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Translator: Tanya Cushman
Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
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Do you like sitting next to weird people?
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(Laughter)
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(Applause) (Laughter)
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I don't like sitting next to weird people.
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I think that's true for most of us.
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I mean, be honest, how many of you
wish you could change seats right now?
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(Laughter)
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Yeah.
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The problem, though,
is that by avoiding the weird people,
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by staying inside that comfortable
cocoon of people like us,
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we're actually cutting ourselves off
from the very people and experiences
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that can lead to our most creative ideas.
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And we need those ideas,
now more than ever.
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A few years ago, I was flying home
to Seattle from New York,
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I had an aisle seat.
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And in the middle seat was ...
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nobody!
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I know, right?
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So I'm doing, like,
my little internal happy dance.
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When, just before the doors close,
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one last passenger gets on the plane.
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She was ...
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different.
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I don't know what Methuselah's
grandmother actually looked like,
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but this had to be close.
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As she's shuffling down the aisle,
I'm thinking, "Don't panic now.
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It's a big plane, come on,
what are the odds?"
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I'll tell you what the odds were. 100%.
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(Laughter)
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She stops right beside me,
pokes me with her bony finger,
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points to my empty seat
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and says, "Please, I am there."
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(Laughter)
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Sad dance.
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So, I did what most of you
might have done.
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I retreated into my cocoon.
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I put on my headphones,
and I escaped into my music.
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Music ...
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Music has always been my escape.
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Whether I'm playing drums at a Blues club
or Chopin on my piano at home.
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And so, for the next
five hours, I retreat.
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Beatles,
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Beethoven,
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Miles Davis.
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And then, because I had
just finished an incredible biography
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of one of my musical heroes, Stravinsky,
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I cap it off by listening
to his magnificent "Firebird Suite."
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[Music]
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As we descend into Seattle,
middle seat pokes me again.
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Apparently, it's time for the obligatory
final descent conversation.
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You know that one?
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"Is, is home for you?"
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"I'm sorry, what?"
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"Is home for you?"
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Is home?
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"Oh, Seattle? Yes. How about you?"
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"No, I have long way to go.
I go to Russia."
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"That is a long way."
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"Da ...
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I have not been there since I was
young woman. I was teacher."
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"What did you teach?"
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"Music."
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"Did -
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Did you teach Russian music?"
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"Of course."
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"Okay, now see, that's amazing
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because I was just listening,
I mean, like just now,
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to Stravinsky's 'Firebird Suite.'"
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"Ah. Stravinsky. The Firebird.
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I was with him when he wrote it."
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(Laughter)
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What?
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And then the plane pulled up to the gate,
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and I never saw her again.
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I had just flown across the continent
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separated by only five inches
and a pair of headphones
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from possibly the most
fascinating person I would ever meet.
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And I didn't know it
until the last five minutes.
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I had completely written
her off, for five hours,
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because she was different from me.
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How often do we do this?
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Miss out on an amazing conversation,
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an amazing experience, an amazing idea
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because they involve
someone different from us?
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What's the real cost
of staying inside your cocoon?
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See, I think the cost is incalculable.
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Because by staying hidden in our cocoons,
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we are robbing ourselves,
our communities and our world
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of the creative ideas that are essential
to solving our biggest challenges.
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The world needs your creative ideas.
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"What? Mine? No! I'm not creative!
No, no, no, no, no."
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Oh, stop it!
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The only reason people
don't think they're creative
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is because they don't understand
what creativity really is.
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They think it's the lightning bolt
that only strikes the gifted few.
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Here's the secret:
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We are all the gifted few.
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For fifteen years, in Seattle, Washington,
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I was the executive producer
of a comedy TV show called "Almost Live."
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For fifteen years -
the fan club's here, both of them -
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(Laughter) (Applause)
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For fifteen years, our job,
week after week after week,
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was to be creative.
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And over those fifteen years,
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I discovered what creativity really is.
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But first ...
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I have to teach you how to write a joke.
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Let's take a classic, old joke.
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A horse walks into a bar.
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The bartender says, "Why the long face?"
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(Laughter)
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Okay, now see, that was funny,
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back in the days of vaudeville.
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Trust me, if this were 1920,
you'd be rolling in the aisles.
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But what does this joke -
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and virtually any other joke
you can think of - actually do?
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Well, it takes several
elements that are different,
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that don't normally go together -
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horses, bars, sadness ...
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well, bars and sadness, yeah -
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(Laughter)
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and finds a surprising connection:
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the long face.
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That's what creativity is.
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It's taking two or more
things that are different
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and finding the surprising connection.
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In comedy, it's called the punch line.
In creativity, it's called the iPhone.
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(Laughter)
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And the Internet.
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And the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
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But creativity, in short,
is all about connecting dots.
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And these dots can be anything.
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Ideas, experiences ...
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an elderly woman in the middle seat.
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And the more ideas you encounter,
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the more experiences you have,
the more people you interact with,
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the more connections you can make.
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This is a sheet of Avery dots.
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There are a lot of dots here.
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Which means a lot of connections.
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That's good.
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Imagine, though,
if all you had were two dots.
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Not a lot of connections going on here.
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Some peoples' brains
are like this, aren't they?
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How many of you
know someone like this?
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How many of you are
related to someone like this?
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These are not the people
who are curing cancer.
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I mean, it just stands to reason
that the more dots you have,
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the more connections you can make.
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Which means the odds of one of those
connections being that breakthrough idea,
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for you, your office,
your business, or your world,
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increase dramatically.
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But what do you notice about these dots?
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They're all alike, aren't they?
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They're all three-quarter inch, navy blue.
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Now, if all of your dots
are three-quarter inch, navy blue,
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then most of your ideas are going to be
three-quarter inch, navy blue ideas.
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Kind of predictable.
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But what if your dot collection
looked more like this?
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Well, you start connecting these dots,
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and there's no telling what color
your connection - your creative ideas -
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might be.
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A blue dot, a yellow dot,
make a green idea.
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And what if these dots
were also different sizes?
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And different shapes?
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What if your dots,
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the ideas, the experiences,
the people, in your life,
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were different sizes,
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different colors,
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different shapes ...
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different beliefs?
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Can you see the difference that would make
in the quantity and the quality
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of your ideas?
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I told you I used to produce
a TV show in Seattle.
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On January 10, 1987, we were pumped.
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Because we found the genuine
big name to be our guest.
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Our guest that night was this guy ...
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(Applause)
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Johnny Depp!
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Okay, in fairness,
he did not look like this, then.
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Did any of you, like,
in your teens and twenties,
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go through that awkward stage?
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Yeah well, Johnny was going
through his awkward stage too.
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(Laughter)
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I know.
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I mean, you guys in the audience,
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can you imagine having to go
through your teens and twenties
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looking like that?
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(Laughter)
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Well, Johnny was shooting
a TV series here in Vancouver,
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called "21 Jump Street."
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And we got him!
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Happy Dance!
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Until the morning of the show,
I get a phone call.
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"Bill, it's uh Johnny Depp.
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Yeah, listen, I'm not going to be able
to make it tonight.
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No, they scheduled
reshoots for "Jump Street."
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I can't get out of it.
I'm really sorry but I've got to cancel."
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String of bad words!
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And now we're in a panic.
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I call an emergency meeting;
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we try to come up
with a guest for tonight's show.
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Uh, what about one of them Seahawks?
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No, they're out of town.
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How about that cute new anchor at Komo TV?
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No, she's in rehab.
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(Laughter)
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And on and on it goes.
It's starting to look hopeless.
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When one of my writers,
in fact my lowest paid writer,
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pops his head up and says, "Uh ...
I might be able to do something with ...
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liquid nitrogen."
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(Laughter)
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Clearly, he did not
understand the situation.
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I mean, we're looking
for a guest for the show,
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and he's babbling on
about liquid nitrogen.
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By the way, this was
my lowest paid writer.
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(Laughter) (Applause)
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His name was Bill.
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Well, naturally, my first reaction
to Bill's suggestion was,
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"Shut up, Bill."
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Look, maybe not my finest moment,
but why was that my first reaction?
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Well, it's because I was
in my cocoon, wasn't I?
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We all were,
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except for Bill.
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And in our cocoon, we were
looking for a guest to interview.
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That was our three-quarter
inch, navy blue dot.
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But then Bill started painting a verbal
picture for us, using different dots.
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"Hey guys, no, this could work.
I mean, liquid nitrogen - it's very cold.
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You take an onion,
throw it in the liquid nitrogen,
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take a pair of tongs, pull the onion out,
hit it with a hammer,
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it shatters like glass."
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Cool.
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"Guys, it gets better.
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You can take a marshmallow,
throw it in the liquid nitrogen,
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take the tongs, pull the marshmallow out,
pop it in my mouth, bite down.
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Smoke pours out of my nose and mouth."
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Coool!
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And that night, this guy ...
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became this guy ...
[Bill Nye, the Science Guy]
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Who now hangs out -
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(Applause)
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Who now hangs out with these guys.
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(Laughter)
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Why?
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Because he was diffferent than us.
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We were all writers and producers.
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Bill Nye was and is a science guy.
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He saw the world differently than we did.
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He was the different colored dot.
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And we all benefited
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from our collaboration
with that different dot.
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The show benefited,
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Bill Nye benefited,
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and an entire generation,
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that was introduced to the world
of science and possibility,
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benefited.
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When Bill Nye, the Science Guy,
got his own TV show,
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he'd tape the list
of objectives to the studio wall.
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Do you know what objective number one was?
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Change the world.
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The power to connect dots creatively
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is the power to change the world.
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In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg connected
a wine-processor with movable type
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and created the printing press.
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He changed the world.
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In 1962, a collaborative team
of four young men from Liverpool, England,
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connected blues, Motown, skiffle, and pop
and created the Beatles.
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They changed the world.
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In 2016, Burger King
connected a Whopper with a burrito
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and created the Whopperito.
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The jury is still out.
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(Laughter)
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But my point ...
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My point is that virtually
every great invention,
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virtually every great idea,
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virtually every great thought
that went on to change the world
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came from someone,
or a collaboration of someones,
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seeing two or more different dots
and connecting them in a way
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that nobody else ever had before.
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And you can do it too.
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All you have to do is crack your cocoon.
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Can you do that?
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(Audience) Yes.
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(Applause)
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Will you do that?
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(Audience) Yes.
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It just requires you to be two things.
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First, you have to be a dot collector.
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Remember, the more dots you have -
ideas, experiences, people -
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and the more different they are,
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the more creative
your connections will be.
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See, that's the real beauty
at an event like this.
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Because you're going to see
a dozen or so brilliant talks,
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plus this one,
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(Laughter)
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that have nothing whatsoever
to do with each other.
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Except they do.
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They'll now be a part of your collection.
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Which means that tomorrow
or a year from tomorrow
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you'll suddenly think, "Wait a minute,
this reminds me of that TED thing."
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That's the real lightning bolt.
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That's how it happens.
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But you've got to collect the dots first.
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And the second thing
you have to be is a dot connector.
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You have to teach yourself
to ask the question,
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"How is this like that?"
Because that's creativity.
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Creativity is the spark that ignites
when two or more different ideas collide.
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So, how will you crack your cocoon?
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How will you collect
and connect your dots?
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Well, here's a thought:
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Instead of looking
at other people as different,
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look at them as additional
pieces to a puzzle.
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Your puzzle.
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You're just one piece.
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You need the others
to complete the picture.
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And you can start today - you can.
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Look, have a conversation
with someone you don't know.
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Go to lunch with someone
different from you.
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Take a class, learn a language,
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become a street mime.
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Okay, some of these
are better than others.
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Because when you crack your cocoon,
your world will change.
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Your world will change
because promise and possibility
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live outside of your cocoon.
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Innovation and opportunity
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live outside of your cocoon.
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And those creative ideas,
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the ones that can change
not just your world, but our world
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live outside of your cocoon.
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I'll always regret
that I stayed inside my cocoon
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for that entire five hour flight.
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And I'll always wonder
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what that conversation
might have been like,
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if I had cracked my cocoon,
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let go of my prejudice and judgment,
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and connected with someone
different from me.
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Don't miss out
on your great conversations,
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your great opportunities,
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and yes, your great ideas.
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Crack your cocoon today.
00:17:53
(Applause)
