TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Andrew Peek: How your personal narrative limits your future

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I mean we've all got a story we like to tell, myself included, so here goes. As a kid, I sang in a pretty decent choir. We'd go around the world performing for popes and presidents. But upon turning teganeer, I dceeidd I was going to trade that in for a chance of being cool. So, for me, this maent cigarettes, skateboards, petty crime. I'm sure you can fill in the rest. I failed miserably at this particular brand of cool and then proceeded to become target 1A for biluels for quite some time. Until finally, I found a path to rneeavcle by stumbling into a role with nearly universal high school importance: slienlg drugs. As I crossed into adulthood, that doeciisn and those that came with it nearly cost me everything in my life, everything I'd worked for. But, as it happened, I was given a second chance by a woman I haven't seen in 14 yraes but who is out there in the acdienue today - Justice Mavin Wong, thank you. This is where my story bneigs. I'm sure, no doubt, you tell yours just as well. We are uebillbenavy skilled at telling our own story - the proesoigsrn, the adversity, always managing to convey this sense of tmriuph in the present moment. And often, there's a hopefulness, sometimes even a confidence in what the future has in store for us. We're like these master srtytreelols, and we... we're our favourite story. But our stories are going to kill us. Already, I can tell you they limit us, they hold us down and constrain us. Sometimes they even sufcofate us. To their credit, though, at least they're consistent. They all foollw the same narrative ptrtaen, what we've come to call the hero's journey. It's just that the hero's journey we see played out on the big screen teaches us that change happens inside the hero, while the world around them styas constant. Everyone ecfelefitvy waits for the hero to be reborn. And every time I see this, I can't help but think to myself, how beautiful would it be if the world worked that way, if it waited for us to come around on our own time to fully embrace our new selves, and then step back into the picture with both feet firmly planted on the gorund. Wouldn't that be nice? It's not at all how it happens. Instead, while we're out legalising same-sex marriage in one mnoemt, the very idea of a binary gender system or a two-spouse limit is being challenged in the next. I can assure you, what we call gay marriage today is going to seem like a traditional idea to us a couple of years from now. That's the wlord we live in. We don't get to experience change as this beautiful arc that moves at a pace we're comfortable with. Change comes quickly and without pause. And yet, studies show that our willingness to change goes down as we age. It's biult right into our expectations of people at different stages of life. We expect our friends to understand concepts like withe prgilevie but are satisfied if our parents can simply avoid stereotypes. And our grandparents, I mean, we hope for the best. (Laughter) But sometimes we resign ourselves to the fact 'old dogs, new tricks'. It's just that that's a card we're not going to get to play for much longer. You see, unlike my dear grandmother, who's managed to get through life without ever pumping her own gas or using a cell phone, my soon-to-be 14-year-old goddaughter will grow up with an incredible amount of technological change happening everywhere around her. And unlike our willingness to change, which decreases lreliany, technology's rate of change is exponential. In fact, The Law of Accelerating Returns, that which gonrevs technology's rate of cagnhe, is quick to ponit out that the amount of progress we saw in the whole of the 20th century was effectively retpeead during the first 14 years of Jessica's life. And what just took us 14 years will take us only seven more from today. By 2040, when Jessica is 38 years old and beginning to consider crhideln of her own, a 20th century-worth of progress will be happening mtuiplle tmeis a year. Think about that. What wisdom can we possibly impart to a young pesron about living in a world we can't even fathom? That's the nature of an exponential curve - it takes a long time to reveal itself, but when it does, almost nothing stays the same. And though we prefer to talk about drones and self-driving cars, historians tell us that it's actually technology's ability to deliver us new ideas, which in turn change our behaviour, which we most often underestimate and fail to predict. We're not only slow to pirdcet them, we're slow to adapt because our stories weigh a ton. Let me give you an example. How many of us recall being nduged towards a good career when we were young - safe bets, like law or meindcie or accounting? These were the careers to aspire to, we were told. They're also amongst the top of the cnphipog block when it comes to automation. Turns out machines don't need eight years of school to memorise facts and patterns. But will we seriously start teaching today's middle schoolers that they may want to aiovd these at-risk jobs? Or are we wrapped in the wmtrah of a story that we've been wiintrg for decades - that dgeeres always mean better jobs? Better jobs lead to better pay, better pay to better possessions, and better possessions afford us greater security. But how much security can there be if we're already sennipdg two-thirds of our income on a single-family home because that's our version of a storybook ending? The truth is that the further we are into a story, the less likely we are to want to rewrite it. So we stick to the script. Now, at this point, I think I need to go on the record and tell you guys that I love stories. Really, I do. I've got a company in the business of telling stories even. But as we start to peer over the horizon, I think it's hard not to notice that what's needed here is something lighter, something eiaesr to move, something malleable that can keep up with the pace. Like an idea. What would that look like, do you think? The 'idea of me'. Now granted, as far as psychological constructs go, at first, the two seem strikingly simlair. The story of me, the idea of me. Almost like semantics even. I want to make sure you're with me here before I go any further down this rabbit hole. When I talk about a story, I'm talking about something we write once. But 'the idea of me' is something we rewrite every day. It's untying ourselves from these golas we have way out there that aussme the world out there looks much the same as it does here today. So letting go of what should be for what is. So with that all squared away, I'd like to tell you the most recent time I had to rewrite my own story. It would have been just over two years ago now. After about a decade in the iruntdsy, at least for me, my partners and I achieved something most entrepreneurs consider to be a benchmark of success, especially in tech: we sold our company. We didn't just sell it to anyone, but to the next great chapter in Canadian tecogohlny hoirsty, a canpomy whose IPO you might have followed this year. I got to tell you, it's a pretty great story. I don't think I could have written a better script. Sure enough, so the story goes, roughly six months later, I was let go. Who am I kidding? We're all fiernds here. Six months later, I was fired. (Laughter) After a decade of writing my story as a tech entrepreneur, I was fried by the top act in town. It's a long fall. While it wasn't immediately obvious to me in the moment, there was something buuitfeal about having the rug pulled out from under me that day. Like a lightness that came from resliinag I didn't actually vsniah by virtue of lnoisg my sotry. That there, in the empty space, was an idea of who I might be next. At the same time, it was deeply unleinsttg. I found the switch from story to idea really challenged my snoreetgivy. You see, my story had one author with veto power and final say on the irpnatttieroen of all the events in my life. When it's a story, that's kind of how it is. We get to choose how we perceive those events, and we do so in a way that best suits us, that lveeas the story as much intact as possible. Got buellid as a kid? You pick the reason. Got let go? Ultimately, you're going to decide why that was. Stories force us into these either/or choices, where either it fits the script we have for ourselves or it doesn't. But 'the idea of me', I quickly raleiesd 'the idea of me' isn't built on an either/or at all. It's built on 'and'. Instead of getting caught up with whether we're a success or a fialrue, whether we're right or we're wrong, 'and' reminds us that both are true. In fact, all things new are born this way by standing at the ireoneiscttn and holding the tension between two choices that already exist so that a third can emerge. And it isn't just true for 'the idea of me', this is true for all iades. When you start to tune into it, you can satrt to see ideas being added to everywhere. Gender, privacy, mental health, democracy: take any one of these as ideas for a moment and ask yourself whether you remember a time when they were simpler. I know I do. When I was growing up, gender used to mean boy or girl. If you go back just a couple of years, mental health used to only imply there was something wrong with you. But then these ideas got bgegir. We kept adding to them. They expanded. Maybe the most prescient example from the past year is racism. This is an idea going through an enpxaison. You see, racism started out as a sggrtule for equal rights, but the aevehnemcit of equal rights didn't dispel the idea of racism, it just expanded the cnteovisraon to include all of racism's less obvious expressions. Today, when we talk about racism, we talk about an idea that's many layers deep. We talk about that which we can't always point to or that's not necessarily propagated by any one group or person. But it's there. It's there in privilege. It's there in access. It's there in protection. We talk about ricasm as being systemic, a system we're all a part of but only a fraction of us benefit from. This is how an idea gets bigger with time. And if, in turn, you choose to see yourself as an idea, then henriag you might be the bnceaiirfey of a still racist system is not a threat - it's a chance to epxand your own idea, to add in that new perspective. But if we're a story, we're going to find ourselves at an either/or issmpae, where either we protect the part of the script that says we're not racist or we'll have a lot of rtweiirng to do. Stories are how we've come to crnsctuot our identity. And we're terrified to lose track of who we are. But I've got to tell you, I think this is where we're getting it tbrerliy wrong. When you build your identity on a story, it becomes a once and for all discovery. We even talk about people before and after this elusive moment where they 'found themselves'. But if you believe yourself to be an idea, then identity becomes a moving taergt, a never-ending dicrvoesy. Not just because the idea of you is always edinanpxg, but so too are the ideas all around you. Every moment becomes this wonderful chance to recalibrate, to revisit your relationship to another idea. It's an acknowledgement that 'I'm not racist' is a temporary state, just like 'I'm a capitalist' or 'I'm a feminist', or frankly, 'I'm straight.' This is the practice, this is growth, this is what growth is. And so rather than fearing the fast-paced future hiding in plain view, why not choose to see it as the frcoe bringing us into alignment with the rest of life? Everywhere we look, our systems are weird for growth. From our words and concepts to the neuroplasticity of our brain. From the eloiovtun of our species to the ureinsve at lgare. When it's change out there, we feel excitement, we feel a hopefulness about a tomorrow that is bigger and more full and more inclusive. We chase after it with our art and our sccneie and our dateebs. When it's out there, we demand change, we see the possibility for it everywhere - everywhere except in the way we talk about ourselves. Only there do we wrtie the story once and expect the future to obey. The good news for us is that it never does. Whether an arrest or getting fired, divorce, disease, the death of a lvoed one, maybe a failure of some kind, we've all seen our stories interrupted. We don't write these trigac bits into the original script, they're wrenches that are thrown our way that force us to retwrie again and again. And I think that's what 'the idea of me' needs to be - a commitment to that rewriting every day. Not because we have to, because we want to. Because we love to create, and it is infinitely easier to do so without a story dragging along behind. You know, Bob Dylan knew this when he famously said, tnugoe in cheek, 'Do not ceatre anything' because 'it will not change' - implying, of course, that the world might love what you make, but you'll be different by the time they do. As an artist, he refused to get married to his own mythology, the story of dyaln, the folk singer or the vcoie of protest. Steve Jobs knew this when he ctonlniusuoy cannibalised Apple's product lines. He knew falling in love with the story that Apple was the best at curomtpes, the best at phones, the best at tablets, was a death sentence, in that it meant the end was just around the corner. He knew cretiang was an act of linettg go. And now, after quite a few rewrites, and though sometimes kicking and screaming, I'm binnenigg to see this for myself. And I think it's something we should all embrace. Because creating isn't reserved for aisrtts and entrepreneurs, it's the natural state in all of us. All technology ever does is put that power to create sqlureay in our hands because it knows something about us that we're still not quite ready to admit - that more than being our favourite story, we'd rather be our greatest creation, an idea waiting to hpepan. Thank you. (Applause)

Open Cloze

I mean we've all got a story we like to tell, myself included, so here goes. As a kid, I sang in a pretty decent choir. We'd go around the world performing for popes and presidents. But upon turning ________, I _______ I was going to trade that in for a chance of being cool. So, for me, this _____ cigarettes, skateboards, petty crime. I'm sure you can fill in the rest. I failed miserably at this particular brand of cool and then proceeded to become target 1A for _______ for quite some time. Until finally, I found a path to _________ by stumbling into a role with nearly universal high school importance: _______ drugs. As I crossed into adulthood, that ________ and those that came with it nearly cost me everything in my life, everything I'd worked for. But, as it happened, I was given a second chance by a woman I haven't seen in 14 _____ but who is out there in the ________ today - Justice Mavin Wong, thank you. This is where my story ______. I'm sure, no doubt, you tell yours just as well. We are ____________ skilled at telling our own story - the ___________, the adversity, always managing to convey this sense of _______ in the present moment. And often, there's a hopefulness, sometimes even a confidence in what the future has in store for us. We're like these master ____________, and we... we're our favourite story. But our stories are going to kill us. Already, I can tell you they limit us, they hold us down and constrain us. Sometimes they even _________ us. To their credit, though, at least they're consistent. They all ______ the same narrative _______, what we've come to call the hero's journey. It's just that the hero's journey we see played out on the big screen teaches us that change happens inside the hero, while the world around them _____ constant. Everyone ___________ waits for the hero to be reborn. And every time I see this, I can't help but think to myself, how beautiful would it be if the world worked that way, if it waited for us to come around on our own time to fully embrace our new selves, and then step back into the picture with both feet firmly planted on the ______. Wouldn't that be nice? It's not at all how it happens. Instead, while we're out legalising same-sex marriage in one ______, the very idea of a binary gender system or a two-spouse limit is being challenged in the next. I can assure you, what we call gay marriage today is going to seem like a traditional idea to us a couple of years from now. That's the _____ we live in. We don't get to experience change as this beautiful arc that moves at a pace we're comfortable with. Change comes quickly and without pause. And yet, studies show that our willingness to change goes down as we age. It's _____ right into our expectations of people at different stages of life. We expect our friends to understand concepts like _____ _________ but are satisfied if our parents can simply avoid stereotypes. And our grandparents, I mean, we hope for the best. (Laughter) But sometimes we resign ourselves to the fact 'old dogs, new tricks'. It's just that that's a card we're not going to get to play for much longer. You see, unlike my dear grandmother, who's managed to get through life without ever pumping her own gas or using a cell phone, my soon-to-be 14-year-old goddaughter will grow up with an incredible amount of technological change happening everywhere around her. And unlike our willingness to change, which decreases ________, technology's rate of change is exponential. In fact, The Law of Accelerating Returns, that which _______ technology's rate of ______, is quick to _____ out that the amount of progress we saw in the whole of the 20th century was effectively ________ during the first 14 years of Jessica's life. And what just took us 14 years will take us only seven more from today. By 2040, when Jessica is 38 years old and beginning to consider ________ of her own, a 20th century-worth of progress will be happening ________ _____ a year. Think about that. What wisdom can we possibly impart to a young ______ about living in a world we can't even fathom? That's the nature of an exponential curve - it takes a long time to reveal itself, but when it does, almost nothing stays the same. And though we prefer to talk about drones and self-driving cars, historians tell us that it's actually technology's ability to deliver us new ideas, which in turn change our behaviour, which we most often underestimate and fail to predict. We're not only slow to _______ them, we're slow to adapt because our stories weigh a ton. Let me give you an example. How many of us recall being ______ towards a good career when we were young - safe bets, like law or ________ or accounting? These were the careers to aspire to, we were told. They're also amongst the top of the ________ block when it comes to automation. Turns out machines don't need eight years of school to memorise facts and patterns. But will we seriously start teaching today's middle schoolers that they may want to _____ these at-risk jobs? Or are we wrapped in the ______ of a story that we've been _______ for decades - that _______ always mean better jobs? Better jobs lead to better pay, better pay to better possessions, and better possessions afford us greater security. But how much security can there be if we're already ________ two-thirds of our income on a single-family home because that's our version of a storybook ending? The truth is that the further we are into a story, the less likely we are to want to rewrite it. So we stick to the script. Now, at this point, I think I need to go on the record and tell you guys that I love stories. Really, I do. I've got a company in the business of telling stories even. But as we start to peer over the horizon, I think it's hard not to notice that what's needed here is something lighter, something ______ to move, something malleable that can keep up with the pace. Like an idea. What would that look like, do you think? The 'idea of me'. Now granted, as far as psychological constructs go, at first, the two seem strikingly _______. The story of me, the idea of me. Almost like semantics even. I want to make sure you're with me here before I go any further down this rabbit hole. When I talk about a story, I'm talking about something we write once. But 'the idea of me' is something we rewrite every day. It's untying ourselves from these _____ we have way out there that ______ the world out there looks much the same as it does here today. So letting go of what should be for what is. So with that all squared away, I'd like to tell you the most recent time I had to rewrite my own story. It would have been just over two years ago now. After about a decade in the ________, at least for me, my partners and I achieved something most entrepreneurs consider to be a benchmark of success, especially in tech: we sold our company. We didn't just sell it to anyone, but to the next great chapter in Canadian __________ _______, a _______ whose IPO you might have followed this year. I got to tell you, it's a pretty great story. I don't think I could have written a better script. Sure enough, so the story goes, roughly six months later, I was let go. Who am I kidding? We're all _______ here. Six months later, I was fired. (Laughter) After a decade of writing my story as a tech entrepreneur, I was _____ by the top act in town. It's a long fall. While it wasn't immediately obvious to me in the moment, there was something _________ about having the rug pulled out from under me that day. Like a lightness that came from _________ I didn't actually ______ by virtue of ______ my _____. That there, in the empty space, was an idea of who I might be next. At the same time, it was deeply __________. I found the switch from story to idea really challenged my ___________. You see, my story had one author with veto power and final say on the ______________ of all the events in my life. When it's a story, that's kind of how it is. We get to choose how we perceive those events, and we do so in a way that best suits us, that ______ the story as much intact as possible. Got _______ as a kid? You pick the reason. Got let go? Ultimately, you're going to decide why that was. Stories force us into these either/or choices, where either it fits the script we have for ourselves or it doesn't. But 'the idea of me', I quickly ________ 'the idea of me' isn't built on an either/or at all. It's built on 'and'. Instead of getting caught up with whether we're a success or a _______, whether we're right or we're wrong, 'and' reminds us that both are true. In fact, all things new are born this way by standing at the ____________ and holding the tension between two choices that already exist so that a third can emerge. And it isn't just true for 'the idea of me', this is true for all _____. When you start to tune into it, you can _____ to see ideas being added to everywhere. Gender, privacy, mental health, democracy: take any one of these as ideas for a moment and ask yourself whether you remember a time when they were simpler. I know I do. When I was growing up, gender used to mean boy or girl. If you go back just a couple of years, mental health used to only imply there was something wrong with you. But then these ideas got ______. We kept adding to them. They expanded. Maybe the most prescient example from the past year is racism. This is an idea going through an _________. You see, racism started out as a ________ for equal rights, but the ___________ of equal rights didn't dispel the idea of racism, it just expanded the ____________ to include all of racism's less obvious expressions. Today, when we talk about racism, we talk about an idea that's many layers deep. We talk about that which we can't always point to or that's not necessarily propagated by any one group or person. But it's there. It's there in privilege. It's there in access. It's there in protection. We talk about ______ as being systemic, a system we're all a part of but only a fraction of us benefit from. This is how an idea gets bigger with time. And if, in turn, you choose to see yourself as an idea, then _______ you might be the ___________ of a still racist system is not a threat - it's a chance to ______ your own idea, to add in that new perspective. But if we're a story, we're going to find ourselves at an either/or _______, where either we protect the part of the script that says we're not racist or we'll have a lot of _________ to do. Stories are how we've come to _________ our identity. And we're terrified to lose track of who we are. But I've got to tell you, I think this is where we're getting it ________ wrong. When you build your identity on a story, it becomes a once and for all discovery. We even talk about people before and after this elusive moment where they 'found themselves'. But if you believe yourself to be an idea, then identity becomes a moving ______, a never-ending _________. Not just because the idea of you is always _________, but so too are the ideas all around you. Every moment becomes this wonderful chance to recalibrate, to revisit your relationship to another idea. It's an acknowledgement that 'I'm not racist' is a temporary state, just like 'I'm a capitalist' or 'I'm a feminist', or frankly, 'I'm straight.' This is the practice, this is growth, this is what growth is. And so rather than fearing the fast-paced future hiding in plain view, why not choose to see it as the _____ bringing us into alignment with the rest of life? Everywhere we look, our systems are _____ for growth. From our words and concepts to the neuroplasticity of our brain. From the _________ of our species to the ________ at _____. When it's change out there, we feel excitement, we feel a hopefulness about a tomorrow that is bigger and more full and more inclusive. We chase after it with our art and our _______ and our _______. When it's out there, we demand change, we see the possibility for it everywhere - everywhere except in the way we talk about ourselves. Only there do we _____ the story once and expect the future to obey. The good news for us is that it never does. Whether an arrest or getting fired, divorce, disease, the death of a _____ one, maybe a failure of some kind, we've all seen our stories interrupted. We don't write these ______ bits into the original script, they're wrenches that are thrown our way that force us to _______ again and again. And I think that's what 'the idea of me' needs to be - a commitment to that rewriting every day. Not because we have to, because we want to. Because we love to create, and it is infinitely easier to do so without a story dragging along behind. You know, Bob Dylan knew this when he famously said, ______ in cheek, 'Do not ______ anything' because 'it will not change' - implying, of course, that the world might love what you make, but you'll be different by the time they do. As an artist, he refused to get married to his own mythology, the story of _____, the folk singer or the _____ of protest. Steve Jobs knew this when he ____________ cannibalised Apple's product lines. He knew falling in love with the story that Apple was the best at _________, the best at phones, the best at tablets, was a death sentence, in that it meant the end was just around the corner. He knew ________ was an act of _______ go. And now, after quite a few rewrites, and though sometimes kicking and screaming, I'm _________ to see this for myself. And I think it's something we should all embrace. Because creating isn't reserved for _______ and entrepreneurs, it's the natural state in all of us. All technology ever does is put that power to create ________ in our hands because it knows something about us that we're still not quite ready to admit - that more than being our favourite story, we'd rather be our greatest creation, an idea waiting to ______. Thank you. (Applause)

Solution

science
relevance
meant
terribly
change
ground
realising
privilege
losing
create
suffocate
bullies
realised
selling
effectively
struggle
expand
built
discovery
decided
letting
start
ideas
begins
conversation
evolution
racism
rewriting
progression
point
industry
linearly
sovereignty
write
friends
voice
debates
similar
audience
computers
beautiful
rewrite
continuously
warmth
tongue
story
nudged
governs
tragic
fired
teenager
multiple
stays
spending
predict
leaves
white
intersection
beneficiary
world
medicine
hearing
target
artists
loved
person
easier
interpretation
decision
wired
creating
goals
force
beginning
history
failure
unsettling
children
vanish
squarely
follow
assume
storytellers
writing
achievement
bullied
expanding
repeated
pattern
times
dylan
avoid
technology
chopping
company
degrees
large
universe
expansion
moment
impasse
unbelievably
happen
years
construct
triumph
bigger

Original Text

I mean we've all got a story we like to tell, myself included, so here goes. As a kid, I sang in a pretty decent choir. We'd go around the world performing for popes and presidents. But upon turning teenager, I decided I was going to trade that in for a chance of being cool. So, for me, this meant cigarettes, skateboards, petty crime. I'm sure you can fill in the rest. I failed miserably at this particular brand of cool and then proceeded to become target 1A for bullies for quite some time. Until finally, I found a path to relevance by stumbling into a role with nearly universal high school importance: selling drugs. As I crossed into adulthood, that decision and those that came with it nearly cost me everything in my life, everything I'd worked for. But, as it happened, I was given a second chance by a woman I haven't seen in 14 years but who is out there in the audience today - Justice Mavin Wong, thank you. This is where my story begins. I'm sure, no doubt, you tell yours just as well. We are unbelievably skilled at telling our own story - the progression, the adversity, always managing to convey this sense of triumph in the present moment. And often, there's a hopefulness, sometimes even a confidence in what the future has in store for us. We're like these master storytellers, and we... we're our favourite story. But our stories are going to kill us. Already, I can tell you they limit us, they hold us down and constrain us. Sometimes they even suffocate us. To their credit, though, at least they're consistent. They all follow the same narrative pattern, what we've come to call the hero's journey. It's just that the hero's journey we see played out on the big screen teaches us that change happens inside the hero, while the world around them stays constant. Everyone effectively waits for the hero to be reborn. And every time I see this, I can't help but think to myself, how beautiful would it be if the world worked that way, if it waited for us to come around on our own time to fully embrace our new selves, and then step back into the picture with both feet firmly planted on the ground. Wouldn't that be nice? It's not at all how it happens. Instead, while we're out legalising same-sex marriage in one moment, the very idea of a binary gender system or a two-spouse limit is being challenged in the next. I can assure you, what we call gay marriage today is going to seem like a traditional idea to us a couple of years from now. That's the world we live in. We don't get to experience change as this beautiful arc that moves at a pace we're comfortable with. Change comes quickly and without pause. And yet, studies show that our willingness to change goes down as we age. It's built right into our expectations of people at different stages of life. We expect our friends to understand concepts like white privilege but are satisfied if our parents can simply avoid stereotypes. And our grandparents, I mean, we hope for the best. (Laughter) But sometimes we resign ourselves to the fact 'old dogs, new tricks'. It's just that that's a card we're not going to get to play for much longer. You see, unlike my dear grandmother, who's managed to get through life without ever pumping her own gas or using a cell phone, my soon-to-be 14-year-old goddaughter will grow up with an incredible amount of technological change happening everywhere around her. And unlike our willingness to change, which decreases linearly, technology's rate of change is exponential. In fact, The Law of Accelerating Returns, that which governs technology's rate of change, is quick to point out that the amount of progress we saw in the whole of the 20th century was effectively repeated during the first 14 years of Jessica's life. And what just took us 14 years will take us only seven more from today. By 2040, when Jessica is 38 years old and beginning to consider children of her own, a 20th century-worth of progress will be happening multiple times a year. Think about that. What wisdom can we possibly impart to a young person about living in a world we can't even fathom? That's the nature of an exponential curve - it takes a long time to reveal itself, but when it does, almost nothing stays the same. And though we prefer to talk about drones and self-driving cars, historians tell us that it's actually technology's ability to deliver us new ideas, which in turn change our behaviour, which we most often underestimate and fail to predict. We're not only slow to predict them, we're slow to adapt because our stories weigh a ton. Let me give you an example. How many of us recall being nudged towards a good career when we were young - safe bets, like law or medicine or accounting? These were the careers to aspire to, we were told. They're also amongst the top of the chopping block when it comes to automation. Turns out machines don't need eight years of school to memorise facts and patterns. But will we seriously start teaching today's middle schoolers that they may want to avoid these at-risk jobs? Or are we wrapped in the warmth of a story that we've been writing for decades - that degrees always mean better jobs? Better jobs lead to better pay, better pay to better possessions, and better possessions afford us greater security. But how much security can there be if we're already spending two-thirds of our income on a single-family home because that's our version of a storybook ending? The truth is that the further we are into a story, the less likely we are to want to rewrite it. So we stick to the script. Now, at this point, I think I need to go on the record and tell you guys that I love stories. Really, I do. I've got a company in the business of telling stories even. But as we start to peer over the horizon, I think it's hard not to notice that what's needed here is something lighter, something easier to move, something malleable that can keep up with the pace. Like an idea. What would that look like, do you think? The 'idea of me'. Now granted, as far as psychological constructs go, at first, the two seem strikingly similar. The story of me, the idea of me. Almost like semantics even. I want to make sure you're with me here before I go any further down this rabbit hole. When I talk about a story, I'm talking about something we write once. But 'the idea of me' is something we rewrite every day. It's untying ourselves from these goals we have way out there that assume the world out there looks much the same as it does here today. So letting go of what should be for what is. So with that all squared away, I'd like to tell you the most recent time I had to rewrite my own story. It would have been just over two years ago now. After about a decade in the industry, at least for me, my partners and I achieved something most entrepreneurs consider to be a benchmark of success, especially in tech: we sold our company. We didn't just sell it to anyone, but to the next great chapter in Canadian technology history, a company whose IPO you might have followed this year. I got to tell you, it's a pretty great story. I don't think I could have written a better script. Sure enough, so the story goes, roughly six months later, I was let go. Who am I kidding? We're all friends here. Six months later, I was fired. (Laughter) After a decade of writing my story as a tech entrepreneur, I was fired by the top act in town. It's a long fall. While it wasn't immediately obvious to me in the moment, there was something beautiful about having the rug pulled out from under me that day. Like a lightness that came from realising I didn't actually vanish by virtue of losing my story. That there, in the empty space, was an idea of who I might be next. At the same time, it was deeply unsettling. I found the switch from story to idea really challenged my sovereignty. You see, my story had one author with veto power and final say on the interpretation of all the events in my life. When it's a story, that's kind of how it is. We get to choose how we perceive those events, and we do so in a way that best suits us, that leaves the story as much intact as possible. Got bullied as a kid? You pick the reason. Got let go? Ultimately, you're going to decide why that was. Stories force us into these either/or choices, where either it fits the script we have for ourselves or it doesn't. But 'the idea of me', I quickly realised 'the idea of me' isn't built on an either/or at all. It's built on 'and'. Instead of getting caught up with whether we're a success or a failure, whether we're right or we're wrong, 'and' reminds us that both are true. In fact, all things new are born this way by standing at the intersection and holding the tension between two choices that already exist so that a third can emerge. And it isn't just true for 'the idea of me', this is true for all ideas. When you start to tune into it, you can start to see ideas being added to everywhere. Gender, privacy, mental health, democracy: take any one of these as ideas for a moment and ask yourself whether you remember a time when they were simpler. I know I do. When I was growing up, gender used to mean boy or girl. If you go back just a couple of years, mental health used to only imply there was something wrong with you. But then these ideas got bigger. We kept adding to them. They expanded. Maybe the most prescient example from the past year is racism. This is an idea going through an expansion. You see, racism started out as a struggle for equal rights, but the achievement of equal rights didn't dispel the idea of racism, it just expanded the conversation to include all of racism's less obvious expressions. Today, when we talk about racism, we talk about an idea that's many layers deep. We talk about that which we can't always point to or that's not necessarily propagated by any one group or person. But it's there. It's there in privilege. It's there in access. It's there in protection. We talk about racism as being systemic, a system we're all a part of but only a fraction of us benefit from. This is how an idea gets bigger with time. And if, in turn, you choose to see yourself as an idea, then hearing you might be the beneficiary of a still racist system is not a threat - it's a chance to expand your own idea, to add in that new perspective. But if we're a story, we're going to find ourselves at an either/or impasse, where either we protect the part of the script that says we're not racist or we'll have a lot of rewriting to do. Stories are how we've come to construct our identity. And we're terrified to lose track of who we are. But I've got to tell you, I think this is where we're getting it terribly wrong. When you build your identity on a story, it becomes a once and for all discovery. We even talk about people before and after this elusive moment where they 'found themselves'. But if you believe yourself to be an idea, then identity becomes a moving target, a never-ending discovery. Not just because the idea of you is always expanding, but so too are the ideas all around you. Every moment becomes this wonderful chance to recalibrate, to revisit your relationship to another idea. It's an acknowledgement that 'I'm not racist' is a temporary state, just like 'I'm a capitalist' or 'I'm a feminist', or frankly, 'I'm straight.' This is the practice, this is growth, this is what growth is. And so rather than fearing the fast-paced future hiding in plain view, why not choose to see it as the force bringing us into alignment with the rest of life? Everywhere we look, our systems are wired for growth. From our words and concepts to the neuroplasticity of our brain. From the evolution of our species to the universe at large. When it's change out there, we feel excitement, we feel a hopefulness about a tomorrow that is bigger and more full and more inclusive. We chase after it with our art and our science and our debates. When it's out there, we demand change, we see the possibility for it everywhere - everywhere except in the way we talk about ourselves. Only there do we write the story once and expect the future to obey. The good news for us is that it never does. Whether an arrest or getting fired, divorce, disease, the death of a loved one, maybe a failure of some kind, we've all seen our stories interrupted. We don't write these tragic bits into the original script, they're wrenches that are thrown our way that force us to rewrite again and again. And I think that's what 'the idea of me' needs to be - a commitment to that rewriting every day. Not because we have to, because we want to. Because we love to create, and it is infinitely easier to do so without a story dragging along behind. You know, Bob Dylan knew this when he famously said, tongue in cheek, 'Do not create anything' because 'it will not change' - implying, of course, that the world might love what you make, but you'll be different by the time they do. As an artist, he refused to get married to his own mythology, the story of Dylan, the folk singer or the voice of protest. Steve Jobs knew this when he continuously cannibalised Apple's product lines. He knew falling in love with the story that Apple was the best at computers, the best at phones, the best at tablets, was a death sentence, in that it meant the end was just around the corner. He knew creating was an act of letting go. And now, after quite a few rewrites, and though sometimes kicking and screaming, I'm beginning to see this for myself. And I think it's something we should all embrace. Because creating isn't reserved for artists and entrepreneurs, it's the natural state in all of us. All technology ever does is put that power to create squarely in our hands because it knows something about us that we're still not quite ready to admit - that more than being our favourite story, we'd rather be our greatest creation, an idea waiting to happen. Thank you. (Applause)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

Important Words

ability
accelerating
access
accounting
achieved
achievement
acknowledgement
act
adapt
add
added
adding
admit
adulthood
adversity
afford
age
alignment
amount
applause
apple
arc
arrest
art
artist
artists
aspire
assume
assure
audience
author
automation
avoid
beautiful
beginning
begins
behaviour
benchmark
beneficiary
benefit
bets
big
bigger
binary
bits
block
bob
born
boy
brain
brand
bringing
build
built
bullied
bullies
business
call
canadian
cannibalised
card
career
careers
cars
caught
cell
century
challenged
chance
change
chapter
chase
cheek
children
choices
choir
choose
chopping
cigarettes
comfortable
commitment
company
computers
concepts
confidence
consistent
constant
constrain
construct
constructs
continuously
conversation
convey
cool
corner
cost
couple
create
creating
creation
credit
crime
crossed
curve
day
dear
death
debates
decade
decades
decent
decide
decided
decision
decreases
deep
deeply
degrees
deliver
demand
discovery
disease
dispel
divorce
dogs
doubt
dragging
drones
drugs
dylan
easier
effectively
elusive
embrace
emerge
empty
entrepreneur
entrepreneurs
equal
events
evolution
excitement
exist
expand
expanded
expanding
expansion
expect
expectations
experience
exponential
expressions
fact
facts
fail
failed
failure
fall
falling
famously
fathom
favourite
fearing
feel
feet
fill
final
finally
find
fired
firmly
fits
folk
follow
force
fraction
frankly
friends
full
fully
future
gas
gay
gender
girl
give
goals
goddaughter
good
governs
grandmother
grandparents
granted
great
greater
greatest
ground
group
grow
growing
growth
guys
hands
happen
happened
happening
hard
health
hearing
hero
hiding
high
historians
history
hold
holding
hole
home
hope
hopefulness
horizon
idea
ideas
identity
immediately
impart
impasse
imply
implying
include
included
inclusive
income
incredible
industry
infinitely
intact
interpretation
interrupted
intersection
ipo
jessica
jobs
journey
justice
kicking
kid
kidding
kill
kind
knew
large
laughter
law
layers
lead
leaves
legalising
letting
life
lighter
lightness
limit
linearly
lines
live
living
long
longer
lose
losing
lot
love
loved
machines
malleable
managed
managing
marriage
married
master
mavin
meant
medicine
memorise
mental
middle
miserably
moment
months
move
moves
moving
multiple
mythology
narrative
natural
nature
necessarily
needed
neuroplasticity
news
nice
notice
nudged
obey
obvious
original
pace
parents
part
partners
path
pattern
patterns
pause
pay
peer
people
perceive
performing
person
perspective
petty
phone
phones
pick
picture
plain
planted
play
played
point
popes
possessions
possibility
possibly
power
practice
predict
prefer
prescient
present
presidents
pretty
privacy
privilege
proceeded
product
progress
progression
propagated
protect
protection
protest
psychological
pulled
pumping
put
quick
quickly
rabbit
racism
racist
rate
ready
realised
realising
reason
reborn
recalibrate
recall
record
refused
relationship
relevance
remember
reminds
repeated
reserved
resign
rest
returns
reveal
revisit
rewrite
rewrites
rewriting
rights
role
roughly
rug
safe
sang
satisfied
school
schoolers
science
screaming
screen
script
security
sell
selling
semantics
sense
sentence
show
similar
simpler
simply
singer
skateboards
skilled
slow
sold
sovereignty
space
species
spending
squared
squarely
stages
standing
start
started
state
stays
step
stereotypes
steve
stick
store
stories
story
storybook
storytellers
straight
strikingly
struggle
studies
stumbling
success
suffocate
suits
switch
system
systemic
systems
tablets
takes
talk
talking
target
teaches
teaching
tech
technological
technology
teenager
telling
temporary
tension
terribly
terrified
threat
thrown
time
times
today
told
tomorrow
ton
tongue
top
town
track
trade
traditional
tragic
triumph
true
truth
tune
turn
turning
turns
ultimately
unbelievably
underestimate
understand
universal
universe
unsettling
untying
vanish
version
veto
view
virtue
voice
waited
waiting
waits
warmth
weigh
white
willingness
wired
wisdom
woman
wonderful
wong
words
worked
world
wrapped
wrenches
write
writing
written
wrong
year
years
young