[Music]
every single one of us is capable making
the world a better place to live it
sounds pretty good right let me tell you
how as Mary Oliver challenges us how
will you choose to use your one wild and
precious life I have chosen to dedicate
two hours each week to save on selfless
service and the impact thus far inspires
me to never stop I reflect on our labor
of love at Magicians Without Borders our
mission is to entertain to educate and
to empower this advantage youth you see
if I give the homeless person food
she’ll be able to eat today but if I
teach her a unique and valuable skill
that you can use for the rest of her
life she’ll be able to have food for the
rest of her life
how do we teach those we work with to
have food for life well we teach magic
to groups of students right here in
Bogota in El Salvador in Costa Rica and
in India watching them a unique and
skill is an important component to
having food for life we also believe
that it must go beyond that that’s we
are mentoring our students to leverage
their skills and magic in order to put
an end to the poverty cycle and
literally put holes in the status quo
let me tell you how I began
I received a Fulbright scholarship to
right here in Bogota in July 2012 and
prior to my arrival I partnered with
magicians Without Borders and we worked
together to develop teaching magic to
at-risk youth and ciudad bolivar and
since then the rest is history
what happened was
we went to Ciudad Bolivar and I will
never forget the first time I met our
magic students is I sat across from them
I was overcome by the polarity of my
privileged you see it paralyzed me and I
thought to myself who do I think I am
waltzing on my chariot thinking I’m
actually going to make a difference for
my students I felt foolish but then I
realized in that moment that if I can
make a difference in just one of our
students lies and that feeling of
foolishness will be completely worth it
and since then I used that moment and I
decided to use our differences as a
source of inspiration to leverage our
differences and empower our students to
discover our limitless potential and
today as I look out and I see our
students here with us overcome with
gratitude
we love our students they are literally
a living example of my dreams I’m so
proud of the accomplishments they’ve
made a few weeks after my arrival here
in Bogota I met Carlos Lopez who is also
a magician he recently had given up a
full-time tech job in order to dedicate
his life to save as well selfless
service and he chose to make the same
commitment that we made giving two hours
a week to our program and because of his
hard work he’s done that for the last
five years and thanks to him we are
where we are today our students have
given multiple TEDx talks much like the
ones you’re at today additionally they
performed at international levels
multiple times I want to share one of
our student stories with you see Diego
recently moved he still travels one way
two hours every single week to go to
magic class it’s making multiple bus
transfers going across dangerous
hillside roads but he does it every
single week he shares the same level of
cumin as Carlos and myself why does
Diego do this well because for him it’s
worth it
magic has taken him far beyond the
confines of his neighborhood for example
a little while ago Diego had the
opportunity to go to Chile in order to
present his magic and share his story in
fact not only was he invited to go there
but he was hired to go there and while
there Diego was treated like a guest of
honor he inspired his audience with his
magic and awed them with his stories in
September 2016 we had the opportunity to
take our students to New York City to
perform in an international conference
as well as at an off-broadway theater
and prior to the trip we had so much to
organise we had to arrange for passports
we had to organize for visas we had to
fundraise for flights for hotels for
food expenses we knew it would be a big
undertaking but we also knew it would be
completely worth it in addition to all
of this all of our students at that time
were under 18 years old so therefore in
order to leave Colombia they had to have
written permission from both of their
parents and while this posed no major
challenge for most of our students for
Tamara this was impossible you see Tom
Ana’s mother passed away about 11 years
ago yet her mother is still her legal
guardian AAB paper and tama does not
know who or where her father is so to
get that permission would be a little
bit difficult for her so we worked with
the ICB f the institute of families of
colombia and they said that they can
conduct a nationwide search with the
hope of finding her father but that
would have meant putting her face on the
side of a milk carton or something of a
similar nature logically family chose to
forego the public humility which meant
missing out on the chip or so we thought
about a month prior to the trip I CPF
told us that there was an opportunity we
could pursue though a grant a waiver for
her and basically the waiver was for
someone who is leaving the country to
represent Colombia and an artistic
endeavor however in order to get the
waiver it would have to go three
different agencies each of which took
about two weeks to process this was four
weeks before the trip you do the math
nonetheless we gave it a go and on the
day the trip
his paperwork was in the hands of the
last agency we were told that they would
pass it off to the immigration officers
at the airport so as the students got to
the airport they were waiting in line at
immigration Thomas still had no idea of
whether or not she was going to get on
that plane but eventually his they stood
there one of the officers called her
name gave her her papers and tammana
made it on that plane she went to New
York along with the rest of our students
[Applause]
and Tom and I had an amazing experience
in New York so did the rest of the
students in fact their experience was so
profound that we asked them about it we
asked them how it influenced their
perceptions from before the trip to
after the trip we asked him first about
how it influences their self-esteem the
blue bars are from before the trip and
the red bars are from after the trip and
on average our students reported a 29
percent improvement in their overall
self-esteem and self-image
additionally we asked them about how the
trip influenced their perception on the
importance of having a formal education
and again the blue bars are from before
and the red bar is from after and on
average our students reported a 27%
improvement and the recognized value of
having a formal education
so in conclusion doing something as big
as going to New York City from Ciudad
Bolivar
to perform magic can help at-risk youth
significantly improve their self-esteem
as well as increase a recognized value
of having a formal education on the
topic of recognizing value in Ciudad
Bolivar it is very difficult for our
students to experience an express
gratitude that’s because the daily life
in Ciudad Bolivar is focused on survival
however in New York this posed to be a
little bit different and one day while
in New York one of our students Diego
goes up to Carlos and he gave him this
pen it has a boxer on it
he said Carlos you’re a winner Carlos
you’re
fighter and you never give up on us they
goes mom optin leaves home for extended
periods of time
he changes schools and moves frequently
yet we are here to stay and do his gift
shows that he understands that Diego
demonstrated gratitude we define
gratitude as a recognition what is
meaningful or valuable to oneself
there’s a general state of thankfulness
and/or appreciation
there are numerous academic studies on
the boundless benefits of gratitude for
example in 2003 Emmons and mccullough
published a series of studies in the
Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology and their studies
demonstrated that those who experience
and express gratitude on a more regular
basis have increased overall life
satisfaction additionally they have
decreased feelings of negative effect
also known as depression additionally
they also discovered that those who
express and experience gratitude more
frequently have a decreased occurrence
of headaches that’s right
gratitude can literally decrease life’s
headaches I’m going to be a physician in
less than a year
this is powerful data and it didn’t take
ancient spiritual master and poet Rumi
gobs of research to understand the
importance of gratitude he said where
gratitude like a cloak and it will feed
every corner of your life
you see we begin to recognize all that
we have to be grateful for and there’s a
lot even when life is difficult life
becomes more vibrant on the topics of
academia and education many
organizations do something through
similar effective what we do they have
educational programs working with
disadvantaged communities and they do
great work they may teach music they may
teach arts I may teach sports you name
it they do great work we however want to
take it a step further how do we teach
our students to leverage the skills that
they work hard to learn again how we
teach our students to have food for life
well we sponsored a three-month
intensive business and trepan or ship
program and our students learn in poor
skills such as managing a bank account
and balancing a checkbook
additionally they participate in a
cumulative project where they built a
business model from scratch and their
business was magic
they called it karate magia for the art
of magic they work together to design a
business logo they also built a website
they printed business cards and now our
students are booking magic shows
completely independently one of our
students or better yet I should say
magicians Jefferson he said when I
perform magic I make money doing
something I like whereas most other
people make money doing something they
don’t like you see in Columbia it’s not
uncommon for children to be expected to
work well before the age of 16 years old
in order to contribute to the family
income our goal is to put an end to the
persistence of the poverty cycle with
our magic students you see our students
make far more money from a for our
restaurant gig or a 30 minute magic show
then they make working in the store for
30 minutes not only that but they have
way more fun doing so now I’m no
business analyst but this is simple
economics our students make more money
in less time they have more fun doing
magic additionally with their added free
time they’re able to pursue other
ventures for example one of our students
Tamara just started her first semester
in university private university we’re
sponsoring her to go there this is she
is the first person in her family to
undergo higher education and because of
her commitment to her academics Tamara
is literally accomplishing the
impossible and see this five hundred
pesos well it’s good it actually sells
Tamara and the rest of our students
short but the beauty of their magic is
that they’re learning had to make more
money silver dollar is much more fitting
we’re also teaching our students to
protect the money they earn and to be
careful with it because if they don’t
use their
heads it’ll vanish as quickly as they
earn it but fortunately for them with
their newfound intrapreneurial skills
they’re learning how to make more so
let’s recap a little bit because of my
hard work in my academics I received a
Fulbright scholarship the Fulbright
scholarship inspired me to start this
magic program this magic program began
with two hours each week and now our
students are literally accomplishing the
impossible this is just the beginning
picture this for a moment the average
person in the Western world spends a
hundred and sixteen minutes that’s
nearly two hours every single day on
social media if you tell you that over
the course of a week that’s fifteen
hours and twelve minutes so now I
challenge each and every one of you cut
out one day a week of social media use
reallocate that time and put it towards
something that will contribute to the
greater good of the world now just take
a moment and imagine what a world would
be like if every single one of us
committed to doing that right now that’s
what we’re doing and we’re changing the
world with our work see our students
also recognize the importance of paying
it forward they donate shows to
hospitals and other nonprofits and
through that they’re inspiring others
creating a ripple effect you can create
this to remember we all belong to one
another so our students are making money
doing magic and they’re making good
money not only this but I know that
they’ll never go hungry because not only
do they have a unique and valuable skill
but they’re learning how to leverage it
as young intrapreneurs this is changing
the direction of their lives it’s
improving their self-esteem and it’s
changing the way they think nothing is
impossible it all begins with two hours
each week and what’s that how much you
introduce to you one of our magicians
Diego come on up
oh no anistar this cool Stan
come over caught on this hear me nombre
Diego he is Ono’s trajeron hora electron
in grotto Kashia see Ito como si poacher
party Nolita
estaba leta your overture okay me man
I’ll see you all acquainted wretches que
uno dos tres
Lolita Celine dos see when oh come with
a poacher bar tengo de boletos see
stability’ meal add water a kidney mana
charge ko eat ya know TiVo’s see no red
boletus well no kaneto des armas talk
about my Munna but will she do esta la
poner a que me mano y esta la Pongo
negocio Quantas políticas de birria
when mi mano la gente siempre muchas
cosas different this tienen que pasar
much attention porque una dos tres
políticas Molly a una algún sitio esta
la puna o que me mano y esta la up on it
and it will see you Qantas bellows
because they didn’t have any money
muchas veces las personas de most
experienced Mica’s como yo I’m in
control RT la magia y por ESO me gusta
el el rastro these days muchas gracias
I wrapped our economist days Tamara
[Applause]
amazing no so how will you choose to use
your one wild and precious life will you
choose to use it
browsing social media or you choose to
spend it making our world a better place
to live
the choice is yours my friends thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
every single one of us is capable making
the world a better place to live it
sounds pretty good right let me tell you
how as Mary Oliver challenges us how
will you choose to use your one wild and
precious life I have chosen to dedicate
two hours each week to save on selfless
service and the impact thus far inspires
me to never stop I reflect on our labor
of love at Magicians Without Borders our
mission is to entertain to educate and
to empower this advantage youth you see
if I give the homeless person food
she’ll be able to eat today but if I
teach her a unique and valuable skill
that you can use for the rest of her
life she’ll be able to have food for the
rest of her life
how do we teach those we work with to
have food for life well we teach magic
to groups of students right here in
Bogota in El Salvador in Costa Rica and
in India watching them a unique and
skill is an important component to
having food for life we also believe
that it must go beyond that that’s we
are mentoring our students to leverage
their skills and magic in order to put
an end to the poverty cycle and
literally put holes in the status quo
let me tell you how I began
I received a Fulbright scholarship to
right here in Bogota in July 2012 and
prior to my arrival I partnered with
magicians Without Borders and we worked
together to develop teaching magic to
at-risk youth and ciudad bolivar and
since then the rest is history
what happened was
we went to Ciudad Bolivar and I will
never forget the first time I met our
magic students is I sat across from them
I was overcome by the polarity of my
privileged you see it paralyzed me and I
thought to myself who do I think I am
waltzing on my chariot thinking I’m
actually going to make a difference for
my students I felt foolish but then I
realized in that moment that if I can
make a difference in just one of our
students lies and that feeling of
foolishness will be completely worth it
and since then I used that moment and I
decided to use our differences as a
source of inspiration to leverage our
differences and empower our students to
discover our limitless potential and
today as I look out and I see our
students here with us overcome with
gratitude
we love our students they are literally
a living example of my dreams I’m so
proud of the accomplishments they’ve
made a few weeks after my arrival here
in Bogota I met Carlos Lopez who is also
a magician he recently had given up a
full-time tech job in order to dedicate
his life to save as well selfless
service and he chose to make the same
commitment that we made giving two hours
a week to our program and because of his
hard work he’s done that for the last
five years and thanks to him we are
where we are today our students have
given multiple TEDx talks much like the
ones you’re at today additionally they
performed at international levels
multiple times I want to share one of
our student stories with you see Diego
recently moved he still travels one way
two hours every single week to go to
magic class it’s making multiple bus
transfers going across dangerous
hillside roads but he does it every
single week he shares the same level of
cumin as Carlos and myself why does
Diego do this well because for him it’s
worth it
magic has taken him far beyond the
confines of his neighborhood for example
a little while ago Diego had the
opportunity to go to Chile in order to
present his magic and share his story in
fact not only was he invited to go there
but he was hired to go there and while
there Diego was treated like a guest of
honor he inspired his audience with his
magic and awed them with his stories in
September 2016 we had the opportunity to
take our students to New York City to
perform in an international conference
as well as at an off-broadway theater
and prior to the trip we had so much to
organise we had to arrange for passports
we had to organize for visas we had to
fundraise for flights for hotels for
food expenses we knew it would be a big
undertaking but we also knew it would be
completely worth it in addition to all
of this all of our students at that time
were under 18 years old so therefore in
order to leave Colombia they had to have
written permission from both of their
parents and while this posed no major
challenge for most of our students for
Tamara this was impossible you see Tom
Ana’s mother passed away about 11 years
ago yet her mother is still her legal
guardian AAB paper and tama does not
know who or where her father is so to
get that permission would be a little
bit difficult for her so we worked with
the ICB f the institute of families of
colombia and they said that they can
conduct a nationwide search with the
hope of finding her father but that
would have meant putting her face on the
side of a milk carton or something of a
similar nature logically family chose to
forego the public humility which meant
missing out on the chip or so we thought
about a month prior to the trip I CPF
told us that there was an opportunity we
could pursue though a grant a waiver for
her and basically the waiver was for
someone who is leaving the country to
represent Colombia and an artistic
endeavor however in order to get the
waiver it would have to go three
different agencies each of which took
about two weeks to process this was four
weeks before the trip you do the math
nonetheless we gave it a go and on the
day the trip
his paperwork was in the hands of the
last agency we were told that they would
pass it off to the immigration officers
at the airport so as the students got to
the airport they were waiting in line at
immigration Thomas still had no idea of
whether or not she was going to get on
that plane but eventually his they stood
there one of the officers called her
name gave her her papers and tammana
made it on that plane she went to New
York along with the rest of our students
[Applause]
and Tom and I had an amazing experience
in New York so did the rest of the
students in fact their experience was so
profound that we asked them about it we
asked them how it influenced their
perceptions from before the trip to
after the trip we asked him first about
how it influences their self-esteem the
blue bars are from before the trip and
the red bars are from after the trip and
on average our students reported a 29
percent improvement in their overall
self-esteem and self-image
additionally we asked them about how the
trip influenced their perception on the
importance of having a formal education
and again the blue bars are from before
and the red bar is from after and on
average our students reported a 27%
improvement and the recognized value of
having a formal education
so in conclusion doing something as big
as going to New York City from Ciudad
Bolivar
to perform magic can help at-risk youth
significantly improve their self-esteem
as well as increase a recognized value
of having a formal education on the
topic of recognizing value in Ciudad
Bolivar it is very difficult for our
students to experience an express
gratitude that’s because the daily life
in Ciudad Bolivar is focused on survival
however in New York this posed to be a
little bit different and one day while
in New York one of our students Diego
goes up to Carlos and he gave him this
pen it has a boxer on it
he said Carlos you’re a winner Carlos
you’re
fighter and you never give up on us they
goes mom optin leaves home for extended
periods of time
he changes schools and moves frequently
yet we are here to stay and do his gift
shows that he understands that Diego
demonstrated gratitude we define
gratitude as a recognition what is
meaningful or valuable to oneself
there’s a general state of thankfulness
and/or appreciation
there are numerous academic studies on
the boundless benefits of gratitude for
example in 2003 Emmons and mccullough
published a series of studies in the
Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology and their studies
demonstrated that those who experience
and express gratitude on a more regular
basis have increased overall life
satisfaction additionally they have
decreased feelings of negative effect
also known as depression additionally
they also discovered that those who
express and experience gratitude more
frequently have a decreased occurrence
of headaches that’s right
gratitude can literally decrease life’s
headaches I’m going to be a physician in
less than a year
this is powerful data and it didn’t take
ancient spiritual master and poet Rumi
gobs of research to understand the
importance of gratitude he said where
gratitude like a cloak and it will feed
every corner of your life
you see we begin to recognize all that
we have to be grateful for and there’s a
lot even when life is difficult life
becomes more vibrant on the topics of
academia and education many
organizations do something through
similar effective what we do they have
educational programs working with
disadvantaged communities and they do
great work they may teach music they may
teach arts I may teach sports you name
it they do great work we however want to
take it a step further how do we teach
our students to leverage the skills that
they work hard to learn again how we
teach our students to have food for life
well we sponsored a three-month
intensive business and trepan or ship
program and our students learn in poor
skills such as managing a bank account
and balancing a checkbook
additionally they participate in a
cumulative project where they built a
business model from scratch and their
business was magic
they called it karate magia for the art
of magic they work together to design a
business logo they also built a website
they printed business cards and now our
students are booking magic shows
completely independently one of our
students or better yet I should say
magicians Jefferson he said when I
perform magic I make money doing
something I like whereas most other
people make money doing something they
don’t like you see in Columbia it’s not
uncommon for children to be expected to
work well before the age of 16 years old
in order to contribute to the family
income our goal is to put an end to the
persistence of the poverty cycle with
our magic students you see our students
make far more money from a for our
restaurant gig or a 30 minute magic show
then they make working in the store for
30 minutes not only that but they have
way more fun doing so now I’m no
business analyst but this is simple
economics our students make more money
in less time they have more fun doing
magic additionally with their added free
time they’re able to pursue other
ventures for example one of our students
Tamara just started her first semester
in university private university we’re
sponsoring her to go there this is she
is the first person in her family to
undergo higher education and because of
her commitment to her academics Tamara
is literally accomplishing the
impossible and see this five hundred
pesos well it’s good it actually sells
Tamara and the rest of our students
short but the beauty of their magic is
that they’re learning had to make more
money silver dollar is much more fitting
we’re also teaching our students to
protect the money they earn and to be
careful with it because if they don’t
use their
heads it’ll vanish as quickly as they
earn it but fortunately for them with
their newfound intrapreneurial skills
they’re learning how to make more so
let’s recap a little bit because of my
hard work in my academics I received a
Fulbright scholarship the Fulbright
scholarship inspired me to start this
magic program this magic program began
with two hours each week and now our
students are literally accomplishing the
impossible this is just the beginning
picture this for a moment the average
person in the Western world spends a
hundred and sixteen minutes that’s
nearly two hours every single day on
social media if you tell you that over
the course of a week that’s fifteen
hours and twelve minutes so now I
challenge each and every one of you cut
out one day a week of social media use
reallocate that time and put it towards
something that will contribute to the
greater good of the world now just take
a moment and imagine what a world would
be like if every single one of us
committed to doing that right now that’s
what we’re doing and we’re changing the
world with our work see our students
also recognize the importance of paying
it forward they donate shows to
hospitals and other nonprofits and
through that they’re inspiring others
creating a ripple effect you can create
this to remember we all belong to one
another so our students are making money
doing magic and they’re making good
money not only this but I know that
they’ll never go hungry because not only
do they have a unique and valuable skill
but they’re learning how to leverage it
as young intrapreneurs this is changing
the direction of their lives it’s
improving their self-esteem and it’s
changing the way they think nothing is
impossible it all begins with two hours
each week and what’s that how much you
introduce to you one of our magicians
Diego come on up
oh no anistar this cool Stan
come over caught on this hear me nombre
Diego he is Ono’s trajeron hora electron
in grotto Kashia see Ito como si poacher
party Nolita
estaba leta your overture okay me man
I’ll see you all acquainted wretches que
uno dos tres
Lolita Celine dos see when oh come with
a poacher bar tengo de boletos see
stability’ meal add water a kidney mana
charge ko eat ya know TiVo’s see no red
boletus well no kaneto des armas talk
about my Munna but will she do esta la
poner a que me mano y esta la Pongo
negocio Quantas políticas de birria
when mi mano la gente siempre muchas
cosas different this tienen que pasar
much attention porque una dos tres
políticas Molly a una algún sitio esta
la puna o que me mano y esta la up on it
and it will see you Qantas bellows
because they didn’t have any money
muchas veces las personas de most
experienced Mica’s como yo I’m in
control RT la magia y por ESO me gusta
el el rastro these days muchas gracias
I wrapped our economist days Tamara
[Applause]
amazing no so how will you choose to use
your one wild and precious life will you
choose to use it
browsing social media or you choose to
spend it making our world a better place
to live
the choice is yours my friends thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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