established. So our governments
should not confound the common good and common ground, especially when
common ground means reaching {{agreement}} with industry.

10:10

I want to give you another example, moving from {{high-profile}} collaboration to

something that is below ground both literally and {{figuratively}}: the hydraulic
fracturing of natural gas. Imagine that you {{purchase}} a plot of land not knowing the
{{mineral}} rights have been sold. This is before the fracking boom. You build your
dream home on that {{plot}}, and shortly afterwards, you discover that a gas company
is building a well pad on your {{land}}. That was the plight of the Hallowich family.
Within a very short period of time, they began to {{complain}} of headaches, of sore
throats, of itchy eyes, in addition to the {{interference}} of the noise, {{vibration}} and
the bright lights from the flaring of natural gas. They were very vocal in their
{{criticisms}}, and then they fell silent. And thanks to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
where this image {{appeared}}, and one other newspaper, we discovered why they fell
silent. The newspapers went to the court and said, "What happened to the
Hallowiches?" And it turned out the Hallowiches had made a secret settlement with
the gas {{operators}}, and it was a take-it-or-leave-it settlement. The gas company said,
you can have a six-figure sum to move elsewhere and start your lives again, but in
{{return}} you must promise not to speak of your experience with our company, not to
speak of your experience with fracking, not to speak about the health
{{consequences}} that might have been {{revealed}} by a medical examination. Now, I
do not blame the Hallowiches for accepting a take-it-or-leave-it settlement and
starting their lives elsewhere. And one can understand why the company would wish
to {{silence}} a squeaky wheel. What I want to point the finger at is the legal and
{{regulatory}} system, a system in which there are {{networks}} of agreements just like
this one which {{serve}} to silence people and seal off data points from public health
{{experts}} and epidemiologists, a system in which regulators will even refrain from

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{{issuing}} a {{violation}} notice in the event of pollution if the landowner and the gas
company agree to settle. This is a system which isn't just bad from a public health
point of view; it exposes {{hazards}} to local families who remain in the {{dark}}.

12:36

Now, I have given you two examples not because they are {{isolated}} examples. They
are examples of a {{systemic}} problem. I could share some counterexamples, the case
for example of the public official who {{sues}} the pharmaceutical company for
{{concealing}} the fact that its antidepressant increases suicidal thoughts in
{{adolescents}}. I can tell you about the regulator who went after the food company
for {{exaggerating}} the purported health benefits of its yogurt. And I can tell you
about the legislator who despite heavy lobbying directed at both sides of the aisle
{{pushes}} for environmental {{protections}}. These are isolated examples, but they are
beacons of light in the darkness, and they can show us the way.

13:31

I began by suggesting that sometimes we need to {{engage}} in conflict. Governments

should tussle with, struggle with, at times engage in {{direct}} conflict with
corporations. This is not because governments are inherently good and corporations
are inherently {{evil}}. Each is capable of good or ill. But corporations
{{understandably}} act to promote their commercial interests, and they do so either
sometimes undermining or promoting the common good. But it is the
{{responsibility}} of governments to {{protect}} and promote the common good. And
we should {{insist}} that they fight to do so. This is because governments are the
guardians of public health; governments are the guardians of the environment; and it
is governments that are guardians of these {{essential}} parts of our common good.
Thank you.

17. The happy secret to better work

00:04

When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we were playing on

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top of a {{bunk bed}}. I was two years older than my sister at the time -- I mean, I'm
two years older than her now -- but at the time it meant she had to do everything that
I wanted to do, and I wanted to play war. So we were up on top of our bunk beds. And
on one side of the bunk bed, I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and
{{weaponry}}. And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies ready for a
cavalry charge.

There are differing {{accounts}} of what actually happened that afternoon, but since
my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story… which is my sister's
a little on the clumsy side. Somehow, {{without}} any help or push from her older
brother at all, Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this
crash on the floor. I {{ nervously}} peered over the side of the bed to see what had
befallen my fallen sister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and
knees on all fours on the ground.

00:58

I was nervous because my parents had {{charged}} me with making sure that my sister
and I played as safely and as quietly as possible. And seeing as how I had accidentally
broken Amy's arm just one week before {{heroically}} pushing her out of the way of an
oncoming imaginary sniper bullet, for which I have yet to be thanked, I was trying as
hard as I could -- she didn't even see it coming -- I was trying hard to be on my best
{{behavior}}.

And I saw my sister's face, this wail of pain and suffering and surprise threatening to
erupt from her mouth and wake my parents from the long winter's nap for which they
had settled. So I did the only thing my frantic seven year-old brain could think to do
to {{avert}} this tragedy. And if you have children, you've seen this hundreds of times. I
said, "Amy, wait. Don't cry. Did you see how you landed? No human lands on all fours
like that. Amy, I think this means you're a unicorn."

01:58

Now, that was cheating, because there was nothing she would want more than not

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to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister, but Amy the special unicorn. Of course,
this option was open to her brain at no point in the past. And you could see how my
poor, {{ manipulated}} sister faced conflict, as her little brain attempted to devote
resources to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise she just experienced, or
{{contemplating}} her new-found identity as a unicorn. And the latter won. Instead of
crying or {{ceasing}} our play, instead of waking my parents, with all the negative
consequences for me, a smile spread across her face and she scrambled back up onto
the bunk bed with all the grace of a baby unicorn with one broken leg.

02:37

What we {{stumbled}} across at this tender age of just five and seven -- we had no idea
at the time -- was was going be at the vanguard of a {{scientific revolution}} occurring
two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain. We had stumbled
across something called {{positive psychology}}, which is the reason I'm here
today and the reason that I wake up every morning.

When I started talking about this research outside of {{academia}}, with companies
and schools, the first thing they said to never do is to start with a graph. The first thing
I want to do is start with a graph. This graph looks boring, but it is the reason I get
excited and wake up every morning. And this graph doesn't even mean anything; it's
fake {{data}}. What we found is… If I got this data studying you, I would be
thrilled, because there's a trend there, and that means that I can get
{{published}}, which is all that really matters. There is one weird red dot above the
{{curve}}, there's one weirdo in the room -- I know who you are, I saw you earlier -
- that's no problem. That's no problem, as most of you know, because I can just delete
that dot. I can delete that dot because that's clearly a {{measurement}} error. And we
know that's a measurement error because it's messing up my data.

03:47

So one of the first things we teach people in economics, {{statistics}}, business and
psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do we {{eliminate}} the

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weirdos. How do we eliminate the outliers so we can find the line of best fit? Which is
fantastic if I'm trying to find out how many Advil the average person should be taking
-- two.

But if I'm interested in your {{potential}}, or for happiness or productivity or energy or

creativity, we're creating the cult of the average with science. If I asked a question
like, "How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?" scientists change the
answer to "How fast does the average child learn how to read in that classroom?" and
we {{tailor}} the class towards the average. If you fall below the average, then
psychologists get thrilled, because that means you're depressed or have a
{{disorder}}, or hopefully both. We're hoping for both because our business model is, if
you come into a therapy session with one problem, we want to make sure you leave
knowing you have ten, so you keep coming back. We'll go back into your childhood if
{{necessary}}, but eventually we want to make you normal again. But normal is merely
average.

04:45

And positive psychology posits that if we study what is {{merely}} average, we will
remain merely average. Then instead of deleting those positive outliers, what I
intentionally do is come into a {{population}} like this one and say, why? Why are some
of you high above the curve in terms of intellectual, athletic, musical ability, creativity,
energy levels, {{resiliency}} in the face of challenge, sense of humor? Whatever it is,
instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you. Because maybe we can glean
information, not just how to move people up to the average, but move the {{entire}}
average up in our companies and schools worldwide.

The reason this graph is important to me is, when I turn on the news, the {{majority}}
of the information is not positive. In fact it's negative. Most of it's about murder,
{{corruption}}, diseases, natural disasters. And very quickly, my brain starts to
think that's the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world. What’s that doing?
This creates "the medical school {{syndrome}}." During the first year of medical
training, as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases, suddenly you
realize you have all of them.

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05:42

I have a brother in-law named Bobo, which is a whole another story. Bobo married
Amy the unicorn. Bobo called me on the phone from Yale Medical School, and Bobo
said, "Shawn, I have leprosy." Which, even at Yale, is {{extraordinarily rare}}. But I had
no idea how to console poor Bobo because he had just gotten over an entire week of
menopause.

See, what we're finding it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens
through which your brain {{views}} the world that {{shapes}} your reality. And if we can
change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single
educational and business {{outcome}} at the same time.

06:20

When I applied to Harvard, I applied on a dare. I didn't expect to get in, and my family
had no money for college. When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they
allowed me to go. Something that wasn't even a {{possibility}} became a reality. When
I went there, I assumed everyone there would see it as a privilege as well, that they'd
be excited to be there. Even in a classroom full of people smarter than you, I felt you'd
be happy just to be in that classroom, which is what I felt. But what I found is, while
some people experience that, when I {{graduated}} after my four years and then spent
the next eight years living in the dorms with the students -- Harvard asked me to; I
wasn't that guy.

I was an officer to {{counsel}} students through the difficult four years. And what I
found in my research and my teaching, I found that these students, no matter how
happy they were with their {{original success}} of getting into the school, two weeks
later their brains were focused, not on the {{privilege}} of being there, nor on their
philosophy or physics, but on the competition, the workload, the hassles, stresses,
complaints.

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07:12
When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall, which is where my
friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up -- I know some of you heard of
it. When they come to visit me, they'd look around, and say, "This {{dining hall}} looks
like something out of Hogwarts." It does, because that was Hogwarts in the movie
Harry Potter, which it does, and that's Harvard. And when they see this, they say, "Why
do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard? Seriously, what does a
Harvard student possibly have to be {{unhappy}} about?"

Embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science of

happiness. Because what that question assumes is that our {{external world}} is
predictive of our happiness levels, when in reality, if I know everything about your
external world, I can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness. 90 percent of your
long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain
{{processes}} the world. And if we change it, if we change our {{formula}} for happiness
and success, what we can do is to change the way that we can then {{affect}}
reality. What we found is that only 25% of job successes are predicted by IQ, 75 percent
of job successes are predicted by your {{optimism}} levels, your social support and your
ability to see stress as a {{challenge}} instead of as a threat.

I talked to a New England boarding school, probably the most {{prestigious}} one, and
they said, "We already know that. So every year, instead of just teaching our students,
we have a wellness week. And we're so excited. Monday night we have the world's
leading expert coming to speak about {{adolescent depression}}. Tuesday night it's
school violence and bullying. Wednesday night is eating disorders. Thursday night is
illicit drug use. And Friday night we're trying to decide between risky sex or
happiness."

I said, "That's most people's Friday nights."

08:47

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Which I'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all. Silence on the phone. And
into the {{silence}}, I said, "I'd be happy to speak at your school, but that's not a
{{wellness}} week, that's a sickness week. What you’ve done is you've outlined all the
negative things that can happen, but not talked about the positive."

The {{absence}} of disease is not health. Here's how we get to health: We need to
{{reverse}} the formula for happiness and success. In the last three years, I've traveled
to 45 countries, working with schools and companies in the midst of an economic
downturn. And I found that most companies and schools follow a formula for success,
which is this: If I work harder, I'll be more successful. And if I'm more successful, then
I'll be happier. That undergirds most of our {{parenting}} and managing styles, the way
that we motivate our behavior. And the problem is it's scientifically broken and
{{backwards}} for two reasons.

First, every time your brain has a success, you just changed the goalpost of what
success looked like. You got good grades, now you have to get better grades, you got
into a good school and after you get into a better one, you got a good job, now you
have to get a better job, you hit your {{sales target}}, we're going to change it. And if
happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there. We've
pushed happiness over the {{cognitive}} horizon, as a society. And that's because we
think we have to be successful, then we'll be happier.

09:57

But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order. If you can {{raise}}
somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we
now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs {{significantly
better}} than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity
rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, we've found that every single business outcome
improves. Your brain at positive is 31% more {{productive}} than your brain at negative,
neutral or stressed. You're 37% better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster, more
accurate at coming up with the correct {{diagnosis}} when positive instead of
negative, neutral or stressed.

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Which means we can reverse the formula. If we can find a way of becoming positive
in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we're able to work
harder, faster and more intelligently. We need to be able to reverse this formula so we
can start to see what our brains are actually {{capable of}}. Because dopamine, which
floods into your system when you're positive, has two {{functions}}. Not only does it
make you happier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain allowing you to
adapt to the world in a different way.

10:56

We've found there are ways that you can train your brain to be able to become more
positive. In just a two-minute {{span of time}} done for 21 days in a row, we can actually
rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more
successfully. We've done these things in research now in every single company that
I've worked with, getting them to write down three new things that they're grateful
for 21 days in a row, three new things each day. And at the end of that, their brain starts
to {{retain a pattern}} of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive
first.

Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours allows
your brain to relive it. Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters. We find
that {{meditation}} allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been
creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the
task at hand. And finally, random acts of kindness are {{conscious}} acts of
kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive
email praising or thanking somebody in their support network.

And by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we train our
bodies, what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and
success, and in doing so, not only create {{ripples}} of positivity, but a real revolution.
Thank you very much.

18. How to make stress your friend

00:04

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I have a confession to make. But first, I want you to make a little confession to me. In
the past year, I want you to just raise your hand if you've experienced {{relatively}} little
stress. Anyone?

How about a moderate amount of stress?

Who has experienced a lot of stress? Yeah. Me too.

But that is not my confession. My {{confession}} is this: I am a health psychologist, and

my mission is to help people be happier and healthier. But I fear that something I've
been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harm than good, and it has to do
with stress. For years I've been telling people, stress makes you sick. It {{increases}} the
risk of everything from the common cold to {{cardiovascular}} disease. Basically, I've
turned stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I
want to change yours.

Let me start with the study that made me {{rethink}} my whole approach to
stress. This study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years, and they
started by asking people, "How much stress have you experienced in the last
year?" They also asked, "Do you believe that stress is {{harmful}} for your health?" And
then they used public death {{records}} to find out who died.

(Laughter)

Okay. Some bad news first. People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous
year had a 43 percent increased {{risk}} of dying. But that was only true for the
people who also believed that stress is harmful for your health.

(Laughter)

02:02

People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no
more {{likely}} to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the
study, including people who had relatively little stress.

Now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were tracking
deaths, 182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the belief that

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stress is bad for you.

That is over 20,000 deaths a year. Now, if that estimate is correct, that would make
believing stress is bad for you the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last
year, killing more people than skin cancer, HIV/AIDS and {{homicide}}.

You can see why this study freaked me out. Here I've been spending so much
{{energy}} telling people stress is bad for your health.

So this study got me wondering: Can changing how you think about stress make you
healthier? And here the {{science}} says yes. When you change your mind about
stress, you can change your body's response to stress.

03:13

Now to explain how this works, I want you all to pretend that you are {{participants}} in
a study designed to stress you out. It's called the social stress test. You come into the
laboratory, and you're told you have to give a five-minute impromptu speech on your
personal {{weaknesses}} to a panel of expert {{evaluators}} sitting right in front of
you, and to make sure you feel the pressure, there are bright lights and a camera in
your face, kind of like this.

And the evaluators have been trained to give you discouraging, {{non-verbal}}
feedback, like this.

(Exhales)

(Laughter)

Now that you're {{sufficiently}} demoralized, time for part two: a math test. And
unbeknownst to you, the experimenter has been trained to harass you during it. Now
we're going to all do this together. It's going to be fun. For me.

Okay.

I want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of seven. You're going to do
this out loud, as fast as you can, starting with 996. Go!

(Audience counting)

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Go faster. Faster please. You're going too slow.

Stop. Stop, stop, stop. That guy made a mistake. We are going to have to start all over
again.

4:44

You're not very good at this, are you? Okay, so you get the idea. If you were actually in
this study, you'd probably be a little {{stressed out}}. Your heart might be
pounding, you might be breathing faster, maybe breaking out into a sweat. And
normally, we interpret these physical changes as anxiety or signs that we aren't
{{coping}} very well with the pressure.

But what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized, was
preparing you to meet this challenge? Now that is exactly what participants were
told in a study {{conducted}} at Harvard University. Before they went through the
social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. That
{{pounding heart}} is preparing you for action. If you're breathing faster, it's no
problem. It's getting more oxygen to your brain. And participants who learned to view
the stress response as helpful for their performance, well, they were less stressed out,
less anxious, more confident, but the most fascinating finding to me was how their
physical stress {{response}} changed.

05:47

Now, in a typical stress response, your heart {{rate}} goes up, and your blood vessels
constrict like this. And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes
associated with cardiovascular disease. It's not really healthy to be in this state all the
time. But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their
blood vessels stayed relaxed like this. Their heart was still pounding, but this is a much
healthier cardiovascular {{profile}}. It actually looks a lot like what happens in
moments of joy and courage. Over a lifetime of stressful experiences, this one
{{biological change}} could be the difference between a {{stress-induced}} heart
attack at age 50 and living well into your 90s. And this is really what the new science

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of stress reveals, that how you think about stress matters.

So my goal as a health psychologist has changed. I no longer want to {{get rid of}} your
stress. I want to make you better at stress. And we just did a little intervention. If you
raised your hand and said you'd had a lot of stress in the last year, we could have saved
your life, because hopefully the next time your heart is pounding from stress, you're
going to remember this talk and you're going to think to yourself, this is my body
helping me {{rise}} to this challenge. And when you view stress in that way, your body
believes you, and your stress response becomes healthier.

Now I said I have over a {{decade}} of demonizing stress to redeem myself from, so we
are going to do one more intervention. I want to tell you about one of the most
{{under-appreciated}} aspects of the stress response, and the idea is this: Stress makes
you social.

To understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin, and I
know oxytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get. It even has its
own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it's {{released}} when you hug
someone. But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in.

08:01

Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you

to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave {{physical
contact}} with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you
more willing to help and support the people you care about. Some people have even
{{suggested}} we should snort oxytocin... to become more compassionate and
caring. But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress
hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It's
as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart
pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is {{motivating}} you to
seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you
feel, instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you
notice when someone else in your life is {{struggling}} so that you can support each

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other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by
people who care about you.

Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier? Well, oxytocin
doesn't only act on your {{brain}}. It also acts on your body, and one of its main roles in
your body is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of stress. It's a
natural {{anti-inflammatory}}. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during
stress. But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart. Your heart has
receptors for this hormone, and oxytocin helps heart cells {{regenerate}} and heal
from any stress-induced damage. This stress hormone {{strengthens}} your heart.

10:07

And the cool thing is that all of these physical benefits of oxytocin are {{enhanced}} by
social contact and social support. So when you {{reach out}} to others under
stress, either to seek support or to help someone else, you release more of this
hormone, your stress response becomes healthier, and you actually {{recover}} faster
from stress. I find this amazing, that your stress response has a built-in
{{mechanism}} for stress resilience, and that mechanism is {{human}} connection.

I want to finish by telling you about one more study. And listen up, because this study
could also save a life. This study {{tracked}} about 1,000 adults in the United States, and
they ranged in age from 34 to 93, and they started the study by asking, "How much
stress have you experienced in the last year?" They also asked, "How much time have
you spent helping out friends, neighbors, people in your {{community}}?" And then
they used public records for the next five years to find out who died.

Okay, so the bad news first: For every {{major}} stressful life experience, like financial
difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent. But -- and I
hope you are expecting a "but" by now -- but that wasn't true for everyone. People
who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no {{stress-related}} increase in
dying. Zero. Caring created {{resilience}}.

11:51

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And so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on your health are not
{{inevitable}}. How you think and how you act can transform your experience of
stress. When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you {{create}} the
biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you
can create resilience. Now I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in
my life, but this science has given me a whole new {{appreciation}} for stress. Stress
gives us {{access}} to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds joy and
meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding physical heart, working
so hard to give you strength and energy. And when you choose to view stress in this
way, you're not just getting better at stress, you're actually making a pretty
{{profound}} statement. You're saying that you can trust yourself to {{handle}} life's
challenges. And you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.

Thank you.

19. Your body language may shape who you are

00:09

So I want to start by offering you a free no-tech life hack, and all it {{requires}} of you
is this: that you change your {{posture}} for two minutes. But before I give it away, I
want to ask you to right now do a little {{audit}} of your body and what you're doing
with your body. So how many of you are sort of making yourselves smaller? Maybe
you're {{hunching}}, crossing your legs, maybe wrapping your ankles. Sometimes we
hold onto our arms like this. Sometimes we spread out. (Laughter) I see you. So I want
you to pay {{attention}} to what you're doing right now. We're going to come back to
that in a few minutes, and I'm hoping that if you learn to {{tweak}} this a little bit, it
could significantly change the way your life {{unfolds}}.

(Laughter) (Applause)

01:35

Amy Cuddy: So a handshake, or the lack of a handshake, can have us talking for weeks
and weeks and weeks. Even the BBC and The New York Times. So {{obviously}} when

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we think about {{nonverbal}} behavior, or body language -- but we call it nonverbals
as social {{scientists}} -- it's language, so we think about communication. When we
think about communication, we think about {{interactions}}. So what is your body
language communicating to me? What's mine communicating to you?

02:02

And there's a lot of reason to believe that this is a {{valid}} way to look at this. So social
scientists have spent a lot of time looking at the {{effects}} of our body language, or
other people's body language, on {{judgments}}. And we make sweeping judgments
and {{inferences}} from body language. And those judgments can {{predict}} really
meaningful life {{outcomes}} like who we hire or {{promote}}, who we ask out on a
date. For example, Nalini Ambady, a {{researcher}} at Tufts University, shows that
when people watch 30-second {{soundless}} clips of real {{physician-patient}}
interactions, their judgments of the physician's {{niceness}} predict whether or not
that physician will be {{sued}}. So it doesn't have to do so much with whether or not
that physician was {{incompetent}}, but do we like that person and how they
interacted? Even more {{dramatic}}, Alex Todorov at Princeton has shown us that
judgments of {{political}} candidates' faces in just one second predict 70 percent of
U.S. Senate and gubernatorial race outcomes, and even, let's go {{digital}}, emoticons
used well in online {{negotiations}} can lead you to claim more value from that
negotiation. If you use them poorly, bad idea. Right?

03:17

So when we think of nonverbals, we think of how we judge others, how they judge us
and what the outcomes are. We tend to forget, though, the other {{audience}} that's
{{influenced}} by our nonverbals, and that's ourselves. We are also influenced by our
nonverbals, our thoughts and our feelings and our {{physiology}}.

03:34

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So what nonverbals am I talking about? I'm a {{social}} psychologist. I study
{{prejudice}}, and I teach at a {{competitive}} business school, so it was {{inevitable}}
that I would become interested in power {{dynamics}}. I became especially interested
in nonverbal expressions of power and {{dominance}}.

03:53

And what are nonverbal expressions of power and dominance? Well, this is what they
are. So in the animal kingdom, they are about {{expanding}}. So you make yourself
big, you {{stretch}} out, you take up space, you're {{basically}} opening up. It's about
opening up. And this is true across the animal kingdom. It's not just limited to
{{primates}}. And humans do the same thing. (Laughter) So they do this both when
they have power sort of {{chronically}}, and also when they're feeling powerful in the
moment. And this one is especially interesting because it really shows us how
{{universal}} and old these expressions of power are. This expression, which is known
as {{pride}}, Jessica Tracy has studied. She shows that people who are born with sight
and people who are {{congenitally}} blind do this when they win at a {{physical}}
competition. So when they cross the finish line and they've won, it doesn't matter if
they've never seen anyone do it. They do this. So the arms up in the V, the chin is
{{slightly}} lifted.

04:53

What do we do when we feel {{powerless}}? We do exactly the {{opposite}}. We close

up. We wrap ourselves up. We make ourselves small. We don't want to {{bump}} into
the person next to us. So again, both animals and humans do the same thing. And this
is what happens when you put together high and low power. So what we tend to do
when it comes to power is that we {{complement}} the other's nonverbals. So if
someone is being really powerful with us, we tend to make ourselves smaller. We don't
{{mirror}} them. We do the opposite of them.

05:22

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So I'm watching this behavior in the classroom, and what do I notice? I notice that
MBA students really {{exhibit}} the full range of power nonverbals. So you have people
who are like caricatures of {{alphas}}, really coming into the room, they get right into
the middle of the room before class even starts, like they really want to {{occupy}}
space. When they sit down, they're sort of spread out. They raise their hands like this.
You have other people who are {{virtually}} collapsing when they come in. As soon
they come in, you see it. You see it on their faces and their bodies, and they sit in their
chair and they make themselves {{tiny}}, and they go like this when they raise their
hand.

06:01

I notice a couple of things about this. One, you're not going to be {{surprised}}. It
seems to be {{related}} to gender. So women are much more likely to do this kind of
thing than men. Women feel {{chronically}} less powerful than men, so this is not
surprising.

06:17

But the other thing I noticed is that it also seemed to be related to the {{extent}} to
which the students were {{participating}}, and how well they were participating. And
this is really {{important}} in the MBA classroom, because participation counts for half
the grade.

06:31

So business schools have been {{struggling}} with this gender grade gap. You get
these equally {{qualified}} women and men coming in and then you get these
{{differences}} in grades, and it seems to be partly {{attributable}} to participation. So
I started to wonder, you know, okay, so you have these people coming in like this, and
they're participating. Is it {{possible}} that we could get people to fake it and would it
lead them to participate more?

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06:55

So my main {{collaborator}} Dana Carney, who's at Berkeley, and I really wanted to

know, can you fake it till you make it? Like, can you do this just for a little while and
actually {{experience}} a behavioral outcome that makes you seem more powerful?
So we know that our nonverbals {{govern}} how other people think and feel about us.
There's a lot of {{evidence}}. But our question really was, do our nonverbals govern
how we think and feel about ourselves?

07:21

There's some evidence that they do. So, for example, we smile when we feel happy,
but also, when we're {{forced}} to smile by holding a pen in our teeth like this, it makes
us feel happy. So it goes both ways. When it comes to power, it also goes both ways.
So when you feel powerful, you're more likely to do this, but it's also possible that when
you {{pretend}} to be powerful, you are more likely to {{actually}} feel powerful.

07:55

So the second question really was, you know, so we know that our minds change our
bodies, but is it also true that our bodies change our minds? And when I say minds, in
the case of the powerful, what am I talking about? So I'm talking about thoughts and
feelings and the sort of physiological things that make up our thoughts and feelings,
and in my case, that's {{hormones}}. I look at hormones. So what do the minds of the
powerful versus the powerless look like? So powerful people tend to be, not
surprisingly, more {{assertive}} and more confident, more {{optimistic}}. They actually
feel they're going to win even at games of chance. They also tend to be able to think
more {{abstractly}}. So there are a lot of differences. They take more {{risks}}. There are
a lot of differences between powerful and powerless people. Physiologically, there also
are differences on two key hormones: testosterone, which is the {{dominance}}
hormone, and cortisol, which is the {{stress}} hormone.

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08:54

So what we find is that high-power alpha males in primate {{hierarchies}} have high
testosterone and low cortisol, and powerful and effective {{leaders}} also have high
testosterone and low cortisol. So what does that mean? When you think about power,
people tended to think only about testosterone, because that was about dominance.
But really, power is also about how you react to stress. So do you want the high-power
leader that's {{dominant}}, high on testosterone, but really stress {{reactive}}?
Probably not, right? You want the person who's powerful and assertive and dominant,
but not very stress reactive, the person who's {{laid back}}.

09:35

So we know that in {{primate}} hierarchies, if an alpha needs to take over, if an

{{individual}} needs to take over an alpha role sort of {{suddenly}}, within a few days,
that individual's testosterone has gone up significantly and his cortisol has {{dropped}}
significantly. So we have this evidence, both that the body can shape the mind, at least
at the {{facial}} level, and also that role changes can shape the mind. So what happens,
okay, you take a role change, what happens if you do that at a really {{minimal}} level,
like this tiny {{manipulation}}, this tiny {{intervention}}? "For two minutes," you say, "I
want you to stand like this, and it's going to make you feel more powerful."

10:17

So this is what we did. We decided to bring people into the lab and run a little
{{experiment}}, and these people {{adopted}}, for two minutes, either high-power
poses or low-power poses, and I'm just going to show you five of the {{poses}},
although they took on only two. So here's one. A couple more. This one has been
{{dubbed}} the "Wonder Woman" by the media. Here are a couple more. So you can
be standing or you can be sitting. And here are the low-power poses. So you're
{{folding}} up, you're making yourself small. This one is very low-power. When you're
touching your neck, you're really {{protecting}} yourself.

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11:00

So this is what happens. They come in, they spit into a {{vial}}, for two minutes, we say,
"You need to do this or this." They don't look at pictures of the poses. We don't want
to {{prime}} them with a {{concept}} of power. We want them to be feeling power. So
two minutes they do this. We then ask them, "How powerful do you feel?" on a series
of {{items}}, and then we give them an opportunity to {{gamble}}, and then we take
another saliva sample. That's it. That's the whole experiment.

11:26

So this is what we find. Risk {{tolerance}}, which is the gambling, we find that when
you are in the high-power pose {{condition}}, 86 percent of you will gamble. When
you're in the low-power pose condition, only 60 percent, and that's a {{whopping}}
significant difference.

11:41

Here's what we find on testosterone. From their {{baseline}} when they come in, high-
power people experience about a 20-percent {{increase}}, and low-power people
experience about a 10-percent {{decrease}}. So again, two minutes, and you get these
changes. Here's what you get on cortisol. High-power people experience about a 25-
percent decrease, and the low-power people experience about a 15-percent increase.
So two minutes lead to these hormonal changes that {{configure}} your brain to
basically be either assertive, confident and {{comfortable}}, or really stress-reactive,
and feeling sort of {{shut down}}. And we've all had the feeling, right? So it seems that
our nonverbals do govern how we think and feel about ourselves, so it's not just others,
but it's also ourselves. Also, our bodies change our minds.

12:34

But the next question, of course, is, can power posing for a few minutes really change

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your life in {{meaningful}} ways? This is in the lab, it's this little task, it's just a couple of
minutes. Where can you actually {{apply}} this? Which we cared about, of course. And
so we think where you want to use this is {{evaluative}} situations, like social threat
situations. Where are you being evaluated, either by your friends? For {{teenagers}},
it's at the lunchroom table. For some people it's speaking at a school board meeting.
It might be giving a {{pitch}} or giving a talk like this or doing a job {{interview}}. We
decided that the one that most people could relate to because most people had been
through, was the job interview.

13:18

So we {{published}} these findings, and the {{media}} are all over it, and they say, Okay,
so this is what you do when you go in for the job interview, right?

13:27

(Laughter)

13:28

You know, so we were of course {{horrified}}, and said, Oh my God, no, that's not what
we meant at all. For {{numerous}} reasons, no, don't do that. Again, this is not about
you talking to other people. It's you talking to yourself. What do you do before you go
into a job interview? You do this. You're sitting down. You're looking at your iPhone --
or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You're looking at your notes, you're
hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is
this, like, in the bathroom, right? Do that. Find two minutes. So that's what we want
to test. Okay? So we bring people into a {{lab}}, and they do either high- or low-power
poses again, they go through a very {{stressful}} job interview. It's five minutes long.
They are being {{recorded}}. They're being judged also, and the judges are {{trained}}
to give no nonverbal {{feedback}}, so they look like this. {{Imagine}} this is the person
interviewing you. So for five minutes, nothing, and this is worse than being {{heckled}}.

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People hate this. It's what Marianne LaFrance calls "standing in social quicksand." So
this really {{spikes}} your cortisol. So this is the job interview we put them through,
because we really wanted to see what happened. We then have these {{coders}} look
at these tapes, four of them. They're blind to the {{hypothesis}}. They're blind to the
conditions. They have no idea who's been posing in what pose, and they end up
looking at these sets of {{tapes}}, and they say, "We want to hire these people," all the
high-power posers. "We don't want to hire these people. We also evaluate these
people much more {{positively}} overall." But what's driving it? It's not about the
{{content}} of the speech. It's about the {{presence}} that they're bringing to the
speech. Because we rate them on all these {{variables}} related to competence, like,
how well-structured is the speech? How good is it? What are their {{qualifications}}?
No effect on those things. This is what's affected. These kinds of things. People are
bringing their true selves, basically. They're bringing themselves. They bring their
ideas, but as themselves, with no, you know, {{residue}} over them. So this is what's
driving the effect, or {{mediating}} the effect.

15:32

So when I tell people about this, that our bodies change our minds and our minds can
change our behavior, and our behavior can change our outcomes, they say to me, "It
feels fake." Right? So I said, fake it till you make it. It's not me. I don't want to get there
and then still feel like a {{fraud}}. I don't want to feel like an {{impostor}}. I don't want
to get there only to feel like I'm not {{supposed}} to be here. And that really resonated
with me, because I want to tell you a little story about being an impostor and feeling
like I'm not supposed to be here.

16:04

When I was 19, I was in a really bad car {{accident}}. I was thrown out of a car, rolled
{{several}} times. I was thrown from the car. And I woke up in a head {{injury}} rehab
ward, and I had been {{withdrawn}} from college, and I learned that my IQ had
dropped by two {{standard}} deviations, which was very {{traumatic}}. I knew my IQ

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because I had {{identified}} with being smart, and I had been called {{gifted}} as a
child. So I'm taken out of college, I keep trying to go back. They say, "You're not going
to finish college. Just, you know, there are other things for you to do, but that's not
going to work out for you."

16:41

So I really struggled with this, and I have to say, having your identity taken from you,
your core identity, and for me it was being smart, having that taken from you, there's
nothing that leaves you feeling more powerless than that. So I felt {{entirely}}
powerless. I worked and worked, and I got lucky, and worked, and got lucky, and
worked.

16:59

{{Eventually}} I graduated from college. It took me four years longer than my peers,
and I {{convinced}} someone, my angel {{advisor}}, Susan Fiske, to take me on, and so
I ended up at Princeton, and I was like, I am not supposed to be here. I am an impostor.
And the night before my first-year talk, and the first-year talk at Princeton is a 20-
minute talk to 20 people. That's it. I was so {{afraid}} of being found out the next day
that I called her and said, "I'm quitting." She was like, "You are not quitting, because I
took a gamble on you, and you're staying. You're going to stay, and this is what you're
going to do. You are going to fake it. You're going to do every talk that you ever get
asked to do. You're just going to do it and do it and do it, even if you're {{terrified}} and
just {{paralyzed}} and having an out-of-body experience, until you have this moment
where you say, 'Oh my gosh, I'm doing it. Like, I have become this. I am actually doing
this.'" So that's what I did. Five years in {{grad}} school, a few years, you know, I'm at
Northwestern, I moved to Harvard, I'm at Harvard, I'm not really thinking about it
anymore, but for a long time I had been thinking, "Not supposed to be here."

18:05

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So at the end of my first year at Harvard, a student who had not talked in class the
entire {{semester}}, who I had said, "Look, you've gotta participate or else you're going
to fail," came into my office. I really didn't know her at all. She came in totally
{{defeated}}, and she said, "I'm not supposed to be here." And that was the {{moment}}
for me. Because two things happened. One was that I realized, oh my gosh, I don't feel
like that anymore. I don't feel that anymore, but she does, and I get that feeling. And
the second was, she is supposed to be here! Like, she can fake it, she can become it.

18:43

So I was like, "Yes, you are! You are supposed to be here! And {{tomorrow}} you're
going to fake it, you're going to make yourself powerful, and, you know --

18:52

(Applause)

18:57

And you're going to go into the classroom, and you are going to give the best
comment ever." You know? And she gave the best comment ever, and people turned
around and were like, oh my God, I didn't even {{notice}} her sitting there. (Laughter)

19:11

She comes back to me months later, and I realized that she had not just faked it till
she made it, she had actually faked it till she {{became}} it. So she had changed. And
so I want to say to you, don't fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it. Do it
enough until you actually become it and {{internalize}}.

19:31

The last thing I'm going to leave you with is this. Tiny {{tweaks}} can lead to big

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changes. So, this is two minutes. Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. Before you
go into the next stressful evaluative {{situation}}, for two minutes, try doing this, in the
elevator, in a bathroom stall, at your desk behind closed doors. That's what you want
to do. {{Configure}} your brain to cope the best in that situation. Get your testosterone
up. Get your cortisol down. Don't leave that situation feeling like, oh, I didn't show
them who I am. Leave that situation feeling like, I really feel like I got to say who I am
and show who I am.

20:07

So I want to ask you first, you know, both to try power posing, and also I want to ask
you to share the science, because this is {{simple}}. I don't have {{ego}} involved in this.
(Laughter) Give it away. Share it with people, because the people who can use it the
most are the ones with no {{resources}} and no technology and no {{status}} and no
power. Give it to them because they can do it in {{private}}. They need their bodies,
privacy and two minutes, and it can significantly change the {{outcomes}} of their life.

20:39

Thank you.

20. How to speak so that people want to listen

00:05

The human voice: It's the {{instrument}} we all play. It's the most powerful sound in the
world, {{probably. It's the only one that can start a war or say "I love you." And yet many
people have the {{experience that when they speak, people don't listen to them. And
why is that? How can we speak powerfully to make change in the world?

00:24

What I'd like to suggest, there are a number of {{habits}} that we need to move away
from. I've {{assembled}} for your pleasure here seven deadly {{sins}} of speaking. I'm

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not pretending this is an {{exhaustive}} list, but these seven, I think, are pretty large
habits that we can all fall into.

00:40

First, gossip. Speaking ill of somebody who's not {{present}}. Not a nice habit, and we
know {{perfectly}} well the person gossiping, five minutes later, will be gossiping about
us.

00:53

Second, judging. We know people who are like this in {{conversation}}, and it's very
hard to listen to somebody if you know that you're being {{judged}} and found wanting
at the same time.

01:03

Third, {{negativity}}. You can fall into this. My mother, in the last years of her life,
became very negative, and it's hard to listen. I remember one day, I said to her, "It's
October 1 today," and she said, "I know, isn't it {{dreadful}}?"

01:16

(Laughter)

01:18

It's hard to listen when somebody's that negative.

01:21

(Laughter)

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01:22

And another form of negativity, {{complaining}}. Well, this is the national art of the U.K.
It's our national sport. We complain about the weather, sport, about {{politics}}, about
everything, but actually, complaining is viral {{misery}}. It's not spreading sunshine and
lightness in the world.

01:39

Excuses.

01:41

We've all met this guy. Maybe we've all been this guy. Some people have a
{{blamethrower}}. They just pass it on to everybody else and don't take {{responsibility}}
for their actions, and again, hard to listen to somebody who is being like that.

01:54

Penultimate, the sixth of the seven, {{embroidery}}, exaggeration. It demeans our

language, actually, sometimes. For example, if I see something that really is
{{awesome}}, what do I call it?

02:06

(Laughter)

02:09

And then, of course, this {{exaggeration}} becomes lying, and we don't want to listen
to people we know are lying to us.

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02:15

And finally, dogmatism. The {{confusion}} of facts with opinions. When those two
things get {{conflated}}, you're listening into the wind. You know, somebody is
{{bombarding}} you with their opinions as if they were true. It's difficult to listen to that.

02:32

So here they are, seven deadly sins of speaking. These are things I think we need to
{{avoid}}. But is there a {{positive}} way to think about this? Yes, there is. I'd like to
suggest that there are four really powerful cornerstones, {{foundations}}, that we can
stand on if we want our speech to be powerful and to make change in the world.
Fortunately, these things {{spell}} a word. The word is "hail," and it has a great
{{definition}} as well. I'm not talking about the stuff that falls from the sky and hits you
on the head. I'm talking about this definition, to greet or {{acclaim}} enthusiastically,
which is how I think our words will be {{received}} if we stand on these four things.

03:10

So what do they stand for? See if you can guess. The H, {{honesty}}, of course, being
true in what you say, being straight and clear. The A is {{authenticity}}, just being
yourself. A friend of mine {{described}} it as standing in your own truth, which I think
is a lovely way to put it. The I is {{integrity}}, being your word, actually doing what you
say, and being somebody people can trust. And the L is love. I don't mean {{romantic}}
love, but I do mean wishing people well, for two reasons. First of all, I think {{absolute}}
honesty may not be what we want. I mean, my goodness, you look ugly this morning.
Perhaps that's not necessary. {{Tempered}} with love, of course, honesty is a great
thing. But also, if you're really wishing somebody well, it's very hard to judge them at
the same time. I'm not even sure you can do those two things {{simultaneously}}. So
hail.

04:08

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Also, now that's what you say, and it's like the old song, it is what you say, it's also the
way that you say it. You have an amazing {{toolbox}}. This instrument is incredible, and
yet this is a toolbox that very few people have ever opened. I'd like to have a little
{{rummage}} in there with you now and just pull a few tools out that you might like to
take away and play with, which will {{increase}} the power of your speaking.

04:29

Register, for example. Now, falsetto register may not be very {{useful}} most of the
time, but there's a register in between. I'm not going to get very {{technical}} about
this for any of you who are voice {{coaches}}. You can locate your voice, however. So if
I talk up here in my nose, you can hear the {{difference}}. If I go down here in my throat,
which is where most of us speak from most of the time. But if you want weight, you
need to go down here to the chest. You hear the difference? We vote for politicians
with lower voices, it's true, because we {{associate}} depth with power and with
{{authority}}. That's register.

05:07

Then we have a timbre. It's the way your voice feels. Again, the {{research}} shows that
we prefer voices which are rich, smooth, warm, like hot chocolate. Well if that's not
you, that's not the end of the world, because you can train. Go and get a voice coach.
And there are amazing things you can do with breathing, with {{posture}}, and with
exercises to improve the timbre of your voice.

05:30

Then prosody. I love prosody. This is the sing-song, the meta-language that we use in
order to {{impart}} meaning. It's root one for meaning in conversation. People who
speak all on one note are really quite hard to listen to if they don't have any prosody
at all. That's where the word "monotonic" comes from, or monotonous, {{monotone}}.
Also, we have {{repetitive}} prosody now coming in, where every sentence ends as if it

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were a question when it's actually not a question, it's a {{statement}}?

06:00

(Laughter)

06:02

And if you repeat that one, it's actually {{restricting}} your ability to communicate
through prosody, which I think is a {{shame}}, so let's try and break that habit.

06:12

Pace.

06:13

I can get very excited by saying something really quickly, or I can slow right down to
{{emphasize}}, and at the end of that, of course, is our old friend - silence. There's
nothing wrong with a bit of silence in a talk, is there? We don't have to fill it with ums
and ahs. It can be very powerful.

06:35

Of course, pitch often goes along with pace to {{indicate}} arousal, but you can do it
just with pitch. Where did you leave my keys? (Higher pitch) Where did you leave my
keys? So, slightly different meanings in those two {{deliveries}}.

06:47

And finally, volume. (Loud) I can get really excited by using volume. Sorry about that,
if I {{startled}} anybody. Or, I can have you really pay attention by getting very quiet.
Some people {{broadcast}} the whole time. Try not to do that. That's called sodcasting,

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07:05

(Laughter)

07:06

{{Imposing}} your sound on people around you carelessly and {{inconsiderately}}. Not
nice.

07:12

Of course, where this all comes into play most of all is when you've got something
really important to do. It might be standing on a stage like this and giving a talk to
people. It might be proposing {{marriage}}, asking for a raise, a wedding speech.
Whatever it is, if it's really important, you {{owe}} it to yourself to look at this toolbox
and the {{engine}} that it's going to work on, and no engine works well without being
warmed up. Warm up your voice.

07:38

Actually, let me show you how to do that. Would you all like to stand up for a
{{moment}}? I'm going to show you the six vocal warm-up {{exercises}} that I do before
every talk I ever do. Any time you're going to talk to anybody important, do these. First,
arms up, deep {{breath}} in, and sigh out, ahhhhh, like that. One more time. Ahhhh,
very good. Now we're going to warm up our lips, and we're going to go Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba,
Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba. Very good. And now, brrrrrrrrrr, just like when you were a kid. Brrrr. Now
your lips should be coming {{alive}}. We're going to do the tongue next with
exaggerated la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Beautiful. You're getting really good at this. And
then, roll an R. Rrrrrrr. That's like {{champagne}} for the tongue. Finally, and if I can only
do one, the {{pros}} call this the siren. It's really good. It starts with "we" and goes to
"aw." The "we" is high, the "aw" is low. So you go, weeeaawww, weeeaawww.

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08:46

Fantastic. Give yourselves a round of {{applause}}. Take a seat, thank you.

08:49

(Applause)

08:51

Next time you speak, do those in {{advance}}.

08:53

Now let me just put this in {{context}} to close. This is a serious point here. This is where
we are now, right? We speak not very well to people who simply aren't listening in an
{{environment}} that's all about noise and bad {{acoustics}}. I have talked about that
on this stage in different phases. What would the world be like if we were speaking
powerfully to people who were listening {{consciously}} in environments which were
actually fit for purpose? Or to make that a bit larger, what would the world be like if
we were {{creating}} sound consciously and {{consuming}} sound consciously and
designing all our environments consciously for sound? That would be a world that
does sound beautiful, and one where understanding would be the {{norm}}, and that
is an idea {{worth}} spreading.

09:40

Thank you.

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