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First of all, thank you
for your attention.

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There's nothing quite like
being in a room full of people like this,

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where all of you are giving
your attention to me.

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It's a powerful feeling, to get attention.

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I'm an actor, so I'm a bit
of an expert on, well, nothing, really.

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(Laughter)

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But I do know what it feels like
to get attention --

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I've been lucky in my life

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to get a lot more
than my fair share of attention.

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And I'm grateful for that,

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because like I said,
it's a powerful feeling.

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But there's another powerful feeling

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that I've also been lucky
to experience a lot as an actor.

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And it's funny, it's sort of
the opposite feeling,

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because it doesn't come
from getting attention.

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It comes from paying attention.

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When I'm acting,

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I get so focused that I'm only
paying attention to one thing.

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Like when I'm on set
and we're about to shoot

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and the first AD calls out "Rolling!"

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And then I hear "speed," "marker," "set,"

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and then the director calls "Action!"

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I've heard that sequence so many times,

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like, it's become this Pavlovian
magic spell for me.

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"Rolling," "speed," "marker,"
"set" and "action."

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Something happens to me,
I can't even help it.

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My attention ...

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narrows.

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And everything else in the world,

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anything else that might be bothering me
or might grab my attention,

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it all goes away, and I'm just ... there.

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And that feeling, that is what I love,

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that, to me, is creativity.

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And that's the biggest reason
I'm so grateful that I get to be an actor.

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So, there's these two powerful feelings.

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There's getting attention
and paying attention.

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Of course, in the last decade or so,

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new technology has allowed
more and more people

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to have this powerful feeling
of getting attention.

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For any kind of creative
expression, not just acting.

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It could be writing or photography
or drawing, music -- everything.

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The channels of distribution
have been democratized,

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and that's a good thing.

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But I do think there's
an unintended consequence

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for anybody on the planet
with an urge to be creative --

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myself included,
because I'm not immune to this.

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I think that our creativity

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is becoming more and more
of a means to an end --

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and that end is to get attention.

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And so I feel compelled to speak up

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because in my experience,

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the more I go after that powerful
feeling of paying attention,

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the happier I am.

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But the more I go after
the powerful feeling of getting attention,

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the unhappier I am.

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(One person claps)

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And -- thanks.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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So this is something
that goes way back for me.

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I think the first time I can remember
using my acting to get attention,

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I was eight years old at summer camp.

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And I'd been going on auditions
for about a year by then,

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and I'd been lucky to get some small parts

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in TV shows and commercials,

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and I bragged about it a lot,
that summer at camp.

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And at first, it worked.

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The other kids gave me
a bunch of extra attention,

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because I had been on "Family Ties."

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That's a picture of me on "Family Ties."

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(Laughter)

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Then, the tide turned --

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I think I took it too far
with the bragging.

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And then, the other kids
started to make fun of me.

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I remember there was this one girl
I had a crush on, Rocky.

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Her name was Rachel, she went by Rocky.

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And she was beautiful, and she could sing,

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and I was smitten with her,
and I was standing there, bragging.

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And she turned to me
and she called me a show-off.

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Which I 100 percent deserved.

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But you know, it still really hurt.

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And ever since that summer,

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I've had a certain hesitance
to seek attention for my acting.

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Sometimes, people would ask me,

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"Wait a minute,
if you don't like the attention,

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then why are you an actor?"

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And I'd be like,

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"Because that's not what acting's about,
man, it's about the art."

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And they'd be like, "OK, OK, dude."

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(Laughter)

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And then Twitter came out.

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And I got totally hooked on it,
just like everybody else,

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which made me into a complete hypocrite.

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Because at that point,

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I was absolutely using my acting
to get attention.

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I mean, what, did I think
I was just getting all these followers

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because of my brilliant tweets?

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I actually did think that -- I was like --

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(Laughter)

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"They don't just like me
because they saw me in 'Batman,'

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they like what I have to say,
I've got a way with words."

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(Laughter)

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And then in no time at all,

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it started having an impact
on my dearly beloved creative process.

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It still does.

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I try not to let it.

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But you know, I'd be sitting there,
like, reading a script.

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And instead of thinking,

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"How can I personally identify
with this character?"

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Or "How is the audience
going to relate to this story?"

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I'm like, "What are people going to say
about this movie on Twitter?"

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And "What will I say back

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that will be good and snarky enough
to get a lot of retweets,

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but not too harsh,

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because people love to get offended,
and I don't want to get canceled?"

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These are the thoughts that enter my mind

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when I'm supposed to be reading a script,
trying to be an artist.

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And I'm not here to tell you

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that technology
is the enemy of creativity.

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I don't think that.

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I think tech is just a tool.

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It has the potential to foster
unprecedented human creativity.

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Like, I even started
an online community called HITRECORD,

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where people all over the world

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collaborate on all kinds
of creative projects,

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so I don't think that social media
or smartphones or any technology

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is problematic in and of itself.

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But ...

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if we're going to talk
about the perils of creativity

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becoming a means to get attention,

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then we have to talk about
the attention-driven business model

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of today's big social media
companies, right?

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(Applause)

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This will be familiar territory
for some of you,

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but it's a really relevant question here:

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How does a social media platform

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like, for example, Instagram, make money?

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It's not selling
a photo-sharing service --

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that part's free.

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So what is it selling?

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It's selling attention.

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It's selling the attention
of its users to advertisers.

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And there's a lot of discussion right now

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about how much attention we're all giving
to things like Instagram,

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but my question is:

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How is Instagram getting
so much attention?

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We get it for them.

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Anytime somebody posts on Instagram,

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they get a certain amount of attention
from their followers,

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whether they have a few followers
or a few million followers.

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And the more attention you're able to get,

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the more attention
Instagram is able to sell.

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So it's in Instagram's interest

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for you to get as much
attention as possible.

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And so it trains you
to want that attention,

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to crave it, to feel stressed out
when you're not getting enough of it.

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Instagram gets its users addicted

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to the powerful feeling
of getting attention.

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And I know we all joke, like,
"Oh my God, I'm so addicted to my phone,"

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but this is a real addiction.

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There's a whole science to it.

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If you're curious, I recommend
the work of Jaron Lanier,

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Tristan Harris, Nir Eyal.

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But here's what I can tell you.

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Being addicted to getting attention

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is just like being addicted
to anything else.

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It's never enough.

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You start out and you're thinking,

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"If only I had 1,000 followers,
that would feel amazing."

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But then you're like, "Well,
once I get to 10,000 followers,"

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and, "Once I get to 100 --

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Once I get to a million followers,
then I'll feel amazing."

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So I have 4.2 million
followers on Twitter --

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it's never made me feel amazing.

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I'm not going to tell you
how many I have on Instagram,

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because I feel genuine shame
about how low the number is,

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because I joined Instagram
after "Batman" came out.

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(Laughter)

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And I search other actors,

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and I see that their number
is higher than mine,

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and it makes me feel
terrible about myself.

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Because the follower count

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makes everybody feel terrible
about themselves.

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That feeling of inadequacy
is what drives you to post,

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so you can get more attention,

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and then that attention that you get
is what these companies sell,

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that's how they make their money.

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So there is no amount
of attention you can get

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where you feel like you've arrived,

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and you're like, "Ah, I'm good now."

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And of course, there are a lot of actors
who are more famous than I am,

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have more followers than I do,

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but I bet you they would tell you
the same thing.

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If your creativity is driven
by a desire to get attention,

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you're never going to be
creatively fulfilled.

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But I do have some good news.

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There is this other powerful feeling.

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Something else you can do
with your attention

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besides letting a giant tech company
control it and sell it.

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This is that feeling I was talking about,

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why I love acting so much --

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it's being able to pay attention
to just one thing.

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Turns out there's actually
some science behind this too.

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Psychologists and neuroscientists --

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they study a phenomenon they call flow,

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which is this thing that happens
in the human brain

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when someone pays attention
to just one thing,

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like something creative,

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and manages not to get distracted
by anything else.

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And some say the more regularly
you do this, the happier you'll be.

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Now I'm not a psychologist
or a neuroscientist.

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But I can tell you,
for me, that is very true.

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It's not always easy, it's hard.

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To really pay attention
like this takes practice,

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everybody does it their own way.

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But if there's one thing I can share

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that I think helps me focus
and really pay attention, it's this:

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I try not to see other creative
people as my competitors.

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I try to find collaborators.

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Like, if I'm acting in a scene,

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if I start seeing the other actors
as my competitors, and I'm like,

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"God, they're going to get
more attention than I am,

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people are going to be talking
about their performance more than mine" --

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I've lost my focus.

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And I'm probably
going to suck in that scene.

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But when I see the other actors
as collaborators,

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then it becomes almost easy to focus,

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because I'm just paying attention to them.

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And I don't have to think
about what I'm doing --

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I react to what they're doing,

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they react to what I'm doing,

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and we can kind of
keep each other in it together.

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But I don't want you to think
it's only actors on a set

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that can collaborate in this way.

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I could be in whatever
kind of creative situation.

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It could be professional,
could be just for fun.

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I could be collaborating with people
I'm not even in the same room with.

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In fact, some of my favorite
things I've ever made,

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I made with people
that I never physically met.

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And by the way,

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this, to me, is the beauty
of the internet.

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If we could just stop
competing for attention,

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then the internet becomes
a great place to find collaborators.

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And once I'm collaborating
with other people,

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whether they're on set,
or online, wherever,

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that makes it so much easier
for me to find that flow,

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because we're all just paying attention

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to the one thing
that we're making together.

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And I fell like I'm part
of something larger than myself,

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and we all sort of shield each other

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from anything else that might
otherwise grab our attention,

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and we can all just be there.

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At least that's what works for me.

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Sometimes.

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Sometimes -- it doesn't always work.

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Sometimes, I still totally get
wrapped up in that addictive cycle

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of wanting to get attention.

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I mean, like, even right now,

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can I honestly say there's not
some part of me here who's like,

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"Hey, everybody, look at me,
I'm giving a TED Talk!"

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(Laughter)

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There is -- there's, you know, some part.

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But I can also honestly say

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that this whole creative process
of writing and giving this talk,

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it's been a huge opportunity
for me to focus

00:12:36.557 --> 00:12:39.643
and really pay attention to something
I care a lot about.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:40.802 --> 00:12:46.397
So regardless of how much attention
I do or don't get as a result,

00:12:46.421 --> 00:12:47.688
I'm happy I did it.

00:12:48.236 --> 00:12:52.096
And I'm grateful to all of you
for letting me.

00:12:52.593 --> 00:12:54.611
So thank you, that's it,

00:12:54.635 --> 00:12:56.897
you can give your attention
to someone else now.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:56.921 --> 00:12:58.071
Thanks again.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:58.095 --> 00:13:01.976
(Applause)