as I go through life I am sure like many
of you I’ve often felt like a square peg
trying to fit into a round hole and as I
look around and found her around it
seems that everyone else fits in they
are the perfect circle’s that I feel
that I need to be the story of how to
fit in how to succeed how to change with
the times it’s definitely not a new one
yet it does feel like the pegboard has
changed a lot recently we now live in a
time where social media television
advertising hype the perfect
while they treat everything else
basically as hashtag laughable failure
this takes away our space to learn and
also I believe causes a lot of the
paralysis we see in society today as
reflected in this image we all have
paths to choose and while there are
plenty of quotes that tell us to embrace
our decisions and let our square light
shine for the circles to see it is often
very difficult and it’s been my
experience to find a toolkit to write
yourself when self-doubt and toxic
anxiety creeps in it is hard to remain
confident in your path
when these sunsets turn into a
thunderstorm I wanted to give this TED
talk today to hopefully help people
apply something that scientists use
routinely to do incredible and
world-changing discoveries and what I’m
referring to is the scientific method
and science I know but please don’t be
scared because this is really nothing
fancy and not much different than what
you used as a toddler to begin to
understand the world basically you make
an observation form a question around it
and then collect the facts the next step
then is used these to form a hypothesis
statement and just a way to test your
question this usually takes the shape if
X controls Y if I increase X Y will
increase or just to use this image for
an example we’d hypothesize that this
rep egg is round or X thus it will fit
or Y
in the in the round hole but not the
triangle so in this case X is the
independent variable what we change
where Y is the dependent variable what
we measure next step then is to conduct
your experiment analyze your data and
then form your conclusions this is the
way that discoveries move forward and as
long as you design a smart experiment
and conduct it correctly analyze the
data and then draw strong conclusions
you will learn something whether that
hypothesis was right or wrong I utilize
a scientific method and leading
laboratory where we look at how
transplant recipients respond to their
transplant this is a model that we often
use or a heart is removed from the donor
mouse and then transplanted into the
abdomen of the recipient Mouse by
connecting it to the major artery in
vein although this is not sustained the
life of the mouse that’s the other heart
endogenous heart does that it does keep
contracting so in this way we can answer
questions looking at the independent
variable here or X the treatments or the
conditions and how that impacts on the Y
what we measure the function so
basically this is my pegs my pegboard at
work this is the data then that we
generate with this and all it shows here
is the percentage of survival this is a
survival curve and the days post
transplant and just so you can get your
bearings on this type of figure when we
inject PBS our salty water into the mice
you can see 100% of the grafts are lost
by day 10 in this experiment what we
were asking was a question about whether
a protein naturally made by your body
that have been previously shown to be
protective in a mouse model of heart
attack by acting directly on the heart
tissue could protect a heart transplant
so our hypothesis was the sense il 33 is
directly protective on heart tissue it
will protect the graft and you can see
after transplantation of the hearts and
then we started to inject al 33 we did
see this nice protection
and increase survival in this mouse so
Eureka yet when we ask the second part
of our question was it acting directly
on that heart we use mice shown here
which lacked the receptor so the
recipients could not see il 33 but the
heart still could so in this case we
lost all the hearts so hashtag laughable
failure but when we followed up on that
this was actually the biggest discovery
what we had done when we followed up on
it as we had identified a new immune
population that could actually respond
to il 33 and tissue damage and so we’ve
followed up on that and now we hope we
can translate that into the clinic in
order to help people have better
outcomes after transplantation and while
medical discoveries are often reported
or perceived to be Eureka moments they
often are just that we had completed in
a heart transplant studies a little bit
of being right a little bit of being
wrong and tell you eventually their
answer your question or solve the
problem this man is Thomas Starzl he’s
often known as the father of
transplantation and he initiated early
attempts to deliver transplant into
people it is in the 1960s and the first
seven transplant recipients had a what
survived anywhere from zero to 23 days
this was such a laughable failure I
guess that tough Starzl and the
transplant community put a three year
ban on completing the procedure and it
was during that time it became obvious
to dr. Starzl that they needed to learn
more to quote him we had to go back to
the laboratory could we could not make
it work so in that three-year period
they tested hypotheses first around the
procedure and once they had a procedure
that would work it became quite obvious
they needed to block the recipients
immune system from destroying the grafts
similar to what you saw when those mice
lost their hearts by day ten over and
over year after year for decade after
decade they tested hypotheses develop
new drugs new procedures and eventually
they got to the point where in the 1960s
zero percent of the liver transplant
recipients made it to one year by the
1970s they were at fifteen percent today
one year survival after liver
transplantation
about 90% and the outcomes after that
are spectacular more importantly through
their persistence their passion using
the scientific method the procedures
they developed the drugs more than a
hundred thousand people each year
globally have their lives saved by solid
organ transplantation so this is truly a
remarkable achievement and a little
under fifty years so this is where we
are today we are now have moved on from
giving life-giving grafts to ones now
that are designed to improve the quality
of life for the recipient this is an D
sadness after a failed suicide attempt
and then on the right this is the same
individual falling a face transplant
completed in 2016 this was a multi day
procedure it was completed by around
sixty surgeons nurses doctors support
staff it was aided by 3d printed models
at the end of the day was expected to
cost around a million dollars it gave
the recipient the ability to smile to
taste to talk to smell but probably most
importantly to leave the house without
being a distraction so this is truly a
remarkable achievement and this gives an
example in one field of medicine about
what kind of advanced and prosperous
society we’re living in in fact these
kinds of discoveries are happening all
throughout medicine and in the last 50
years we have increased life expectancy
more than the prior 1000 it is safe to
conclude that as a human being living
today you will live a longer and
healthier life than at any time in the
earth however there are also other stats
that are emerging as shown here there
are plenty of people who feel depressed
and despondent approximately one out of
five Americans at some point in their
life irregardless of age will be
diagnosed with depression more
concerning is the increased rates and
suicides and as you can see in states
with the dark blue these have seen up to
40 and 50 percent increase in suicide
and unfortunately I think in this
country we often believe or hypothesize
that depression is result of failure
added trade of the week yet if we just
look a little bit it seems like the
people who we aspire to be the people
who hope our kids become are having the
same sort of troubles in fact if you
look a little bit closer it might
actually be worse for them medical
students and graduate students have a
two to three time rate higher rate of
depression and anxiety we’re all aware
of how weakly now we lose musicians
actors popular public figures to suicide
this picture for those of you who aren’t
aware as Michael Phelps he’s actually
the most decorated Olympian in history
he recently spoke quite bravely about
how in 2014 he came very close to taking
his own life because of depression
anytime you complete an experiment you
have to have the correct facts and
unfortunately I think in this country we
often are using facts that are skewed by
Instagram filters and then promote it on
Facebook I think often we choose to
ignore facts that don’t fit our existing
hypothesis or belief about success and
perfection I think it’s time that we
stop only listening to the people that
are trying to sell us the kits to change
square pegs into round ones
I also hope we can emit based on the
statistics and evidence that depression
anxiety and self-harm that comes with it
are important life-threatening illnesses
we live in a country we can celebrate
giving a person after a failed suicide
attempt a new lease on life with the
face transplant I hope very soon we can
celebrate the discoveries and innovation
that allow us to give the next person a
new lease on life
before they try to commit suicide this
is a picture from when I was in graduate
school this is me in the middle and if I
would have posted this picture on
Facebook had it been around but in it
I’m at a party it was called the $15.00
formal you had to dress yourself for $15
it was a great time you can see at that
time in my life I had good
friends I had a supportive family a
loving wife as a graduate student
actually owned a house had a great dog
things were going very well but in this
picture I’m suffering major depression
that very night I went home I was laid
in bed and I was paralyzed it to the
point that I could not even talk to my
wife it felt like I was going crazy and
I guess a little bit I had after a lot
of counseling and medication I mean
there were lots of things that were
driving this depression but through
those it really did stop the negative
voices are less than them that told me I
was not as good as everyone else I was
less than perfect also during that time
I felt very alone
I felt defective and it’s really
unfortunate that I did not start using
my developing researchers skills you
know why couldn’t I have looked up a few
things provided myself the stats but I
just been providing you if I would have
got out of myself just a little bit
looked around read up on a few things I
would have realized that I was not alone
in the medical stool the graduate school
that I was walking through one out of
three people probably felt just like me
would this have changed the depression
probably not but it would have changed
my hypothesis or my belief system around
it instead of thinking there is
something wrong with me I’m defective I
should hide it will go away
maybe instead I could have hypothesized
I have depression like a lot of people
if I do something about it it will get
better I guess an important thing to
remember anytime is that making sure we
are using the right facts not just the
facts that feel right at the time these
two pictures were posted on Facebook the
first on the left in the fall of 2015
the second on the right in 2017 and from
the smiles in the picture you would
never gather that in each instant a few
weeks later we had to seek treatment for
one of our daughters in for anorexia
associated with depression and anxiety
and we talked a lot to our daughters
during this time and the WordPerfect
kept coming up but you wouldn’t ask them
what it meant to be perfect you know
they wanted the perfect ABS the perfect
body as middle schoolers but when you
ask them what it meant to be perfect
they never had a solid answer and it’s
like how did you know when you get there
you know who told you and they never
really could provide an answer so I
guess they were just hoping to figure it
out before they starved or exercised
himself to death and if the first thing
you do when your 11 year old daughters
diagnosed with anorexia is of course
blame society you blame society for all
the attention that’s put on physical
appearance of women but at the end of
the day that really doesn’t stop that
nagging voice in your head that says you
failed as a parent and I hate to admit
it now but I did spend a lot of time
worrying about what people thought
thought of me thought of my daughter
thought of us as a family thought us a
so sperits you know it felt a lot like
graduate school again
I wanted it quickly and quietly to go
away my recovering daughter on the other
hand talked about it openly and honestly
with everyone she said it made her feel
a lot better when my second daughter was
diagnosed with anorexia it became quite
obvious we needed to find a way to pivot
away from paths that were being driven
by depression anxiety and anorexia to
unhealthy outcomes well again it did
feel like we had failed this time we
also admitted we had learned from the
last time we reached out sooner for
medical interventions we actually
honestly spoke and just really did not
worry about what people thought this
time around we talked openly and
honestly with it to people and our first
daughter was right it did feel a lot
better
so I guess who says if you can’t learn
things from your kids also when things
repeat it gives you the chance to do a
second experiment you get to reanalyze
your facts you get to adjust your
hypotheses and so this time we not only
questioned society’s role we begin to
begin questioning our own
wasn’t maybe the genetic material that
we passed on to our girls that set them
up for anxiety and depression was it
maybe our parent new style that help
foster anorexia and at the end of the
day after talking to specialists reading
up on it we had to come to the
conclusion that it was probably all of
the above and while it really did suck
to admit that you played a role in this
traumatic events your kids were going
through at the end of the day we came to
the realization this is just data we
have to use it to pivot to a better
outcome and by admitting our
imperfections it we became a lot better
equipped to actually help our girls
realizing that I was an independent
variable or an X in the Y or the things
my daughters were going through I became
empowered it became very obvious to me
that I could change X or myself in order
to see how it changed Y also through all
this I really have learned that
depression is quite common in girls my
daughter’s age and that anorexia is
increasing both in boys and girls in
this country and it is actually the most
lethal form of mental illness and while
these are scary facts to say scary facts
to think about often we have to accept
what I would like to leave you with
today is when you’re feeling overwhelmed
that self-doubt is creeping in give
yourself permission to step back treat
life as an experiment address the
questions understand the facts use good
facts understand the independent
variables including the emotions form a
hypothesis test it make your conclusions
give yourself a way to move forward
you’ve seen how in transplant medicine
scientist have used this to do
incredible world-changing discoveries my
hope for you is that you can use similar
strategies to allow yourself to do
better more confident pivots instead of
the impulse
and decisions that often creep in when
the thunderstorms roll in and most
importantly I hope it allow you to
better enjoy your imperfect life and the
imperfect people that fill it thank you [Applause]
of you I’ve often felt like a square peg
trying to fit into a round hole and as I
look around and found her around it
seems that everyone else fits in they
are the perfect circle’s that I feel
that I need to be the story of how to
fit in how to succeed how to change with
the times it’s definitely not a new one
yet it does feel like the pegboard has
changed a lot recently we now live in a
time where social media television
advertising hype the perfect
while they treat everything else
basically as hashtag laughable failure
this takes away our space to learn and
also I believe causes a lot of the
paralysis we see in society today as
reflected in this image we all have
paths to choose and while there are
plenty of quotes that tell us to embrace
our decisions and let our square light
shine for the circles to see it is often
very difficult and it’s been my
experience to find a toolkit to write
yourself when self-doubt and toxic
anxiety creeps in it is hard to remain
confident in your path
when these sunsets turn into a
thunderstorm I wanted to give this TED
talk today to hopefully help people
apply something that scientists use
routinely to do incredible and
world-changing discoveries and what I’m
referring to is the scientific method
and science I know but please don’t be
scared because this is really nothing
fancy and not much different than what
you used as a toddler to begin to
understand the world basically you make
an observation form a question around it
and then collect the facts the next step
then is used these to form a hypothesis
statement and just a way to test your
question this usually takes the shape if
X controls Y if I increase X Y will
increase or just to use this image for
an example we’d hypothesize that this
rep egg is round or X thus it will fit
or Y
in the in the round hole but not the
triangle so in this case X is the
independent variable what we change
where Y is the dependent variable what
we measure next step then is to conduct
your experiment analyze your data and
then form your conclusions this is the
way that discoveries move forward and as
long as you design a smart experiment
and conduct it correctly analyze the
data and then draw strong conclusions
you will learn something whether that
hypothesis was right or wrong I utilize
a scientific method and leading
laboratory where we look at how
transplant recipients respond to their
transplant this is a model that we often
use or a heart is removed from the donor
mouse and then transplanted into the
abdomen of the recipient Mouse by
connecting it to the major artery in
vein although this is not sustained the
life of the mouse that’s the other heart
endogenous heart does that it does keep
contracting so in this way we can answer
questions looking at the independent
variable here or X the treatments or the
conditions and how that impacts on the Y
what we measure the function so
basically this is my pegs my pegboard at
work this is the data then that we
generate with this and all it shows here
is the percentage of survival this is a
survival curve and the days post
transplant and just so you can get your
bearings on this type of figure when we
inject PBS our salty water into the mice
you can see 100% of the grafts are lost
by day 10 in this experiment what we
were asking was a question about whether
a protein naturally made by your body
that have been previously shown to be
protective in a mouse model of heart
attack by acting directly on the heart
tissue could protect a heart transplant
so our hypothesis was the sense il 33 is
directly protective on heart tissue it
will protect the graft and you can see
after transplantation of the hearts and
then we started to inject al 33 we did
see this nice protection
and increase survival in this mouse so
Eureka yet when we ask the second part
of our question was it acting directly
on that heart we use mice shown here
which lacked the receptor so the
recipients could not see il 33 but the
heart still could so in this case we
lost all the hearts so hashtag laughable
failure but when we followed up on that
this was actually the biggest discovery
what we had done when we followed up on
it as we had identified a new immune
population that could actually respond
to il 33 and tissue damage and so we’ve
followed up on that and now we hope we
can translate that into the clinic in
order to help people have better
outcomes after transplantation and while
medical discoveries are often reported
or perceived to be Eureka moments they
often are just that we had completed in
a heart transplant studies a little bit
of being right a little bit of being
wrong and tell you eventually their
answer your question or solve the
problem this man is Thomas Starzl he’s
often known as the father of
transplantation and he initiated early
attempts to deliver transplant into
people it is in the 1960s and the first
seven transplant recipients had a what
survived anywhere from zero to 23 days
this was such a laughable failure I
guess that tough Starzl and the
transplant community put a three year
ban on completing the procedure and it
was during that time it became obvious
to dr. Starzl that they needed to learn
more to quote him we had to go back to
the laboratory could we could not make
it work so in that three-year period
they tested hypotheses first around the
procedure and once they had a procedure
that would work it became quite obvious
they needed to block the recipients
immune system from destroying the grafts
similar to what you saw when those mice
lost their hearts by day ten over and
over year after year for decade after
decade they tested hypotheses develop
new drugs new procedures and eventually
they got to the point where in the 1960s
zero percent of the liver transplant
recipients made it to one year by the
1970s they were at fifteen percent today
one year survival after liver
transplantation
about 90% and the outcomes after that
are spectacular more importantly through
their persistence their passion using
the scientific method the procedures
they developed the drugs more than a
hundred thousand people each year
globally have their lives saved by solid
organ transplantation so this is truly a
remarkable achievement and a little
under fifty years so this is where we
are today we are now have moved on from
giving life-giving grafts to ones now
that are designed to improve the quality
of life for the recipient this is an D
sadness after a failed suicide attempt
and then on the right this is the same
individual falling a face transplant
completed in 2016 this was a multi day
procedure it was completed by around
sixty surgeons nurses doctors support
staff it was aided by 3d printed models
at the end of the day was expected to
cost around a million dollars it gave
the recipient the ability to smile to
taste to talk to smell but probably most
importantly to leave the house without
being a distraction so this is truly a
remarkable achievement and this gives an
example in one field of medicine about
what kind of advanced and prosperous
society we’re living in in fact these
kinds of discoveries are happening all
throughout medicine and in the last 50
years we have increased life expectancy
more than the prior 1000 it is safe to
conclude that as a human being living
today you will live a longer and
healthier life than at any time in the
earth however there are also other stats
that are emerging as shown here there
are plenty of people who feel depressed
and despondent approximately one out of
five Americans at some point in their
life irregardless of age will be
diagnosed with depression more
concerning is the increased rates and
suicides and as you can see in states
with the dark blue these have seen up to
40 and 50 percent increase in suicide
and unfortunately I think in this
country we often believe or hypothesize
that depression is result of failure
added trade of the week yet if we just
look a little bit it seems like the
people who we aspire to be the people
who hope our kids become are having the
same sort of troubles in fact if you
look a little bit closer it might
actually be worse for them medical
students and graduate students have a
two to three time rate higher rate of
depression and anxiety we’re all aware
of how weakly now we lose musicians
actors popular public figures to suicide
this picture for those of you who aren’t
aware as Michael Phelps he’s actually
the most decorated Olympian in history
he recently spoke quite bravely about
how in 2014 he came very close to taking
his own life because of depression
anytime you complete an experiment you
have to have the correct facts and
unfortunately I think in this country we
often are using facts that are skewed by
Instagram filters and then promote it on
Facebook I think often we choose to
ignore facts that don’t fit our existing
hypothesis or belief about success and
perfection I think it’s time that we
stop only listening to the people that
are trying to sell us the kits to change
square pegs into round ones
I also hope we can emit based on the
statistics and evidence that depression
anxiety and self-harm that comes with it
are important life-threatening illnesses
we live in a country we can celebrate
giving a person after a failed suicide
attempt a new lease on life with the
face transplant I hope very soon we can
celebrate the discoveries and innovation
that allow us to give the next person a
new lease on life
before they try to commit suicide this
is a picture from when I was in graduate
school this is me in the middle and if I
would have posted this picture on
Facebook had it been around but in it
I’m at a party it was called the $15.00
formal you had to dress yourself for $15
it was a great time you can see at that
time in my life I had good
friends I had a supportive family a
loving wife as a graduate student
actually owned a house had a great dog
things were going very well but in this
picture I’m suffering major depression
that very night I went home I was laid
in bed and I was paralyzed it to the
point that I could not even talk to my
wife it felt like I was going crazy and
I guess a little bit I had after a lot
of counseling and medication I mean
there were lots of things that were
driving this depression but through
those it really did stop the negative
voices are less than them that told me I
was not as good as everyone else I was
less than perfect also during that time
I felt very alone
I felt defective and it’s really
unfortunate that I did not start using
my developing researchers skills you
know why couldn’t I have looked up a few
things provided myself the stats but I
just been providing you if I would have
got out of myself just a little bit
looked around read up on a few things I
would have realized that I was not alone
in the medical stool the graduate school
that I was walking through one out of
three people probably felt just like me
would this have changed the depression
probably not but it would have changed
my hypothesis or my belief system around
it instead of thinking there is
something wrong with me I’m defective I
should hide it will go away
maybe instead I could have hypothesized
I have depression like a lot of people
if I do something about it it will get
better I guess an important thing to
remember anytime is that making sure we
are using the right facts not just the
facts that feel right at the time these
two pictures were posted on Facebook the
first on the left in the fall of 2015
the second on the right in 2017 and from
the smiles in the picture you would
never gather that in each instant a few
weeks later we had to seek treatment for
one of our daughters in for anorexia
associated with depression and anxiety
and we talked a lot to our daughters
during this time and the WordPerfect
kept coming up but you wouldn’t ask them
what it meant to be perfect you know
they wanted the perfect ABS the perfect
body as middle schoolers but when you
ask them what it meant to be perfect
they never had a solid answer and it’s
like how did you know when you get there
you know who told you and they never
really could provide an answer so I
guess they were just hoping to figure it
out before they starved or exercised
himself to death and if the first thing
you do when your 11 year old daughters
diagnosed with anorexia is of course
blame society you blame society for all
the attention that’s put on physical
appearance of women but at the end of
the day that really doesn’t stop that
nagging voice in your head that says you
failed as a parent and I hate to admit
it now but I did spend a lot of time
worrying about what people thought
thought of me thought of my daughter
thought of us as a family thought us a
so sperits you know it felt a lot like
graduate school again
I wanted it quickly and quietly to go
away my recovering daughter on the other
hand talked about it openly and honestly
with everyone she said it made her feel
a lot better when my second daughter was
diagnosed with anorexia it became quite
obvious we needed to find a way to pivot
away from paths that were being driven
by depression anxiety and anorexia to
unhealthy outcomes well again it did
feel like we had failed this time we
also admitted we had learned from the
last time we reached out sooner for
medical interventions we actually
honestly spoke and just really did not
worry about what people thought this
time around we talked openly and
honestly with it to people and our first
daughter was right it did feel a lot
better
so I guess who says if you can’t learn
things from your kids also when things
repeat it gives you the chance to do a
second experiment you get to reanalyze
your facts you get to adjust your
hypotheses and so this time we not only
questioned society’s role we begin to
begin questioning our own
wasn’t maybe the genetic material that
we passed on to our girls that set them
up for anxiety and depression was it
maybe our parent new style that help
foster anorexia and at the end of the
day after talking to specialists reading
up on it we had to come to the
conclusion that it was probably all of
the above and while it really did suck
to admit that you played a role in this
traumatic events your kids were going
through at the end of the day we came to
the realization this is just data we
have to use it to pivot to a better
outcome and by admitting our
imperfections it we became a lot better
equipped to actually help our girls
realizing that I was an independent
variable or an X in the Y or the things
my daughters were going through I became
empowered it became very obvious to me
that I could change X or myself in order
to see how it changed Y also through all
this I really have learned that
depression is quite common in girls my
daughter’s age and that anorexia is
increasing both in boys and girls in
this country and it is actually the most
lethal form of mental illness and while
these are scary facts to say scary facts
to think about often we have to accept
what I would like to leave you with
today is when you’re feeling overwhelmed
that self-doubt is creeping in give
yourself permission to step back treat
life as an experiment address the
questions understand the facts use good
facts understand the independent
variables including the emotions form a
hypothesis test it make your conclusions
give yourself a way to move forward
you’ve seen how in transplant medicine
scientist have used this to do
incredible world-changing discoveries my
hope for you is that you can use similar
strategies to allow yourself to do
better more confident pivots instead of
the impulse
and decisions that often creep in when
the thunderstorms roll in and most
importantly I hope it allow you to
better enjoy your imperfect life and the
imperfect people that fill it thank you [Applause]
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