asleep felt most alive
was it when you watched on TV and home
before going to bed for three hours and
playing video games or was it going to
work upon the same bar and go to every
weekend or was it when you took a big
risk when you walked up to a stranger
and said hi and it suddenly became
friends or when you wanted a spontaneous
trip having no idea what might happen or
when you took on a seemingly
insurmountable challenge and ended up
overcoming it three years ago when I
graduated University I had never felt
more lost my entire life I knew exactly
what I had to do go to school get good
grades and I thought that by the time I
graduate I know exactly what I wanted to
do but the reality was quite the
opposite I never felt more confused and
so I end up doing the exact opposite of
what I should have done which was
sitting at home in front of my computer
just fine for jobs watching watching
movies I don’t work at the bar on the
corner and in my mind this was just
temporary I was gonna figure this out of
this is just a temporary phase in my
life I’m gonna figure out what I want to
do and I’m gonna do it I have a quickly
week turned into a month which turn it
into four and then something terrible
but also incredible happened to me I was
walking down the street coming back from
the same grocery store I walk to every
single day and I ran into a friend I
hadn’t seen in a while
and he asked me a man would you do last
weekend I stood there for a second and I
could remember he not a very crazy like
this by Visio and kind of laughed it off
awkwardly and we walked in separate
directions and I couldn’t stop thinking
about it I I can’t remember what I did
five days ago what I realized was that
all my weeks I started to look exactly
the same it’s fallen into a routine and
kind of turn on autopilot
do the same thing over and over again
and the worst thing that could possibly
happen to humans that happen to me I’ve
become comfortable and the reason why
that terrified the crap out of me it’s
because what happens when you become
comfortable is the time and life just
flies by you forget what it feels like
to be in a situation that makes your
heart race or your palms sweat or give a
speech in the country that you’ve never
been in before and but then a few weeks
after that I ended up meeting max and he
felt the same way I did and we decided
to make a list of all the things that
scared us talking strangers we’ve done a
comedy getting our ears pierced fear of
heights and decided to dedicate one
month for one summer doing tackling one
of those fears of discomforts every
single day and the result was that we’d
never felt more alive I’m actually still
wearing the pierced thing I got on the
second day I haven’t taken out a single
time it’s probably like nothing but I
want to be remind that every single time
I look myself in the mirror of what we
do and why we do it and piercing is kind
of becoming that for me and and the best
part about all this that we didn’t need
a lot of money to do most of these
things it kind of felt tricked by
commercials because the commercials in
the Bahamas
a nice card a big house to be happy but
we had just spent an entire month
completely broke my strangers couch and
had the best month of our lives all
right so that’s me on top of the
mountain butt-naked and I’ll explain why
so as Thomas explained that we’ve been
doing this for three years now and after
three years we start to ask yourself why
am I doing this like how does this make
sense and why do
Edna’s every single adventure make me so
happy to make us all so happy and have
to do a little research and look into it
we came across an idea and that idea is
this it’s that every single one of you
but you know at us right now you are a
living breathing hunter-gatherer stuck
in an age of robots our vacations are
planned like scripts for actors our
schools our workplaces are scheduled to
the dots our meals are at the same time
and their same meal every single day but
if we look back 12,000 years at who we
were where were we hunter-gatherers we
were nomads without fixed homes
omnivores without straight diet plans
explorers without Google Maps the 12,000
years ago we got a super dope gift a
great gift it looked great and it was
comfort it was agriculture it was a
fixed home a fixed house the grocery
store down the street the gym that you
go to every morning the school one the
workplace that you go at nine o’clock
and leave at five o’clock but what we
didn’t know what happened was that this
comfort would make us extremely unhappy
and that’s what had happened to us we
developed the routine and so many people
and society today attack that by
medicating themselves whether it’s
alcohol drugs antidepressants
anti-anxiety meds mood suppressors
painkillers you name it and then we
realized there was a problem and the
problem lies in the fact that we forgot
our evolution we forgot our roots we
forgotten that our ancestors roamed
under the hot Eastern African Sun not
knowing whether they’d get food not
knowing whether they’d make it water but
not knowing whether they’d survive
there’s a great author named esteem
Toledo and he wrote consider that all
the wealth of the world cannot buy a
liquid as pleasurable as water after
intense thirst and by our very nature
were built to be thirsty thirsty for
risk taking for adventure for
exploration experimentation for trying
new things it’s how we evolved and so
the mantra of si
discomfort which we live by is a mantra
that goes hand in hand with humanity
because we are natural-born discomfort
seekers so that feeling you get when you
walk up to that stranger or walk up to
that girl that you really want to talk
to you and your hearts pounding or
you’re on stage and it’s terrifying it’s
so natural and it’s so pure that when
it’s over the number one thing you can
describe it as is human because that’s
what you’re supposed to do another part
of being human is or Homo sapiens is the
fact that we are supposed to be a tribe
we’re supposed to be in groups and for
us that’s why it’s felt so natural doing
all that crazy stuff together as a group
and sharing those experiences it’s also
why we love taking strangers with us for
those of you who watch our videos a lot
of them involve asking strangers to go
skydiving with us or a bunch of jumping
with us or throwing a party at their
house randomly that night and part of
the reason is because we want them in
our tribe but the other part of the
reason is because we want to disrupt
their routine – because maybe they’ve
been working at a nine-to-five for the
last three years and they just need a
little wake up and by saying yes just
once to us to our crazy request maybe
it’ll spark that thing inside of them it
says you know what maybe I should say
yes more to my gut to what my heart
wants and maybe my life can be so much
more memorable because every time you go
on these experiences I’m telling you it
makes life lasts so much longer like
these last two to three years have been
the longest of our lives on this stage
today it was supposed to be Thomas and I
and tomorrow I co-founder of his series
you saw the videos unfortunately a mark
not make it due to personal reasons but
we decided that instead of having it
just us – with us – bore you guys that
we would disrupt a stranger’s day just
like we always do and just like we’ve
been doing for the last three years so
literally two days ago we went out in
the street and with Amara walked up to
strangers and asked
would you take his ticket to Panama fly
out here get up on this stage with us
and tell your story to this audience now
public speaking is a pretty terrifying
thing I think it’s considered like the
most terrifying thing for people so it’s
a big ass you know especially in a
country like a foreign country and then
sorry this is what happened me and my
two best friends were inviting the TEDx
top and Panama’s
Cup on Sunday so the personal reasons I
can’t go anymore
so we thought about what a better way to
extreme on yesterday’s people then get a
stranger to say yes going onstage with
these guys gentlemen please welcome our
my name is Logan and I broke newzealand
and this is my good friend jasmine and
I pulled someone whose opinion I really
valued and she was not happy she said
are you crazy this is dangerous
there’s many other reasons you have
things too you know priorities and it
was at this point where I was like oh my
goodness have I made the right decision
like I might change my mind if Y not a
person had told me that this was crazy I
definitely would have seen known is it a
while of how one person can change
everything one person coming up to you
on the street and asking you to do
something fun and one person telling you
don’t do that it’s dangerous so I mean
with my guts and the good vibes and ICDs
so lately I’ve been working on myself my
inner self with a life coach and she
puts me in uncomfortable situations and
challenges me every day so that I can
learn about myself sometimes I laugh and
sometimes I am filled with anxiety and
fear and I’m crying and I don’t want to
do this because it is so much easier
just to be mediocre and be safe so you
don’t need to worry about fear and
failure but I didn’t want to do that so
for the past six months I’ve been
working with a life coach on my inner
self and if I hadn’t gone through that
journey is no way I would have said yes
to these guys no way in my life I’ve had
a lot of people say oh no that’s too
expensive
that’s really hot ooh a lot of people
have tried it and failed so I moved to
the USA from New Zealand six months ago
and it was the biggest scariest thing I
have ever done and I’m so glad that I
did it because I met this wonderful
woman Desmond who pushes me out of my
boundaries and helps me to be bold and
and why not right why not be bold and
and go outside your boundaries
why not ask for what you want in life
because what’s the worst that can happen
you get an arm but what if you get it
yes you literally could be flying to
another country with three random
strangers and the branch sir because I
meant in spirit I have decided to
challenge myself to say yes more often
and be bold and be brave and I challenge
all of you to do the same
so what does yes dearie mean does it
mean saying yes to everything but
definitely not fat did that once with
pink hair springs in a pink dress and we
sent him to Mexico I wouldn’t recommend
that I don’t think Matt would recommend
it so what should you take away walking
away from this do you have to quit your
job and drop out of school and travel
the world again definitely not some of
you might do that and that’s fine but
you don’t have to do that to live the
yes theory live the yes Theory means
consciously making time to doing things
you’ve never done before
maybe cutting a little TV or skipping a
night out at the bar and instead going
on a nature hike you’ve never been on
the floor or signing up to a new dancing
class and learn how to dance or walk up
to a stranger and say hi or pack at 10
in the back of the car with a few
friends start driving south and just
figure it out the point is that you
don’t need to make a drastic decision in
your life to live the yes theory you can
do it after school after work or on the
weekends and I promise you that by
seeking this comfort you’ll never feel
more alive so I hope that the next time
a friend asks you to go on a spontaneous
adventure they’ll say yes [Applause]