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hi there beautiful people
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I'm crystal and excited doesn't even
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begin to describe how I feel yeah my
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name is Greg and it's just an awesome
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privilege to stand here and in front of
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you and share some of our own experience
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it's really exciting so what we love
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about wisdom is that it's this amazing
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field about two of our favorite topics
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the first one is the future of this
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planet and the second one is about our
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collective consciousness and this year
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is extra special because we flew for
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over 20 hours on the airplane to share
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with you our views on brave new
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education but before we start I want to
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show you a little picture so here is the
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map of the world and if you look at this
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circle that's highlighted more than half
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of the people on this planet live in
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that small circle that is Asia and
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despite the fact that more of the circle
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is see than it is land we are huge and
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we are just getting bigger which means
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two big global trends that are colliding
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the first one is that Asians are we are
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having living standards improve at a
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rate that's never been seen before and
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that's a good thing but the second thing
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is that Asians consume consumption is
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also rising at a rate that we've never
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seen before and that's really bad put it
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this way if every person in China wants
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to eat fish just once or twice a week
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the oceans will run dry our consumption
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levels in Asia are one twentieth of that
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of the US but we all want the American
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dream and who's to tell Asia that we
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can't have it on one hand the
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government's are saying as please grow
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grow grow grow because our growth
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depends on you but on the other hand
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they say don't consume please don't
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consume the earth cannot take it and
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this sets us up for a bit of a problem
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and we believe very strongly that the
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solution to this problem lies with
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energy
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we need to educate our youth but we also
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need to get educate us about how to
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raise our awareness how to raise
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collective consciousness so that we then
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have a different relationship with
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ourselves and how we consume but also
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how we relate to each other and how we
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relate to this planet and also it
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relates to how we engage technology
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technology is hopefully going to help us
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solve some of these problems but the
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level of consciousness of the people who
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develop these apps and technologies will
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define whether they are just going to
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mine our attention for money or whether
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they're going to be creative in solving
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these problems that are really exploding
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all around us so I want to zoom in on
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this little red dot here is Singapore
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that's where I'm from Singapore is very
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small we're just five million people but
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we're the third largest stock exchange
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in the whole world we are a hub of East
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and West English is my first language
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believe it or not so even though I look
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like this this is my native language and
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this is Gregg second language he's from
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Germany okay so if there are any
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mistakes that he makes he's gonna blame
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it on that but we'll get to that in a
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minute
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so is zooming in further on Singapore we
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come from this University called the
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National University of Singapore and
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that is responsible for over half of our
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university students imagine that that's
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a big responsibility right so three
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years ago the university came to me and
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said they were setting up something
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called the centre for future ready
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graduates and you would think that
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because Singapore has the highest Pisa
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scores in the in the world that is the
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highest global scores for English for a
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reading for writing formats you would
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think that we have this education thing
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sorted but actually the truth of it is
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that we were getting deeply worried we
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were getting worried because students
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were telling us we're not prepared for
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the world and we were getting worried
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because the employers were telling us
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hey your students have the best scores
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the best grades but they can't think
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they kind of react in the real world
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they can respond and what we found is
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this all the research suggests
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that grades are not correlated with
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success what our grades correlated to
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grades are correlated with discipline
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conformity compliance in a world in the
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future of robots and automation who's
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gonna be better at compliance is it
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going to be a human or robot so this is
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when we realized that we have been
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training our youth to be obsolete that's
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a scary thought so that's when we
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started approaching this brave new
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challenge number one
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what does Futurity mean if we don't know
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what the jobs of the future are if we
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don't know what the future holds for us
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how do we prepare our youth for the
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future so we started to speak to our
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youth to ask them hey what what do you
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think you might need to get ready for
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the world of work and what we soon
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realized that was actually way beyond
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job anxiety there was a whole array of
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much bigger problems that if there
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weren't addressed would really get in
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the way of them being ready for the
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future first of all you all very
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familiar with this is being so
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distracted finding it really hard to be
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in the present moment and also the
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technology that can be really useful
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sometimes getting in the way and pulling
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our attention away and then there's been
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a kind of paradoxical trend happening on
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the one hand we have so many connections
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through LinkedIn and Facebook whatever
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app you using yeah I might ask a student
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is here five five six hundred friends
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but then sometimes they come to me after
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a lecture and they say wow I've so many
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friends on Facebook but I'm struggling
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with my schoolwork and I don't actually
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have anybody that I can turn to
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face-to-face to share these concerns and
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that leads to an epidemic of loneliness
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and isolation amongst our students and
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perhaps among some of us as well and
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then there's another even more
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concerning trend I'm a clinician and
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psychologist as well and I've been
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hearing from my clients and some
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students that there's an epidemic of
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stress and anxiety happening worrying
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about not just aches
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and how relationships are what the
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future hold but also a sense of
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helplessness and hopelessness that if
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not kept in check can even turn into a
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depression perhaps we're seeing trends
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of over 30% increase in utilization of
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mental health services on campuses
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around Singapore in the world which is
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really really concerning for us so we
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knew that the solution was gonna be
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deeper it needed to be deeper than a
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career preparation program we so what we
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did was that we pulled together the best
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of the tools the techniques that we knew
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to cope with all of this stuff and our
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answer was a program called roots and
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wings so roots and wings root stands for
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Who am I
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what am I about and wings is the
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question of like what am I here to
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contribute what do I want to serve the
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world with and it's based on mindfulness
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and awareness because that's always the
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beginning and then we layer on the
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emotional intelligence the growth
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mindsets the various beliefs that are
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helpful for them and then we've also
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included techniques from psychotherapy
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neuroscience that can really prevent
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these issues of anxiety and depression
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take hold of a person's mind so we very
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much believe preventing a problem from
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rising is much better than trying to fix
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it at a later stage you know we never
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expected roots and wings to be so big
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when I first enlisted Greg on this
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journey I went down to the psych
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department he says a little academic in
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this little rabbit hole room and he was
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there working on his stuff and reading
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it I don't know what he was reading
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anyway so I said to him you know roots
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and wings are you gonna join me on this
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journey and he was so excited he perked
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up and he said you know what I think
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you're onto something if we tried really
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hard maybe we could get 300 students and
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I was like you got 7,000 buddy and you
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start next week so I still haven't
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recovered so he's been completely
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traumatized I mean I ended up marrying
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the guy just to get him over this whole
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thing okay
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[Applause]
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yeah because that's the kind of boss I
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am so anyway enough about us now let's
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talk about the next challenge as we were
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doing routes anyways we ran into
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challenge number two a student came up
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to me one day and he said you know I
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love what you're doing but I don't think
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it's gonna work and I said why he said
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you know that empathy thing that you
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taught me that was so depressing it was
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wide and he said well because the thing
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is that I realized the scales fell off
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my eyes when I learned all this stuff
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and I realized that it's one thing for
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me to change but what's the point if my
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lecturers my professors if everybody
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else doesn't understand what I'm talking
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about
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like there's no point and I heard
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stories from my medical students that
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said yeah you know that perspective
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shift beginners my thing that you taught
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me well we tried that in a hospital to
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ended up with a book thrown at my head
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so you know that's when we realized it's
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a whole ecosystem effort the students
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cannot be at 3.0 and the management be
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at 2.0 and the faculty be at 1.0
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resisting we have to involve the whole
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ecosystem and that's when we started
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broadening out the conversation talking
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to government talking to students using
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different language for instance when we
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spoke to government we said hey this is
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about workforce relevance it's about
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disruption proofing Singapore and you
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like great take 10 million dollars so so
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we're we spoke to educators we talked
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about hey what's the relevance of
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University if it's not this this is
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innovation when we talk to industry
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employers we said this is about prepping
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your talent pipeline so you won't be so
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frustrated when the Millennials get
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there but most importantly we spoke to
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students and we said this is for you
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this is about meaning and joy in your
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life and they loved it so we started
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broadening out and working with all
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these stakeholders and that's when we
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realized that this is what we love so
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that's when we left the university and
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we started forest wolf which is a mind
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that agent change agency that works with
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all of these stakeholders to speak their
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language we ran into another challenge
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we realized yes we have to work broad
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with all these systems but we also found
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out very quickly that we also had to go
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deep with our students and that we had
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to go beyond skills so we like to use
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this iceberg metaphor so the top layer
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is really the skills that we're teaching
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but unfortunately and you may know that
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as well as often skills don't translate
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into habits they don't get integrated
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into our day-to-day life and we were
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curious to overcome that and also
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understand why that is so and we believe
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the reason for that is because
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underneath the surface underneath skills
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there are two broader domains that need
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to be addressed as well the first one is
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the mind says these are the attitudes
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that you bring to learning these skills
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and if you're particularly critical or
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judgmental or if you have you don't have
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a growth mindset you saying oh maybe I
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will never be able to get there this is
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gonna undermined you learning these
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skills and integrating them and then at
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one level deeper even there is what we
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call a sense of identity or maybe core
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beliefs and a lot of us have core
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beliefs that also can be less favorable
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or unhelpful even perhaps if you're
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inclined to think of yourself as not
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worthy or not good enough this will also
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sabotage these skills that seem useful
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and helpful from forming lifelong habits
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that really transform your life yeah
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absolutely so it boggles my mind that we
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hear so much about Futurity skills
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skills skills nobody talks about
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Futurity mindsets Futurity identity
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because it doesn't matter the best
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skills in the world but if you think I'm
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not worthy I'm not lovable this is not
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me I can't change nothing is gonna
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change in your life so here's what we
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think that brave new education needs
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more often the first one of course be
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spoken about it already is cultivating a
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sense of mindfulness cultivating that
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focus but also that greater
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self-awareness secondly we need to be
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able to speak
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and address our mind and how it can be
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more resilient healthier and also be
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able to speak about depression anxiety
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and failures and be able to distinguish
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those yeah I really believe in this
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stigma night D stigmatizing mental
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well-being sometimes I talk about going
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to therapy or coming to see a counselor
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people look as if it's like oh my god
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you've got cancer what did you just say
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you went to therapy but you know we need
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to de stigmatize this conversation it's
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just like going to the gym the third
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thing I think we need more of is
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connecting to meaning and this is about
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what matters this is about your
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intrinsic motivation why are you here
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what are you doing this for it's about
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deepening into conversation from hey
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buddy what do you want to do to who do
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you want to be or who do you want to
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become and lastly it's about magic
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moments of connection when all the
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lectures are on EDX and Coursera and
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Harvard and Yale profs are just on the
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internet why do we even bother coming to
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school why even bother if it's not for
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this field it's about being in the
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relational about magic moments of
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connection we have to get out of the
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mentality where it's me sitting from the
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top of the lofty mountain giving you all
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this stuff to me getting with you right
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there with you meeting you where you are
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so what we want to do is do an exercise
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together that wraps up all of these four
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elements so it's called limiting beliefs
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so Greg what are limiting beliefs
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limiting beliefs are these kind of
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internal voices that are probably
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critical and get in the way from you
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leading the life that you want to lead
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or learning new things so an example for
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me for instance is I you know I have a
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brother and he was like straight-a
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student really really smart so growing
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up I did compare myself quite a bit to
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him and that internal limiting belief
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became one of I'm not smart enough so
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one of my limiting beliefs is that my
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mom once said just as a throwaway
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comment maybe hey crystal you're not
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creative you're just only good at
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copying other people and I don't know
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why that stuck but it was like a little
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seed
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lodged in me and I just stop saying yes
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to anything that I thought was creative
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because that wasn't me so what I want
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you to do right now is to bring to mind
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one of your limiting beliefs you don't
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have to share it with anyone but what we
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want you to do is take out your mobile
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phone yes you have permission to take it
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out now and log on to this website
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answergarden CH or you can snap the QR
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code and by the way just no pressure but
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our Asian students take about seven
00:15:50
point six five seconds to do this so I'm
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timing all of you guys right so you're
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gonna go to this website and you're
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gonna enter in the text box just one or
00:16:02
two words about your personal limited
00:16:05
belief for instance not creative or lazy
00:16:09
or whatever is true for you and as we do
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this the word cloud will form and the
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words that we see that are bigger and
00:16:19
bigger in this cloud will represent that
00:16:22
the answers that are more and more
00:16:25
popular so in the moment I'm just gonna
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let you guys go on to that website
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really impressed with you guys very good
00:16:35
students also though use of technology
00:16:40
with students this can't just say hey
00:16:43
technology is bad we don't want you to
00:16:44
use phones at all it's how can we use
00:16:47
them as educational tools how can we use
00:16:50
them for good for actually bringing
00:16:51
people together rather than getting more
00:16:54
and more isolated needs a little more
00:16:57
time to log onto this website a little
00:16:59
bit more okay we'll leave it up there
00:17:01
for a little while longer okay let's
00:17:08
have a look and see what is forming so
00:17:11
if we could switch over this is also oh
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here we go
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oh my goodness there we go so so this is
00:17:18
usually quite amazing when we do that
00:17:20
with our students but let's take a
00:17:22
moment and reflect what you see here so
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the big words are those that are shared
00:17:26
by many in the audience here and what's
00:17:29
remarkable
00:17:31
is this look so similar to Singapore's
00:17:33
well that they're not good enough not
00:17:36
smart enough in audiences that are
00:17:38
obviously so smart and so highly
00:17:40
functioning it's really really
00:17:42
surprising
00:17:43
now usually there are two big take-home
00:17:48
realizations that our students get when
00:17:50
they see this the first one is when we
00:17:53
debrief some of the students I say like
00:17:55
wow I thought I was the only one who had
00:18:00
these limiting beliefs the other is that
00:18:02
it's actually a really liberating
00:18:04
experience to be able to share these
00:18:07
with everyone else
00:18:08
so before we conclude I invite you to
00:18:13
close your eyes for a moment and bring
00:18:20
to mind somebody that's dear to you
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could be a family member could be a
00:18:27
friend or colleague and ask yourself
00:18:30
these questions do you know they're
00:18:34
limiting beliefs do they know you are
00:18:41
limiting beliefs and what would it be
00:18:47
like if you were able to share these
00:18:50
with him if you could have a dialogue
00:18:52
about them would that impact these
00:18:56
limiting beliefs in their power how
00:19:00
might that change your relationship with
00:19:03
them
00:19:06
okay then you can open your eyes again
00:19:10
thank eyes just take a silent moment to
00:19:14
look around the room look at these
00:19:16
beautiful faces of the people around you
00:19:19
and look at them with this newfound
00:19:21
appreciation that hey they suffer too
00:19:24
they have limiting beliefs just like you
00:19:26
this is a shared human experience you're
00:19:30
not alone and if you just remember one
00:19:32
thing from our talk today remember this
00:19:35
you are not alone and in the era of deep
00:19:41
tech we all need to double down on deep
00:19:45
human thank you very much guys
00:19:48
[Applause]
00:20:02
you
