[Music]
[Applause]
you
I recently heard a story about somebody
who works in an airport counter and
their job is to handle complaints from
passengers who’ve missed their flights
or whose flights have been delayed and
one day sick of hearing constant abuse
they looked over at the wheelchairs that
he used to assist passengers sometimes
and decided to wheel one behind the
counter and sit in it for a day just to
see what would happen and the angry
abuse would soon trail off into
politeness when people realize that they
were speaking to someone in a wheelchair
and as far as I know to this day that
person still sits in a wheelchair every
day at work you see we like to
categorize people and we think and feel
differently about those different
categories you know it might be
indifference or love or hate or fear or
sympathy or empathy but that’s our
natural behavior now when we think about
ideas that change the world we tend to
think first of technology we think of
the wheel or electricity or the
microchip and these are absolutely ideas
that have changed the world but
ultimately these are tools and it’s how
they use that that will make the biggest
difference to the world around us let’s
look at what’s broken in the world
around us we see justice we see
inequality we see violence and conflict
we see poverty and all of these things
are as a result of prejudice and that’s
why I propose that the greatest
challenge of our time is not actually
better technology I propose that the
greatest challenge of our time is
defeating prejudice in all its form
now prejudice means basically to
prejudge it’s to judge without evidence
and you wouldn’t be a very good judge if
you were to make a judgement without
looking at the evidence so a part of
that and what leads to prejudice is is
ignorant I know that you and I wouldn’t
make a big decision about something
without looking at the facts first would
we well let’s look at a recent example
the question was asked is the world
getting better now it’s a simple
straightforward question 3% of us
only 3% of us in Australia said yes
there’s 4% in the UK 6% in the u.s. now
let’s look at the data so this is the
worldwide trends from about 1980 to 2015
as a percentage of worldwide population
of people in extreme poverty and people
with access to basic education now these
graphs indicate that absolutely the
world is getting better and these are
representative of several other areas as
well like famines deaths by famines the
level of immunization against infectious
disease in developing countries etc the
list goes on the fact is that the world
absolutely is getting better now Oh
911 I watched 911 unfold on live TV and
it had a profound effect on me and on
that day it changed the way that I
thought and felt about Muslims in
America today people’s second greatest
fear is of a terrorist attack now we’re
going to look at some more data but
before I do I just want to say that one
person killed in a terrorist attack is
one too many
just like one person in extreme poverty
or one person without access to basic
education is one too many so there’s
absolutely a lot of work for us to do
and the world absolutely needs ideas to
change these things but let’s look at
the data so this is 46,000 dots on a
page and I’ve enlarged a portion of that
just to give you a sense of scale but in
your lifetime in the United States the
chances of being killed in a refugee
terrorist attack is not 1 in 46,000 it’s
1 in 46 million now that would mean that
there would need to be 1,000 of these
pages to represent those odds now let’s
look at some other statistics as a point
of reference in comparison to that you
are 6 times more likely to be killed by
a shark in America than by a refugee
terrorist attack and I’d say if that
guy’s about to jump in the water his
chances are probably
hire again you are four hundred and
seven thousand times more likely to be
killed in a car accident and if you
drive a convertible don’t wear a
seatbelt your chance is probably much
higher again but let’s look at the
statement your second greatest fear is a
something that has a 1 in 46 million
chance of happening in your lifetime it
seems crazy doesn’t it two years after
9/11 happened my wife and I went to
Thailand and we taught Muslim uni
students English for several months and
my perception and my category of Muslims
was completely shattered because the
people that I was spending time with
were far more like me than like somebody
capable of carrying out a terrorist
attack you see in our popular culture we
have the evil villain and they’re
one-dimensional and you know they’re
evil personified it brings out the
fanatic in us because we want justice to
be done we want nothing more than for
them to be destroyed and and when they
are we cheer and we’re constantly
getting this message through our our TV
shows now movies just like we’re
constantly getting negative media that’s
telling us the world’s getting worse
those stats that we saw earlier about
worldwide poverty and disease things
might be actually happening less but
being reported more and so we’re
constantly getting these messages
through through media through news that
are coloring and affecting our
perceptions I grew up in a home without
a TV and while that made me the weird
kid at school I’m actually grateful now
because it meant that I read a lot and
studies show that children that are
exposed to reading read to and read
themselves develop more empathy compared
to children who watch lots of TV who
actually develop less neuroscientists
would say that at a neurobiological
level reading about an experience causes
the same brain activity the same brain
patterns to take place as when you’re
actually experiencing that situation in
real life
the Egyptian writer and activist Allah
al Aswany who also happens to be a
Muslim writes that you a fanatic cannot
love literature why because when you
read a great novel and you’re inside
that character’s head you’re no longer
thinking about their nationality you
know thinking about their race or their
beliefs or the color of their skin
you’re only thinking about the human
being and so he argues that reading
great novels absolutely can make us
better human beings so I’m going to
propose a few things that we can do to
explore ideas to change the world and
the first one is to question
courageously now why courageously
because they’re questions that might
make us uncomfortable they’re questions
that might make people around us
uncomfortable because I think deep down
we have a sense of what prejudices we
already hold so let’s begin by asking
courageous questions let’s investigate
courageously so we’ve already seen how a
simple perception can be completely
shattered by looking at the data and we
have more data at our fingertips than we
ever have had before so let’s look at
the data what are our perceptions based
on our prejudices based on what’s the
data say read courageously and by that I
mean don’t just read books about people
like you and by people like you but find
autobiographies by people who think
differently to you who believe
differently to you who are in a
different environment to you that will
challenge your thinking and finally and
this is the most important thing that I
want to say today and that’s listen
courageously now it wasn’t until we
actually went and spent time with Muslim
people and heard their stories that that
our perceptions were changed but I want
to give you another example this is John
T and and he took us to a remote part of
Cambodia to show us temples that
tourists usually never get to see and
when we were there he he noticed on the
ground a something and he picked it up
and it
a mortar shell it’s like a propelled
grenade and he told us a story he said
that when he was a small boy him and a
friend of his were playing in a field
not unlike this one and they noticed one
of these on the ground and not knowing
what it was he went down and picked it
up and they began to play cap he throw
it to his friend and his friend threw it
back to him and he threw it to his
friend and it hit the ground and it
exploded and it killed him now I’d
question why Cambodia is the way it is
today I’d looked at the data I knew
their statistics
I knew the history I knew the conflict
but even read some powerful
autobiographies of survivors who had
been through the genocide but nothing
hit me like that moment erin morgenstern
talks about telling a tale that takes up
residence in your soul that becomes your
blood and purpose and who knows what you
might do because of that tale it becomes
your gift to give to the world and see
when Chanti told me that story they took
up residence in my soul just like many
other stories that I heard face to face
from Cambodian people you see I just saw
myself with a young friend of mine as a
young boy walking in a field and finding
something on the ground and I saw myself
reach down and pick it up and throw it
to my friend and it suddenly got really
real for me it orys like these see
there’s prejudices that cause that
grenade to be sitting there in that
field and there’s prejudices that exist
today around the world that cause the
same kind of scenario to play out it’s
hearing stories like shanties and the
other stories from Cambodians that
inspired my wife and I to start an
organization in Cambodia called milk and
honey
that works to empower Cambodians to make
a difference in their own country so can
a story really defeat prejudice let’s
look at a really challenging example
this is the israeli-palestinian border
and this is a young Palestinian boy and
he’s looking at an Israeli soldier now
for many boys his age the only Israeli
they might have ever seen would be a
soldier and this has been called the
intractable conflict lots of people have
tried to bring peace to this conflict
that’s raged on for over 100 years many
lives have been lost and there’s been no
peace one day a young Israeli woman
named Natalya picked up the phone to
call a Jewish friend of hers and she
accidentally dialed the wrong number and
a Palestinian man answered the phone now
instead of just hanging up straight away
she decided to listen courageously and
she had a conversation with him he told
her how their that they had access to
was rotting and how he was and about his
pregnant wife that he wouldn’t be able
to get her to a hospital to give birth
and as a result of that conversation
that young woman started an organization
called the parents circle and I love
that name because what better reason is
there for us to defeat prejudice and for
the world that our children will inherit
they started an initiative called the
hello peace phone line and basically a
Palestinian person could call an Israeli
person for 30 minutes for free or vice
versa and in the first five years of
opening that phone line they had over a
million conversations take place now
sure many of them would be yelling
matches and and and very emotional but
there were many long and lasting
friendships that were made between
Israelis and Palestinians as a result
there’s a young boy named Ali a young
Palestinian boy and he has diabetes
not unlike
a boy that we see pictured one of those
conversations were between his parents
and an Israeli family and that Israeli
family now brings life-saving insulin to
the border regularly for Ali so asked
early can a story really defeat
prejudice can a story really change the
world and so this story is there to be
told and so my challenge to you today is
not to go looking for ideas to change
the world go looking for stories and the
ideas will come there’s a time to look
at the data to question to investigate
to read but then let’s turn off our
devices let’s turn off the news turn off
our TVs close our books and go across
the street or go across the world and
get face to face with people who are
unlike us listen to their stories and as
those stories are told you then have a
responsibility
tell them to the world and when you do
you put yourself into those stories and
you make them available to a whole new
audience there’s nothing more powerful
that story told face to face like we’re
learning today
Brene brown said if we deny our stories
they define us but if we own our stories
we get to write a brave new ending thank
you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
you
you
[Applause]
you
I recently heard a story about somebody
who works in an airport counter and
their job is to handle complaints from
passengers who’ve missed their flights
or whose flights have been delayed and
one day sick of hearing constant abuse
they looked over at the wheelchairs that
he used to assist passengers sometimes
and decided to wheel one behind the
counter and sit in it for a day just to
see what would happen and the angry
abuse would soon trail off into
politeness when people realize that they
were speaking to someone in a wheelchair
and as far as I know to this day that
person still sits in a wheelchair every
day at work you see we like to
categorize people and we think and feel
differently about those different
categories you know it might be
indifference or love or hate or fear or
sympathy or empathy but that’s our
natural behavior now when we think about
ideas that change the world we tend to
think first of technology we think of
the wheel or electricity or the
microchip and these are absolutely ideas
that have changed the world but
ultimately these are tools and it’s how
they use that that will make the biggest
difference to the world around us let’s
look at what’s broken in the world
around us we see justice we see
inequality we see violence and conflict
we see poverty and all of these things
are as a result of prejudice and that’s
why I propose that the greatest
challenge of our time is not actually
better technology I propose that the
greatest challenge of our time is
defeating prejudice in all its form
now prejudice means basically to
prejudge it’s to judge without evidence
and you wouldn’t be a very good judge if
you were to make a judgement without
looking at the evidence so a part of
that and what leads to prejudice is is
ignorant I know that you and I wouldn’t
make a big decision about something
without looking at the facts first would
we well let’s look at a recent example
the question was asked is the world
getting better now it’s a simple
straightforward question 3% of us
only 3% of us in Australia said yes
there’s 4% in the UK 6% in the u.s. now
let’s look at the data so this is the
worldwide trends from about 1980 to 2015
as a percentage of worldwide population
of people in extreme poverty and people
with access to basic education now these
graphs indicate that absolutely the
world is getting better and these are
representative of several other areas as
well like famines deaths by famines the
level of immunization against infectious
disease in developing countries etc the
list goes on the fact is that the world
absolutely is getting better now Oh
911 I watched 911 unfold on live TV and
it had a profound effect on me and on
that day it changed the way that I
thought and felt about Muslims in
America today people’s second greatest
fear is of a terrorist attack now we’re
going to look at some more data but
before I do I just want to say that one
person killed in a terrorist attack is
one too many
just like one person in extreme poverty
or one person without access to basic
education is one too many so there’s
absolutely a lot of work for us to do
and the world absolutely needs ideas to
change these things but let’s look at
the data so this is 46,000 dots on a
page and I’ve enlarged a portion of that
just to give you a sense of scale but in
your lifetime in the United States the
chances of being killed in a refugee
terrorist attack is not 1 in 46,000 it’s
1 in 46 million now that would mean that
there would need to be 1,000 of these
pages to represent those odds now let’s
look at some other statistics as a point
of reference in comparison to that you
are 6 times more likely to be killed by
a shark in America than by a refugee
terrorist attack and I’d say if that
guy’s about to jump in the water his
chances are probably
hire again you are four hundred and
seven thousand times more likely to be
killed in a car accident and if you
drive a convertible don’t wear a
seatbelt your chance is probably much
higher again but let’s look at the
statement your second greatest fear is a
something that has a 1 in 46 million
chance of happening in your lifetime it
seems crazy doesn’t it two years after
9/11 happened my wife and I went to
Thailand and we taught Muslim uni
students English for several months and
my perception and my category of Muslims
was completely shattered because the
people that I was spending time with
were far more like me than like somebody
capable of carrying out a terrorist
attack you see in our popular culture we
have the evil villain and they’re
one-dimensional and you know they’re
evil personified it brings out the
fanatic in us because we want justice to
be done we want nothing more than for
them to be destroyed and and when they
are we cheer and we’re constantly
getting this message through our our TV
shows now movies just like we’re
constantly getting negative media that’s
telling us the world’s getting worse
those stats that we saw earlier about
worldwide poverty and disease things
might be actually happening less but
being reported more and so we’re
constantly getting these messages
through through media through news that
are coloring and affecting our
perceptions I grew up in a home without
a TV and while that made me the weird
kid at school I’m actually grateful now
because it meant that I read a lot and
studies show that children that are
exposed to reading read to and read
themselves develop more empathy compared
to children who watch lots of TV who
actually develop less neuroscientists
would say that at a neurobiological
level reading about an experience causes
the same brain activity the same brain
patterns to take place as when you’re
actually experiencing that situation in
real life
the Egyptian writer and activist Allah
al Aswany who also happens to be a
Muslim writes that you a fanatic cannot
love literature why because when you
read a great novel and you’re inside
that character’s head you’re no longer
thinking about their nationality you
know thinking about their race or their
beliefs or the color of their skin
you’re only thinking about the human
being and so he argues that reading
great novels absolutely can make us
better human beings so I’m going to
propose a few things that we can do to
explore ideas to change the world and
the first one is to question
courageously now why courageously
because they’re questions that might
make us uncomfortable they’re questions
that might make people around us
uncomfortable because I think deep down
we have a sense of what prejudices we
already hold so let’s begin by asking
courageous questions let’s investigate
courageously so we’ve already seen how a
simple perception can be completely
shattered by looking at the data and we
have more data at our fingertips than we
ever have had before so let’s look at
the data what are our perceptions based
on our prejudices based on what’s the
data say read courageously and by that I
mean don’t just read books about people
like you and by people like you but find
autobiographies by people who think
differently to you who believe
differently to you who are in a
different environment to you that will
challenge your thinking and finally and
this is the most important thing that I
want to say today and that’s listen
courageously now it wasn’t until we
actually went and spent time with Muslim
people and heard their stories that that
our perceptions were changed but I want
to give you another example this is John
T and and he took us to a remote part of
Cambodia to show us temples that
tourists usually never get to see and
when we were there he he noticed on the
ground a something and he picked it up
and it
a mortar shell it’s like a propelled
grenade and he told us a story he said
that when he was a small boy him and a
friend of his were playing in a field
not unlike this one and they noticed one
of these on the ground and not knowing
what it was he went down and picked it
up and they began to play cap he throw
it to his friend and his friend threw it
back to him and he threw it to his
friend and it hit the ground and it
exploded and it killed him now I’d
question why Cambodia is the way it is
today I’d looked at the data I knew
their statistics
I knew the history I knew the conflict
but even read some powerful
autobiographies of survivors who had
been through the genocide but nothing
hit me like that moment erin morgenstern
talks about telling a tale that takes up
residence in your soul that becomes your
blood and purpose and who knows what you
might do because of that tale it becomes
your gift to give to the world and see
when Chanti told me that story they took
up residence in my soul just like many
other stories that I heard face to face
from Cambodian people you see I just saw
myself with a young friend of mine as a
young boy walking in a field and finding
something on the ground and I saw myself
reach down and pick it up and throw it
to my friend and it suddenly got really
real for me it orys like these see
there’s prejudices that cause that
grenade to be sitting there in that
field and there’s prejudices that exist
today around the world that cause the
same kind of scenario to play out it’s
hearing stories like shanties and the
other stories from Cambodians that
inspired my wife and I to start an
organization in Cambodia called milk and
honey
that works to empower Cambodians to make
a difference in their own country so can
a story really defeat prejudice let’s
look at a really challenging example
this is the israeli-palestinian border
and this is a young Palestinian boy and
he’s looking at an Israeli soldier now
for many boys his age the only Israeli
they might have ever seen would be a
soldier and this has been called the
intractable conflict lots of people have
tried to bring peace to this conflict
that’s raged on for over 100 years many
lives have been lost and there’s been no
peace one day a young Israeli woman
named Natalya picked up the phone to
call a Jewish friend of hers and she
accidentally dialed the wrong number and
a Palestinian man answered the phone now
instead of just hanging up straight away
she decided to listen courageously and
she had a conversation with him he told
her how their that they had access to
was rotting and how he was and about his
pregnant wife that he wouldn’t be able
to get her to a hospital to give birth
and as a result of that conversation
that young woman started an organization
called the parents circle and I love
that name because what better reason is
there for us to defeat prejudice and for
the world that our children will inherit
they started an initiative called the
hello peace phone line and basically a
Palestinian person could call an Israeli
person for 30 minutes for free or vice
versa and in the first five years of
opening that phone line they had over a
million conversations take place now
sure many of them would be yelling
matches and and and very emotional but
there were many long and lasting
friendships that were made between
Israelis and Palestinians as a result
there’s a young boy named Ali a young
Palestinian boy and he has diabetes
not unlike
a boy that we see pictured one of those
conversations were between his parents
and an Israeli family and that Israeli
family now brings life-saving insulin to
the border regularly for Ali so asked
early can a story really defeat
prejudice can a story really change the
world and so this story is there to be
told and so my challenge to you today is
not to go looking for ideas to change
the world go looking for stories and the
ideas will come there’s a time to look
at the data to question to investigate
to read but then let’s turn off our
devices let’s turn off the news turn off
our TVs close our books and go across
the street or go across the world and
get face to face with people who are
unlike us listen to their stories and as
those stories are told you then have a
responsibility
tell them to the world and when you do
you put yourself into those stories and
you make them available to a whole new
audience there’s nothing more powerful
that story told face to face like we’re
learning today
Brene brown said if we deny our stories
they define us but if we own our stories
we get to write a brave new ending thank
you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
you
you
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