When I was 11 , I remember waking up one morning to the sound of joy in my house .


My father was listening to BBC News on his small , gray radio .


There was a big smile on his face which was unusual then , because the news mostly depressed him .


" " The Taliban are gone ! " " my father shouted .


I didn 't know what it meant , but I could see that my father was very , very happy .


" " You can go to a real school now , " " he said .


A morning that I will never forget .


A real school .


You see , I was six when the Taliban took over Afghanistan and made it illegal for girls to go to school .


So for the next five years , I dressed as a boy to escort my older sister , who was no longer allowed to be outside alone , to a secret school .


It was the only way we both could be educated .


Each day , we took a different route so that no one would suspect where we were going .


We would cover our books in grocery bags so it would seem we were just out shopping .


The school was in a house , more than 100 of us packed in one small living room .


It was cozy in winter but extremely hot in summer .


We all knew we were risking our lives — the teacher , the students and our parents .


From time to time , the school would suddenly be canceled for a week because Taliban were suspicious .


We always wondered what they knew about us .


Were we being followed ?


Do they know where we live ?


We were scared , but still , school was where we wanted to be .


I was very lucky to grow up in a family where education was prized and daughters were treasured .


My grandfather was an extraordinary man for his time .


A total maverick from a remote province of Afghanistan , he insisted that his daughter , my mom , go to school , and for that he was disowned by his father .


But my educated mother became a teacher .


There she is .


She retired two years ago , only to turn our house into a school for girls and women in our neighborhood .


And my father — that 's him — he was the first ever in his family to receive an education .


There was no question that his children would receive an education , including his daughters , despite the Taliban , despite the risks .


To him , there was greater risk in not educating his children .


During Taliban years , I remember there were times I would get so frustrated by our life and always being scared and not seeing a future .


I would want to quit , but my father , he would say , " " Listen , my daughter , you can lose everything you own in your life .


Your money can be stolen . You can be forced to leave your home during a war .


But the one thing that will always remain with you is what is here , and if we have to sell our blood to pay your school fees , we will .


So do you still not want to continue ? " " Today I am 22 .


I was raised in a country that has been destroyed by decades of war .


Fewer than six percent of women my age have made it beyond high school , and had my family not been so committed to my education , I would be one of them .


Instead , I stand here a proud graduate of Middlebury College .


( Applause ) When I returned to Afghanistan , my grandfather , the one exiled from his home for daring to educate his daughters , was among the first to congratulate me .


He not only brags about my college degree , but also that I was the first woman , and that I am the first woman to drive him through the streets of Kabul .


( Applause ) My family believes in me .


I dream big , but my family dreams even bigger for me .


That 's why I am a global ambassador for 10x10 , a global campaign to educate women .


That 's why I cofounded SOLA , the first and perhaps only boarding school for girls in Afghanistan , a country where it 's still risky for girls to go to school .


The exciting thing is that I see students at my school with ambition grabbing at opportunity .


And I see their parents and their fathers who , like my own , advocate for them , despite and even in the face of daunting opposition .


Like Ahmed . That 's not his real name , and I cannot show you his face , but Ahmed is the father of one of my students .


Less than a month ago , he and his daughter were on their way from SOLA to their village , and they literally missed being killed by a roadside bomb by minutes .


As he arrived home , the phone rang , a voice warning him that if he sent his daughter back to school , they would try again .


" " Kill me now , if you wish , " " he said , " " but I will not ruin my daughter 's future because of your old and backward ideas . " " What I 've come to realize about Afghanistan , and this is something that is often dismissed in the West , that behind most of us who succeed is a father who recognizes the value in his daughter and who sees that her success is his success .


It 's not to say that our mothers aren 't key in our success .


In fact , they 're often the initial and convincing negotiators of a bright future for their daughters , but in the context of a society like in Afghanistan , we must have the support of men .


Under the Taliban , girls who went to school numbered in the hundreds — remember , it was illegal .


But today , more than three million girls are in school in Afghanistan .


( Applause ) Afghanistan looks so different from here in America .


I find that Americans see the fragility in changes .


I fear that these changes will not last much beyond the U.S. troops ' withdrawal .


But when I am back in Afghanistan , when I see the students in my school and their parents who advocate for them , who encourage them , I see a promising future and lasting change .


To me , Afghanistan is a country of hope and boundless possibilities , and every single day the girls of SOLA remind me of that .


Like me , they are dreaming big .


Thank you .


( Applause )


First , a video .


Yes , it is a scrambled egg .


But as you look at it , I hope you 'll begin to feel just slightly uneasy .


Because you may notice that what 's actually happening is that the egg is unscrambling itself .


And you 'll now see the yolk and the white have separated .


And now they 're going to be poured back into the egg .


And we all know in our heart of hearts that this is not the way the universe works .


A scrambled egg is mush — tasty mush — but it 's mush .


An egg is a beautiful , sophisticated thing that can create even more sophisticated things , such as chickens .


And we know in our heart of hearts that the universe does not travel from mush to complexity .


In fact , this gut instinct is reflected in one of the most fundamental laws of physics , the second law of thermodynamics , or the law of entropy .


What that says basically is that the general tendency of the universe is to move from order and structure to lack of order , lack of structure — in fact , to mush .


And that 's why that video feels a bit strange .


And yet , look around us .


What we see around us is staggering complexity .


Eric Beinhocker estimates that in New York City alone , there are some 10 billion SKUs , or distinct commodities , being traded .


That 's hundreds of times as many species as there are on Earth .


And they 're being traded by a species of almost seven billion individuals , who are linked by trade , travel , and the Internet into a global system of stupendous complexity .


So here 's a great puzzle : in a universe ruled by the second law of thermodynamics , how is it possible to generate the sort of complexity I 've described , the sort of complexity represented by you and me and the convention center ?


Well , the answer seems to be , the universe can create complexity , but with great difficulty .


In pockets , there appear what my colleague , Fred Spier , calls " " Goldilocks conditions " " — not too hot , not too cold , just right for the creation of complexity .


And slightly more complex things appear .


And where you have slightly more complex things , you can get slightly more complex things .


And in this way , complexity builds stage by stage .


Each stage is magical because it creates the impression of something utterly new appearing almost out of nowhere in the universe .


We refer in big history to these moments as threshold moments .


And at each threshold , the going gets tougher .


The complex things get more fragile , more vulnerable ; the Goldilocks conditions get more stringent , and it 's more difficult to create complexity .


Now , we , as extremely complex creatures , desperately need to know this story of how the universe creates complexity despite the second law , and why complexity means vulnerability and fragility .


And that 's the story that we tell in big history .


But to do it , you have do something that may , at first sight , seem completely impossible .


You have to survey the whole history of the universe .


So let 's do it .


( Laughter ) Let 's begin by winding the timeline back 13.7 billion years , to the beginning of time .


Around us , there 's nothing .


There 's not even time or space .


Imagine the darkest , emptiest thing you can and cube it a gazillion times and that 's where we are .


And then suddenly , bang !


A universe appears , an entire universe .


And we 've crossed our first threshold .


The universe is tiny ; it 's smaller than an atom .


It 's incredibly hot .


It contains everything that 's in today 's universe , so you can imagine , it 's busting .


And it 's expanding at incredible speed .


And at first , it 's just a blur , but very quickly distinct things begin to appear in that blur .


Within the first second , energy itself shatters into distinct forces including electromagnetism and gravity .


And energy does something else quite magical : it congeals to form matter — quarks that will create protons and leptons that include electrons .


And all of that happens in the first second .


Now we move forward 380,000 years .


That 's twice as long as humans have been on this planet .


And now simple atoms appear of hydrogen and helium .


Now I want to pause for a moment , 380,000 years after the origins of the universe , because we actually know quite a lot about the universe at this stage .


We know above all that it was extremely simple .


It consisted of huge clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms , and they have no structure .


They 're really a sort of cosmic mush .


But that 's not completely true .


Recent studies by satellites such as the WMAP satellite have shown that , in fact , there are just tiny differences in that background .


What you see here , the blue areas are about a thousandth of a degree cooler than the red areas .


These are tiny differences , but it was enough for the universe to move on to the next stage of building complexity .


And this is how it works .


Gravity is more powerful where there 's more stuff .


So where you get slightly denser areas , gravity starts compacting clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms .


So we can imagine the early universe breaking up into a billion clouds .


And each cloud is compacted , gravity gets more powerful as density increases , the temperature begins to rise at the center of each cloud , and then , at the center , the temperature crosses the threshold temperature of 10 million degrees , protons start to fuse , there 's a huge release of energy , and — bam !


We have our first stars .


From about 200 million years after the Big Bang , stars begin to appear all through the universe , billions of them .


And the universe is now significantly more interesting and more complex .


Stars will create the Goldilocks conditions for crossing two new thresholds .


When very large stars die , they create temperatures so high that protons begin to fuse in all sorts of exotic combinations , to form all the elements of the periodic table .


If , like me , you 're wearing a gold ring , it was forged in a supernova explosion .


So now the universe is chemically more complex .


And in a chemically more complex universe , it 's possible to make more things .


And what starts happening is that , around young suns , young stars , all these elements combine , they swirl around , the energy of the star stirs them around , they form particles , they form snowflakes , they form little dust motes , they form rocks , they form asteroids , and eventually , they form planets and moons .


And that is how our solar system was formed , four and a half billion years ago .


Rocky planets like our Earth are significantly more complex than stars because they contain a much greater diversity of materials .


So we 've crossed a fourth threshold of complexity .


Now , the going gets tougher .


The next stage introduces entities that are significantly more fragile , significantly more vulnerable , but they 're also much more creative and much more capable of generating further complexity .


I 'm talking , of course , about living organisms .


Living organisms are created by chemistry .


We are huge packages of chemicals .


So , chemistry is dominated by the electromagnetic force .


That operates over smaller scales than gravity , which explains why you and I are smaller than stars or planets .


Now , what are the ideal conditions for chemistry ?


What are the Goldilocks conditions ?


Well , first , you need energy , but not too much .


In the center of a star , there 's so much energy that any atoms that combine will just get busted apart again .


But not too little .


In intergalactic space , there 's so little energy that atoms can 't combine .


What you want is just the right amount , and planets , it turns out , are just right , because they 're close to stars , but not too close .


You also need a great diversity of chemical elements , and you need liquids , such as water .


Why ?


Well , in gases , atoms move past each other so fast that they can 't hitch up .


In solids , atoms are stuck together , they can 't move .


In liquids , they can cruise and cuddle and link up to form molecules .


Now , where do you find such Goldilocks conditions ?


Well , planets are great , and our early Earth was almost perfect .


It was just the right distance from its star to contain huge oceans of liquid water .


And deep beneath those oceans , at cracks in the Earth 's crust , you 've got heat seeping up from inside the Earth , and you 've got a great diversity of elements .


So at those deep oceanic vents , fantastic chemistry began to happen , and atoms combined in all sorts of exotic combinations .


But of course , life is more than just exotic chemistry .


How do you stabilize those huge molecules that seem to be viable ?


Well , it 's here that life introduces an entirely new trick .


You don 't stabilize the individual ; you stabilize the template , the thing that carries information , and you allow the template to copy itself .


And DNA , of course , is the beautiful molecule that contains that information .


You 'll be familiar with the double helix of DNA .


Each rung contains information .


So , DNA contains information about how to make living organisms .


And DNA also copies itself .


So , it copies itself and scatters the templates through the ocean .


So the information spreads .


Notice that information has become part of our story .


The real beauty of DNA though is in its imperfections .


As it copies itself , once in every billion rungs , there tends to be an error .


And what that means is that DNA is , in effect , learning .


It 's accumulating new ways of making living organisms because some of those errors work .


So DNA 's learning and it 's building greater diversity and greater complexity .


And we can see this happening over the last four billion years .


For most of that time of life on Earth , living organisms have been relatively simple — single cells .


But they had great diversity , and , inside , great complexity .


Then from about 600 to 800 million years ago , multi-celled organisms appear .


You get fungi , you get fish , you get plants , you get amphibia , you get reptiles , and then , of course , you get the dinosaurs .


And occasionally , there are disasters .


Sixty-five million years ago , an asteroid landed on Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula , creating conditions equivalent to those of a nuclear war , and the dinosaurs were wiped out .


Terrible news for the dinosaurs , but great news for our mammalian ancestors , who flourished in the niches left empty by the dinosaurs .


And we human beings are part of that creative evolutionary pulse that began 65 million years ago with the landing of an asteroid .


Humans appeared about 200,000 years ago .


And I believe we count as a threshold in this great story .


Let me explain why .


We 've seen that DNA learns in a sense , it accumulates information .


But it is so slow .


DNA accumulates information through random errors , some of which just happen to work .


But DNA had actually generated a faster way of learning : it had produced organisms with brains , and those organisms can learn in real time .


They accumulate information , they learn .


The sad thing is , when they die , the information dies with them .


Now what makes humans different is human language .


We are blessed with a language , a system of communication , so powerful and so precise that we can share what we 've learned with such precision that it can accumulate in the collective memory .


And that means it can outlast the individuals who learned that information , and it can accumulate from generation to generation .


And that 's why , as a species , we 're so creative and so powerful , and that 's why we have a history .


We seem to be the only species in four billion years to have this gift .


I call this ability collective learning .


It 's what makes us different .


We can see it at work in the earliest stages of human history .


We evolved as a species in the savanna lands of Africa , but then you see humans migrating into new environments , into desert lands , into jungles , into the Ice Age tundra of Siberia — tough , tough environment — into the Americas , into Australasia .


Each migration involved learning — learning new ways of exploiting the environment , new ways of dealing with their surroundings .


Then 10,000 years ago , exploiting a sudden change in global climate with the end of the last ice age , humans learned to farm .


Farming was an energy bonanza .


And exploiting that energy , human populations multiplied .


Human societies got larger , denser , more interconnected .


And then from about 500 years ago , humans began to link up globally through shipping , through trains , through telegraph , through the Internet , until now we seem to form a single global brain of almost seven billion individuals .


And that brain is learning at warp speed .


And in the last 200 years , something else has happened .


We 've stumbled on another energy bonanza in fossil fuels .


So fossil fuels and collective learning together explain the staggering complexity we see around us .


So — Here we are , back at the convention center .


We 've been on a journey , a return journey , of 13.7 billion years .


I hope you agree this is a powerful story .


And it 's a story in which humans play an astonishing and creative role .


But it also contains warnings .


Collective learning is a very , very powerful force , and it 's not clear that we humans are in charge of it .


I remember very vividly as a child growing up in England , living through the Cuban Missile Crisis .


For a few days , the entire biosphere seemed to be on the verge of destruction .


And the same weapons are still here , and they are still armed .


If we avoid that trap , others are waiting for us .


We 're burning fossil fuels at such a rate that we seem to be undermining the Goldilocks conditions that made it possible for human civilizations to flourish over the last 10,000 years .


So what big history can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us , but it can also show us our power with collective learning .


And now , finally — this is what I want .


I want my grandson , Daniel , and his friends and his generation , throughout the world , to know the story of big history , and to know it so well that they understand both the challenges that face us and the opportunities that face us .


And that 's why a group of us are building a free , online syllabus in big history for high-school students throughout the world .


We believe that big history will be a vital intellectual tool for them , as Daniel and his generation face the huge challenges and also the huge opportunities ahead of them at this threshold moment in the history of our beautiful planet .


I thank you for your attention .


( Applause )


Human beings start putting each other into boxes the second that they see each other — Is that person dangerous ? Are they attractive ?


Are they a potential mate ? Are they a potential networking opportunity ?


We do this little interrogation when we meet people to make a mental resume for them .


What 's your name ? Where are you from ?


How old are you ? What do you do ?


Then we get more personal with it .


Have you ever had any diseases ?


Have you ever been divorced ?


Does your breath smell bad while you 're answering my interrogation right now ?


What are you into ? Who are you into ?


What gender do you like to sleep with ?


I get it .


We are neurologically hardwired to seek out people like ourselves .


We start forming cliques as soon as we 're old enough to know what acceptance feels like .


We bond together based on anything that we can — music preference , race , gender , the block that we grew up on .


We seek out environments that reinforce our personal choices .


Sometimes , though , just the question " " what do you do ? " " can feel like somebody 's opening a tiny little box and asking you to squeeze yourself inside of it .


Because the categories , I 've found , are too limiting .


The boxes are too narrow .


And this can get really dangerous .


So here 's a disclaimer about me , though , before we get too deep into this .


I grew up in a very sheltered environment .


I was raised in downtown Manhattan in the early 1980s , two blocks from the epicenter of punk music .


I was shielded from the pains of bigotry and the social restrictions of a religiously-based upbringing .


Where I come from , if you weren 't a drag queen or a radical thinker or a performance artist of some kind , you were the weirdo .


( Laughter ) It was an unorthodox upbringing , but as a kid on the streets of New York , you learn how to trust your own instincts , you learn how to go with your own ideas .


So when I was six , I decided that I wanted to be a boy .


I went to school one day and the kids wouldn 't let me play basketball with them .


They said they wouldn 't let girls play .


So I went home , and I shaved my head , and I came back the next day and I said , " " I 'm a boy . " " I mean , who knows , right ?


When you 're six , maybe you can do that .


I didn 't want anyone to know that I was a girl , and they didn 't .


I kept up the charade for eight years .


So this is me when I was 11 .


I was playing a kid named Walter in a movie called " " Julian Po . " " I was a little street tough that followed Christian Slater around and badgered him .


See , I was also a child actor , which doubled up the layers of the performance of my identity , because no one knew that I was actually a girl really playing a boy .


In fact , no one in my life knew that I was a girl — not my teachers at school , not my friends , not the directors that I worked with .


Kids would often come up to me in class and grab me by the throat to check for an Adam 's apple or grab my crotch to check what I was working with .


When I would go to the bathroom , I would turn my shoes around in the stalls so that it looked like I was peeing standing up .


At sleepovers I would have panic attacks trying to break it to girls that they didn 't want to kiss me without outing myself .


It 's worth mentioning though that I didn 't hate my body or my genitalia .


I didn 't feel like I was in the wrong body .


I felt like I was performing this elaborate act .


I wouldn 't have qualified as transgender .


If my family , though , had been the kind of people to believe in therapy , they probably would have diagnosed me as something like gender dysmorphic and put me on hormones to stave off puberty .


But in my particular case , I just woke up one day when I was 14 , and I decided that I wanted to be a girl again .


Puberty had hit , and I had no idea what being a girl meant , and I was ready to figure out who I actually was .


When a kid behaves like I did , they don 't exactly have to come out , right ?


No one is exactly shocked .


( Laughter ) But I wasn 't asked to define myself by my parents .


When I was 15 , and I called my father to tell him that I had fallen in love , it was the last thing on either of our minds to discuss what the consequences were of the fact that my first love was a girl .


Three years later , when I fell in love with a man , neither of my parents batted an eyelash either .


See , it 's one of the great blessings of my very unorthodox childhood that I wasn 't ever asked to define myself as any one thing at any point .


I was just allowed to be me , growing and changing in every moment .


So four , almost five years ago , Proposition 8 , the great marriage equality debate , was raising a lot of dust around this country .


And at the time , getting married wasn 't really something I spent a lot of time thinking about .


But I was struck by the fact that America , a country with such a tarnished civil rights record , could be repeating its mistakes so blatantly .


And I remember watching the discussion on television and thinking how interesting it was that the separation of church and state was essentially drawing geographical boundaries throughout this country , between places where people believed in it and places where people didn 't .


And then , that this discussion was drawing geographical boundaries around me .


If this was a war with two disparate sides , I , by default , fell on team gay , because I certainly wasn 't 100 percent straight .


At the time I was just beginning to emerge from this eight-year personal identity crisis zigzag that saw me go from being a boy to being this awkward girl that looked like a boy in girl 's clothes to the opposite extreme of this super skimpy , over-compensating , boy-chasing girly-girl to finally just a hesitant exploration of what I actually was , a tomboyish girl who liked both boys and girls depending on the person .


I had spent a year photographing this new generation of girls , much like myself , who fell kind of between-the-lines — girls who skateboarded but did it in lacy underwear , girls who had boys ' haircuts but wore girly nail polish , girls who had eyeshadow to match their scraped knees , girls who liked girls and boys who all liked boys and girls who all hated being boxed in to anything .


I loved these people , and I admired their freedom , but I watched as the world outside of our utopian bubble exploded into these raging debates where pundits started likening our love to bestiality on national television .


And this powerful awareness rolled in over me that I was a minority , and in my own home country , based on one facet of my character .


I was legally and indisputably a second-class citizen .


I was not an activist .


I wave no flags in my own life .


But I was plagued by this question : How could anyone vote to strip the rights of the vast variety of people that I knew based on one element of their character ?


How could they say that we as a group were not deserving of equal rights as somebody else ?


Were we even a group ? What group ?


And had these people ever even consciously met a victim of their discrimination ?


Did they know who they were voting against and what the impact was ?


And then it occurred to me , perhaps if they could look into the eyes of the people that they were casting into second-class citizenship it might make it harder for them to do .


It might give them pause .


Obviously I couldn 't get 20 million people to the same dinner party , so I figured out a way where I could introduce them to each other photographically without any artifice , without any lighting , or without any manipulation of any kind on my part .


Because in a photograph you can examine a lion 's whiskers without the fear of him ripping your face off .


For me , photography is not just about exposing film , it 's about exposing the viewer to something new , a place they haven 't gone before , but most importantly , to people that they might be afraid of .


Life magazine introduced generations of people to distant , far-off cultures they never knew existed through pictures .


So I decided to make a series of very simple portraits , mugshots if you will .


And I basically decided to photograph anyone in this country that was not 100 percent straight , which , if you don 't know , is a limitless number of people .


( Laughter ) So this was a very large undertaking , and to do it we needed some help .


So I ran out in the freezing cold , and I photographed every single person that I knew that I could get to in February of about two years ago .


And I took those photographs , and I went to the HRC and I asked them for some help .


And they funded two weeks of shooting in New York .


And then we made this .


( Music ) Video : I 'm iO Tillett Wright , and I 'm an artist born and raised in New York City . ( Music )


Self Evident Truths is a photographic record of LGBTQ America today .


My aim is to take a simple portrait of anyone who 's anything other than 100 percent straight or feels like they fall in the LGBTQ spectrum in any way .


My goal is to show the humanity that exists in every one of us through the simplicity of a face .


( Music ) " We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal . "


It 's written in the Declaration of Independence .


We are failing as a nation to uphold the morals upon which we were founded .


There is no equality in the United States .


[ " " What does equality mean to you ? " " ] [ " " Marriage " " ] [ " " Freedom " " ] [ " " Civil rights " " ] [ " " Treat every person as you 'd treat yourself " " ] It 's when you don 't have to think about it , simple as that .


The fight for equal rights is not just about gay marriage .


Today in 29 states , more than half of this country , you can legally be fired just for your sexuality .


[ " " Who is responsible for equality ? " " ] I 've heard hundreds of people give the same answer : " We are all responsible for equality . "


So far we 've shot 300 faces in New York City .


And we wouldn 't have been able to do any of it without the generous support of the Human Rights Campaign .


I want to take the project across the country .


I want to visit 25 American cities , and I want to shoot 4,000 or 5,000 people .


This is my contribution to the civil rights fight of my generation .


I challenge you to look into the faces of these people and tell them that they deserve less than any other human being .


( Music ) [ " " Self evident truths " " ] [ " " 4,000 faces across America " " ] ( Music ) ( Applause ) iO Tillett Wright : Absolutely nothing could have prepared us for what happened after that .


Almost 85,000 people watched that video , and then they started emailing us from all over the country , asking us to come to their towns and help them to show their faces .


And a lot more people wanted to show their faces than I had anticipated .


So I changed my immediate goal to 10,000 faces .


That video was made in the spring of 2011 , and as of today I have traveled to almost 20 cities and photographed almost 2,000 people .


I know that this is a talk , but I 'd like to have a minute of just quiet and have you just look at these faces because there is nothing that I can say that will add to them .


Because if a picture is worth a thousand words , then a picture of a face needs a whole new vocabulary .


So after traveling and talking to people in places like Oklahoma or small-town Texas , we found evidence that the initial premise was dead on .


Visibility really is key .


Familiarity really is the gateway drug to empathy .


Once an issue pops up in your own backyard or amongst your own family , you 're far more likely to explore sympathy for it or explore a new perspective on it .


Of course , in my travels I met people who legally divorced their children for being other than straight , but I also met people who were Southern Baptists who switched churches because their child was a lesbian .


Sparking empathy had become the backbone of Self Evident Truths .


But here 's what I was starting to learn that was really interesting : Self Evident Truths doesn 't erase the differences between us .


In fact , on the contrary , it highlights them .


It presents , not just the complexities found in a procession of different human beings , but the complexities found within each individual person .


It wasn 't that we had too many boxes , it was that we had too few .


At some point I realized that my mission to photograph " " gays " " was inherently flawed , because there were a million different shades of gay .


Here I was trying to help , and I had perpetuated the very thing I had spent my life trying to avoid — yet another box .


At some point I added a question to the release form that asked people to quantify themselves on a scale of one to 100 percent gay .


And I watched so many existential crises unfold in front of me .


( Laughter ) People didn 't know what to do because they had never been presented with the option before .


Can you quantify your openness ?


Once they got over the shock , though , by and large people opted for somewhere between 70 to 95 percent or the 3 to 20 percent marks .


Of course , there were lots of people who opted for a 100 percent one or the other , but I found that a much larger proportion of people identified as something that was much more nuanced .


I found that most people fall on a spectrum of what I have come to refer to as " " Grey . " " Let me be clear though — and this is very important — in no way am I saying that preference doesn 't exist .


And I am not even going to address the issue of choice versus biological imperative , because if any of you happen to be of the belief that sexual orientation is a choice , I invite you to go out and try to be grey .


I 'll take your picture just for trying .


( Laughter ) What I am saying though is that human beings are not one-dimensional .


The most important thing to take from the percentage system is this : If you have gay people over here and you have straight people over here , and while we recognize that most people identify as somewhere closer to one binary or another , there is this vast spectrum of people that exist in between .


And the reality that this presents is a complicated one .


Because , for example , if you pass a law that allows a boss to fire an employee for homosexual behavior , where exactly do you draw the line ?


Is it over here , by the people who have had one or two heterosexual experiences so far ?


Or is it over here by the people who have only had one or two homosexual experiences thus far ?


Where exactly does one become a second-class citizen ?


Another interesting thing that I learned from my project and my travels is just what a poor binding agent sexual orientation is .


After traveling so much and meeting so many people , let me tell you , there are just as many jerks and sweethearts and Democrats and Republicans and jocks and queens and every other polarization you can possibly think of within the LGBT community as there are within the human race .


Aside from the fact that we play with one legal hand tied behind our backs , and once you get past the shared narrative of prejudice and struggle , just being other than straight doesn 't necessarily mean that we have anything in common .


So in the endless proliferation of faces that Self Evident Truths is always becoming , as it hopefully appears across more and more platforms , bus shelters , billboards , Facebook pages , screen savers , perhaps in watching this procession of humanity , something interesting and useful will begin to happen .


Hopefully these categories , these binaries , these over-simplified boxes will begin to become useless and they 'll begin to fall away .


Because really , they describe nothing that we see and no one that we know and nothing that we are .


What we see are human beings in all their multiplicity .


And seeing them makes it harder to deny their humanity .


At the very least I hope it makes it harder to deny their human rights .


So is it me particularly that you would choose to deny the right to housing , the right to adopt children , the right to marriage , the freedom to shop here , live here , buy here ?


Am I the one that you choose to disown as your child or your brother or your sister or your mother or your father , your neighbor , your cousin , your uncle , the president , your police woman or the fireman ?


It 's too late .


Because I already am all of those things .


We already are all of those things , and we always have been .


So please don 't greet us as strangers , greet us as your fellow human beings , period .


Thank you .


( Applause )


I 'm 150 feet down an illegal mine shaft in Ghana .


The air is thick with heat and dust , and it 's hard to breathe .


I can feel the brush of sweaty bodies passing me in the darkness , but I can 't see much else .


I hear voices talking , but mostly the shaft is this cacophony of men coughing , and stone being broken with primitive tools .


Like the others , I wear a flickering , cheap flashlight tied to my head with this elastic , tattered band , and I can barely make out the slick tree limbs holding up the walls of the three-foot square hole dropping hundreds of feet into the earth .


When my hand slips , I suddenly remember a miner I had met days before who had lost his grip and fell countless feet down that shaft .


As I stand talking to you today , these men are still deep in that hole , risking their lives without payment or compensation , and often dying .


I got to climb out of that hole , and I got to go home , but they likely never will , because they 're trapped in slavery .


For the last 28 years , I 've been documenting indigenous cultures in more than 70 countries on six continents , and in 2009 I had the great honor of being the sole exhibitor at the Vancouver Peace Summit .


Amongst all the astonishing people I met there , I met a supporter of Free the Slaves , an NGO dedicated to eradicating modern day slavery .


We started talking about slavery , and really , I started learning about slavery , for I had certainly known it existed in the world , but not to such a degree .


After we finished talking , I felt so horrible and honestly ashamed at my own lack of knowledge of this atrocity in my own lifetime , and I thought , if I don 't know , how many other people don 't know ?


It started burning a hole in my stomach , so within weeks , I flew down to Los Angeles to meet with the director of Free the Slaves and offer them my help .


Thus began my journey into modern day slavery .


Oddly , I had been to many of these places before .


Some I even considered like my second home .


But this time , I would see the skeletons hidden in the closet .


A conservative estimate tells us there are more than 27 million people enslaved in the world today .


That 's double the amount of people taken from Africa during the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade .


A hundred and fifty years ago , an agricultural slave cost about three times the annual salary of an American worker .


That equates to about $ 50,000 in today 's money .


Yet today , entire families can be enslaved for generations over a debt as small as $ 18 .


Astonishingly , slavery generates profits of more than $ 13 billion worldwide each year .


Many have been tricked by false promises of a good education , a better job , only to find that they 're forced to work without pay under the threat of violence , and they cannot walk away .


Today 's slavery is about commerce , so the goods that enslaved people produce have value , but the people producing them are disposable .


Slavery exists everywhere , nearly , in the world , and yet it is illegal everywhere in the world .


In India and Nepal , I was introduced to the brick kilns .


This strange and awesome sight was like walking into ancient Egypt or Dante 's Inferno .


Enveloped in temperatures of 130 degrees , men , women , children , entire families in fact , were cloaked in a heavy blanket of dust , while mechanically stacking bricks on their head , up to 18 at a time , and carrying them from the scorching kilns to trucks hundreds of yards away .


Deadened by monotony and exhaustion , they work silently , doing this task over and over for 16 or 17 hours a day .


There were no breaks for food , no water breaks , and the severe dehydration made urinating pretty much inconsequential .


So pervasive was the heat and the dust that my camera became too hot to even touch and ceased working .


Every 20 minutes , I 'd have to run back to our cruiser to clean out my gear and run it under an air conditioner to revive it , and as I sat there , I thought , my camera is getting far better treatment than these people .


Back in the kilns , I wanted to cry , but the abolitionist next to me quickly grabbed me and he said , " " Lisa , don 't do that . Just don 't do that here . " " And he very clearly explained to me that emotional displays are very dangerous in a place like this , not just for me , but for them .


I couldn 't offer them any direct help .


I couldn 't give them money , nothing .


I wasn 't a citizen of that country .


I could get them in a worse situation than they were already in .


I 'd have to rely on Free the Slaves to work within the system for their liberation , and I trusted that they would .


As for me , I 'd have to wait until I got home to really feel my heartbreak .


In the Himalayas , I found children carrying stone for miles down mountainous terrain to trucks waiting at roads below .


The big sheets of slate were heavier than the children carrying them , and the kids hoisted them from their heads using these handmade harnesses of sticks and rope and torn cloth .


It 's difficult to witness something so overwhelming .


How can we affect something so insidious , yet so pervasive ?


Some don 't even know they 're enslaved , people working 16 , 17 hours a day without any pay , because this has been the case all their lives .


They have nothing to compare it to .


When these villagers claimed their freedom , the slaveholders burned down all of their houses .


I mean , these people had nothing , and they were so petrified , they wanted to give up , but the woman in the center rallied for them to persevere , and abolitionists on the ground helped them get a quarry lease of their own , so that now they do the same back-breaking work , but they do it for themselves , and they get paid for it , and they do it in freedom .


Sex trafficking is what we often think of when we hear the word slavery , and because of this worldwide awareness , I was warned that it would be difficult for me to work safely within this particular industry .


In Kathmandu , I was escorted by women who had previously been sex slaves themselves .


They ushered me down a narrow set of stairs that led to this dirty , dimly fluorescent lit basement .


This wasn 't a brothel , per se .


It was more like a restaurant .


Cabin restaurants , as they 're known in the trade , are venues for forced prostitution .


Each has small , private rooms , where the slaves , women , along with young girls and boys , some as young as seven years old , are forced to entertain the clients , encouraging them to buy more food and alcohol .


Each cubicle is dark and dingy , identified with a painted number on the wall , and partitioned by plywood and a curtain .


The workers here often endure tragic sexual abuse at the hands of their customers .


Standing in the near darkness , I remember feeling this quick , hot fear , and in that instant , I could only imagine what it must be like to be trapped in that hell .


I had only one way out : the stairs from where I 'd come in .


There were no back doors .


There were no windows large enough to climb through .


These people have no escape at all , and as we take in such a difficult subject , it 's important to note that slavery , including sex trafficking , occurs in our own backyard as well .


Tens of hundreds of people are enslaved in agriculture , in restaurants , in domestic servitude , and the list can go on .


Recently , the New York Times reported that between 100,000 and 300,000 American children are sold into sex slavery every year .


It 's all around us . We just don 't see it .


The textile industry is another one we often think of when we hear about slave labor .


I visited villages in India where entire families were enslaved in the silk trade .


This is a family portrait .


The dyed black hands are the father , while the blue and red hands are his sons .


They mix dye in these big barrels , and they submerge the silk into the liquid up to their elbows , but the dye is toxic .


My interpreter told me their stories .


" " We have no freedom , " " they said .


" " We hope still , though , that we could leave this house someday and go someplace else where we actually get paid for our dyeing . " " It 's estimated that more than 4,000 children are enslaved on Lake Volta , the largest man-made lake in the world .


When we first arrived , I went to have a quick look .


I saw what seemed to be a family fishing on a boat , two older brothers , some younger kids , makes sense right ?


Wrong . They were all enslaved .


Children are taken from their families and trafficked and vanished , and they 're forced to work endless hours on these boats on the lake , even though they do not know how to swim .


This young child is eight years old .


He was trembling when our boat approached , frightened it would run over his tiny canoe .


He was petrified he would be knocked in the water .


The skeletal tree limbs submerged in Lake Volta often catch the fishing nets , and weary , frightened children are thrown into the water to untether the lines .


Many of them drown .


For as long as he can recall , he 's been forced to work on the lake .


Terrified of his master , he will not run away , and since he 's been treated with cruelty all his life , he passes that down to the younger slaves that he manages .


I met these boys at five in the morning , when they were hauling in the last of their nets , but they had been working since 1 a.m.


in the cold , windy night .


And it 's important to note that these nets weigh more than a thousand pounds when they 're full of fish .


I want to introduce you to Kofi .


Kofi was rescued from a fishing village .


I met him at a shelter where Free the Slaves rehabilitates victims of slavery .


Here he 's seen taking a bath at the well , pouring big buckets of water over his head , and the wonderful news is , as you and I are sitting here talking today , Kofi has been reunited with his family , and what 's even better , his family has been given tools to make a living and to keep their children safe .


Kofi is the embodiment of possibility .


Who will he become because someone took a stand and made a difference in his life ?


Driving down a road in Ghana with partners of Free the Slaves , a fellow abolitionist on a moped suddenly sped up to our cruiser and tapped on the window .


He told us to follow him down a dirt road into the jungle .


At the end of the road , he urged us out of the car , and told the driver to quickly leave .


Then he pointed toward this barely visible footpath , and said , " " This is the path , this is the path . Go . " " As we started down the path , we pushed aside the vines blocking the way , and after about an hour of walking in , found that the trail had become flooded by recent rains , so I hoisted the photo gear above my head as we descended into these waters up to my chest .


After another two hours of hiking , the winding trail abruptly ended at a clearing , and before us was a mass of holes that could fit into the size of a football field , and all of them were full of enslaved people laboring .


Many women had children strapped to their backs while they were panning for gold , wading in water poisoned by mercury .


Mercury is used in the extraction process .


These miners are enslaved in a mine shaft in another part of Ghana .


When they came out of the shaft , they were soaking wet from their own sweat .


I remember looking into their tired , bloodshot eyes , for many of them had been underground for 72 hours .


The shafts are up to 300 feet deep , and they carry out heavy bags of stone that later will be transported to another area , where the stone will be pounded so that they can extract the gold .


At first glance , the pounding site seems full of powerful men , but when we look closer , we see some less fortunate working on the fringes , and children too .


All of them are victim to injury , illness and violence .


In fact , it 's very likely that this muscular person will end up like this one here , racked with tuberculosis and mercury poisoning in just a few years .


This is Manuru . When his father died , his uncle trafficked him to work with him in the mines .


When his uncle died , Manuru inherited his uncle 's debt , which further forced him into being enslaved in the mines .


When I met him , he had been working in the mines for 14 years , and the leg injury that you see here is actually from a mining accident , one so severe doctors say his leg should be amputated .


On top of that , Manuru has tuberculosis , yet he 's still forced to work day in and day out in that mine shaft .


Even still , he has a dream that he will become free and become educated with the help of local activists like Free the Slaves , and it 's this sort of determination , in the face of unimaginable odds , that fills me with complete awe .


I want to shine a light on slavery .


When I was working in the field , I brought lots of candles with me , and with the help of my interpreter , I imparted to the people I was photographing that I wanted to illuminate their stories and their plight , so when it was safe for them , and safe for me , I made these images .


They knew their image would be seen by you out in the world .


I wanted them to know that we will be bearing witness to them , and that we will do whatever we can to help make a difference in their lives .


I truly believe , if we can see one another as fellow human beings , then it becomes very difficult to tolerate atrocities like slavery .


These images are not of issues . They are of people , real people , like you and me , all deserving of the same rights , dignity and respect in their lives .


There is not a day that goes by that I don 't think of these many beautiful , mistreated people I 've had the tremendous honor of meeting .


I hope that these images awaken a force in those who view them , people like you , and I hope that force will ignite a fire , and that fire will shine a light on slavery , for without that light , the beast of bondage can continue to live in the shadows .


Thank you very much .


( Applause )


The decorative use of wire in southern Africa dates back hundreds of years .


But modernization actually brought communication and a whole new material , in the form of telephone wire .


Rural to urban migration meant that newfound industrial materials started to replace hard-to-come-by natural grasses .


So , here you can see the change from use — starting to use contemporary materials .


These pieces date back from the ' 40s to the late ' 50s .


In the ' 90s , my interest and passion for transitional art forms led me to a new form , which came from a squatter camp outside Durban .


And I got the opportunity to start working with this community at that point , and started developing , really , and mentoring them in terms of scale , in terms of the design .


And the project soon grew from five to 50 weavers in about a year .


Soon we had outgrown the scrap yards , what they could provide , so we coerced a wire manufacturer to help us , and not only to supply the materials on bobbins , but to produce to our color specifications .


At the same time , I was thinking , well , there 's lots of possibility here to produce contemporary products , away from the ethnic , a little bit more contemporary .


So I developed a whole range around — mass-produced range — that obviously fitted into a much higher-end decor market that could be exported and also service our local market .


We started experimenting , as you can see , in terms of shapes , forms . The scale became very important , and it 's become our pet project . It 's successful , it 's been running for 12 years . And we supply the Conran shops , and Donna Karan , and so it 's kind of great .


This is our group , our main group of weavers .


They come on a weekly basis to Durban .


They all have bank accounts .


They 've all moved back to the rural area where they came from .


It 's a weekly turnaround of production .


This is the community that I originally showed you the slide of .


And that 's also modernized today , and it 's supporting work for 300 weavers .


And the rest says it all .


Thank you very much .


( Applause )


When you have 21 minutes to speak , two million years seems like a really long time .


But evolutionarily , two million years is nothing .


And yet in two million years , the human brain has nearly tripled in mass , going from the one-and-a-quarter pound brain of our ancestor here , Habilis , to the almost three-pound meatloaf that everybody here has between their ears .


What is it about a big brain that nature was so eager for every one of us to have one ?


Well , it turns out when brains triple in size , they don 't just get three times bigger ; they gain new structures .


And one of the main reasons our brain got so big is because it got a new part , called the " " frontal lobe . " " Particularly , a part called the " " pre-frontal cortex . " " What does a pre-frontal cortex do for you that should justify the entire architectural overhaul of the human skull in the blink of evolutionary time ?


It turns out the pre-frontal cortex does lots of things , but one of the most important things it does is an experience simulator .


Pilots practice in flight simulators so that they don 't make real mistakes in planes .


Human beings have this marvelous adaptation that they can actually have experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life .


This is a trick that none of our ancestors could do , and that no other animal can do quite like we can .


It 's a marvelous adaptation .


It 's up there with opposable thumbs and standing upright and language as one of the things that got our species out of the trees and into the shopping mall .


( Laughter ) All of you have done this .


Ben and Jerry 's doesn 't have liver-and-onion ice cream , and it 's not because they whipped some up , tried it and went , " " Yuck . " " It 's because , without leaving your armchair , you can simulate that flavor and say " " yuck " " before you make it .


Let 's see how your experience simulators are working .


Let 's just run a quick diagnostic before I proceed with the rest of the talk .


Here 's two different futures that I invite you to contemplate .


You can try to simulate them and tell me which one you think you might prefer .


One of them is winning the lottery . This is about 314 million dollars .


And the other is becoming paraplegic .


( Laughter ) Just give it a moment of thought .


You probably don 't feel like you need a moment of thought .


Interestingly , there are data on these two groups of people , data on how happy they are .


And this is exactly what you expected , isn 't it ?


But these aren 't the data . I made these up !


These are the data .


You failed the pop quiz , and you 're hardly five minutes into the lecture .


Because the fact is that a year after losing the use of their legs , and a year after winning the lotto , lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives .


Don 't feel too bad about failing the first pop quiz , because everybody fails all of the pop quizzes all of the time .


The research that my laboratory has been doing , that economists and psychologists around the country have been doing , has revealed something really quite startling to us , something we call the " " impact bias , " " which is the tendency for the simulator to work badly .


For the simulator to make you believe that different outcomes are more different than in fact they really are .


From field studies to laboratory studies , we see that winning or losing an election , gaining or losing a romantic partner , getting or not getting a promotion , passing or not passing a college test , on and on , have far less impact , less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have .


This almost floors me — a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago , with only a few exceptions , it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness .


Why ?


Because happiness can be synthesized .


Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642 , " " I am the happiest man alive .


I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches , adversity to prosperity .


I am more invulnerable than Achilles ; fortune hath not one place to hit me . " " What kind of remarkable machinery does this guy have in his head ?


Well , it turns out it 's precisely the same remarkable machinery that all off us have .


Human beings have something that we might think of as a " " psychological immune system . " " A system of cognitive processes , largely non-conscious cognitive processes , that help them change their views of the world , so that they can feel better about the worlds in which they find themselves .


Like Sir Thomas , you have this machine .


Unlike Sir Thomas , you seem not to know it .


We synthesize happiness , but we think happiness is a thing to be found .


Now , you don 't need me to give you too many examples of people synthesizing happiness , I suspect .


Though I 'm going to show you some experimental evidence , you don 't have to look very far for evidence .


I took a copy of the New York Times and tried to find some instances of people synthesizing happiness .


Here are three guys synthesizing happiness .


" " I 'm better off physically , financially , mentally ...


" I don 't have one minute 's regret . It was a glorious experience . "


" I believe it turned out for the best . "


Who are these characters who are so damn happy ?


The first one is Jim Wright .


Some of you are old enough to remember : he was the chairman of the House of Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done .


He lost everything .


The most powerful Democrat in the country lost everything .


He lost his money , he lost his power .


What does he have to say all these years later ?


" " I am so much better off physically , financially , mentally and in almost every other way . " " What other way would there be to be better off ?


Vegetably ? Minerally ? Animally ?


He 's pretty much covered them there .


Moreese Bickham is somebody you 've never heard of .


Moreese Bickham uttered these words upon being released .


He was 78 years old .


He 'd spent 37 years in a Louisiana State Penitentiary for a crime he didn 't commit .


[ He was ultimately released for good behavior halfway through his sentence . ] What did he say about his experience ?


" " I don 't have one minute 's regret . It was a glorious experience . " " Glorious !


He is not saying , " Well , there were some nice guys . They had a gym . "


" Glorious , " a word we usually reserve for something like a religious experience .


Harry S. Langerman uttered these words , and he 's somebody you might have known but didn 't , because in 1949 he read a little article in the paper about a hamburger stand owned by two brothers named McDonalds .


And he thought , " " That 's a really neat idea ! " " So he went to find them . They said , " We can give you a franchise on this for 3,000 bucks . "


Harry went back to New York , asked his brother , an investment banker , to loan him the $ 3,000 , and his brother 's immortal words were , " You idiot , nobody eats hamburgers . "


He wouldn 't lend him the money , and of course , six months later Ray Kroc had exactly the same idea .


It turns out people do eat hamburgers , and Ray Kroc , for a while , became the richest man in America .


And then , finally , some of you recognize this young photo of Pete Best , who was the original drummer for the Beatles , until they , you know , sent him out on an errand and snuck away and picked up Ringo on a tour .


Well , in 1994 , when Pete Best was interviewed — yes , he 's still a drummer ; yes , he 's a studio musician — he had this to say : " " I 'm happier than I would have been with the Beatles . " " Okay . There 's something important to be learned from these people , and it is the secret of happiness .


Here it is , finally to be revealed .


First : accrue wealth , power , and prestige , then lose it .


( Laughter ) Second : spend as much of your life in prison as you possibly can . ( Laughter )


Third : make somebody else really , really rich .


And finally : never ever join the Beatles .


( Laughter ) Yeah , right .


Because when people synthesize happiness , as these gentlemen seem to have done , we all smile at them , but we kind of roll our eyes and say , " Yeah right , you never really wanted the job . "


" " Oh yeah , right . You really didn 't have that much in common with her , and you figured that out just about the time she threw the engagement ring in your face . " " We smirk because we believe that synthetic happiness is not of the same quality as what we might call " " natural happiness . " " What are these terms ?


Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted , and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don 't get what we wanted .


And in our society , we have a strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind .


Why do we have that belief ?


Well , it 's very simple .


What kind of economic engine would keep churning if we believed that not getting what we want could make us just as happy as getting it ?


With all apologies to my friend Matthieu Ricard , a shopping mall full of Zen monks is not going to be particularly profitable , because they don 't want stuff enough .


( Laughter ) I want to suggest to you that synthetic happiness is every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for .


I 'm a scientist , so I 'm going to do this not with rhetoric , but by marinating you in a little bit of data .


Let me first show you an experimental paradigm that is used to demonstrate the synthesis of happiness among regular old folks .


And this isn 't mine .


It 's a 50-year-old paradigm called the " " free choice paradigm . " " It 's very simple .


You bring in , say , six objects , and you ask a subject to rank them from the most to the least liked .


In this case , because this experiment uses them , these are Monet prints .


So , everybody can rank these Monet prints from the one they like the most , to the one they like the least .


Now we give you a choice : " " We happen to have some extra prints in the closet .


We 're going to give you one as your prize to take home .


We happen to have number three and number four , " " we tell the subject .


This is a bit of a difficult choice , because neither one is preferred strongly to the other , but naturally , people tend to pick number three because they liked it a little better than number four .


Sometime later — it could be 15 minutes ; it could be 15 days — the same stimuli are put before the subject , and the subject is asked to re-rank the stimuli .


" Tell us how much you like them now . "


What happens ?


Watch as happiness is synthesized .


This is the result that has been replicated over and over again .


You 're watching happiness be synthesized .


Would you like to see it again ?


Happiness !


" " The one I got is really better than I thought !


That other one I didn 't get sucks ! " " That 's the synthesis of happiness .


( Laughter ) Now , what 's the right response to that ?


" Yeah , right ! "


Now , here 's the experiment we did , and I hope this is going to convince you that " " Yeah , right ! " " was not the right response .


We did this experiment with a group of patients who had anterograde amnesia .


These are hospitalized patients .


Most of them have Korsakoff 's syndrome , a polyneuritic psychosis .


They drank way too much , and they can 't make new memories .


OK ? They remember their childhood , but if you walk in and introduce yourself , and then leave the room , when you come back , they don 't know who you are .


We took our Monet prints to the hospital .


And we asked these patients to rank them from the one they liked the most to the one they liked the least .


We then gave them the choice between number three and number four .


Like everybody else , they said , " " Gee , thanks Doc ! That 's great ! I could use a new print .


I 'll take number three . " " We explained we would have number three mailed to them .


We gathered up our materials and we went out of the room , and counted to a half hour .


( Laughter ) Back into the room , we say , " " Hi , we 're back . " " The patients , bless them , say , " " Ah , Doc , I 'm sorry , I 've got a memory problem ; that 's why I 'm here .


If I 've met you before , I don 't remember . " " " Really , you don 't remember ? I was just here with the Monet prints ? "


" Sorry , Doc , I just don 't have a clue . "


" " No problem , Jim . All I want you to do is rank these for me from the one you like the most to the one you like the least . " " What do they do ?


Well , let 's first check and make sure they 're really amnesiac .


We ask these amnesiac patients to tell us which one they own , which one they chose last time , which one is theirs .


And what we find is amnesiac patients just guess .


These are normal controls , where if I did this with you , all of you would know which print you chose .


But if I do this with amnesiac patients , they don 't have a clue .


They can 't pick their print out of a lineup .


Here 's what normal controls do : they synthesize happiness .


Right ? This is the change in liking score , the change from the first time they ranked to the second time they ranked .


Normal controls show — that was the magic I showed you ; now I 'm showing it to you in graphical form — " " The one I own is better than I thought .


The one I didn 't own , the one I left behind , is not as good as I thought . " " Amnesiacs do exactly the same thing . Think about this result .


These people like better the one they own , but they don 't know they own it .


" " Yeah , right " " is not the right response !


What these people did when they synthesized happiness is they really , truly changed their affective , hedonic , aesthetic reactions to that poster .


They 're not just saying it because they own it , because they don 't know they own it .


When psychologists show you bars , you know that they are showing you averages of lots of people .


And yet , all of us have this psychological immune system , this capacity to synthesize happiness , but some of us do this trick better than others .


And some situations allow anybody to do it more effectively than other situations do .


It turns out that freedom , the ability to make up your mind and change your mind , is the friend of natural happiness , because it allows you to choose among all those delicious futures and find the one that you would most enjoy .


But freedom to choose , to change and make up your mind , is the enemy of synthetic happiness .


And I 'm going to show you why . Dilbert already knows , of course .


" Dogbert 's tech support . How may I abuse you ? "


" My printer prints a blank page after every document . "


" Why complain about getting free paper ? "


" Free ? Aren 't you just giving me my own paper ? "


" " Look at the quality of the free paper compared to your lousy regular paper !


Only a fool or a liar would say that they look the same ! " " " Now that you mention it , it does seem a little silkier ! "


" What are you doing ? "


" " I 'm helping people accept the things they cannot change . " " Indeed .


The psychological immune system works best when we are totally stuck , when we are trapped .


This is the difference between dating and marriage .


You go out on a date with a guy , and he picks his nose ; you don 't go out on another date .


You 're married to a guy and he picks his nose ?


He has a heart of gold . Don 't touch the fruitcake !


You find a way to be happy with what 's happened .


( Laughter ) Now , what I want to show you is that people don 't know this about themselves , and not knowing this can work to our supreme disadvantage .


Here 's an experiment we did at Harvard .


We created a black-and-white photography course , and we allowed students to come in and learn how to use a darkroom .


So we gave them cameras ; they went around campus ; they took 12 pictures of their favorite professors and their dorm room and their dog , and all the other things they wanted to have Harvard memories of .


They bring us the camera ; we make up a contact sheet ; they figure out which are the two best pictures ; and we now spend six hours teaching them about darkrooms .


And they blow two of them up , and they have two gorgeous eight-by-10 glossies of meaningful things to them , and we say , " Which one would you like to give up ? "


" I have to give one up ? "


" " Yes , we need one as evidence of the class project .


So you have to give me one . You have to make a choice .


You get to keep one , and I get to keep one . " " Now , there are two conditions in this experiment .


In one case , the students are told , " " But you know , if you want to change your mind , I 'll always have the other one here , and in the next four days , before I actually mail it to headquarters " " — Yeah , " " headquarters " " — " " I 'll be glad to swap it out with you .


In fact , I 'll come to your dorm room , just give me an email .


Better yet , I 'll check with you .


You ever want to change your mind , it 's totally returnable . " " The other half of the students are told exactly the opposite : " " Make your choice , and by the way , the mail is going out , gosh , in two minutes , to England .


Your picture will be winging its way over the Atlantic .


You will never see it again . " " Half of the students in each of these conditions are asked to make predictions about how much they 're going to come to like the picture that they keep and the picture they leave behind .


Other students are just sent back to their little dorm rooms and they are measured over the next three to six days on their liking , satisfaction with the pictures .


And look at what we find .


First of all , here 's what students think is going to happen .


They think they 're going to maybe come to like the picture they chose a little more than the one they left behind , but these are not statistically significant differences .


It 's a very small increase , and it doesn 't much matter whether they were in the reversible or irreversible condition .


Wrong-o . Bad simulators . Because here 's what 's really happening .


Both right before the swap and five days later , people who are stuck with that picture , who have no choice , who can never change their mind , like it a lot !


And people who are deliberating — " " Should I return it ?


Have I gotten the right one ? Maybe this isn 't the good one ?


Maybe I left the good one ? " " — have killed themselves .


They don 't like their picture , and in fact even after the opportunity to swap has expired , they still don 't like their picture .


Why ?


Because the [ reversible ] condition is not conducive to the synthesis of happiness .


So here 's the final piece of this experiment .


We bring in a whole new group of naive Harvard students and we say , " " You know , we 're doing a photography course , and we can do it one of two ways .


We could do it so that when you take the two pictures , you 'd have four days to change your mind , or we 're doing another course where you take the two pictures and you make up your mind right away and you can never change it .


Which course would you like to be in ? " " Duh !


66 percent of the students , two-thirds , prefer to be in the course where they have the opportunity to change their mind .


Hello ? 66 percent of the students choose to be in the course in which they will ultimately be deeply dissatisfied with the picture .


Because they do not know the conditions under which synthetic happiness grows .


The Bard said everything best , of course , and he 's making my point here but he 's making it hyperbolically : " ' Tis nothing good or bad / But thinking makes it so . "


It 's nice poetry , but that can 't exactly be right .


Is there really nothing good or bad ?


Is it really the case that gall bladder surgery and a trip to Paris are just the same thing ?


( Laughter ) That seems like a one-question IQ test .


They can 't be exactly the same .


In more turgid prose , but closer to the truth , was the father of modern capitalism , Adam Smith , and he said this .


This is worth contemplating : " " The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from overrating the difference between one permanent situation and another — Some of these situations may , no doubt , deserve to be preferred to others , but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice , or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds , either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly , or by remorse for the horror of our own injustice . " " In other words : yes , some things are better than others .


We should have preferences that lead us into one future over another .


But when those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the difference between these futures , we are at risk .


When our ambition is bounded , it leads us to work joyfully .


When our ambition is unbounded , it leads us to lie , to cheat , to steal , to hurt others , to sacrifice things of real value .


When our fears are bounded , we 're prudent , we 're cautious , we 're thoughtful .


When our fears are unbounded and overblown , we 're reckless , and we 're cowardly .


The lesson I want to leave you with , from these data , is that our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown , because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose experience .


Thank you .


( Applause )


In an age of global strife and climate change , I 'm here to answer the all important question : Why is sex so damn good ?


If you 're laughing , you know what I mean .


Now , before we get to that answer , let me tell you about Chris Hosmer .


Chris is a great friend of mine from my university days , but secretly , I hate him .


Here 's why . Back in university , we had a quick project to design some solar-powered clocks .


Here 's my clock .


It uses something called the dwarf sunflower , which grows to about 12 inches in height .


Now , as you know , sunflowers track the sun during the course of the day .


So in the morning , you see which direction the sunflower is facing , and you mark it on the blank area in the base .


At noon , you mark the changed position of the sunflower , and in the evening again , and that 's your clock .


Now , I know my clock doesn 't tell you the exact time , but it does give you a general idea using a flower .


So , in my completely unbiased , subjective opinion , it 's brilliant .


However , here 's Chris 's clock .


It 's five magnifying glasses with a shot glass under each one .


In each shot glass is a different scented oil .


In the morning , the sunlight will shine down on the first magnifying glass , focusing a beam of light on the shot glass underneath .


This will warm up the scented oil inside , and a particular smell will be emitted .


A couple of hours later , the sun will shine on the next magnifying glass , and a different smell will be emitted .


So during the course of the day , five different smells are dispersed throughout that environment .


Anyone living in that house can tell the time just by the smell .


You can see why I hate Chris .


I thought my idea was pretty good , but his idea is genius , and at the time , I knew his idea was better than mine , but I just couldn 't explain why .


One thing you have to know about me is I hate to lose .


This problem 's been bugging me for well over a decade .


All right , let 's get back to the question of why sex is so good .


Many years after the solar powered clocks project , a young lady I knew suggested maybe sex is so good because of the five senses .


And when she said this , I had an epiphany .


So I decided to evaluate different experiences I had in my life from the point of view of the five senses .


To do this , I devised something called the five senses graph .


Along the y-axis , you have a scale from zero to 10 , and along the x-axis , you have , of course , the five senses .


Anytime I had a memorable experience in my life , I would record it on this graph like a five senses diary .


Here 's a quick video to show you how it works .


( Video ) Jinsop Lee : Hey , my name 's Jinsop , and today , I 'm going to show you what riding motorbikes is like from the point of view of the five senses . Hey !


Bike designer : This is [ unclear ] , custom bike designer .


( Motorcyle revving ) [ Sound ] [ Touch ] [ Sight ] [ Smell ] [ Taste ] JL : And that 's how the five senses graph works .


Now , for a period of three years , I gathered data , not just me but also some of my friends , and I used to teach in university , so I forced my — I mean , I asked my students to do this as well .


So here are some other results .


The first is for instant noodles .


Now obviously , taste and smell are quite high , but notice sound is at three .


Many people told me a big part of the noodle-eating experience is the slurping noise .


You know . ( Slurps ) Needless to say , I no longer dine with these people .


OK , next , clubbing .


OK , here what I found interesting was that taste is at four , and many respondents told me it 's because of the taste of drinks , but also , in some cases , kissing is a big part of the clubbing experience .


These people I still do hang out with .


All right , and smoking .


Here I found touch is at [ six ] , and one of the reasons is that smokers told me the sensation of holding a cigarette and bringing it up to your lips is a big part of the smoking experience , which shows , it 's kind of scary to think how well cigarettes are designed by the manufacturers .


OK . Now , what would the perfect experience look like on the five senses graph ?


It would , of course , be a horizontal line along the top .


Now you can see , not even as intense an experience as riding a motorbike comes close .


In fact , in the years that I gathered data , only one experience came close to being the perfect one .


That is , of course , sex . Great sex .


Respondents said that great sex hits all of the five senses at an extreme level .


Here I 'll quote one of my students who said , " Sex is so good , it 's good even when it 's bad . "


So the five senses theory does help explain why sex is so good .


Now in the middle of all this five senses work , I suddenly remembered the solar-powered clocks project from my youth .


And I realized this theory also explains why Chris 's clock is so much better than mine .


You see , my clock only focuses on sight , and a little bit of touch .


Here 's Chris 's clock .


It 's the first clock ever that uses smell to tell the time .


In fact , in terms of the five senses , Chris 's clock is a revolution .


And that 's what this theory taught me about my field .


You see , up till now , us designers , we 've mainly focused on making things look very pretty , and a little bit of touch , which means we 've ignored the other three senses .


Chris 's clock shows us that even raising just one of those other senses can make for a brilliant product .


So what if we started using the five senses theory in all of our designs ?


Here 's three quick ideas I came up with .


This is an iron , you know , for your clothes , to which I added a spraying mechanism , so you fill up the vial with your favorite scent , and your clothes will smell nicer , but hopefully it should also make the ironing experience more enjoyable .


We could call this " " the perfumator . " " All right , next .


So I brush my teeth twice a day , and what if we had a toothbrush that tastes like candy , and when the taste of candy ran out , you 'd know it 's time to change your toothbrush ?


Finally , I have a thing for the keys on a flute or a clarinet .


It 's not just the way they look , but I love the way they feel when you press down on them .


Now , I don 't play the flute or the clarinet , so I decided to combine these keys with an instrument I do play : the television remote control .


Now , when we look at these three ideas together , you 'll notice that the five senses theory doesn 't only change the way we use these products but also the way they look .


So in conclusion , I 've found the five senses theory to be a very useful tool in evaluating different experiences in my life , and then taking those best experiences and hopefully incorporating them into my designs .


Now , I realize the five senses isn 't the only thing that makes life interesting .


There 's also the six emotions and that elusive x-factor .


Maybe that could be the topic of my next talk .


Until then , please have fun using the five senses in your own lives and your own designs .


Oh , one last thing before I leave .


Here 's the experience you all had while listening to the TED Talks .


However , it would be better if we could boost up a couple of the other senses like smell and taste .


And the best way to do that is with free candy .


You guys ready ?


All right .


( Applause )


When I was six years old , I received my gifts .


My first grade teacher had this brilliant idea .


She wanted us to experience receiving gifts but also learning the virtue of complimenting each other .


So she had all of us come to the front of the classroom , and she bought all of us gifts and stacked them in the corner .


And she said , " " Why don 't we just stand here and compliment each other ?


If you hear your name called , go and pick up your gift and sit down . " " What a wonderful idea , right ?


What could go wrong ?


( Laughter ) Well , there were 40 of us to start with , and every time I heard someone 's name called , I would give out the heartiest cheer .


And then there were 20 people left , and 10 people left , and five left ...


and three left .


And I was one of them .


And the compliments stopped .


Well , at that moment , I was crying .


And the teacher was freaking out .


She was like , " " Hey , would anyone say anything nice about these people ? " " ( Laughter ) " " No one ? OK , why don 't you go get your gift and sit down .


So behave next year — someone might say something nice about you . " " ( Laughter ) Well , as I 'm describing this you , you probably know I remember this really well . ( Laughter )


But I don 't know who felt worse that day .


Was it me or the teacher ?


She must have realized that she turned a team-building event into a public roast for three six-year-olds .


And without the humor .


You know , when you see people get roasted on TV , it was funny .


There was nothing funny about that day .


So that was one version of me , and I would die to avoid being in that situation again — to get rejected in public again .


That 's one version .


Then fast-forward eight years .


Bill Gates came to my hometown — Beijing , China — to speak , and I saw his message .


I fell in love with that guy .


I thought , wow , I know what I want to do now .


That night I wrote a letter to my family telling them : " " By age 25 , I will build the biggest company in the world , and that company will buy Microsoft . " " ( Laughter ) I totally embraced this idea of conquering the world — domination , right ?


And I didn 't make this up , I did write that letter .


And here it is — ( Laughter ) You don 't have to read this through — ( Laughter ) This is also bad handwriting , but I did highlight some key words .


You get the idea .


( Laughter ) So ...


that was another version of me : one who will conquer the world .


Well , then two years later , I was presented with the opportunity to come to the United States .


I jumped on it , because that was where Bill Gates lived , right ?


( Laughter ) I thought that was the start of my entrepreneur journey .


Then , fast-forward another 14 years .


I was 30 .


Nope , I didn 't build that company .


I didn 't even start .


I was actually a marketing manager for a Fortune 500 company .


And I felt I was stuck ; I was stagnant .


Why is that ?


Where is that 14-year-old who wrote that letter ?


It 's not because he didn 't try .


It 's because every time I had a new idea , every time I wanted to try something new , even at work — I wanted to make a proposal , I wanted to speak up in front of people in a group — I felt there was this constant battle between the 14-year-old and the six-year-old .


One wanted to conquer the world — make a difference — another was afraid of rejection .


And every time that six-year-old won .


And this fear even persisted after I started my own company .


I mean , I started my own company when I was 30 — if you want to be Bill Gates , you 've got to start sooner or later , right ?


When I was an entrepreneur , I was presented with an investment opportunity , and then I was turned down .


And that rejection hurt me .


It hurt me so bad that I wanted to quit right there .


But then I thought , hey , would Bill Gates quit after a simple investment rejection ?


Would any successful entrepreneur quit like that ?


No way .


And this is where it clicked for me .


OK , I can build a better company .


I can build a better team or better product , but one thing for sure : I 've got to be a better leader .


I 've got to be a better person .


I cannot let that six-year-old keep dictating my life anymore .


I have to put him back in his place .


So this is where I went online and looked for help .


Google was my friend .


( Laughter ) I searched , " " How do I overcome the fear of rejection ? " " I came up with a bunch of psychology articles about where the fear and pain are coming from .


Then I came up with a bunch of " " rah-rah " " inspirational articles about " " Don 't take it personally , just overcome it . " " Who doesn 't know that ?


( Laughter ) But why was I still so scared ?


Then I found this website by luck .


It 's called rejectiontherapy.com.


( Laughter ) " " Rejection Therapy " " was this game invented by this Canadian entrepreneur .


His name is Jason Comely .


And basically the idea is for 30 days you go out and look for rejection , and every day get rejected at something , and then by the end , you desensitize yourself from the pain .


And I loved that idea .


( Laughter ) I said , " " You know what ? I 'm going to do this .


And I 'll feel myself getting rejected 100 days . " " And I came up with my own rejection ideas , and I made a video blog out of it .


And so here 's what I did .


This is what the blog looked like .


Day One ...


( Laughter ) Borrow 100 dollars from a stranger .


So this is where I went to where I was working .


I came downstairs and I saw this big guy sitting behind a desk .


He looked like a security guard .


So I just approached him .


And I was just walking and that was the longest walk of my life — hair on the back of my neck standing up , I was sweating and my heart was pounding .


And I got there and said , " Hey , sir , can I borrow 100 dollars from you ? "


( Laughter ) And he looked up , he 's like , " " No . " " " Why ? "


And I just said , " " No ? I 'm sorry . " " Then I turned around , and I just ran .


( Laughter ) I felt so embarrassed .


But because I filmed myself — so that night I was watching myself getting rejected , I just saw how scared I was .


I looked like this kid in " " The Sixth Sense . " " I saw dead people .


( Laughter ) But then I saw this guy .


You know , he wasn 't that menacing .


He was a chubby , loveable guy , and he even asked me , " " Why ? " " In fact , he invited me to explain myself .


And I could 've said many things .


I could 've explained , I could 've negotiated .


I didn 't do any of that .


All I did was run .


I felt , wow , this is like a microcosm of my life .


Every time I felt the slightest rejection , I would just run as fast as I could .


And you know what ?


The next day , no matter what happens , I 'm not going to run .


I 'll stay engaged .


Day Two : Request a " " burger refill . " " ( Laughter ) It 's when I went to a burger joint , I finished lunch , and I went to the cashier and said , " Hi , can I get a burger refill ? " ( Laughter )


He was all confused , like , " " What 's a burger refill ? " " ( Laughter ) I said , " " Well , it 's just like a drink refill but with a burger . " " And he said , " " Sorry , we don 't do burger refill , man . " " ( Laughter ) So this is where rejection happened and I could have run , but I stayed .


I said , " " Well , I love your burgers , I love your joint , and if you guys do a burger refill , I will love you guys more . " " ( Laughter ) And he said , " " Well , OK , I 'll tell my manager about it , and maybe we 'll do it , but sorry , we can 't do this today . " " Then I left .


And by the way , I don 't think they 've ever done burger refill .


( Laughter ) I think they 're still there .


But the life and death feeling I was feeling the first time was no longer there , just because I stayed engaged — because I didn 't run .


I said , " " Wow , great , I 'm already learning things .


Great . " " And then Day Three : Getting Olympic Doughnuts .


This is where my life was turned upside down .


I went to a Krispy Kreme .


It 's a doughnut shop in mainly the Southeastern part of the United States .


I 'm sure they have some here , too .


And I went in , I said , " " Can you make me doughnuts that look like Olympic symbols ?


Basically , you interlink five doughnuts together ... " " I mean there 's no way they could say yes , right ?


The doughnut maker took me so seriously .


( Laughter ) So she put out paper , started jotting down the colors and the rings , and is like , " " How can I make this ? " " And then 15 minutes later , she came out with a box that looked like Olympic rings .


And I was so touched .


I just couldn 't believe it .


And that video got over five million views on Youtube .


The world couldn 't believe that either .


( Laughter ) You know , because of that I was in newspapers , in talk shows , in everything .


And I became famous .


A lot of people started writing emails to me and saying , " " What you 're doing is awesome . " " But you know , fame and notoriety did not do anything to me .


What I really wanted to do was learn , and to change myself .


So I turned the rest of my 100 days of rejection into this playground — into this research project .


I wanted to see what I could learn .


And then I learned a lot of things .


I discovered so many secrets .


For example , I found if I just don 't run , if I got rejected , I could actually turn a " " no " " into a " " yes , " " and the magic word is , " " why . " " So one day I went to a stranger 's house , I had this flower in my hand , knocked on the door and said , " Hey , can I plant this flower in your backyard ? "


( Laughter ) And he said , " " No . " " But before he could leave I said , " Hey , can I know why ? "


And he said , " " Well , I have this dog that would dig up anything I put in the backyard .


I don 't want to waste your flower .


If you want to do this , go across the street and talk to Connie .


She loves flowers . " " So that 's what I did .


I went across and knocked on Connie 's door .


And she was so happy to see me .


( Laughter ) And then half an hour later , there was this flower in Connie 's backyard .


I 'm sure it looks better now .


( Laughter ) But had I left after the initial rejection , I would 've thought , well , it 's because the guy didn 't trust me , it 's because I was crazy , because I didn 't dress up well , I didn 't look good .


It was none of those .


It was because what I offered did not fit what he wanted .


And he trusted me enough to offer me a referral , using a sales term .


I converted a referral .


Then one day — and I also learned that I can actually say certain things and maximize my chance to get a yes .


So for example , one day I went to a Starbucks , and asked the manager , " " Hey , can I be a Starbucks greeter ? " " He was like , " " What 's a Starbucks greeter ? " " I said , " " Do you know those Walmart greeters ?


You know , those people who say ' hi ' to you before you walk in the store , and make sure you don 't steal stuff , basically ?


I want to give a Walmart experience to Starbucks customers . " " ( Laughter ) Well , I 'm not sure that 's a good thing , actually — Actually , I 'm pretty sure it 's a bad thing .


And he was like , " " Oh " " — yeah , this is how he looked , his name is Eric — and he was like , " " I 'm not sure . " " This is how he was hearing me . " " Not sure . " " Then I ask him , " " Is that weird ? " " He 's like , " " Yeah , it 's really weird , man . " " But as soon as he said that , his whole demeanor changed .


It 's as if he 's putting all the doubt on the floor .


And he said , " " Yeah , you can do this , just don 't get too weird . " " ( Laughter ) So for the next hour I was the Starbucks greeter .


I said " " hi " " to every customer that walked in , and gave them holiday cheers .


By the way , I don 't know what your career trajectory is , don 't be a greeter .


( Laughter ) It was really boring .


But then I found I could do this because I mentioned , " " Is that weird ? " " I mentioned the doubt that he was having .


And because I mentioned , " " Is that weird ? " " , that means I wasn 't weird .


That means I was actually thinking just like him , seeing this as a weird thing .


And again , and again , I learned that if I mention some doubt people might have before I ask the question , I gained their trust .


People were more likely to say yes to me .


And then I learned I could fulfill my life dream ...


by asking .


You know , I came from four generations of teachers , and my grandma has always told me , " " Hey Jia , you can do anything you want , but it 'd be great if you became a teacher . " " ( Laughter ) But I wanted to be an entrepreneur , so I didn 't .


But it has always been my dream to actually teach something .


So I said , " " What if I just ask and teach a college class ? " " I lived in Austin at the time , so I went to University of Texas at Austin and knocked on professors ' doors and said , " " Can I teach your class ? " " I didn 't get anywhere the first couple of times .


But because I didn 't run — I kept doing it — and on the third try the professor was very impressed .


He was like , " " No one has done this before . " " And I came in prepared with powerpoints and my lesson .


He said , " " Wow , I can use this .


Why don 't you come back in two months ? I 'll fit you in my curriculum . " " And two months later I was teaching a class .


This is me — you probably can 't see , this is a bad picture .


You know , sometimes you get rejected by lighting , you know ?


( Laughter ) But wow — when I finished teaching that class , I walked out crying , because I thought I could fulfill my life dream just by simply asking .


I used to think I have to accomplish all these things — have to be a great entrepreneur , or get a PhD to teach — but no , I just asked , and I could teach .


And in that picture , which you can 't see , I quoted Martin Luther King , Jr .


Why ? Because in my research I found that people who really change the world , who change the way we live and the way we think , are the people who were met with initial and often violent rejections .


People like Martin Luther King , Jr . , like Mahatma Gandhi , Nelson Mandela , or even Jesus Christ .


These people did not let rejection define them .


They let their own reaction after rejection define themselves .


And they embraced rejection .


And we don 't have to be those people to learn about rejection , and in my case , rejection was my curse , was my boogeyman .


It has bothered me my whole life because I was running away from it .


Then I started embracing it .


I turned that into the biggest gift in my life .


I started teaching people how to turn rejections into opportunities .


I use my blog , I use my talk , I use the book I just published , and I 'm even building technology to help people overcome their fear of rejection .


When you get rejected in life , when you are facing the next obstacle or next failure , consider the possibilities .


Don 't run .


If you just embrace them , they might become your gifts as well .


Thank you .


( Applause )


( Arabic ) I seek refuge in Allah from cursed Satan . In the Name of Allah , the most Gracious , the most Merciful .


( English ) I was born in a middle class family .


My father was five years old when he lost his father , but by the time I was born , he was already a businessman .


But it didn 't make a difference to him if his children were going to be a boy or a girl : they were going to go to school .


So I guess I was the lucky one .


My mother had 16 pregnancies .


From 16 pregnancies , five of us are alive .