WEBVTT

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Host: One here, please.

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Ken Hughes: This will
cost you 10,000 euros.

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(Laughter)

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Good afternoon. 


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As a playologist,
I'd like to encourage you all

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to look deeper to find that spark
of creativity that lies within us all

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and let it out.

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I want you to imagine for a moment
that you are dead.

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It's not the most inspiring way
to start a talk, I know.

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(Laughter)

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You follow that white light, through,

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you come out into a warehouse,

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an empty hangar,

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and on the ground in front of you

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are thousands of Polaroid photographs
lined up one after the other in a row.

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Each photograph represents
a day of your life, a life just ended.

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And now you walk.

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You walk along those photographs,
looking at the various memories.

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You remember your first day at school.

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I'm not too sure
I quite understood school;

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I think I thought I was emigrating.

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(Laughter)

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So you walk on,

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and you walk past your first kiss.

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This one isn't me, by the way,
this is a stock image.

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I didn't hire a photographer 
to hide in the trees

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to record my first kiss - I wish I had.

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So you walk past all these big days:

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the day you graduated university,
the day you got married.

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You remember all these big days
as you walk along these rows.

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There'll be some memories you walk past,
each day that you remember.

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There'll be small things like the day
your eight-year-old son and his friend

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took your brand new Converse runners

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and filled them
with mashed banana for a joke.

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These days will stand out to you.

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And on your walk - my point is this:

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each photograph on the floor 
in front of you is a unique day.

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The photograph is the thing
that happened on that day

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that was different
to every other day of your life.

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Different from before and from after:

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the new thing that you learnt,
the new experience you had.

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In the early years
as a child or a teenager,

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the pictures are quite interesting

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because when you're young,
you're adventurous; you flirt with risk.

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But I want you to think about those rows

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that represent your late
20s, 30s, 40s, 50s,

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the days that become a routine,

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days slipping into weeks,
into months, into years.

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You do the same thing every day:

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you get up, you go to school
or college, your work,

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you come home, you sit on the TV.

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These days, think about the photographs,

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and how many of those
photographs are black.

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Blank because you didn't do
anything that day that was unique

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that you had never ever done before.

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Think of the rows and rows of photographs

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as you walk along
that are completely blank.

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A life that could have been full
of all sorts of new experiences,

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new skills, new people, new places,

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but it was just a routine life.

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A life lost to the routine.

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It's a little bit depressing, isn't it?

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And such are the thoughts
of a man facing his midlife crisis.

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This year I turned 40.

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Now, I know I don't look it;

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I drink the blood of virgin unicorns
every morning at dawn.

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(Laughter)

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But nevertheless,
half my life is potentially over.

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Now at the same time, 
while I'm having my midlife crisis,

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my father, who is a healthy 73, 


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he's having his - I guess
you could call his end-of-life crisis.

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It's the same as mine
except he is more concerned

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with things like when the day 
does actually come,

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how many fireworks I'm going
to be able to sneak into his coffin

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before it's sealed for the crematorium.

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Because he thinks this will be great fun.

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He's that kind of guy.

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So we got talking about time
last Christmas,

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and he was having a conversation 
with me that started with,

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"I remember being 65, and now I'm 73,

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"I have no idea where the last
eight years have gone."

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He said that time seemed 
to be moving much faster

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now that he was older,
and I started to laugh.

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I thought, "What? 
You're blissfully retired.

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All you do every day is drink coffee 
and do some gardening.

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Surely your days stretch out 
in front of you slowly, and time drags."

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But apparently not.

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He said that no, time slips past 
faster and faster,

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the less you do, oddly,
the faster time passes.

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For most of us, time
is a mental construct really.

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You look back on a week
or month or year that just passed,

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and really it's your memories
that you are using

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to decide how effective that time was.

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So I wondered if that was true.

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If my father was right, and he usually is,

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what would happen if you reversed that?

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If you filled your days 
and your weeks with new things,

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could you, in fact, slow down time?

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Just take an average day.

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An average day has a start and an end.

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So think about it as two fixed points,

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like two pins in a cork board,
the morning and the night.

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And take a piece of string,
and run that string from morning to night,

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and let's take that as your average day.

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And on to that average day, 
we will put things.

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We put things that we do every day:

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we get up, we have our breakfast,

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we commute to work or college,
we spend the day in the office,

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and even the things we do on occasion,
maybe every week or two,

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like that yoga class or soccer training,

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these are things
that are routine in our lives.

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So eventually, each day, each week

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becomes this quite
predictable straight line.

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Morning to night, day after day, 
week after week.

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And I started to think, 
"I wonder if you took something new,

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a brand new experience
that you'd never ever done

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and dropped that pin 
into that notice board,

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that's a new point that that string
has to go round on that day.

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So you clearly are going to need
a longer piece of string.

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Same fixed points, morning and night.

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Your day hasn't actually got longer.

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But what you do within that day,
you are going to bend time.

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And that's the concept.

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I give you Time Bending:

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bending the time you already have,

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stretching time, 
to make more out of your life.

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So on the first of January this year,

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I set out to complete 
a 365-day experiment.

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Could I spend an entire year

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where every single day
I did a new experience,

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something that I have never 
ever done before?

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Could I bend time? Could I stretch time?

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So I decided to keep a journal,

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and every day I had to have written
something in that journal

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that I had done that day that was unique
and I'd never ever done before.

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And that challenged me.

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And If I lost just
one day along this year,

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I failed the entire experiment.

NOTE Paragraph

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At the beginning
of course, it's quite easy.

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We all have things
that we've wanted to do in our life

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that we have yet to do.

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It's like your bucket list.

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Those are the first things you do.

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It's easy, so eventually I learnt
to cut my daughter's hair.

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I then went on that mountain 
bike extreme course

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that a friend of mine 
has been asking me to do for years,

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and I never went with him, so I did it.

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I finally did that half-marathon 


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that I had been threatening
to sign up to for years but I never had.

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So I just did it.

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Then I spent four weeks
with a physiotherapist

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because it turns out
that you can't do a half-marathon

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on 10 days' training, who knew?

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(Laughter)

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But I'd never been
to a physiotherapist before.

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New experience!

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Herniated disk, new experience!

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(Laughter)

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So, the weekends are easy

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because the weekends
you have the time already.

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So you go to the local reptile zoo,
and you find your hand shooting up

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when they ask for someone 
to hold the tarantula.

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You go on a basket-weaving course
to learn how to weave baskets.

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You let your children and their friends 
paint you green from top to bottom,

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and you take part, uninvited,
in the local Saint Patrick's Day parade.

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(Music) (Laughter)

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You know? Why wouldn't you?
Why would you need an invite?

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So, these are easy; these are big things 
and these are weekends,

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because you have the time.

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But the trick of the experiment
is to do this in your normal life,

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your Monday to Friday,
your home, your office.

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These are the days that are harder.

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You've got to look for things to do
that you've never done before.

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So one day you're in a hotel,
and they run out of pain au chocolat,

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so you decide, "OK, I'm going
to make my own pain au chocolat

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with croissants and chocolate cereal
from the breakfast table for the kids."

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Small things.

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You take the DVD that your wife
has done all the time for aerobics.

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You've seen her do it hundreds of times,
but you've never done it,

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so you do her aerobics DVD.,

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You make shadow portraits 
from the 18th Century

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because you read it in a book.

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And this one, you watch your six-year-old
daughter paint your toe nails,

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and you say, "How did I get to be 40
and never had my toe nails painted?"

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(Laughter)

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And this one, she painted my toenails

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and no joke - this is one
of the best things I did all year!

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For two weeks I woke up every morning,
swung my legs out of bed and laughed!

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(Laughter)

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It was like having M&Ms for toes!

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(Laughter)

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And I put my socks on and I...

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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It gets better.

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I put my socks on
and of course you'd forget.

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Of course you'd forget.

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And you go about your business,
you'd work all day,

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and at the end of the day
you take your socks off and go,

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"Ha! M&Ms!"

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(Laughter)

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And for two weeks I smiled
and I laughed twice a day,

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and I thought to myself, "You know what?
This is it, this is what life is about!"

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We need to be reminded 
on a continuous basis

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to live a better life, to live a life 
that could be more full.

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And when you open a packet of biscuits
you could just eat them,

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or you could build a Jenga Tower
and play biscuit Jenga.

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How many people have played
biscuit Jenga in your life?

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Probably never, and now you all will.

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These things are so simple,

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and what you learn about yourself

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is that you can live a life that's closed
or you can live a life that is open,

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open to a world 
of possibilities around you.

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Now I would never walk 
past a notice board without stopping

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and reading what events are on
in the community that I can go to.

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I was the only man 
in the Zumba class last week.

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(Laughter)

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What's on? What have I not
done yet? What can I do?

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You'll be surprised how much
there is to do in your life,

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in your own community, in your own home.

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You just need to open yourself
to all these possibilities.

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So yes, I've walked on fire,
I've done big things,

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I've eaten frogs' legs
which I'd never done before,

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I helped deliver a new born lamb,
which was beautiful.

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When the first winter snow fell
the first thing I thought about

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was taking all my clothes off
and rolling naked down the hill.

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And what you realise
is that you feel so alive

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when you open up to all these experiences.

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When you start to look at the world
as a new place to do things,

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you are amazed at what 
the world can offer you.

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And you become addicted.

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Every day I had my new experience.

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Many days three or four experiences,
I became addicted to it.

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What was interesting
is as I became addicted, so did others.

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People watching me on social media
or having conversations with me

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got sucked in.

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Time Bending is infectious.

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It's like gravity; it'll pull you in.

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So when I sent a message to a friend

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saying I was going to the beach
to do some beach art,

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suddenly we had five, 10, 15 people
all coming with me.

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When I posted the video 
of the spray-cream challenge on my face,

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about six or seven people did the same 
that day up on Facebook.

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You know, I have signed up
for a 5K mountain run,

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which, by the way, they call a sport.

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it is not a sport, it's torture.

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(Laughter)

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Three or four friends came with me.

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Haven't spoken to me since,

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(Laughter)

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but that's another story.

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When I went flyboarding,
everyone who saw the video thought,

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"Where can I do that? 
I want to sign up for that, too!"

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So people got sucked in to this idea.

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And you'd be amazed 
how open other people are also.

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We had a dinner party

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where we asked all our friends to wear
their wedding dresses one last time.

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(Laughter)

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How many women in the room, in the world

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have a wedding dress
they have worn once and never again?

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And you give people an opportunity,
and suddenly, no problem! Bring it on!

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And you'll, again, realise,
during this experiment,

00:11:48.361 --> 00:11:50.532
just how often you say no.

00:11:50.532 --> 00:11:53.363
Do you know how often
you all say no in life every day?

00:11:53.363 --> 00:11:56.003
People say, "Can you come
to this" or "I'm doing that,"

00:11:56.003 --> 00:11:59.883
and you say, "Yeah, I'd like to, but hmm,
I don't know or I don't, hmm, know."

00:11:59.883 --> 00:12:00.967
You hesitate.


00:12:00.967 --> 00:12:03.309
When you are a Time-Bender,
you have to say yes.

00:12:03.309 --> 00:12:06.985
Because this could be the day that passes,
that nothing happens in your life,

00:12:06.985 --> 00:12:08.329
and you fail the experiment.

00:12:08.329 --> 00:12:11.332
So you say yes to everything,
to anything that comes your way

00:12:11.332 --> 00:12:13.524
to make sure that this one day
you don't fail.

00:12:13.524 --> 00:12:14.989
Now, this is dangerous,

00:12:14.989 --> 00:12:18.441
because your friends learn this,
that you will do anything.

00:12:18.461 --> 00:12:19.461
(Laughter)

00:12:19.481 --> 00:12:21.627
And then on your 
suggestion wall on Facebook,

00:12:21.627 --> 00:12:23.204
they start making you do things.

00:12:23.204 --> 00:12:26.827
Like Shane, who suggested that I drink
my own urine out of a champagne flute.

00:12:26.837 --> 00:12:28.157
(Laughter)

00:12:28.357 --> 00:12:30.111
Or I was made get a tattoo.

00:12:30.111 --> 00:12:32.974
I don't like tattoos; I have a tattoo.

00:12:33.004 --> 00:12:34.664
(Laughter)

00:12:35.354 --> 00:12:39.112
I was made wax a part of my body
that has never even seen the sunlight.

00:12:39.760 --> 00:12:41.693
If you ever want to know,

00:12:41.693 --> 00:12:44.607
the face of a man getting
the crack of his ass waxed,

00:12:44.627 --> 00:12:45.627
(Laughter)

00:12:45.647 --> 00:12:49.145
this is the face you make
when you get your ass waxed.

00:12:49.145 --> 00:12:51.865
(Laughter) (Applause)

00:12:55.725 --> 00:12:58.455
The photographs at the other end
are not available.

00:12:58.455 --> 00:13:00.291
(Laughter)

00:13:00.591 --> 00:13:03.130
And your eight-year-old son
also learns this

00:13:03.130 --> 00:13:06.280
and tells you to go grocery shopping 
wearing nothing but a towel.

00:13:06.305 --> 00:13:07.365
(Laughter)

00:13:07.370 --> 00:13:09.360
I think I'm the only person in the world

00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:11.801
to be barred from Marks 
food and vegetable shop.

00:13:11.801 --> 00:13:14.080
The lesson I learnt
is that it's not a good idea

00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:17.144
to leave your eight-year-old old son
with your fate in his hands.

00:13:17.144 --> 00:13:19.874
But what you also learn
by doing this experiment

00:13:19.874 --> 00:13:22.239
is that life is great fun.

00:13:22.658 --> 00:13:26.240
When you say yes to everything,
play will find you.

00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:27.936
And I mean play in real play.

00:13:27.936 --> 00:13:30.290
Real play actually 
doesn't really have a purpose.

00:13:30.290 --> 00:13:32.337
Real play is just for play's sake.

00:13:32.337 --> 00:13:34.870
Kids know this automatically. 
They know it naturally.

00:13:34.870 --> 00:13:37.492
And somehow we unlearn it as adults.

00:13:37.492 --> 00:13:40.012
So you say yes to everything.
Play will find you.

00:13:40.214 --> 00:13:42.362
And what's interesting
about this experiment

00:13:42.362 --> 00:13:47.642
is I suddenly realised that this is how
you permanently foster play in adults.

00:13:47.642 --> 00:13:49.929
We all know that play is really important.

00:13:49.929 --> 00:13:53.387
OK? We all know that Play leads
to creativity, which leads to innovation.

00:13:53.387 --> 00:13:55.185
There's been lots of books, articles,

00:13:55.185 --> 00:13:57.555
some fantastic TED talks 
in the past on play

00:13:57.555 --> 00:14:00.470
and the importance of play
leading to creativity.

00:14:00.470 --> 00:14:02.972
Small business know this;
big corporations know this.

00:14:02.972 --> 00:14:06.412
And as I played on, 
I thought, do you know what?

00:14:06.984 --> 00:14:09.926
Everyone wants creativity;
everyone wants innovation.

00:14:09.926 --> 00:14:11.828
They want this to lead them to success.

00:14:11.828 --> 00:14:14.678
But we need to understand
how to foster that creativity,

00:14:14.678 --> 00:14:17.398
how can we foster
an everyday sense of play?

00:14:17.398 --> 00:14:20.722
How can we make the people who work
in our hospitals, in our schools,

00:14:20.726 --> 00:14:22.702
in our small businesses and corporations

00:14:22.702 --> 00:14:25.742
more playful every day
so we can fuel this creativity?

00:14:25.742 --> 00:14:27.641
How to make them play
at everyday level?

00:14:27.641 --> 00:14:31.492
The problem with most corporations
and their attitude to creativity and play

00:14:31.492 --> 00:14:33.040
is that they fail at doing it

00:14:33.040 --> 00:14:35.660
because they try to enforce it
on their employees.

00:14:35.660 --> 00:14:37.171
It's play on their terms.

00:14:37.171 --> 00:14:40.561
They send you off to the woods 
to shoot each other with paintball guns,

00:14:40.561 --> 00:14:44.970
or they put a snooker table 
in the canteen and call it, "Hey! Play!"

00:14:44.970 --> 00:14:47.070
But it doesn't really change things.

00:14:47.070 --> 00:14:49.537
And I think a corporation
or an organization

00:14:49.537 --> 00:14:50.948
can't actually be responsible

00:14:50.948 --> 00:14:53.184
for your sense of creativity 
and play anyway.

00:14:53.184 --> 00:14:56.660
Just like they can't be responsible 
for your happiness or your health.

00:14:56.660 --> 00:14:59.019
I mean, they can encourage, 
they can facilitate,

00:14:59.019 --> 00:15:02.339
but the actual spark of who you are
in terms of creativity and play,

00:15:02.339 --> 00:15:05.217
it has to come from you, inside yourself.

00:15:05.217 --> 00:15:08.217
So if we are going to solve problems 
in new ways in the world,

00:15:08.217 --> 00:15:11.654
if we are going to challenge norms
and push boundaries,

00:15:11.654 --> 00:15:14.384
then it needs to start
with you, the individual.

00:15:14.384 --> 00:15:16.977
You can't hope that a corporation 
will do it for you.

00:15:16.977 --> 00:15:18.094
It also has to last.

00:15:18.254 --> 00:15:21.082
This can't be just a book you read
or a TED talk you watched

00:15:21.082 --> 00:15:22.753
or a one-day workshop you went to.

00:15:22.753 --> 00:15:25.551
If we want to be creative,
it has to be a permanent thing.

00:15:25.551 --> 00:15:27.722
It has to become a philosophy
for who you are,

00:15:27.722 --> 00:15:30.746
and permeate your every moment,
your everyday life.

00:15:30.746 --> 00:15:32.526
This is what I became interested in.

00:15:32.526 --> 00:15:34.218
100 days into my experiment,

00:15:34.218 --> 00:15:37.313
I practically heard it
click inside myself.

00:15:37.936 --> 00:15:41.197
I had a perspective shift on the world 
that will never go away now.

00:15:41.197 --> 00:15:42.359
It is now who I am.

00:15:42.359 --> 00:15:44.777
It has changed my personal life,
I've laughed more,

00:15:44.777 --> 00:15:48.100
I've learnt more, I've had more fun, 
I take more risks.

00:15:48.490 --> 00:15:50.900
It fuels your relationships,
your sex life,

00:15:50.900 --> 00:15:53.927
you take risks which then
filter into business life,

00:15:53.927 --> 00:15:56.178
and in your business life
you take more risks.

00:15:56.178 --> 00:15:59.279
You become open to opportunities,
you solve problems in new ways.

00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:02.290
And risk, of course, is the heart
of innovation and creativity.

00:16:02.290 --> 00:16:04.430
Nothing ever happens
unless you take a risk.

00:16:04.430 --> 00:16:08.300
A year ago I wouldn't have expected 
that I would walk across broken glass

00:16:08.484 --> 00:16:11.524
or that I would go on Europe's 
tallest roller coaster.

00:16:11.534 --> 00:16:15.474
I hate roller coasters.
But you just say yes.

00:16:15.690 --> 00:16:18.753
Who would have thought
that I would have pierced a friend's ear?

00:16:18.753 --> 00:16:21.050
I had no idea of what I was doing.

00:16:21.050 --> 00:16:22.050
(Laughter)

00:16:22.050 --> 00:16:23.377
I still don't!

00:16:24.197 --> 00:16:25.220
But you just say yes.

00:16:25.220 --> 00:16:28.217
You go from being a guy who says,
"Oh, maybe, I'm not too sure,"

00:16:28.217 --> 00:16:29.889
you go to being a guy who says yes.

00:16:29.889 --> 00:16:31.189
You say yes to everything.

00:16:31.189 --> 00:16:34.713
And here I am on day 318 of my experiment.

00:16:34.713 --> 00:16:39.451
My new experience for today? 
Quite easy. My first TED talk.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:39.580 --> 00:16:42.050
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:42.050 --> 00:16:43.129
Thank you.

00:16:47.430 --> 00:16:50.899
But you don't have to follow me 
on the 365-day version.

00:16:50.899 --> 00:16:54.320
100 days of your life, 
three months, 12 weeks

00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:57.234
is all it will take
for this perspective shift.

00:16:57.234 --> 00:17:00.509
So I'm travelling the world now 
recruiting Time-Benders,

00:17:00.509 --> 00:17:03.235
[who] agree to live a life less ordinary.

00:17:03.235 --> 00:17:05.477
A life in colour instead
of the black and white.

00:17:05.477 --> 00:17:08.019
So go home and write
your list, 20 or 30 things.

00:17:08.019 --> 00:17:11.138
They can be small things
and don't have to be jumping off planes.

00:17:11.138 --> 00:17:12.919
Small things that you're going to do.

00:17:12.919 --> 00:17:16.042
Ask your family and friends,
they'll give you another 20-30 ideas.

00:17:16.042 --> 00:17:18.414
Ask the internet, you'll get 2,000 ideas.

00:17:18.414 --> 00:17:20.162
Keep a journal; it's a good way.

00:17:20.162 --> 00:17:22.220
Keep a journal every day,
challenge yourself

00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:23.480
into, "What did I do?"

00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:26.293
"What did I do today
that was different, that was unique?"

00:17:26.293 --> 00:17:29.410
How can we expect 
to solve problems in new ways

00:17:29.410 --> 00:17:32.797
if we do the same thing every day,
if we take things for granted?

00:17:32.797 --> 00:17:35.313
I travel a lot. I spend
a lot of time in hotel rooms.

00:17:35.313 --> 00:17:37.202
Hotel rooms can be quite boring places.

00:17:37.202 --> 00:17:40.040
This is what you get.
This is not how I slept last night.

00:17:40.040 --> 00:17:42.217
How I slept last night was like this.

00:17:42.217 --> 00:17:43.772
(Laughter)

00:17:43.772 --> 00:17:47.780
Don't take what's given
to you for granted.

00:17:47.780 --> 00:17:51.211
And again, this was a hotel 
two weeks ago around Halloween.

00:17:51.321 --> 00:17:54.162
This is how I arrived.
This is how I left the hotel room.

00:17:54.162 --> 00:17:55.162
(Laughter)

00:17:55.162 --> 00:17:58.788
What rule? Is there a rule that says 
you can't decorate your own hotel room?

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:58.788 --> 00:17:59.798
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:59.798 --> 00:18:01.988
I'd love to have seen
the face of housekeeping

00:18:01.988 --> 00:18:03.558
when they opened the door.

00:18:03.578 --> 00:18:04.798
"What the heck?!"

00:18:05.439 --> 00:18:06.845
So I'm curious.

00:18:06.845 --> 00:18:09.049
You have to change things all the time.

00:18:09.049 --> 00:18:11.936
Look at the work spaces that we work in,
your own work space.

00:18:11.936 --> 00:18:13.477
Think about your own work space.

00:18:13.477 --> 00:18:14.518
Why would you think

00:18:14.518 --> 00:18:16.768
you're going to be suddenly 
be creative one day

00:18:16.768 --> 00:18:19.527
if you sit in the same chair,
same desk in the same corner,

00:18:19.527 --> 00:18:21.267
in the same office every single day.

00:18:21.267 --> 00:18:23.529
Change your work space
every two or three weeks.

00:18:23.529 --> 00:18:26.104
Change the art, change the decor,
change the building.

00:18:26.104 --> 00:18:27.214
Change where you work.

00:18:27.214 --> 00:18:30.110
How are you going to be creative
if you keep things the same?

00:18:30.110 --> 00:18:32.678
Once you open up,
once you start this experiment,

00:18:32.678 --> 00:18:34.740
what you learn is that it becomes a habit.

00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:36.998
You actually don't need
the journal anymore.

00:18:36.998 --> 00:18:40.325
You don't need the challenge
of having to do something every day

00:18:40.325 --> 00:18:44.073
because you will do two or three or four
things every single day regardless.

00:18:44.073 --> 00:18:46.980
Who would have thought
that if you went into your dentist

00:18:46.980 --> 00:18:49.630
and asked him, instead of him
cleaning your teeth,

00:18:49.630 --> 00:18:51.245
that you were going to clean his,

00:18:51.245 --> 00:18:52.249
(Laughter)

00:18:52.249 --> 00:18:53.740
that he would say yes?

00:18:54.054 --> 00:18:56.384
The world will say yes to you.

00:18:56.707 --> 00:18:57.820
Time Bending.

00:18:57.820 --> 00:18:59.267
The world is a playground.

00:18:59.267 --> 00:19:02.267
All you need to do is step up and play.

00:19:02.507 --> 00:19:04.090
Thank you.

00:19:04.090 --> 00:19:07.300
(Applause)