couple of days ago and I really love
Costa Rica
it’s beautiful landscape nice beaches
and a lot of Sun but I was most
interested into the people because the
people in Costa Rica belonged to the
happiest people worldwide so I asked
myself why are the people in Costa Rica
more happy than for example the people
in my home country and now I want to do
a little experiment with you so please
look in the face of your neighbor I
could do that now please stay serious so
please don’t smile and look right into
your eyes has everybody somebody so
please stay serious and so and now
please smile see how great it is to
smile at somebody and see how great it
is also if it feels really weird and a
little bit strange and uncomfortable
beginning when you smile at somebody and
you get a smile back you instantly feel
happier and you made the world a
slightly better place and this
experiment I usually do when I travel
around the world in every single country
it sounds a little bit weird but it’s
really simple and interesting so I
usually smile at strangers when I’m in
the subway when I’m walking on the
street and when I’m doing this here
usually people look at me really
confused and some of the people think I
think she’s insane but I keep doing that
and back in Costa Rica I smiled also to
a lot of strangers and what I’ve
experienced is that everybody smiled
back and 70% of all people and it also
rephrase Pura Vida which means
celebrating life or live a happy life or
I live a happy life so that was really
great and this is interesting human
happiness is usually driven by six
factors strong economic growth healthy
life expectancy generosity quality
relationships trust and a freedom to
live the
life that’s right for you so back in
Costa Rica I tried to talk to a lot of
locals in a really bad Spanish but they
were really friendly and then I figured
out after also reading some studies that
the most important factor or reason why
the Costa Rican people are so happy is
their importance of their social
interaction so social connections family
gatherings and taking the time for happy
moments and laughter with family and
friends overcomes their lack of income
and they don’t get into the trap of
overworking over spending or under
socialising and they have Wi-Fi and
smartphones they’re everywhere so I read
a lot of happiness reports and looked at
the other countries which are for
example much better than Germany and are
much more happy than Germany and what I
figured out is that social interaction
is really the main factor of human
beings being happy and for that like
urbanization and digitization change the
way we live today that’s clear like we
look at our smart phones we work on a
computer and it’s really challenging
your daily lives and more and more
people in more and more countries feel
lonely or socially disconnected or for
example as a well-known professor and
former tat speaker sherry Turkle sad we
feel connected but alone and loneliness
is a growing health epidemic so in
Germany 60 percent of all people feel
lonely and UK just appointed a minister
for loneliness one week ago because nine
million people in the UK feel lonely all
the time like really always or really
often so I wanted you to get that so UK
appointed a missed minister for
loneliness and loneliness also increased
the risk of mental and physical health
it increases also mortality so in other
words loneliness makes you sick and also
according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
which he published in 1943
in his paper a three array of human
motivation it’s on a third level like
social belonging social interaction is
really really important that I was
physical needs and so now you may ask
yourself and now as we know how
important social interaction is how we
can we improve that and how can we bring
it to everyday to our everyday life or
maybe to the day after tomorrow and we
all have a special superpower in
ourselves we have this power and it
makes our everyday life much more easy
and also creates more happy moments and
this special superpower is our
creativity so we all our creative in
ourselves so now I want to and so now I
want you to think back when you were a
child around the age of three to six and
now think about what you did with
somebody asked you to paint something on
a plain paper so for example I just took
that plain paper
I grabbed some colours and then I
started to paint and I was really happy
in the end with my result so I gave my
paintings to it as a present to all of
my families and friends and it was no
problem so I didn’t really think about
it and now keep this inner child in your
mind and think about social interaction
and how you made friends back to the
days I for example I just walked around
and when I thought okay this person is
interesting I just asked want to be my
friend or I shared my lunch or I shared
my favorite toys with somebody and then
them we were friends so when we asked
some children and there are also some
studies and when we asked him is social
interaction a problem for you many
children would say no so now come back
to today I have and now he had a little
time to think about it I have a plain
canvas with me today so who of you and
now please raise your hands would really
now start to paint something or has an
some of you but this is really
interesting because as an adults we lose
our creativity and we lose kind of our
imagination which makes it a little bit
harder for us to paint something we are
trapped in our daily routines and we
usually first think about okay what
should I paint on a 10 euro canvas that
maybe it’s worth double the value after
I painted it or what should I paint that
everybody things of you oh this is a
nice painting or how should the result
look like or we analyze okay should I
use which color should I use like what
feelings do I now have before we start
to paint and this is completely normal
when we are adults and not think about
how you interact with other people
nowadays and how to really make social
interaction today we have all channels
of digitization to connect with people
we have social media we have some apps
we have our smartphones and we are
always connected but it’s really hard to
get to know new people outside of work
environments isn’t it and this is also
something that we are kind of used to
that it gets harder and harder to get
new people we are we’re used to connect
with some me on a smartphone but we have
a fear to talk somebody directly on the
street or for example it’s a challenge
for you and it’s a challenge also for
everybody just to stock talks to
somebody who we do not know and this is
something now you maybe think why is she
talking about social interaction and
creativity all the time because I want
to give you the idea of how great social
interaction and creativity
the connection between like how great
the connection between both is and how
you can use your creativity as a kind of
superpower in your everyday life to
increase your social connections we’re
trapped as a set in daily routines we
does walk around and sometimes we do not
really experience and expect
that surprises because we plan
everything but think about not planning
at some time and think about how can I
do something else for example when you
think a girl or a guy is pretty and is
walking on the street or you maybe think
oh this person is really interesting
why not talking to them directly and
saying nicely hello and start a
conversation because we’re used today to
just swipe to the right and then we wait
until we get a positive reaction and we
get this reaction through our
smartphones that we written meet in real
life so that’s how it is today or we
keep using the same toothpaste like
years over years I do as well because
what work that worked and why should we
change it then but show us your
creativity creativity has no rules it
doesn’t matter how old you are it
doesn’t matter what kind of job you have
it doesn’t matter if you like it or
dislike it or somebody else likes it or
dislikes it it doesn’t matter how many
how much money you have or what you’ve
already achieved creativity has no rules
and that’s well why it’s so great for us
and why we should be much more creative
in our everyday life and give ourself
the freedom to be creative and we’ve
proved that like we’ve proved that the
connection between social interaction
and creativity is there and is a really
great tool i’ve co-founded a company
with my friend david one and a half
years ago and we analyze trends and
create event product out of them like
really mint product out of them to bring
people actively together and our first
event product is called art night so we
are doing painting workshops in bars and
restaurants 25 people around 25 people
come together in bars and restaurants so
you buy your ticket online then you go
there with a friend alone or with your
partner and then there’s a local artist
which guides you through the evening and
shows you how to paint something on a
plain canvas and we really believe in
creativity and art as a great tool to
connect people and it
years over years and we started to
assemble in one and a half years ago and
we’ve grown now all over Germany and we
will hit Europe this year so we see how
important is this and that people will
like it and have fun but what’s really
funny is that we’ve we experienced the
same manners of human interaction in
every single event like it’s the same
all the time
so imagine you booked the ticket and you
go there alone or as a friend you come
into the restaurant and now there’s your
first challenge so there are a lot of
playing canvas let’s build up next to
each other like really closely so you
have to choose a seat next to somebody
you don’t know so people just walk in
and then I grab a drink first and then I
think okay now I have to choose a seat
it’s a little bit uncomfortable but then
they do they don’t say hello to each
other
so it’s really it doesn’t really happen
often that people really say hello to
other strangers who also participate in
this workshop and then when if took a
seat the artist starts to guide them
around so they start the artist they
start to tell you how to make some
colors hard to start your painting how
to do the first brush paint on your
painting and people also feel really
uncomfortable about that so a lot of
people just ask okay artists like how do
you mix with how many percentage of red
and what kind of percentage of yellow do
you mix exactly this orange so they fear
they unknown and they follow exactly
every single step the artist tells them
and what then is really interesting is
that we experience a change after 10 to
15 minutes people open up and they use
some colors and they start and in stop
following the artist and it just do and
follow their flow so once they realize
that following their flow is not bad and
nothing bad happens and they’re starting
to having fun they feel much more
relaxed and they really create nice
paintings out of that and also at the
same time when they get more creative
and more open-minded about it they start
to talk to each other they really
start to talk to each other they talk
about colors they talk about their
paintings how did you mix that and they
start about talking and doing random
conversation nobody any of our
participants and you see there have
different ages and different jobs but
nobody really talks about their jobs or
about the problems they had because
they’re so open mind it’s just have some
funny conversation a nice evening do
something that relaxes your brain which
works effectively all the time and
solution orientated and this is really
nice and this is an effect that shows us
that’s really great to bring creativity
and social interaction together and
usually all the people who then finish
their evening after work and painted
something they go home really happy so
now you may ask yourself how can I use
my creativity to increase social
interaction in my daily life and what I
can say is try to break with your daily
routines and challenge your creativity
for example call in sick and drive with
a car to a place you’ve never been or
for example make chocolate cake for
dinner say more often yes instead of no
or for example on your way to work just
keep your smartphone in your pocket and
talk to some strangers or even smile at
some strangers and you will see
incredible things will happen but
pursuing new ways of life is always
about daring and daring to live a
creative life needs always one
stipulation and this is we must lose the
fear of being wrong and we should not
forget to smile thank you [Applause]