Doing the impossible, cutting through fear | Dan Meyer | TEDxMaastricht

Ever want to be a superhero and do the impossible? Dan Meyer believes no matter how extreme our fears or how wild our dreams, we each have the potential to be superheroes, do the impossible and change the world. Director of a humanitarian aid agency serving orphans in Kazakhstan, Dan shares how he overcame a childhood of extreme fears, social anxiety disorder and bullying to do superhuman feats, become a finalist on America's Got Talent, win the 2007 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine at Harvard, and become a 39x world record holder and leading expert in one of the world's oldest and most dangerous arts - Sword Swallowing - and passionate about inspiring people to do the impossible in THEIR lives.

In his first TED talk, Dan takes the audience on his long walk from extreme fears to extreme feats, wimp to world record holder, loser to Ig Nobel Prize winner and quitter to finalist on America's Got Talent. Dan reveals the science behind the ancient art of sword swallowing, and describes his quest to perform superhuman feats, overcome failure and the boundaries of the human body to do the impossible and change the world. And he shares tips on how you can cut through fear to do the impossible in YOUR life!

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Thank you.

There once was a king in India, a Maharaja
and for his birthday, a decree went out

that all the chiefs should bring
gifts fit for a king.

Some brought fine silks,
some brought fancy swords,

some brought gold.

At the end of the line came walking
a very wrinkled little old man

who'd walked up from his village
many days journey by the sea.

And as he walked up the king's son asked,
"What gift do you bring for the King?"

And the old man very slowly
opened his hand to reveal

a very beautiful seashell, with swirls
of purple and yellow, red and blue.

And the King's son said,

"That's no gift for the King!
What kind of gift is that?"

The old man looked up
at him slowly and said,

"Long walk... part of gift."

(Laughter)

In a few moments,
I'm going to give you a gift,

a gift that I believe
is a gift worth spreading.

But before I do, let me take you on

my long walk.

Like most of you,

I started life as a little kid.

How many of you
started life as a little kid?

Born young?

About half of you... Ok...

(Laughter)

And the rest of you, what?
You were born full-grown?

Boy, I want to meet your momma!

Talk about impossible!

As a little kid, I always had
a fascination with doing the impossible.

Today is a day I've been looking
forward to for many years,

because today is the day
I'm going to attempt

to do the impossible
right before your very eyes,

right here at TEDxMaastricht.

I'm going to start

by revealing the ending:

And I'm going to prove to you

that the impossible is not impossible.

And I'm going to end
by giving you a gift worth spreading:

I'm going to show you that you can
do the impossible in your life.

In my quest to do the impossible,
I've found that there are

two things that are universal
among people around the world.

Everybody has fears,

and everyone has dreams.

In my quest to do the impossible,
I've found there are three things

that I've done over my years that have

kind of caused me to do the impossible:

Dodgeball, or as you call it "Trefbal",

Superman,

and Mosquito.

Those are my three keywords.

Now you know why
I do the impossible in my life.

So I'm going to take you
on my journey, my long walk

from fears to dreams,

from words to swords,

from Dodgeball

to Superman

to Mosquito.

And I hope to show you

how you can do the impossible
in your life.

October 4th, 2007.

My heart was racing,
my knees were shaking

as I stepped out on stage

at Sanders Theatre

Harvard University to accept

the 2007 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine

for a medical research paper
I'd co-written

called "Sword Swallowing...

... and its Side Effects".

(Laughter)

It was published in a little journal
that I'd never read before,

the British Medical Journal.

And for me, that was
an impossible dream come true,

it was an unexpected surprise
for someone like me,

it was an honor I will never ever forget.

But it wasn't the most memorable
part of my life.

On October 4th, 1967,

this scared, shy, skinny, wimpy kid

suffered from extreme fears.

As he got ready to step out on stage,

his heart was racing,

his knees were shaking.

He went to open his mouth to speak,

the words just would not come out.

He stood trembling in tears.

He was paralyzed in panic,

frozen in fear.

This scared, shy, skinny wimpy kid

suffered from extreme fears.

He had fear of the dark,

fear of heights,

fear of spiders and snakes...

Any of you afraid of spiders and snakes?

Yeah, a few of you...

He had a fear of water and sharks...

Fear of doctors and nurses and dentists,

and needles and drills and sharp objects.

But more than anything,
he had a fear of

people.

That scared, shy skinny wimpy kid

was me.

I had a fear of failure and rejection,

low self-esteem, inferiority complex,

and something we didn't even know
you could sign up for back then:

social anxiety disorder.

Because I had fears, the bullies
would tease me and beat me up.

They used to laugh and call me names,
They never let me play in any of their

reindeer games.

Ah, there was one game
they used to let me play in...

Dodgeball -

and I was not a good dodger.

The bullies would call my name,

and I'd look up
and see these red dodge balls

hurtling at my face at supersonic speeds

bam, bam, bam!

And I remember many days
walking home from school,

my face was red and stinging,
my ears were red and ringing.

My eyes were burning with tears,

and their words were burning in my ears.

And whoever said,

"Sticks and stones can break my bones,
but words will never hurt me"...

It's a lie.

Words can cut like a knife.

Words can pierce like a sword.

Words can make wounds that are so deep

they can't be seen.

So I had fears.
And words were my worst enemy.

Still are.

But I also had dreams.

I would go home
and I'd escape to Superman comics

and I'd read Superman comic books

and I dreamed I wanted to be a superhero
like Superman.

I wanted to fight for truth and justice,

I wanted to fight against
villains and kryptonite,

I wanted to fly around the world
doing superhuman feats and saving lives.

I also had a fascination
with things that were real.

I'd read Guinness Book of World Records
and Ripley's Believe It or Not book.

Any of you ever read Guinness
Book of World Records or Ripley's?

I love those books!

I saw real people doing real feats.

And I said, I want to do that.

If the bullies will not let me

play in any of their sports games,

I want to do real magic, real feats.

I want to do something really remarkable
that those bullies can't do.

I want to find my purpose and calling,

I want to know that my life has meaning,

I want to do something incredible
to change the world;

I want to prove
the impossible is not impossible.

Fast forward 10 years -

It was the week before my 21st birthday.

Two things happened in one day
that would change my life forever.

I was living in Tamil Nadu, South India

I was a missionary there,

and my mentor, my friend asked me,

"Do you have Thromes, Daniel?"

And I said, "Thromes?
What are Thromes?"

He said, "Thromes are major life goals.

They're a combination
of dreams and goals, like if you could

do anything you want to do,
go anyplace you want to go

be anyone you want to be,

where would you go?
What would you do?

Who'd you be?

I said, "I can't do that!
I'm too scared! I've got too many fears!"

That night I took my rice mat
up on the roof of the bungalow,

laid out underneath the stars,

and watched the bats dive bomb
for mosquitoes.

And all I could think about were thromes,
and dreams and goals,

and those bullies with the dodgeballs.

A few hours later I woke up.

My heart was racing,
my knees were shaking.

This time it wasn't with fear.

My entire body was convulsing.

And for the next five days

I was in and out of consciousness,
on my deathbed fighting for my life.

My brain was burning up
with 105 degree malaria fever.

And whenever I was conscious,
all I could think about were thromes.

I thought,
"What do I want to do with my life?"

Finally, on the night before
my 21st birthday,

in a moment of clarity,

I came to a realization:

I realized that little mosquito,

Anopheles Stephensi,

that little mosquito

that weighed less than 5 micrograms

less than a grain of salt,

if that mosquito could take out
a 170 pound man, 80 kilo man,

I realized that was my kryptonite.

Then I realized,
no, no, it's not the mosquito,

It's the little parasite
inside the mosquito,

Plasmodium Falciparum,
that kills over a million people a year.

Then I realized
No, no, it's even smaller than that,

but to me, it seemed so much greater.

I realized,

fear was my kryptonite,

my parasite,

that had crippled
and paralyzed me my entire life.

You know, there's a difference
between danger and fear.

Danger is real.

Fear is a choice.

And I realized I had a choice:

I could either live in fear,
and die in failure that night,

or I could put my fears to death,
and I could

reach for my dreams,
I could dare to live life.

And you know, there's something about
being on your deathbed

and facing death that actually
makes you really want to live life.

I realized everyone dies,
not everyone really lives.

It's in dying that we we live.

You know, when you learn to die,

you really learn to live.

So I decided I was going to change

my story that night.

I did not want to die.

So I prayed a little prayer, I said,

"God, if you let me live
to my 21st birthday,

I will not let fear
rule my life any longer.

I'm going to put my fears to death,

I'm going to reach for my dreams,

I want to change my attitude,

I want to do something incredible
with my life,

I want to find my purpose and calling,

I want to know that the impossible
is not impossible."

I won't tell you if I survived that night;
I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

(Laughter)

But that night I made my list
of my first 10 Thromes:

I decided I wanted to
visit the major continents

visit the 7 Wonders of the World

learn a bunch of languages,

live on a deserted island,

live on a ship in the ocean,

live with a tribe of Indians
in the Amazon,

climb to the top
of the highest mountain in Sweden,

I wanted to see Mount Everest at sunrise,

to work in the music business
in Nashville,

I wanted to work with a circus,

and I wanted to jump out of an airplane.

Over the next twenty years,
I accomplished most of those thromes.

Every time I would
check a throme off my list,

I'd add 5 or 10 more onto my list
and my list continued to grow.

For the next seven years, I lived
on a little island in the Bahamas

for about seven years

in a thatch hut,

spearing sharks and stingrays to eat,
the only one on the island,

in a loincloth,

and I got to learn to swim with sharks.

And from there, I moved to Mexico,

and then I moved
to the Amazon River basin in Ecuador,

Pujo Pongo Ecuador,
lived with a tribe there,

and little by little I began to gain
confidence just by my thromes.

I moved to the music business
in Nashville, and then Sweden,

moved to Stockholm,
worked in the music business there,

where I climbed the top of Mt. Kebnekaise
high above the Arctic Circle.

I learned clowning,

and juggling,

and stilt-walking,

unicycle riding,
fire eating, glass eating.

In 1997 I heard there were
less than a dozen sword swallowers left

and I said, "I've got to do that!"

I met a sword swallower,
and I asked him for some tips.

He said, "Yeah, I'll give you 2 tips:

Number 1: It's extremely dangerous,

People have died doing this.

Number 2:

Don't try it!"

(Laughter)

So I added it to my list of thromes.

And I practiced
10 to 12 times a day, every day

for four years.

Now I calculated those out...

4 x 365 [x 12]

It was about 13,000
unsuccessful attempts

before I got my first sword
down my throat in 2001.

During that time I set a throme

to become the world's leading expert
in sword swallowing.

So I searched for every book,
magazine, newspaper article,

every medical report,
I studied physiology, anatomy,

I talked with doctors and nurses,

networked all the sword swallowers
together

into the Sword Swallowers
Association International,

and conducted a 2-year
medical research paper

on Sword Swallowing and its Side Effects

that was published
in the British Medical Journal.

(Laughter)

Thank you.

(Applause)

And I learned some fascinating things
about sword swallowing.

Some things I bet you never thought
about before, but you will after tonight.

Next time you go home, and you're cutting
your steak with your knife

or a sword, or your "bestek",
you'll think about this...

I learned that sword swallowing
started in India -

right where I'd seen it first of all
as a 20-year old kid -

about 4000 years ago, about 2000 BC.

Over the past 150 years,
sword swallowers have been used

in the fields of science and medicine

to help develop
the rigid endoscope in 1868

by Dr. Adolf Kussmaul in Freiburg Germany.

In 1906, the electrocardiogram in Wales,

to study swallowing disorders,
and digestion,

bronchoscopes, that type of thing.

But over the past 150 years,

we know of hundreds of injuries
and dozens of deaths...

Here's the rigid endoscope
that was developed by Dr. Adolf Kussmaul.

But we discovered that there were
29 deaths over the past 150 years

including this sword swallower in London
who impaled his heart with his sword.

We also learned that there are from 3 to 8

serious sword swallowing injuries
each year.

I know because I get the phone calls.

I just had two of them,

one from Sweden, and one from Orlando
just over the past few weeks,

sword swallowers who are in the hospital
from injuries.

So it is extremely dangerous.

The other thing I learned is that
sword swallowing takes

from 2 years to 10 years
to learn how to swallow a sword

for many people.

But the most fascinating discovery
I learned was

how sword swallowers learn
to do the impossible.

And I'm going to give you a little secret:

Don't focus on the 99.9%
that is impossible.

You focus on that .1% that is possible,
and figure out how to make it possible.

Now let me take you on a journey
into the mind of a sword swallower.

In order to swallow a sword,
it requires mind over matter meditation,

razor-sharp concentration,
pinpoint accuracy in order

to isolate internal body organs
and overcome automatic body reflexes

through reinforced brain synopsis,
through repeated muscle memory

by deliberate practice
of over 10,000 times.

Now let me take you on a little journey
into the body of a sword swallower.

In order to swallow a sword,

I have to slide the blade over my tongue,

repress the gag reflex
in the cervical esophagus,

navigate a 90 degree turn
down the epiglottis,

go through the cricopharyngeal
upper esophageal sphincter,

repress the perystalsis reflex,

slide the blade into the chest cavity

between the lungs.

At this point,

I actually have to nudge my heart aside.

If you watch very carefully,

you can see the heart beat with my sword

because it's leaning against the heart

separated by about an eighth of an inch
of esophageal tissue.

That's not something you can fake.

Then I have to slide it
past the breastbone,

past the lower esophageal sphincter,
down into the stomach,

repress the retch reflex in the stomach
all the way down to the duodenum.

Piece of cake.

(Laughter)

If I were to go further than that,

all the way down to my Fallopian tubes.
(Dutch) Fallopian tubes!

Guys, you can ask your wives
about that one later...

People ask me, they say,

"It must take a lot of courage
in order to risk your life,

to nudge your heart,
and swallow a sword..."

No. What takes real courage

is for that scared, shy, skinny wimpy kid

to risk failure and rejection,

to bare his heart,

and swallow his pride

and stand up here in front
of a bunch a total strangers

and tell you his story
about his fears and dreams,

to risk spilling his guts,
both literally and figuratively.

You see - thank you.

(Applause)

You see, the really amazing thing is

I've always wanted to do
the remarkable in my life

and now I am.

But the really remarkable thing
is not that I can swallow

21 swords at once,

or 20 feet underwater in a tank
of 88 sharks and stingrays

for Ripley's Believe It or Not,

or heated to 1500 degrees red hot
for Stan Lee's Superhumans

as a "Man of Steel"

and that sucker was hot!

Or to pull a car by sword for Ripley's,

or Guinness,

or make it on the finals
of America's Got Talent,

or win the 2007
Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine.

No, that's not
the really remarkable thing.

That's what people think.
No, no, no. That's not it.

The really remarkable thing

is that God could take that scared,
shy, skinny wimpy kid

who was afraid of heights,

who was afraid of water and sharks,

and doctors and nurses
and needles and sharp objects

and speaking to people

and now he's got me
flying around the world

at heights of 30,000 feet

swallowing sharp objects
underwater in tanks of sharks,

and speaking to doctors and nurses
and audiences like you around the world.

That's the really amazing thing for me.

I always wanted to do the impossible -

Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

I always wanted to do the impossible,
and now I am.

I wanted to do something remarkable
with my life and change the world,

and now I am.

I always wanted to fly around the world
doing superhuman feats

and saving lives, and now I am.

And you know what?

There's still a small part
of that little kid's big dream

deep inside.

(Laughter) (Applause)

And you know, I always wanted to find
my purpose and calling,

and now I've found it.

But guess what?

It's not with the swords,
not what you think, not with my strengths.

It's actually with my weakness, my words.

My purpose and calling
is to change the world

by cutting through fear,

one sword at a time, one word at a time,

one knife at a time, one life at a time,

to inspire people to be superheroes

and do the impossible in their lives.

My purpose is to help others find theirs.

What's yours?

What's your purpose?

What were you put here to do?

I believe we're all
called to be superheroes.

What is your superpower?

Out of a world population
of over 7 billion people,

there are less than a few dozen
sword swallowers

left around the world today,

but there's only one you.

You are unique.

What is your story?

What makes you different?

Tell your story,

even if your voice is thin and shaky.

What are your thromes?

If you could do anything,
be anyone, go anywhere -

What would you do?
Where'd you go?

What would you do?

What do you want to do with your life?

What are your big dreams?

What were your big dreams as a little kid?
Think back.

I bet this wasn't it, was it?

What were your wildest dreams

that you thought were so strange
and so obscure?

I bet this makes your dreams look
not so strange after all, doesn't it?

What is your sword?

Each one of you has a sword,

a double-edged sword of fears and dreams.

Swallow your sword, whatever it might be.

Follow your dreams, ladies and gentlemen,

It's never too late to be
whatever you wanted to be.

For those bullies with the dogdeballs,
those kids who thought

that I would never do the impossible,

I've got just one thing to say to them:

Thank you.

Because if it weren't for villains,
we wouldn't have superheroes.

I'm here to prove
the impossible is not impossible.

This is extremely dangerous,
It could kill me.

I hope you enjoy it.

(Laughter)

I'm going to need your help with this one.

Audience: Two, three.

Dan Meyer: No, no, no. I need your help
on the counting part, all of you, ok?

(Laughter)

If you know the words? Ok?
Count with me. Ready?

One.

Two.

Three.

No, that's 2, but you've got the idea.

Audience: One.

Two.

Three.

(Gasping)

(Applause)

DM: Yeah!

(Applause) (Cheers)

Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Actually, thank you
from the bottom of my stomach.

I told you I came here to do
the impossible, and now I have.

But this was not the impossible.
I do this every day.

The impossible thing was for that scared,
shy, skinny wimpy kid to face his fears,

to stand up here on a [TEDx] stage,

and to change the world,
one word at a time,

one sword at a time, one life at a time.

If I've made you think in new ways,
if I've made you believe

the impossible is not impossible,

if I've made you realize that you can
do the impossible in your life,

then my job is done,
and yours is just beginning.

Never stop dreaming. Never stop believing.

Thank you for believing in me

and thanks for being part of my dream.

And here's my gift to you:

The impossible is not...

Audience: Impossible.

Long walk part of gift.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

(Cheering)

Host: Thank you, Dan Meyer, wow!