so I want to start with a little
experiment are you up for it okay I
would like you to think of your greatest
idol you know that one person that you
really respect and you wouldn’t really
want to be and I’m talking about your
idol I want you to think beyond your
profession your family your country have
you thought of that person now I’d like
you to think about the one value that
that person really embodies that you
really respect and admire what is that
one amazing value now a lot of people
aren’t sure what it could be so I’ve
just given you some ideas here’s some
ideas of some of the values that I’ve
come across it might be one of these
values it might be something else you
got that value okay now being completely
honest with yourself ask yourself how
much of your life right now
and who you are right now is about that
one value how much does it govern your
life just paused to think about that so
for me I have to tell you I struggled
with balance all my life as a kid values
for me were fun curiosity excitement
guess what it was for my parents study
study study
so I struggled through school just about
passing doing loads of other fun things
and it got to the stage where I had to
go to university and I had to choose
what to do at university what did I
really want to do what I valued was arts
and entertainments when my parents going
to agree with that No so I thought
engineering they would love that
but I would absolutely die so I had to
find something that was in the middle my
balance between me and my parents I came
up with
something amazing oceanic geography
oceanic geography it’s a science right
and how much fun would it be to go in a
submarine under the ocean and sail the
seven seas so I went to my dad who was
the rule maker of the house and I said
to him dad
I’ve decided what I’m doing at
university it’s oceanic geography my dad
looked at me and he said one dinar I
will say this only once you have three
options doctor lawyer or accountant did
you hear that noise that was my
submarine crashing to the bottom of
bananas ocean along with all her other
discarded life choices not one to be
outdone resilient I tried one last filmy
dialogue with my dad I said to my dad
I’ll do whatever you want just give me
one year to do whatever I want now he
didn’t say like in the movie jaw Vanda
Nadja julieopp nasally but he did give
me that one year off and during that one
year i did some really amazing things i
deejays on local radio which was so
successful because we had loads of
listeners however the radio station went
bankrupt pretty quick so I went home and
talked to my dad and told him what had
happened and he said to me you know what
I said you know Vandana if you had been
a chartered accountant you could have
saved that company check mate so I gave
in I did accountancy I became a
chartered accountant and to my surprise
I found myself absolutely excelling at
double-entry bookkeeping balancing
balance sheets balancing anything that
needed balance but something didn’t add
up you see I was in the City of London
and like every single other metropolis I
would see thousands of men every day and
hundreds of women looking absolutely
miserable going to work except on a
Friday night or at Christmastime when
they were really happy why were they so
miserable and more importantly why
weren’t we measuring what made them
happy so I went and spoke to my
professors at University who were all
male most of the professors at that time
were and they told me that Vaughn and
are a balance sheet for a company is
about everything they own and everything
they owe and the profit and loss account
is how we use all of that to make money
everything else is intangible or
valueless even a committed loyal
motivated workforce without which that
company wouldn’t have a balance sheet
and wouldn’t actually exist but the
surprising thing is over the last 20
years I’ve traveled around the world and
it’s exactly the same the balance sheet
rose so in my spare time the writer in
me came out and I started writing about
alternate worlds what could the world be
like if it was different if we changed
the rules could we alter happiness so I
had to find the rule makers first who
were the rule makers who governed our
world and there was one answer and it
was one syllable and it was men now the
following statement is not meant to be
divisive it’s based on fact 80% of
history has been written by men and
about men over the last 2,000 years 80%
of religion 80% of legislation 80% of
scientific advancement has been written
by men about men on topics that men have
found interesting or important it’s not
good or bad it’s just the way it was
it’s a male-dominated way so in my spare
time I created a world that was 80%
female and I started thinking about what
would go on to their balance sheets
how would they control how would they
operate now you may think that that’s a
really alien concept but actually that’s
not true
did you know across the world there are
women tribes that are thriving very
successfully from the moe so in China
where they have what’s known as walking
marriages where the women choose their
lovers commit polygamy without stigma
there’s a tribe called the Tuareg in
Africa where the men cover their face
not the women out of shame and of course
in India we have the garo and the kasi
tribes they inherit the girls inherit
not the men but we don’t hear about them
perhaps because their version of power
and control is different so I wrote
these stories and to anecdotally
validate some of my ideas I did some
social experiments
I asked different groups professional
men millennial men professional women
and children aged 13 to 14 to do two
things
firstly to come up with their core
values what was important to them and
secondly to say if there was a world
that is was and had always been 80%
female
what would the values of that world be
and I asked them specifically to look at
lifestyle education governance and
business I’d like you to come and take a
walk with me through those worlds
welcome to the professional women’s
version of this world now in this world
it’s extremely peaceful it’s extremely
green women choose to live either
individually or in communes it’s up to
them there’s no school the community
does the teaching for the children there
is scientific advancement but not for
war for health and exploration because
peace is the most important thing and
decreasing crime there is a lot of
gender equality there’s proportional
representation for the small proportion
of men and in this
there’s a barter system where they
bought the material goods with emotions
and values which leads to food and
shelter for everyone the biggest
business in this world luxury spas
health and wellness so that’s the
women’s world let’s move on to the
Millennial men’s version of this world
it’s very clean this world and it’s the
mums who go to work every day looking
absolutely gorgeous with their jewelry
which is made from eco-friendly mining
in this world core values raw so there
are lower margins for profits and a huge
amount of greater corporate social
responsibility in this world there is
conflict but there’s a new definition of
a cold war it’s where two countries do
not talk to each other and in this world
the Millennial men believe there will be
rational practical female dictators
which in their opinion is a great thing
gender equality the jury’s out they’re
not really sure whether there would be
or whether men would need reservation
most likely men would be at home cooking
and cleaning and looking pretty
miserable
according to millennial men this is a
world of fat lazy male sperm donors ouch
okay let’s move on and look at the
children’s version let’s take a peek
over here well in this world there is no
religion there is no inequality there is
no gender discrimination in fact there
are no differences according to these
kids these kids were born and brought up
in India the one thing this place does
have though is beautiful sanitation
extremely important now because women
love to cook and feed people there are
thousands of amazing food few scenes all
over the country and all over the world
and there’s plenty of time to listen to
amazing music and dream dream really big
lofty thoughts in this world there’s no
school they’re taught by the
community with experiential learning and
there’s a much greater emphasis on
literature and much less on science
it’s a barter system again where
wellness is there for all and a really
other beautiful thing about this world
is it is a world without borders where
there’s less rivalry much more freedom
and women follow rules and principles so
let’s now go to the men’s version in the
men’s work version whilst women have
gone from being hunters snares in
exactly the same way they would have
done in this world they’ve grown up to
trade in exactly the way we do here
except there’s one difference we don’t
have huge heist skyscrapers in this
particular world why because women are
weak can’t carry heavy weights so all
the buildings are one floor only as you
can see in front
women look absolutely beautiful because
according to these men women only dress
for women not for men and fashion is
huge cue the designer Nike heels in this
world the women are well into
self-development in fact obsessively so
so much so that the elderly and the
children are actually abandoned and men
are kept on leashes gender
discrimination and EQ are important to
the women in some places so we do see a
better emphasis of life skills with
parents involved much more with the
teaching of children and at the end of
the day they do believe that there might
be a need for reservation conflict would
be there but that’s ok it would just be
handled as part of life now that got me
thinking in these social experiments we
got some great insights um a lot of the
problems of a male-dominated world were
solved but a lot of new problems came up
which meant the balance lights somewhere
between if you think about balance and
if you think about what’s really
important to all these people what we
see is that if we stand up for our
values the world starts to change so
what I did was I took all the values and
I put them together and I overlapped
them in a diagram that I call the hearts
of value so you can see the four groups
over here and you can see how the values
they have overlap what you see at the
center is caring and empathy being in
somebody else’s shoes that was the most
important thing aside from the kids
inclusion was really important perhaps
for the kids it wasn’t there because at
the end of the day at their age they
don’t know what it’s like to be excluded
and it was brilliant to see the
commonalities between male Millennials
and professional women when I started
this journey and I looked at this idea
of balance it freaked me out because I
thought we were all so different but
actually we’re not and we can see that
clearly here so where do we go from here
well clearly the balance sheet isn’t
doing it clearly the balance sheet isn’t
measuring what we really feel is
important somewhere across our journey
of life we’ve forgotten to value
prioritize and measure what really is
important to us is it because we don’t
think that we can measure these things I
want to tell you there’s an organization
called the International Accounting
Standards Board who has worked out how
to measure the quality of footballers
oil reserves share options research
development and anything because
industry has put pressure on it so how
do we think that we can’t measure these
things is it that these values aren’t
important to us they are important to us
remember your value from right at the
beginning so I ask you all at this
moment to start unraveling to start
unbar
Singh to start turning society’s norms
on their head because if you do if you
really focus on what you value perhaps
together with our shared values we can
recreate a world that doesn’t just work
for some of us it works for all of us
thank you
[Applause]
experiment are you up for it okay I
would like you to think of your greatest
idol you know that one person that you
really respect and you wouldn’t really
want to be and I’m talking about your
idol I want you to think beyond your
profession your family your country have
you thought of that person now I’d like
you to think about the one value that
that person really embodies that you
really respect and admire what is that
one amazing value now a lot of people
aren’t sure what it could be so I’ve
just given you some ideas here’s some
ideas of some of the values that I’ve
come across it might be one of these
values it might be something else you
got that value okay now being completely
honest with yourself ask yourself how
much of your life right now
and who you are right now is about that
one value how much does it govern your
life just paused to think about that so
for me I have to tell you I struggled
with balance all my life as a kid values
for me were fun curiosity excitement
guess what it was for my parents study
study study
so I struggled through school just about
passing doing loads of other fun things
and it got to the stage where I had to
go to university and I had to choose
what to do at university what did I
really want to do what I valued was arts
and entertainments when my parents going
to agree with that No so I thought
engineering they would love that
but I would absolutely die so I had to
find something that was in the middle my
balance between me and my parents I came
up with
something amazing oceanic geography
oceanic geography it’s a science right
and how much fun would it be to go in a
submarine under the ocean and sail the
seven seas so I went to my dad who was
the rule maker of the house and I said
to him dad
I’ve decided what I’m doing at
university it’s oceanic geography my dad
looked at me and he said one dinar I
will say this only once you have three
options doctor lawyer or accountant did
you hear that noise that was my
submarine crashing to the bottom of
bananas ocean along with all her other
discarded life choices not one to be
outdone resilient I tried one last filmy
dialogue with my dad I said to my dad
I’ll do whatever you want just give me
one year to do whatever I want now he
didn’t say like in the movie jaw Vanda
Nadja julieopp nasally but he did give
me that one year off and during that one
year i did some really amazing things i
deejays on local radio which was so
successful because we had loads of
listeners however the radio station went
bankrupt pretty quick so I went home and
talked to my dad and told him what had
happened and he said to me you know what
I said you know Vandana if you had been
a chartered accountant you could have
saved that company check mate so I gave
in I did accountancy I became a
chartered accountant and to my surprise
I found myself absolutely excelling at
double-entry bookkeeping balancing
balance sheets balancing anything that
needed balance but something didn’t add
up you see I was in the City of London
and like every single other metropolis I
would see thousands of men every day and
hundreds of women looking absolutely
miserable going to work except on a
Friday night or at Christmastime when
they were really happy why were they so
miserable and more importantly why
weren’t we measuring what made them
happy so I went and spoke to my
professors at University who were all
male most of the professors at that time
were and they told me that Vaughn and
are a balance sheet for a company is
about everything they own and everything
they owe and the profit and loss account
is how we use all of that to make money
everything else is intangible or
valueless even a committed loyal
motivated workforce without which that
company wouldn’t have a balance sheet
and wouldn’t actually exist but the
surprising thing is over the last 20
years I’ve traveled around the world and
it’s exactly the same the balance sheet
rose so in my spare time the writer in
me came out and I started writing about
alternate worlds what could the world be
like if it was different if we changed
the rules could we alter happiness so I
had to find the rule makers first who
were the rule makers who governed our
world and there was one answer and it
was one syllable and it was men now the
following statement is not meant to be
divisive it’s based on fact 80% of
history has been written by men and
about men over the last 2,000 years 80%
of religion 80% of legislation 80% of
scientific advancement has been written
by men about men on topics that men have
found interesting or important it’s not
good or bad it’s just the way it was
it’s a male-dominated way so in my spare
time I created a world that was 80%
female and I started thinking about what
would go on to their balance sheets
how would they control how would they
operate now you may think that that’s a
really alien concept but actually that’s
not true
did you know across the world there are
women tribes that are thriving very
successfully from the moe so in China
where they have what’s known as walking
marriages where the women choose their
lovers commit polygamy without stigma
there’s a tribe called the Tuareg in
Africa where the men cover their face
not the women out of shame and of course
in India we have the garo and the kasi
tribes they inherit the girls inherit
not the men but we don’t hear about them
perhaps because their version of power
and control is different so I wrote
these stories and to anecdotally
validate some of my ideas I did some
social experiments
I asked different groups professional
men millennial men professional women
and children aged 13 to 14 to do two
things
firstly to come up with their core
values what was important to them and
secondly to say if there was a world
that is was and had always been 80%
female
what would the values of that world be
and I asked them specifically to look at
lifestyle education governance and
business I’d like you to come and take a
walk with me through those worlds
welcome to the professional women’s
version of this world now in this world
it’s extremely peaceful it’s extremely
green women choose to live either
individually or in communes it’s up to
them there’s no school the community
does the teaching for the children there
is scientific advancement but not for
war for health and exploration because
peace is the most important thing and
decreasing crime there is a lot of
gender equality there’s proportional
representation for the small proportion
of men and in this
there’s a barter system where they
bought the material goods with emotions
and values which leads to food and
shelter for everyone the biggest
business in this world luxury spas
health and wellness so that’s the
women’s world let’s move on to the
Millennial men’s version of this world
it’s very clean this world and it’s the
mums who go to work every day looking
absolutely gorgeous with their jewelry
which is made from eco-friendly mining
in this world core values raw so there
are lower margins for profits and a huge
amount of greater corporate social
responsibility in this world there is
conflict but there’s a new definition of
a cold war it’s where two countries do
not talk to each other and in this world
the Millennial men believe there will be
rational practical female dictators
which in their opinion is a great thing
gender equality the jury’s out they’re
not really sure whether there would be
or whether men would need reservation
most likely men would be at home cooking
and cleaning and looking pretty
miserable
according to millennial men this is a
world of fat lazy male sperm donors ouch
okay let’s move on and look at the
children’s version let’s take a peek
over here well in this world there is no
religion there is no inequality there is
no gender discrimination in fact there
are no differences according to these
kids these kids were born and brought up
in India the one thing this place does
have though is beautiful sanitation
extremely important now because women
love to cook and feed people there are
thousands of amazing food few scenes all
over the country and all over the world
and there’s plenty of time to listen to
amazing music and dream dream really big
lofty thoughts in this world there’s no
school they’re taught by the
community with experiential learning and
there’s a much greater emphasis on
literature and much less on science
it’s a barter system again where
wellness is there for all and a really
other beautiful thing about this world
is it is a world without borders where
there’s less rivalry much more freedom
and women follow rules and principles so
let’s now go to the men’s version in the
men’s work version whilst women have
gone from being hunters snares in
exactly the same way they would have
done in this world they’ve grown up to
trade in exactly the way we do here
except there’s one difference we don’t
have huge heist skyscrapers in this
particular world why because women are
weak can’t carry heavy weights so all
the buildings are one floor only as you
can see in front
women look absolutely beautiful because
according to these men women only dress
for women not for men and fashion is
huge cue the designer Nike heels in this
world the women are well into
self-development in fact obsessively so
so much so that the elderly and the
children are actually abandoned and men
are kept on leashes gender
discrimination and EQ are important to
the women in some places so we do see a
better emphasis of life skills with
parents involved much more with the
teaching of children and at the end of
the day they do believe that there might
be a need for reservation conflict would
be there but that’s ok it would just be
handled as part of life now that got me
thinking in these social experiments we
got some great insights um a lot of the
problems of a male-dominated world were
solved but a lot of new problems came up
which meant the balance lights somewhere
between if you think about balance and
if you think about what’s really
important to all these people what we
see is that if we stand up for our
values the world starts to change so
what I did was I took all the values and
I put them together and I overlapped
them in a diagram that I call the hearts
of value so you can see the four groups
over here and you can see how the values
they have overlap what you see at the
center is caring and empathy being in
somebody else’s shoes that was the most
important thing aside from the kids
inclusion was really important perhaps
for the kids it wasn’t there because at
the end of the day at their age they
don’t know what it’s like to be excluded
and it was brilliant to see the
commonalities between male Millennials
and professional women when I started
this journey and I looked at this idea
of balance it freaked me out because I
thought we were all so different but
actually we’re not and we can see that
clearly here so where do we go from here
well clearly the balance sheet isn’t
doing it clearly the balance sheet isn’t
measuring what we really feel is
important somewhere across our journey
of life we’ve forgotten to value
prioritize and measure what really is
important to us is it because we don’t
think that we can measure these things I
want to tell you there’s an organization
called the International Accounting
Standards Board who has worked out how
to measure the quality of footballers
oil reserves share options research
development and anything because
industry has put pressure on it so how
do we think that we can’t measure these
things is it that these values aren’t
important to us they are important to us
remember your value from right at the
beginning so I ask you all at this
moment to start unraveling to start
unbar
Singh to start turning society’s norms
on their head because if you do if you
really focus on what you value perhaps
together with our shared values we can
recreate a world that doesn’t just work
for some of us it works for all of us
thank you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: