you today since as you’ve just heard
I haven’t spoken for a week I just
finished a week long voice cleanse and I
wasn’t sure if my voice is gonna work
very well if it was gonna crack like a
thirteen-year-old boy or something like
that but seems to be working so let me
tell you about what I’ve learned first I
want to talk about my general philosophy
about big hairy audacious goals and how
we can incorporate them into our lives
for self awareness and self improvement
this year I set out to do three big
hairy audacious goals or be hags
the first was a seven-day food cleanse
where I cut out all food as taking away
one of my basic human needs of air water
food and shelter to put my life in
perspective and to appreciate the little
things I take for granted the second be
hag I did was running the Grand Slam as
was mentioned I’m a runner I run about
an hour a day and I set out to do the
Grand Slam ultra series which is a set
of the four original 100-mile races in
the United States and running them all
all within 11 weeks I did it in 109
hours which if you break it out is about
24 hours per race except for the last
one which was super hard had 29,000 feet
of climbing was at high altitude crazy
but I was able to test the limits of my
endurance and have some of the most
cathartic moments of my life
both of these be hags were painful
physical and transformative experiences
and so for my next be hag I wanted to do
something along the lines of sensory
deprivation specifically not talking and
we talk all the time and take it for
granted so I knew that not talking for a
week would require extreme discipline
and concentration
I also knew that I’d have to incorporate
this into my normal life as opposed to
going away to a meditation retreat for a
week or somebody that in order to get
the real experience that I wanted so not
talking was actually really frustrating
just a simple fact that I’m standing
here today probably tells you that I
like to talk and I have to talk a lot in
my job I’m a venture capitalists in
Silicon Valley and I hear a lot of
people talk and pitches and and calls
all week I’m on the board of a games
company in Finland called next games and
we had a board call with people around
the world and it’s really hard to do a
board call when you can’t talk but what
it was I emailed the CEO in advance and
told them that I would email him
questions as they came up and he read
them aloud and it worked pretty well
I’m also pitched a few times a day by
entrepreneurs who are raising money
similar to shark tank but in real life
and I had a small whiteboard and I was
just write down questions on it and it
worked pretty well what I found is that
communication became pretty efficient I
was very terse in what I wrote I
typically wrote in about 140 characters
partially because my whiteboard was
small but also because I’m a big fan of
Twitter and I think you’re able to say
what you want to say in less words in
many cases actually my twitter is at San
Francisco BC so if you want to follow me
you can follow me it’s a little plug I
also found that people talk less when I
was doing the voice fast and more
specifically they were very to the point
which was great and sometimes they
actually were able to look at my
gesticulation
and figure out what I was gonna say and
I didn’t have to complete my sentence
also I found I was a better listener by
not talking I had to listen more and I
always tried to listen more and be a
better listener when it comes to
personal and professional relationships
because when you really listen to
somebody you’re telling them you
appreciate them
and what they’re saying also better
listening is better business one of my
business partners always says you should
have big ears in a small mouth and what
he’s saying is that people often
negotiate against themselves when it
comes to business knowing when to be
silent in business is actually a pretty
big skill I think we can all appreciate
the importance of listening to
leadership skills as well I also found
that I had a much less stressful week
generally it was just quieter as I said
people talk to me less but also I didn’t
hear the sound of my own voice and on
average we speak about 15,000 words per
day that’s a lot and there’s a lot of
noise and there have been studies that
show that noise pollution activates the
amygdala portion of your brain which
causes a release of stress hormones
there have also been studies that show
that a few minutes of prolonged silence
throughout the day are much more
relaxing than listening to soft music as
shown by decreased blood flow in the
brain and lower blood pressure I think
the most stressful part of my whole week
though was trying to figure out how to
rehearse this talk without actually
talking it’s really hard but I had great
sleep and there been studies that show
that a few minutes of silence throughout
the day lead to lower insomnia and much
better sleep I found myself alone of my
thoughts throughout the day and one of
the hardest things was actually not
talking to yourself I don’t talk to
yourself yes you do we all talk to
ourselves even though we may not realize
it but it’s really you’re very acutely
aware of it when you do a voice fast I
also found that my other senses were
heightened I could really hear what
people were saying both literally and
metaphorically I could also sometimes
see what they’re about to say before
they said it by looking at the nonverbal
communication
and their facial expressions I was also
really aware of my own breathing you
know we take about 20,000 breaths a day
and when you really focus on your
breathing it’s pretty relaxing it’s sort
of like a yoga class but without the
stretching and if you’re like me you
probably need to stretch more because
I’m totally inflexible
there are also some real medical
benefits to voice fasting extensive
studies have shown that a few hours of
prolonged silence lead to brain cell
regeneration in the hippocampus part of
your brain the part that’s responsible
for learning and memory also when you’re
awake but you’re don’t have external
stimuli your brain goes into default
mode which basically allows yourself to
process the experiences you’ve had and
convert them into learnings and key
takeaway it’s an important part of your
day so I don’t know if I’ll do a voice
fast again probably not it was really
hard and frustrating for a lot of people
but I had some key takeaways I became a
better communicator in many ways I was
better at listening I had a much less
stressful week I slept great
I relied on my other senses and I knew
there’s some real medical benefits but
more than anything I was really excited
to just set a goal and achieve it I
think it’s a really important thing that
we do in our lives for many people their
goals are to pay their rent or send
their kids to school for others goals
are less defined and sometimes they’ve
already been accomplished in some ways
these types of be hags are first-world
person’s problem of or manufacturing
pain in order to gain some wisdom for me
it’s about setting a goal and achieving
it as part of my lifelong goal of
personal improvement I highly recommend
setting a be hag in one of your lives
and for this didn’t see where it takes
you thank you [Applause]