for the privilege to be here, not only hopefully

to serve you for a few minutes here,

but also to attend.

I have some friends that have gone to TED in the past

and I been thinking about coming and I was on the edge

and then I got invited and I said I wanna come.

So I've attended about two-thirds of this

and I've gotten an enormous amount,

not only from the speakers,

but from so many people that I've met.

I don't think in all the places I've spoken

or been around, and I've been privileged

to be in a lot of great places as I'm sure you have,

I've ever seen such a concentration of both talent,

brains, but also passion and a common value.

There's a community here about contribution

and is really beautiful.

So I thank you, I'll be back as a participant myself

on an ongoing basis and I thank everybody

for their participation as well very much.

(clapping)

Thank you.

I have to tell you I'm both challenged and excited.

My excitement is I get a chance to give something back.

My challenge is the shortest seminar

I usually do is 50 hours.

(audience laughs)

I'm not exaggerating, I do weekends,

I do more than that obviously, coach people,

but I'm into immersion because how'd you learn language?

You didn't learn it by just learning principles,

you got in it and you did it so often

that it became real and my stuff isn't preprogrammed.

Something happens in the room, I ask a question

and I play off what's going there.

And 17 minutes, that's not gonna happen.

I know we're gonna put the principles across

and I'm beyond respectful to the format.

I've gotten great value from it,

although Lisa Randall, I felt very tough for

how to explain Einstein's theories in 18 minutes.

To make sure that you're served though,

'cause I really came here to serve,

is I put some tapes in your box but I want you know

that if you wanna use NET time, I call it,

no extra time to learn some of these things

and use them on a deeper level.

If you call my office and you're from TED,

you're on the list, you can get any product I have.

There's no charge for it.

If you ever wanna come to a seminar

I'd love to have you as my guest as well

for something of more depth.

So my gift to you.

(clapping)

Thank you, thank you.

So, the race begins.

I've probably put a lot in here

'cause I really wanna try and serve you

and I hope it doesn't just sound like philosophy

since we can't do the interaction at the same level,

although I hope you'll participate with me a bit.

The bottom line of why I'm here is that

I'm really in a position, I'm not here to motivate you

obviously, you don't need that.

A lot of times that's what people think I do

and it's the furthest thing from it.

What happens though is people say to me,

"I don't need any motivation!"

And I say, well that's interesting, that's not what I do.

I'm the why guy.

I wanna know why you do what you do.

What is your motive for action?

What is it that drives you in your life today,

not 10 years ago, or you running the same pattern?

Because I believe that the invisible force

of internal drive, activated,

is the most important thing in the world.

I'm here because I believe emotion is the force of life.

All of us here have great minds.

Most of us here have great minds (chuckles), right?

I don't know if I'm in the category,

but we all know how to think and with our minds

we can rationalize anything, we can make anything happen.

I agree with what was described a few days ago

about this idea that people work in their self-interest,

but we all know that you don't work

in your self-interest all the time.

Because when emotion comes into it the wiring changes

in the way it functions.

So it's wonderful for us to think intellectually

about how the life of the world is,

and especially those who are very smart.

We can play this game in our head

but I really wanna know what's driving you,

and what I'd like to maybe invite you to do

by the end of this talk is explore

where you are today for two reasons.

One, so that you can contribute more.

And two, so that hopefully we can not just understand

other people more but maybe appreciate them more

and create the kinds of connections that can stop

some of the challenges that we face in our society today

that are only gonna get magnified

by the very technology that's connecting us.

'Cause it's making us intersect

and that intersection doesn't always create the view

of everybody now understands everybody

and everybody appreciates everybody.

I've had obsession basically for 30 years,

and that obsession has been what makes the difference

in the quality of people's lives?

What makes the difference in their performance

'cause that's what I got hired to do.

I gotta produce the result now,

that's what I've done for 30 years.

I get the phone call when the athlete is burning down

on national television and they were ahead

by five strokes and now they can't get back on the course.

And I gotta do somethin' right now

to get the result or nothing matters.

I get the phone call when the child's gonna commit suicide

and I gotta do somethin' right now.

And in 29 years, I'm very grateful to tell ya,

I've never lost one in 29 years.

Doesn't mean I won't someday, but I haven't done it.

And the reason is the understanding of these

human needs that I wanna talk to you about.

When I get those calls about performance,

that's one thing, like how do you make a change?

But also, I'm looking to see what is it

that's shaping that person's ability to contribute?

To do something beyond themselves.

So maybe the real question is,

I look at life and say there's two master lessons.

One is, there's the science of achievement

which almost everybody in this room has mastered

to an amazing extent.

That's how do you take the invisible and make it visible.

How do you take what you're dreamin' out

and make it happen?

Whether it be your business,

your contribution to society,

money, whatever it is for you.

Your body, your family.

But the other lesson of life that is rarely mastered

is the art of fulfillment.

'Cause science is easy, right?

We know the rules, you write the code,

you fold the, and you get the result.

Once you know the game, you just,

you up the ante, don't you?

But when it comes to fulfillment, that's an art,

and the reason is it's about appreciation

and it's about contribution.

You can only feel so much by yourself.

I've had an interesting laboratory to try

to answer the question of the real question

which is what's the difference in somebody's life

if you look at somebody like those people

that you've given everything to.

Like all the resources they say they need.

You gave them not a hundred-dollar computer,

you gave them the best computer.

You gave them love, you gave 'em joy,

you were there to comfort them.

And those people very often,

and you know some of them I'm sure,

end up the rest of their life with all this love,

education, money, and background,

spending their life going in and out of rehab.

And then you meet people that've been through ultimate pain.

Psychologically, sexually, spiritually,

emotionally abused, and not always,

but often they become some of the people

that contribute the most to society.

So the question we gotta ask ourselves really is,

what is it?

What is it that shapes us?

We live in a therapy culture, most of us don't do that,

but the culture's a therapy culture and what I mean by that

is the mindset that we are our past.

Everybody in this room, you wouldn't be in this room

if you bought that theory,

but the most of society thinks biography is destiny.

The past equals the future.

Of course it does if you live there.

But what people in this room know

and what we have to remind ourselves though,

'cause you can know something intellectually.

You can know what to do and then not use it, not apply it.

So really we're gonna remind ourselves

is decision is the ultimate power.

That's what it really is.

Now when you ask people,

have you failed to achieve something?

How many have ever failed to achieve

something significant in your life, say aye.

- [Audience] Aye.

- Thanks for the interaction on a high level there.

(audience laughs)

But if you ask people why didn't you achieve something?

Somebody who's working for you,

or a partner, or even yourself,

and you failed to achieve a goal,

what's the reason people say they failed to achieve?

What do they tell ya?

Tell me, come on, out loud.

Didn't know enough.

Didn't have the knowledge.

Didn't have the, money.

Didn't have the, time.

Didn't have the, technology.

I didn't have the right manager.

- [Voiceover] Supreme Court.

- Didn't have the Supreme Court.

(laughing loudly)

(clapping and cheering)

And,

what do all those, including the Supreme Court,

have in common?

They are a claim to you missing resources,

and they may be accurate.

You may not have the money,

you may not have the Supreme Court,

but that is not the defining factor.

(audience laughs)

And you correct me if I'm wrong.

The defining factor is never resources,

it's resourcefulness.

And what I mean specifically rather than just some phrase,

is if you have emotion, human emotion,

something that I experienced from you day before yesterday

at a level that is as profound as I've ever experienced,

and if you'd communicated with that emotion

I believe you would've won.

(audience cheers)

But, how easy for me to tell him what he should do.

(audience laughs)

Idiot, Robbins.

But I know, when we watch the debates,

when we watched the debate at that time,

there were emotions that blocked people's ability

to get this man's intellect and capacity

and the way they came across to some people on that day.

'Cause I know people that wanted to vote

in your direction and didn't, and I was upset.

But there was emotion that was there.

How many know what I'm talkin' about here, say aye.

- [Audience] Aye.

- So emotion is it, if we get the right emotion

we can get ourselves to do anything.

We can get through it.

If you're creative enough, playful enough,

fun enough, can you get through to anybody, yes or no?