1 00:00:09,031 --> 00:00:11,791 Imagine it's one year from today, 2 00:00:12,146 --> 00:00:15,005 and we all agree that we're going to come back for a reunion. 3 00:00:15,005 --> 00:00:16,117 Not maybe, absolutely; 4 00:00:16,117 --> 00:00:18,706 we'll all come back, exactly the same group of us, 5 00:00:18,706 --> 00:00:20,649 and we're to come back for a reunion. 6 00:00:20,649 --> 00:00:23,851 Only we're going to share the things that have happened in our life 7 00:00:23,851 --> 00:00:25,948 during the last 12 months of our life. 8 00:00:26,467 --> 00:00:29,139 We're going to share what it is that we dreamed up 9 00:00:29,139 --> 00:00:32,933 when we were here at TEDx in October of 2016, 10 00:00:32,933 --> 00:00:34,702 and what's happening in our lives now, 11 00:00:34,702 --> 00:00:36,652 365 days later. 12 00:00:36,892 --> 00:00:39,712 What would you love to be saying about your life? 13 00:00:39,968 --> 00:00:42,588 What would you love to say in the four areas 14 00:00:42,588 --> 00:00:45,128 where humans actually do create results? 15 00:00:45,664 --> 00:00:47,649 We live in a spiral universe. 16 00:00:48,037 --> 00:00:49,054 In a spiral, 17 00:00:49,054 --> 00:00:51,260 there's an ever upward pull of becomingness. 18 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:54,554 A little blade of grass feels it as it presses through cement 19 00:00:54,554 --> 00:00:57,095 to become more of itself today than yesterday. 20 00:00:57,651 --> 00:00:59,430 A tree presses to the edges of itself 21 00:00:59,430 --> 00:01:02,341 to become more of itself today than yesterday. 22 00:01:02,629 --> 00:01:05,922 And humans feel the same thing; we just feel it a little differently. 23 00:01:05,922 --> 00:01:08,821 We feel it through longing, and we feel it through discontent. 24 00:01:08,821 --> 00:01:10,645 We feel a longing for greater freedom, 25 00:01:10,645 --> 00:01:14,230 we feel a discontent with certain circumstances and situations. 26 00:01:14,869 --> 00:01:19,532 And if we just keep breathing another 365 days, 27 00:01:19,532 --> 00:01:21,397 we will create results, 28 00:01:21,727 --> 00:01:23,289 because that's what humans do. 29 00:01:23,742 --> 00:01:25,524 Now, we create results in four areas. 30 00:01:25,601 --> 00:01:28,099 We create results in health and well-being. 31 00:01:28,099 --> 00:01:31,379 You could look at your own results right now in health and well-being, 32 00:01:31,379 --> 00:01:33,140 but what'll you love a year from now? 33 00:01:33,140 --> 00:01:36,142 Because if you keep breathing, you'll have results in that area. 34 00:01:36,142 --> 00:01:38,493 Humans create results in relationships. 35 00:01:38,493 --> 00:01:39,837 Some of them are wonderful, 36 00:01:39,837 --> 00:01:40,890 some of them are deep, 37 00:01:40,890 --> 00:01:43,220 some of them are supportive, some of them are not. 38 00:01:43,220 --> 00:01:45,849 What would you love in the area of your relationships? 39 00:01:45,849 --> 00:01:47,660 To bring someone special in your life? 40 00:01:47,660 --> 00:01:50,227 Would you love to transform a relationship you're in? 41 00:01:50,443 --> 00:01:54,291 Maybe a relationship is on auto-pilot, and you'd love to have it go deeper. 42 00:01:54,920 --> 00:01:56,790 Humans create results in vocation. 43 00:01:56,790 --> 00:01:58,530 What we do with our time and talent, 44 00:01:58,530 --> 00:02:01,100 whether we earn income doing it or not, 45 00:02:01,100 --> 00:02:03,100 because just by our beingness, 46 00:02:03,100 --> 00:02:05,300 we're doing something with our time and talent. 47 00:02:05,300 --> 00:02:07,441 Even if we think, "I've made so many mistakes, 48 00:02:07,441 --> 00:02:10,212 I'm going to crawl in bed and put the covers over my head." 49 00:02:10,212 --> 00:02:13,253 What I create that day is "covers-over-my-head day in bed." 50 00:02:13,253 --> 00:02:16,781 I don't get to not create out of my experience. 51 00:02:17,063 --> 00:02:18,939 And humans create results - 52 00:02:18,939 --> 00:02:21,535 here we go - humans create results - 53 00:02:21,809 --> 00:02:22,878 humans create results 54 00:02:22,878 --> 00:02:25,956 in time and money, freedom or constraint. 55 00:02:25,956 --> 00:02:28,764 So if you think about next year when we come to the reunion, 56 00:02:28,764 --> 00:02:30,360 what would you love to be saying? 57 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:32,413 You know, on my calendar the last 12 months, 58 00:02:32,413 --> 00:02:36,688 here's what were the evidences of more freedom for me, and time. 59 00:02:36,688 --> 00:02:40,453 More freedom for me in the economic freedom 60 00:02:40,453 --> 00:02:43,352 where I could go where I wanted to go, do what I wanted to do, 61 00:02:43,352 --> 00:02:45,840 but maybe even more importantly, and I believe it is, 62 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:48,033 actually give to the things that matter to you. 63 00:02:48,033 --> 00:02:52,246 Provide some of the things for those that matter to you as well. 64 00:02:52,983 --> 00:02:55,795 Now, about 40 years ago, 65 00:02:55,795 --> 00:02:58,524 I got very, very interested in transformation. 66 00:02:59,152 --> 00:03:01,837 I was getting my undergraduate degree, 67 00:03:01,837 --> 00:03:04,080 and I cared deeply about kids. 68 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:07,080 I longed for quite a while to become a schoolteacher. 69 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:09,132 While I was getting my undergraduate degree 70 00:03:09,132 --> 00:03:12,316 I wanted to study everything I could in the field of transformation. 71 00:03:12,316 --> 00:03:15,502 And the purpose was to help children discover a kind of self-esteem 72 00:03:15,502 --> 00:03:18,485 so no matter what their circumstances or their situations, 73 00:03:18,485 --> 00:03:20,154 they could actually believe 74 00:03:20,154 --> 00:03:22,579 that they could become the person they wanted to be, 75 00:03:22,579 --> 00:03:24,779 and achieve the things they wanted to achieve. 76 00:03:24,795 --> 00:03:27,992 I went on a got a graduate degree in counseling psychology; 77 00:03:27,992 --> 00:03:29,897 I earned an honorary doctorate; 78 00:03:30,351 --> 00:03:34,573 my first book, "Building Your Field of Dreams," became a PBS special; 79 00:03:34,573 --> 00:03:37,522 I had the privilege of working with His Holiness the Dalai Lama 80 00:03:37,522 --> 00:03:39,474 over the course of seven years, 81 00:03:39,474 --> 00:03:41,966 creating week-long conversations. 82 00:03:41,966 --> 00:03:45,426 I could just sit right next to him for a week at a time over seven years, 83 00:03:45,426 --> 00:03:46,529 three different times. 84 00:03:46,529 --> 00:03:50,384 Conversations with world leaders about how to transform our world's results. 85 00:03:51,014 --> 00:03:53,217 I got very interested in how results happened, 86 00:03:53,217 --> 00:03:54,976 and how to transform results. 87 00:03:55,405 --> 00:03:58,909 I had the privilege of speaking at the United Nations 88 00:03:58,909 --> 00:04:02,592 with the Martin Luther King kids and Ghandi's grandkids 89 00:04:02,592 --> 00:04:06,562 and creating a 64-day season for nonviolence, 90 00:04:06,562 --> 00:04:08,553 particularly teaching junior high kids 91 00:04:08,553 --> 00:04:13,338 about how to solve problems through acts of nonviolence and caring. 92 00:04:13,678 --> 00:04:15,724 And I spoke at the UN three different times, 93 00:04:15,724 --> 00:04:17,512 one of them with Rosa Parks. 94 00:04:17,512 --> 00:04:20,182 I was building my dreams; they mattered to me. 95 00:04:20,182 --> 00:04:24,327 I had the privilege of working and flying to Cape Town, South Africa, 96 00:04:24,327 --> 00:04:26,175 and meeting with Nelson Mandela. 97 00:04:26,433 --> 00:04:29,068 I had a deep dream to ask him the question, 98 00:04:29,068 --> 00:04:31,206 "How did you transform your results? 99 00:04:31,206 --> 00:04:35,298 How did you be a man who gets sentenced to life in prison - 100 00:04:35,298 --> 00:04:37,674 you served 27 years in hard prison - 101 00:04:37,674 --> 00:04:40,994 and then not only do you get out of prison before you die, 102 00:04:40,994 --> 00:04:42,500 but you actually then become 103 00:04:42,500 --> 00:04:45,426 president of the country that sentences you to life. 104 00:04:45,624 --> 00:04:48,107 Who on our planet does this? 105 00:04:48,565 --> 00:04:49,823 How did you do that? 106 00:04:49,823 --> 00:04:51,750 What was going on inside of you?" 107 00:04:51,750 --> 00:04:55,748 And that has been my quest and my interest and my deep longing 108 00:04:55,748 --> 00:04:57,208 so that I could transfer that 109 00:04:57,208 --> 00:05:00,534 and offer that to the people that I had the privilege of working with, 110 00:05:00,534 --> 00:05:03,238 working with tens of thousands of people around the world 111 00:05:03,238 --> 00:05:04,799 around changing their results. 112 00:05:05,103 --> 00:05:08,171 Does it mean that because every time I've studied this 113 00:05:08,171 --> 00:05:10,141 and worked with my own life and others, 114 00:05:10,141 --> 00:05:12,306 that every time for me my dreams came true? 115 00:05:12,306 --> 00:05:16,112 No. Does it mean everything I did worked out? No. 116 00:05:16,112 --> 00:05:19,146 My first business that I spent 23 years building - 117 00:05:19,146 --> 00:05:20,461 I took my eye off the ball, 118 00:05:20,461 --> 00:05:24,227 I hired somebody to run the finances, it was totally mismanaged. 119 00:05:24,227 --> 00:05:26,299 I lost everything I had built. 120 00:05:26,435 --> 00:05:28,308 It was heartbreaking to me. 121 00:05:28,931 --> 00:05:30,453 But there are three steps 122 00:05:30,453 --> 00:05:34,062 that dream builders use either consciously or unconsciously 123 00:05:34,062 --> 00:05:36,231 to transform their results 124 00:05:36,231 --> 00:05:39,356 so that the dream wins over conditions; 125 00:05:39,356 --> 00:05:41,824 so that the dream wins over time; 126 00:05:41,824 --> 00:05:45,923 so that the dream wins over all kinds of circumstances, situations, 127 00:05:45,923 --> 00:05:49,040 and even our history, no matter how long it's been there, 128 00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:52,071 and sometimes it's been there for decades. 129 00:05:52,586 --> 00:05:56,549 About 150 years ago, a man decided to do an experiment with his life. 130 00:05:56,549 --> 00:05:59,686 That's what we're invited to do over the next 12 months. 131 00:05:59,837 --> 00:06:02,286 Keep breathing and do an experiment with life. 132 00:06:02,862 --> 00:06:05,522 He went to the woods, Henry David Thoreau, 133 00:06:05,522 --> 00:06:09,348 and he said, prior to his - this quote that's up here, he said, 134 00:06:09,348 --> 00:06:13,100 "I wanted to learn to suck the marrow out of aliveness. 135 00:06:13,100 --> 00:06:16,490 I wanted to live a life I loved living while I was living it. 136 00:06:16,628 --> 00:06:17,641 I went to the woods 137 00:06:17,641 --> 00:06:21,352 because I wished to deliberately front the only essential facts of life 138 00:06:21,352 --> 00:06:25,137 and see if life could not teach me what it had to teach, 139 00:06:25,137 --> 00:06:27,178 and not when I came to die 140 00:06:27,178 --> 00:06:30,919 discover that I had not even really lived." 141 00:06:31,732 --> 00:06:35,176 Now, Henry did this two-year, two-month, two-day experiment, 142 00:06:35,176 --> 00:06:37,130 and then he wrote an essay about it. 143 00:06:37,130 --> 00:06:39,033 In the conclusion of that essay, 144 00:06:39,509 --> 00:06:42,555 he writes a quote that is worldwide known: 145 00:06:42,555 --> 00:06:45,407 "If one advances confidently in the direction of their dream 146 00:06:45,407 --> 00:06:47,807 and endeavors to live the life they've imagined," 147 00:06:47,807 --> 00:06:50,279 he said, "I learned this at least by my experiment, 148 00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:53,933 if one advances confidently in the direction of their dream." 149 00:06:53,933 --> 00:06:57,909 Well, you can't advance in a direction you don't already have an idea of. 150 00:06:57,909 --> 00:07:02,360 And the first thing dream builders or people who evolve their results do 151 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:06,001 is they have an idea of what they would really love their life to be like. 152 00:07:06,001 --> 00:07:07,763 If I say to you "your front door"; 153 00:07:07,763 --> 00:07:10,099 if I say to you "the kitchen sink where you live"; 154 00:07:10,099 --> 00:07:12,444 if I say to you "the bed you sleep in most often"; 155 00:07:12,444 --> 00:07:15,964 you did not see the letters B E D or S I N K or D O O R, 156 00:07:15,964 --> 00:07:17,113 you saw pictures. 157 00:07:17,177 --> 00:07:20,421 You saw a picture of a door, a picture of a sink, a picture of a bed. 158 00:07:20,421 --> 00:07:23,519 This is important for us to know as building a dream, 159 00:07:23,519 --> 00:07:26,071 because most of us dream dreams, and we're vague. 160 00:07:26,071 --> 00:07:27,432 We don't really see a dream. 161 00:07:27,432 --> 00:07:30,071 We say, "I want it to be better, I want it to be easier. 162 00:07:30,071 --> 00:07:31,581 I'd love to travel," 163 00:07:31,581 --> 00:07:33,998 and there's no picture for where we would travel. 164 00:07:33,998 --> 00:07:37,106 The more specific you are and the more specific you are right now, 165 00:07:37,106 --> 00:07:41,399 this talk will mean way more to you over the course of this next year. 166 00:07:41,526 --> 00:07:43,102 What would you really love? 167 00:07:43,102 --> 00:07:44,511 Most of us ask this question: 168 00:07:44,511 --> 00:07:45,711 What do I think I can do? 169 00:07:45,711 --> 00:07:47,393 What does the economy say I can do? 170 00:07:47,393 --> 00:07:50,351 What do you think I can do? What does my mother think I can do? 171 00:07:50,351 --> 00:07:52,695 What would you love? is the right question. 172 00:07:52,695 --> 00:07:55,743 You'll have different thoughts on the frequency of that question 173 00:07:55,743 --> 00:07:58,555 than you will have on the "What do I think?" question. 174 00:07:58,555 --> 00:07:59,839 What would you really love? 175 00:08:00,114 --> 00:08:03,413 Because you're going to have results in those four areas anyway. 176 00:08:03,643 --> 00:08:07,039 Now, I knew nothing about this in 1966. 177 00:08:07,039 --> 00:08:11,758 In 1966, I had grown up in a very, very happy family. 178 00:08:11,758 --> 00:08:14,665 My mom and dad, my sister, eight years older. 179 00:08:15,715 --> 00:08:16,811 This was 1966. 180 00:08:16,811 --> 00:08:18,269 I was a junior in high school, 181 00:08:18,269 --> 00:08:19,895 I was homecoming princess, 182 00:08:19,995 --> 00:08:21,744 had a lead in the junior play. 183 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:25,233 I was my class vice president, 184 00:08:25,748 --> 00:08:28,458 had three best friends from the time I was 10 years old, 185 00:08:28,458 --> 00:08:31,767 and we'd hung out together, and done many, many things together. 186 00:08:32,071 --> 00:08:35,171 In spring break of 1966, 187 00:08:35,171 --> 00:08:37,505 my high school sweetheart had gone off to college, 188 00:08:37,505 --> 00:08:38,854 came home on spring break, 189 00:08:38,854 --> 00:08:40,423 and I got pregnant. 190 00:08:40,559 --> 00:08:42,719 May 1, I tell my mom and dad I'm now pregnant. 191 00:08:42,719 --> 00:08:45,381 My mother wept for me as if I had died. 192 00:08:45,537 --> 00:08:48,310 We had a very hasty 10-person wedding middle of May. 193 00:08:48,310 --> 00:08:50,384 The high school principal calls me in, says, 194 00:08:50,384 --> 00:08:51,559 "Are these rumors true?" 195 00:08:51,559 --> 00:08:55,104 I said, "If the rumors are I'm pregnant, married, in that order, then yes." 196 00:08:55,104 --> 00:08:57,101 He just put his head in his hands and said, 197 00:08:57,101 --> 00:09:00,153 "Mary, you will not allowed to return here for your senior year. 198 00:09:00,153 --> 00:09:01,760 It would be totally inappropriate 199 00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:05,214 for a pregnant girl to get mixed in with the normal girls, 200 00:09:05,214 --> 00:09:07,126 but we have a place for people like you. 201 00:09:07,126 --> 00:09:09,181 It's a high school not held during daylight. 202 00:09:09,181 --> 00:09:11,286 It's across the river - in a part of Portland 203 00:09:11,286 --> 00:09:13,452 I hadn't been allowed to drive in after dark - 204 00:09:13,452 --> 00:09:16,888 and it's where the pregnant girls and delinquent boys go to high school." 205 00:09:16,888 --> 00:09:18,805 So that's where I began my senior year, 206 00:09:18,805 --> 00:09:21,083 and my first son was born in December of 1966. 207 00:09:21,083 --> 00:09:23,133 Only now, the mothers of my best girlfriends 208 00:09:23,133 --> 00:09:26,527 would no longer let them see me because I was married, I was pregnant. 209 00:09:26,527 --> 00:09:28,981 It was as if what I had was contagious. 210 00:09:29,521 --> 00:09:33,380 I graduated from Washington Evening High School in May of 1967, 211 00:09:33,380 --> 00:09:37,312 and in July of 1967, I was in a Portland hospital, 212 00:09:37,312 --> 00:09:40,196 having been diagnosed with fatal kidney disease. 213 00:09:40,196 --> 00:09:42,448 One kidney was totally destroyed with nephritis, 214 00:09:42,448 --> 00:09:45,862 the other kidney was 50% destroyed in active nephritis. 215 00:09:45,862 --> 00:09:48,716 And in 1967, this is a death sentence. 216 00:09:48,716 --> 00:09:51,222 We don't have dialysis, we don't have transplants, 217 00:09:51,677 --> 00:09:55,318 and every medical physician, doctor, specialist, surgeon 218 00:09:55,318 --> 00:09:56,489 all said the same thing: 219 00:09:56,489 --> 00:09:59,184 "The best we can do is maybe give you six months 220 00:09:59,184 --> 00:10:02,175 if we can get the blood toxin level in your body reduced enough 221 00:10:02,175 --> 00:10:03,286 to remove that surgery, 222 00:10:03,286 --> 00:10:05,012 then maybe you'll have six months." 223 00:10:05,012 --> 00:10:06,704 And I was terrified. 224 00:10:07,414 --> 00:10:12,143 And my belief system at that time was this was happening to me. 225 00:10:12,453 --> 00:10:16,727 I was being punished for being a bad girl, and I was being punished. 226 00:10:16,869 --> 00:10:18,549 Well, the night before the surgery, 227 00:10:18,549 --> 00:10:20,173 a woman walked in my room at 10 pm 228 00:10:20,173 --> 00:10:22,597 who identified herself as a chaplain offering prayer 229 00:10:22,597 --> 00:10:25,731 for people who'll have surgeries the next day - did I want prayer? 230 00:10:25,731 --> 00:10:28,947 And I'm thinking, you know, well, the God of my upbringing 231 00:10:28,947 --> 00:10:31,822 probably needed to have some anger management classes. 232 00:10:31,822 --> 00:10:32,817 (Laughter) 233 00:10:32,817 --> 00:10:35,828 It's the only God I knew at the time, and I said, "Well, maybe." 234 00:10:35,828 --> 00:10:38,035 She didn't do anything that looked like prayer. 235 00:10:38,035 --> 00:10:40,236 She talked to me, and she asked me to tell her 236 00:10:40,236 --> 00:10:43,426 what had been going on in my life the last year or two, which I did, 237 00:10:43,426 --> 00:10:46,916 and when I was finished, she said, "Mary, everything's created twice." 238 00:10:46,916 --> 00:10:47,982 "What do you mean?" 239 00:10:47,982 --> 00:10:50,507 She said, "You know this. In fact, everybody knows it. 240 00:10:50,507 --> 00:10:53,604 Almost nobody knows the power of knowing this. 241 00:10:54,796 --> 00:10:57,550 The bed you're on, your nightgown, the sheet covering you, 242 00:10:57,550 --> 00:11:00,594 the walls, ceiling, floor, all the machinery you're hooked up to 243 00:11:00,594 --> 00:11:03,441 first had to be a thought before it could be a thing. 244 00:11:04,056 --> 00:11:05,498 You know this." 245 00:11:05,736 --> 00:11:08,425 Then she said, "I hear how much you love your little boy, 246 00:11:08,425 --> 00:11:10,906 but I also hear how much you've been hating yourself. 247 00:11:10,906 --> 00:11:14,341 You feel like you shamed yourself, you shamed your school, your family. 248 00:11:14,341 --> 00:11:17,172 And now that you're thinking how everything's created twice, 249 00:11:17,172 --> 00:11:19,667 could you consider that there could be a correlation 250 00:11:19,667 --> 00:11:20,961 because, notice this Mary, 251 00:11:20,961 --> 00:11:24,075 if you think embarrassing thoughts, your cheeks get red; 252 00:11:24,075 --> 00:11:27,489 if you think scary enough thoughts, your heart beats faster. 253 00:11:27,489 --> 00:11:29,494 It doesn't mean anything scary is going on; 254 00:11:29,494 --> 00:11:32,092 it doesn't even mean anything embarrassing is going on; 255 00:11:32,092 --> 00:11:35,440 it means you think those thoughts, and your body responds. 256 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:39,290 Could it be that if you think enough toxic thoughts about yourself, 257 00:11:39,421 --> 00:11:43,516 there could be a correlative, a toxicity, that goes on in your body 258 00:11:43,516 --> 00:11:45,589 that actually could threaten your life?" 259 00:11:45,589 --> 00:11:46,801 Well, this was so beyond 260 00:11:46,801 --> 00:11:49,837 anything that I had any framework for at that point. 261 00:11:50,170 --> 00:11:53,539 "Could you believe it's possible that we could do a prayer or say words 262 00:11:53,539 --> 00:11:55,842 and this could completely be eliminated from you, 263 00:11:55,842 --> 00:11:57,791 and when they come to get you for surgery, 264 00:11:57,791 --> 00:11:59,740 they say, 'Get up, go home. You're fine.' 265 00:11:59,740 --> 00:12:00,904 Could you believe that?" 266 00:12:00,904 --> 00:12:02,517 And I told her the truth: "No." 267 00:12:02,517 --> 00:12:04,862 I didn't believe that was going to happen for me. 268 00:12:04,862 --> 00:12:06,875 There was not one part of me that believed. 269 00:12:06,875 --> 00:12:09,365 I was way more belief in my pain at that point. 270 00:12:09,365 --> 00:12:11,513 She said: "Alright, if you can't believe this, 271 00:12:11,513 --> 00:12:14,155 remember there's an infinite number of possibilities. 272 00:12:14,155 --> 00:12:16,831 There has to be one where instead of - we do this prayer, 273 00:12:16,831 --> 00:12:22,240 we pull all the genesis of this dis-ease that's going on in you 274 00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:24,691 and put it in the kidney that's going to be removed. 275 00:12:24,691 --> 00:12:26,545 And when it's removed, you get better. 276 00:12:26,545 --> 00:12:28,707 Could you believe that's possible?" 277 00:12:28,707 --> 00:12:30,318 I didn't know if it was possible, 278 00:12:30,318 --> 00:12:32,602 but I could tell she believed it was possible, 279 00:12:32,602 --> 00:12:34,311 and I believe it was the first time 280 00:12:34,311 --> 00:12:37,405 I ever chose to believe on the frequency of someone else's belief, 281 00:12:37,405 --> 00:12:39,164 who was operating at a higher domain. 282 00:12:39,164 --> 00:12:40,604 I said, "Maybe it's possible." 283 00:12:40,604 --> 00:12:44,231 Remember, this is before Sheldrake and David Bohm, and quantum field science, 284 00:12:44,231 --> 00:12:46,465 and all the things - 285 00:12:46,723 --> 00:12:49,336 at this point, there was no mind-body clinic at Harvard. 286 00:12:49,336 --> 00:12:52,855 I mean, in the last 40 years, so much has happened. 287 00:12:52,855 --> 00:12:55,072 So she said, "Alright, let's work with that. 288 00:12:55,072 --> 00:12:56,071 One idea," she says, 289 00:12:56,071 --> 00:12:59,393 "one part of you open to the idea; let's work with that." 290 00:12:59,393 --> 00:13:01,063 She said some words. 291 00:13:01,063 --> 00:13:05,329 She gave me a prescriptive for how to use my thinking and my emotion, 292 00:13:05,329 --> 00:13:06,949 and then she left, 293 00:13:07,013 --> 00:13:08,988 and they did the surgery, 294 00:13:08,988 --> 00:13:10,983 and about a week or two later, 295 00:13:10,983 --> 00:13:13,776 my numbers were stable - enough that they said, 296 00:13:13,776 --> 00:13:16,123 "You might have a bit more time. You can go home." 297 00:13:16,123 --> 00:13:18,225 I went to my parents' house in an ambulance, 298 00:13:18,225 --> 00:13:20,196 where my son and husband were staying. 299 00:13:20,196 --> 00:13:22,205 I could hardly get my head off the pillow. 300 00:13:22,205 --> 00:13:25,692 But subtly - I was in many times a week at first, and over time, less time 301 00:13:25,692 --> 00:13:27,823 as being checked, having my numbers checked. 302 00:13:27,823 --> 00:13:31,745 And subtly over time, my numbers not only stabilized, but improved. 303 00:13:31,745 --> 00:13:34,711 And four or five months later, I'm sitting in a doctor's office 304 00:13:34,711 --> 00:13:37,440 with a surgeon and a specialist and my regular GP, 305 00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:39,441 and they're scratching their heads, saying, 306 00:13:39,441 --> 00:13:42,146 "We have no science for why your one kidney 307 00:13:42,146 --> 00:13:43,479 is not only getting [better] 308 00:13:43,479 --> 00:13:46,858 it seems to be functioning as a perfectly whole fine kidney. 309 00:13:46,858 --> 00:13:49,507 We don't have any science for this. 310 00:13:49,507 --> 00:13:51,491 We'll put medical anomaly on your chart. 311 00:13:51,491 --> 00:13:53,502 Whatever you've been doing, keep doing it." 312 00:13:53,502 --> 00:13:54,979 (Laughter) 313 00:13:54,979 --> 00:13:58,375 That's when I began to do the things that I've told you about. 314 00:13:58,375 --> 00:14:01,198 I got into undergraduate school, I got into graduate school, 315 00:14:01,198 --> 00:14:03,794 and over time as I reflected about what happened, 316 00:14:03,794 --> 00:14:06,777 and I studied people who transform their results - 317 00:14:07,329 --> 00:14:09,405 people who transform their results, 318 00:14:09,405 --> 00:14:13,414 not just wish for a better result, but actually transform their results - 319 00:14:13,414 --> 00:14:15,963 there are three things they do, every one of them, 320 00:14:15,963 --> 00:14:18,589 whether they do it consciously or unconsciously. 321 00:14:18,589 --> 00:14:22,156 When I transformed my health result, I was totally an unconscious competent. 322 00:14:22,156 --> 00:14:23,789 I just did what she told me to do. 323 00:14:23,789 --> 00:14:25,767 She said: "Here's what's going to happen. 324 00:14:25,767 --> 00:14:29,511 When you have that surgery, yet your mind is very much like a rubber band, 325 00:14:29,511 --> 00:14:31,186 you thought those thoughts so much, 326 00:14:31,186 --> 00:14:33,856 your mind is going to want to think those toxic thoughts. 327 00:14:33,856 --> 00:14:35,801 They're going to remove that one kidney. 328 00:14:35,801 --> 00:14:38,966 Every time you notice yourself starting to think of toxic thoughts, 329 00:14:38,966 --> 00:14:40,763 say, "No, that left with the kidney," 330 00:14:40,763 --> 00:14:43,539 and then immediately imagine yourself - 331 00:14:43,539 --> 00:14:46,077 like you're walking in and getting into your own bed - 332 00:14:46,077 --> 00:14:46,947 imagine yourself." 333 00:14:46,947 --> 00:14:49,033 I wanted my two big dreams: 334 00:14:49,033 --> 00:14:51,557 I want to be a teacher, and I want to raise my son. 335 00:14:51,557 --> 00:14:55,111 "Imagine you're walking into a school with a five-year-old's hand in yours. 336 00:14:55,111 --> 00:14:57,015 Feel the warmth of his hand in yours. 337 00:14:57,015 --> 00:14:59,098 He goes into his kindergarten class. 338 00:14:59,098 --> 00:15:00,961 You hear the click-click of your heels. 339 00:15:00,961 --> 00:15:03,005 Around the corner, there's your classroom, 340 00:15:03,005 --> 00:15:04,723 and you're a teacher, and he's five. 341 00:15:04,723 --> 00:15:05,810 Imagine yourself. 342 00:15:05,810 --> 00:15:08,778 Then fast forward: imagine you're sitting in a big auditorium. 343 00:15:08,778 --> 00:15:10,431 There's caps and gowns down there. 344 00:15:10,431 --> 00:15:14,089 Your son's 18; he's graduating from high school, and you're there, 345 00:15:14,089 --> 00:15:15,816 and your teaching career is growing. 346 00:15:15,816 --> 00:15:19,237 Then fast forward and imagine you're in the front row of a wedding. 347 00:15:19,237 --> 00:15:20,754 You're the mother of the groom. 348 00:15:20,754 --> 00:15:22,732 Your son's marrying the love of his life. 349 00:15:22,732 --> 00:15:24,633 And your teaching career is flourishing. 350 00:15:24,633 --> 00:15:26,168 Keep repeating that." 351 00:15:26,448 --> 00:15:27,893 I had done that unconsciously. 352 00:15:27,893 --> 00:15:30,137 Every time I would start to think, "Oh my gosh!" 353 00:15:30,137 --> 00:15:33,385 and start to generate that wavelength of self-loathing, 354 00:15:33,567 --> 00:15:35,482 I said: "No, that left with the kidney." 355 00:15:35,482 --> 00:15:36,486 Then I saw myself, 356 00:15:36,486 --> 00:15:39,401 and I imagined being the person taking him into kindergarten, 357 00:15:39,401 --> 00:15:41,576 being the person seeing him graduate, 358 00:15:41,576 --> 00:15:44,639 being the person sitting in the front row of his wedding. 359 00:15:44,639 --> 00:15:46,485 I had no idea the power of that. 360 00:15:46,805 --> 00:15:50,606 But after 45 years of studying and tens of thousands of people, 361 00:15:50,799 --> 00:15:52,921 what I know are these three things. 362 00:15:53,197 --> 00:15:56,829 That if when we get together next year for our reunion, 363 00:15:56,829 --> 00:16:00,437 and if you would love to be able to share results, 364 00:16:00,437 --> 00:16:02,598 in particularly one or two areas of your life 365 00:16:02,598 --> 00:16:06,035 where you feel the greatest longing and the most discontent, 366 00:16:06,275 --> 00:16:08,562 then these three things will help you. 367 00:16:08,722 --> 00:16:13,778 Number one, you want to create with clarity a specific dream. 368 00:16:13,778 --> 00:16:17,936 Imagine yourself: health, what would you love? relationships. 369 00:16:18,064 --> 00:16:21,074 As clear the dream you can design, 370 00:16:21,074 --> 00:16:23,531 the more your brain can work on that frequency. 371 00:16:23,531 --> 00:16:26,122 You know if you want to change your television channel, 372 00:16:26,122 --> 00:16:27,776 you have to change the frequency. 373 00:16:27,776 --> 00:16:30,076 You know if you want to change the radio station, 374 00:16:30,076 --> 00:16:31,913 you've got to change the frequency. 375 00:16:31,913 --> 00:16:33,998 We're not really different. 376 00:16:34,208 --> 00:16:36,234 We think on frequencies. 377 00:16:36,421 --> 00:16:39,087 Our ability to see and not see opportunities 378 00:16:39,087 --> 00:16:41,483 are on the frequencies we think from. 379 00:16:41,483 --> 00:16:43,308 Create a specific dream. 380 00:16:43,308 --> 00:16:44,911 See yourself in it. 381 00:16:45,220 --> 00:16:47,166 Refuse to stay discouraged. 382 00:16:47,166 --> 00:16:50,689 I didn't say refuse to get discouraged; we're all going to get discouraged. 383 00:16:50,689 --> 00:16:52,843 Not everything we try is going to work out. 384 00:16:52,843 --> 00:16:57,124 We learned to walk by falling down; we just didn't stay down. 385 00:16:57,124 --> 00:16:58,532 We were little kids. 386 00:16:58,532 --> 00:17:01,174 It was normal to explore, experiment. 387 00:17:01,174 --> 00:17:02,169 We got older, 388 00:17:02,169 --> 00:17:04,780 and we thought every step we take has got to work out. 389 00:17:04,780 --> 00:17:06,919 So decline to stay discouraged. 390 00:17:06,919 --> 00:17:08,593 Okay, that was feedback. 391 00:17:08,593 --> 00:17:12,656 When Edison was asked "How did you survive 10,000 failures?" 392 00:17:12,884 --> 00:17:16,133 He said: "I never had a failure; it was all feedback." 393 00:17:16,347 --> 00:17:18,496 You'll have some feedback this year. 394 00:17:18,496 --> 00:17:20,689 Decline to stay discouraged, 395 00:17:20,887 --> 00:17:24,435 and then be more interested in the growth that will happen for you 396 00:17:24,435 --> 00:17:26,150 by means of having a dream. 397 00:17:26,537 --> 00:17:30,945 Yes, many, many wonderful things will happen if you become a dream builder, 398 00:17:30,945 --> 00:17:32,888 not a dreamer, a dream builder, 399 00:17:32,888 --> 00:17:35,118 because you're going to create results anyway. 400 00:17:35,328 --> 00:17:37,287 But to stay in the comfort zone 401 00:17:37,287 --> 00:17:39,687 means you're going to keep having what you've had - 402 00:17:39,687 --> 00:17:41,225 that's where you're comfortable. 403 00:17:41,225 --> 00:17:44,612 If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done - 404 00:17:44,612 --> 00:17:45,605 that's growth. 405 00:17:45,605 --> 00:17:48,087 We'll get a little unstable in that part of our life. 406 00:17:48,087 --> 00:17:52,709 So if you're more interested in growth than comfort, 407 00:17:52,709 --> 00:17:56,114 you're willing to be interested a little bit in growth 408 00:17:56,114 --> 00:17:59,227 because it's more for you than what's been, 409 00:17:59,227 --> 00:18:01,379 and do that in service of your dream. 410 00:18:01,989 --> 00:18:03,192 So those three things: 411 00:18:03,192 --> 00:18:04,637 be specific about your dream; 412 00:18:04,637 --> 00:18:06,329 decline to stay discouraged; 413 00:18:06,329 --> 00:18:09,154 be in service of your dream through the growth that happens, 414 00:18:09,154 --> 00:18:13,489 and you can have that every single day during this 365-day experiment 415 00:18:13,489 --> 00:18:16,570 before we have our reunion next year. 416 00:18:16,900 --> 00:18:20,453 Now, not one of us can go back and change what's back there, 417 00:18:20,453 --> 00:18:24,814 but every single one of us can decide what's going to be out there. 418 00:18:24,814 --> 00:18:26,154 Thank you. 419 00:18:26,154 --> 00:18:27,778 (Applause)