[Applause]
when I was that age I saw a documentary
about how rainforests were being
destroyed by milling machines leaving
destruction behind and I remember
feeling shocked and I couldn’t believe
that grown-ups would allow such a thing
and it woke up this inner warrior that I
had to do something to stop this so with
friends I collected money to buy a piece
of the rainforest and made a promise to
myself that as soon as I was old enough
I would go there to help and so I did I
went there to work as a volunteer and
when I was there I made another promise
to myself that when I became a real
grown-up I wanted a job that focused on
making the transition to a more
sustainable living on our planet
feasible and here we are sixteen years
later and so far I have done my very
best to deliver on my childhood and
teenage promises for the past decade I
have traveled the world trying to
highlight the amazing technology
solutions innovations policies that we
have available to take us to a more
sustainable future and I have felt like
a warrior on a mission fired up by a
strong sense of purpose of passion and I
think I felt exactly like many other
ambitious leaders entrepreneurs and
business people that that what I do is
so important that I have to do it all
the time but two years ago something
happened that stopped me in my tracks
completely and it led me to question my
mission my life and myself really it was
it was July 12 2015 and I had spent the
day bicycling in the forest with my
parents and my daughter who was 2 at the
time I remember it was a warm summer
Sunday we just gotten back and she and I
were jumping on our bed being being
silly when suddenly doing a hot fall I
hit my head so hot that I thought my
skull had exploded and my jaw was ripped
apart thankfully it wasn’t but I had
sustained a severe concussion whiplash
and sprained my neck and the doctors
called it a minor traumatic brain injury
but for me there was nothing minor about
it in a heartbeat I went from being this
warrior of passion to being in intense
pain couldn’t cope with anything
lights sounds moving objects were a
nightmare for my brain every little
sound the noise from the dishwasher the
cows outside the teakettle felt like
psychedelic heavy metal concert inside
my head and those noises became dreaded
terrifying noises because they would
often kickstart a series of anxiety
attacks and even keeping up a simple
conversation was so overwhelming for my
brain that I would get extremely dizzy
and nauseous and and tired even after
just a few minutes playing with my
daughter and making her breakfast
stressing her that kind of thing as a
mother mother wants to do was completely
impossible all I could cope with was
darkness and silence and rest and not
just for a few days or weeks but for
months on end and and I have this
default personality that when I
encounter a problem I want to find a
solution I want to come up with a
project plan and work my way through it
and this part of me had a really hard
time dealing with a broken body
frantically I try to search for some
kind of cure calling doctors googling
but but there were no cure only patients
and that was not a key strength of mine
I felt so lost this personality of mine
that wanted to go out there in the world
and and act and do would were completely
gone my perception of myself as a as a
leader a doer and most importantly a
mother was was just gone it was a
nightmare and I remember that this was
just a few months before the big climate
summit in Paris and for tree huggers
like me that is that is the Olympics I
mean this could be the event where world
leaders would finally gather to agree on
a new climate treaty and I really wanted
to be there I had to be there so one
final resort of finding a cure I went to
see a psychiatrist a psychologist in the
hopes that that she would help me get me
back on my path as quickly as possible
maybe she could help me get to Paris so
I went there and I remember at the end
of our for a session after having
listened to my acne and frustration and
eager to get back out and out in the
world again she looked at me and said
well I I know you care deeply about
sustainability I got that part and I get
that you are eager to get back but I
just have to ask you this do you think
you have left
your life sustainably so far and I
looked at her as as I didn’t really know
what she meant and and then started to
explain in many ways in which me and my
family were recycling buying organic not
owning a car that kind of thing she
looked at me again with this little
smile that at the time annoyed the hell
out of me and she said Laura you know
what I mean have you lived your life
sustainably from the inside out or are
you constantly running on an empty tank
I was a bit defensive and annoyed and
also a bit disappointed realizing that
she was not going to help me get to
Paris but a question did struck a nerve
with me and for the following days I
reflected a lot about my approach to to
life and work for the past 20 years I
thought back on the many times that
doing exams and leading up to big events
doing deadlines that I would always
ignore if I was feeling tired I would
just push my way through it and tell
myself that it was not a problem with
this hard work because I mean it was my
passion my purpose in life and we’re
told that that’s not a bad thing right
but for the first time in my life I
found myself in a situation where
pushing through was not an option my
brain and my body needed complete rest
to heal so I gave up the fight and
instead of joining my peers in Paris I
went on a silence retreat in the woods
and this decision of surrendering to
healing felt like free falling into an
own unknown deep darkness it was raw and
it was scary and my inner control freak
did not approve and nor did my ego there
was huge fear of of missing out of
becoming irrelevant of being forgotten
[Music]
after the silence retreat in the woods
followed months were slowly I started to
accept this new reality and my days was
spent taking a walk making a cup of tea
teaching myself how to meditate staring
into the wall doing physical training
for my neck and retrained my eyesight
another meditation another nap and
slowly i detoxed from this need of
constantly striving for the next big
goal and I came to accept that my body
was not a machine that I could borrow
for a SAP I learned to take really
really good care of myself and to be
honest this was new to me I have never
tried meditation before and the whole
concept of self-care was a luxury that I
had seen as a something I didn’t have
time for I mean we have so many problems
in the world to solve right our oceans
are filled with plastic temperatures are
rising and rainforests are being
destroyed and you want to go for a walk
in the Sun but those walks in the Sun
nature meditation became my medicine and
my cure
and
and slowly the internal despair the
frustration and the sadness was replaced
by a newfound peaceful way of being
grounded in my own body
I felt stronger and more content
satisfied I felt happier than ever and
it was mind-blowing because how could I
without the constant rush of achievement
I did nothing my former self would have
been proud of how could I be happier so
as soon as I was able to to read again I
was eager and curious to dig into the
science behind silence and meditation
and in my research I learned that
through a daily meditation practice we
developed this immense inner resilience
we improve our intuition our creativity
our ability to innovate we become much
more compassionate much more caring much
more patient and we actually become more
efficient because we’re so present with
the task at hand but on the other hand
when we rush through life never stopping
in our tracks we lose this inner
strength when workload becomes too heavy
this fire of passion can can eat us up
and and many break down and in my case I
believe my body had a really hard time
healing because it was not in a good
state when my injury happened
from science we know that when our
brains and our bodies are in a constant
state of stress we make decisions based
on fear and the irrational thoughts
thoughts we lose our temper much more
easily and we see competitors and
enemies instead of partners and friends
and we become addicted to things in our
external world too to make us feel
better we crave more than the fancy
title the big house the fancy car the
power of the praise and so this
never-ending addiction starts and in
that part of my research of course I
thought back to the words of my
psychologist because can we preserve
precious natural resources on our planet
when we have no clue how to preserve our
own and can we reduce mass consumption
and mass production when we constantly
work too much ourselves a few weeks ago
a friend of mine who works with
passionate social entrepreneurs told me
that stress and burnout and substance
abuse has become an increasing problem
and when you look on a global level the
reported stress level are increasing
each year and it’s especially bad among
Millennials and when you look around in
the world right now it’s it’s a global
epidemic epidemic and and it shows right
it shows in our leadership in the world
right now
and let me be very clear troops of
Wounded Warriors cannot fight to make
this world a better place it’s simply
impossible the quality of our work and
how we show up in this world depends on
the quality of what’s in here of our
inner thoughts and and don’t get me
wrong I mean passion is great and having
a strong sense of purpose is amazing but
if we don’t teach ourselves and our kids
to to tame that fire and slow down it
will burn us to the ground and what good
are we going to do from there
now that I have crawled out of my
recovery cave and slowly entering the
world again I still have to constantly
catch myself when the excitement over a
new idea gets the better of me but I do
catch myself I stop and I breathe and I
make sure that my days have space for a
meditation and a walk in the Sun I must
committed to my mission as ever but it
has changed slightly because I really
don’t believe we will ever succeed
building a desirable sustainable future
if we only focus on the solutions and
the technologies when the leadership and
the people who are going to implement
these solutions are not in a good State
I strongly believe that we need to
cultivate societies where our first
priority is to show compassion to
ourselves and to those around us
I strongly believe in a world where we
teach our kids meditation and the
importance of a strong inner connection
in schools and where our workplace keeps
that as a priority I’m excited to enter
the world again and I’m excited for this
next promise that I’ve made of
continuing my mission of building
resilient and sustainable societies but
with an equal focus on the importance of
inner sustainability in a sustainability
goes hand-in-hand with external
sustainability we can’t have one without
the other
and for you I I really hope then that
you don’t wait until your body stop you
in your tracks
please dare to slow down
and there to take breaks and first and
foremost there to connect with this in a
magic space of silence and of your
unique strengths thank you
[Applause]
when I was that age I saw a documentary
about how rainforests were being
destroyed by milling machines leaving
destruction behind and I remember
feeling shocked and I couldn’t believe
that grown-ups would allow such a thing
and it woke up this inner warrior that I
had to do something to stop this so with
friends I collected money to buy a piece
of the rainforest and made a promise to
myself that as soon as I was old enough
I would go there to help and so I did I
went there to work as a volunteer and
when I was there I made another promise
to myself that when I became a real
grown-up I wanted a job that focused on
making the transition to a more
sustainable living on our planet
feasible and here we are sixteen years
later and so far I have done my very
best to deliver on my childhood and
teenage promises for the past decade I
have traveled the world trying to
highlight the amazing technology
solutions innovations policies that we
have available to take us to a more
sustainable future and I have felt like
a warrior on a mission fired up by a
strong sense of purpose of passion and I
think I felt exactly like many other
ambitious leaders entrepreneurs and
business people that that what I do is
so important that I have to do it all
the time but two years ago something
happened that stopped me in my tracks
completely and it led me to question my
mission my life and myself really it was
it was July 12 2015 and I had spent the
day bicycling in the forest with my
parents and my daughter who was 2 at the
time I remember it was a warm summer
Sunday we just gotten back and she and I
were jumping on our bed being being
silly when suddenly doing a hot fall I
hit my head so hot that I thought my
skull had exploded and my jaw was ripped
apart thankfully it wasn’t but I had
sustained a severe concussion whiplash
and sprained my neck and the doctors
called it a minor traumatic brain injury
but for me there was nothing minor about
it in a heartbeat I went from being this
warrior of passion to being in intense
pain couldn’t cope with anything
lights sounds moving objects were a
nightmare for my brain every little
sound the noise from the dishwasher the
cows outside the teakettle felt like
psychedelic heavy metal concert inside
my head and those noises became dreaded
terrifying noises because they would
often kickstart a series of anxiety
attacks and even keeping up a simple
conversation was so overwhelming for my
brain that I would get extremely dizzy
and nauseous and and tired even after
just a few minutes playing with my
daughter and making her breakfast
stressing her that kind of thing as a
mother mother wants to do was completely
impossible all I could cope with was
darkness and silence and rest and not
just for a few days or weeks but for
months on end and and I have this
default personality that when I
encounter a problem I want to find a
solution I want to come up with a
project plan and work my way through it
and this part of me had a really hard
time dealing with a broken body
frantically I try to search for some
kind of cure calling doctors googling
but but there were no cure only patients
and that was not a key strength of mine
I felt so lost this personality of mine
that wanted to go out there in the world
and and act and do would were completely
gone my perception of myself as a as a
leader a doer and most importantly a
mother was was just gone it was a
nightmare and I remember that this was
just a few months before the big climate
summit in Paris and for tree huggers
like me that is that is the Olympics I
mean this could be the event where world
leaders would finally gather to agree on
a new climate treaty and I really wanted
to be there I had to be there so one
final resort of finding a cure I went to
see a psychiatrist a psychologist in the
hopes that that she would help me get me
back on my path as quickly as possible
maybe she could help me get to Paris so
I went there and I remember at the end
of our for a session after having
listened to my acne and frustration and
eager to get back out and out in the
world again she looked at me and said
well I I know you care deeply about
sustainability I got that part and I get
that you are eager to get back but I
just have to ask you this do you think
you have left
your life sustainably so far and I
looked at her as as I didn’t really know
what she meant and and then started to
explain in many ways in which me and my
family were recycling buying organic not
owning a car that kind of thing she
looked at me again with this little
smile that at the time annoyed the hell
out of me and she said Laura you know
what I mean have you lived your life
sustainably from the inside out or are
you constantly running on an empty tank
I was a bit defensive and annoyed and
also a bit disappointed realizing that
she was not going to help me get to
Paris but a question did struck a nerve
with me and for the following days I
reflected a lot about my approach to to
life and work for the past 20 years I
thought back on the many times that
doing exams and leading up to big events
doing deadlines that I would always
ignore if I was feeling tired I would
just push my way through it and tell
myself that it was not a problem with
this hard work because I mean it was my
passion my purpose in life and we’re
told that that’s not a bad thing right
but for the first time in my life I
found myself in a situation where
pushing through was not an option my
brain and my body needed complete rest
to heal so I gave up the fight and
instead of joining my peers in Paris I
went on a silence retreat in the woods
and this decision of surrendering to
healing felt like free falling into an
own unknown deep darkness it was raw and
it was scary and my inner control freak
did not approve and nor did my ego there
was huge fear of of missing out of
becoming irrelevant of being forgotten
[Music]
after the silence retreat in the woods
followed months were slowly I started to
accept this new reality and my days was
spent taking a walk making a cup of tea
teaching myself how to meditate staring
into the wall doing physical training
for my neck and retrained my eyesight
another meditation another nap and
slowly i detoxed from this need of
constantly striving for the next big
goal and I came to accept that my body
was not a machine that I could borrow
for a SAP I learned to take really
really good care of myself and to be
honest this was new to me I have never
tried meditation before and the whole
concept of self-care was a luxury that I
had seen as a something I didn’t have
time for I mean we have so many problems
in the world to solve right our oceans
are filled with plastic temperatures are
rising and rainforests are being
destroyed and you want to go for a walk
in the Sun but those walks in the Sun
nature meditation became my medicine and
my cure
and
and slowly the internal despair the
frustration and the sadness was replaced
by a newfound peaceful way of being
grounded in my own body
I felt stronger and more content
satisfied I felt happier than ever and
it was mind-blowing because how could I
without the constant rush of achievement
I did nothing my former self would have
been proud of how could I be happier so
as soon as I was able to to read again I
was eager and curious to dig into the
science behind silence and meditation
and in my research I learned that
through a daily meditation practice we
developed this immense inner resilience
we improve our intuition our creativity
our ability to innovate we become much
more compassionate much more caring much
more patient and we actually become more
efficient because we’re so present with
the task at hand but on the other hand
when we rush through life never stopping
in our tracks we lose this inner
strength when workload becomes too heavy
this fire of passion can can eat us up
and and many break down and in my case I
believe my body had a really hard time
healing because it was not in a good
state when my injury happened
from science we know that when our
brains and our bodies are in a constant
state of stress we make decisions based
on fear and the irrational thoughts
thoughts we lose our temper much more
easily and we see competitors and
enemies instead of partners and friends
and we become addicted to things in our
external world too to make us feel
better we crave more than the fancy
title the big house the fancy car the
power of the praise and so this
never-ending addiction starts and in
that part of my research of course I
thought back to the words of my
psychologist because can we preserve
precious natural resources on our planet
when we have no clue how to preserve our
own and can we reduce mass consumption
and mass production when we constantly
work too much ourselves a few weeks ago
a friend of mine who works with
passionate social entrepreneurs told me
that stress and burnout and substance
abuse has become an increasing problem
and when you look on a global level the
reported stress level are increasing
each year and it’s especially bad among
Millennials and when you look around in
the world right now it’s it’s a global
epidemic epidemic and and it shows right
it shows in our leadership in the world
right now
and let me be very clear troops of
Wounded Warriors cannot fight to make
this world a better place it’s simply
impossible the quality of our work and
how we show up in this world depends on
the quality of what’s in here of our
inner thoughts and and don’t get me
wrong I mean passion is great and having
a strong sense of purpose is amazing but
if we don’t teach ourselves and our kids
to to tame that fire and slow down it
will burn us to the ground and what good
are we going to do from there
now that I have crawled out of my
recovery cave and slowly entering the
world again I still have to constantly
catch myself when the excitement over a
new idea gets the better of me but I do
catch myself I stop and I breathe and I
make sure that my days have space for a
meditation and a walk in the Sun I must
committed to my mission as ever but it
has changed slightly because I really
don’t believe we will ever succeed
building a desirable sustainable future
if we only focus on the solutions and
the technologies when the leadership and
the people who are going to implement
these solutions are not in a good State
I strongly believe that we need to
cultivate societies where our first
priority is to show compassion to
ourselves and to those around us
I strongly believe in a world where we
teach our kids meditation and the
importance of a strong inner connection
in schools and where our workplace keeps
that as a priority I’m excited to enter
the world again and I’m excited for this
next promise that I’ve made of
continuing my mission of building
resilient and sustainable societies but
with an equal focus on the importance of
inner sustainability in a sustainability
goes hand-in-hand with external
sustainability we can’t have one without
the other
and for you I I really hope then that
you don’t wait until your body stop you
in your tracks
please dare to slow down
and there to take breaks and first and
foremost there to connect with this in a
magic space of silence and of your
unique strengths thank you
[Applause]
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