I would like to ask everyone in this beautiful, beautiful audience,
just like he said,
When and have you ever -
think back to your childhood -
have you ever been taught formally how to pay attention?
I'm talking somebody sat you down, said,
"Step 1. Step 2. Step 3.
This is how you pay attention."
I'd like a show of hands
if you who were formally taught how to pay attention
when you were a child.
(Laughter)
Now, for those of you who are wondering,
What in the world did he just say?
and who are thinking about who's the next presenter
or did I actually put deodorant on today?
(Laughter)
You're like me.
As you can see.
You are like me.
Oh my goodness.
I struggled and I still struggle with paying attention.
And I tell you what,
I'm going to take you back to that elementary school era.
Do you remember the coat closet?
This time of year, everybody's got their coats,
and you've got all your cubbies
and the things you brought to school you're not allowed to bring into class.
One day, my teacher thought it was a good idea -
one of those days I'm out in la-la land:
"Chris, Chris."
She took me and brought me into that coat closet and said,
"I think you'll pay attention better in here."
And she closed the door behind me,
and I went, looked around, I said, "Oh, yeah."
I took all those coats, and I threw them all on the floor -
big pile, big pile.
And I took the diddle sheets, laid them down,
and I fell asleep right on top of them,
and I just lay there,
and I feel asleep for three hours -
the teacher forgot about me.
(Laughter)
And she opens the door, and I wake up,
and my first thing was like,
"Yeah. I slept through school!
That's awesome."
And then I head out, all happy, you know,
and then I get my friends looking at me, going,
"Dude, what were you doing in there, man?"
(Laughter)
"What? I ... "
and then it turned to "What's wrong with me?"
I was the kid in the coat closet, man.
Ah, man.
And then you fast forward a few more years.
Picture this: a classroom,
beautiful tables all lined up,
and here is this 1970-style study carrel,
back in the corner, orange.
Big circular, cool, '70s-style kind of thing.
There was a little window where you could peek out.
Well, that's where they put me.
And I was sitting back there one day,
out in la-la land.
You put a kid like me out there,
and I'm looking off and thinking about space, all kinds of stuff,
and I look over,
and I see Big Brian,
and Big Brian's another kid who had trouble paying attention.
And Big Brian's butt crack is like, like, like fully exposed,
and I'm thinking to myself,
"How many spitballs can I get down Big Brian's butt crack
(Laughter)
before Big Brian notices?"
And the answer is 20.
(Laughter)
20.
At 20, Big Brian jumped up and said, "Hey!"
And my teacher grabbed me by the neck and took me into the hallway,
took more diddle paper sheets and put me in the hallway,
and in the hallway,
I'm sitting there, going, "Man, this is sort of cool."
But then, yet again, the same thought:
"What the heck's wrong with me, man?
Why am I out here?"
Well, I survived - oh my goodness.
I survived hellementary - I mean, elementary school,
and middle school -
oh, don't even talk about middle school.
But here we are, high school graduation.
High school graduation -
I'm sitting here, in the line,
everybody's all happy,
I'm sweating like I am now
because I had to get a 94 on my Spanish exam to graduate,
and I'm siiting there, thinking,
"Please, God,
don't let me be the kid in the coat closet again.
Don't let me get the kid that's in the study carrel.
Oh, not this time, please."
Well, I tell you what.
That's why I'm standing here today.
I'd like to propose an alternative to putting kids in the coat closet,
putting them in study carrels,
and just telling them just to plain old "You pay attention."
I want to propose -
because the joy of my life
is in my therapy with children and adults who have attentional challenges.
I get to introduce them to mindfulness training,
training you how to pay attention:
"Step 1. Step 2. Step 3.
This is how you pay attention."
I wish somebody would have taught me
how to bring your mind back from Big Brian's butt crack
to this boring math,
this boring stuff that makes me feel like I want to pull my hair out.
How do I say
"Not now, mind.
Look at the teacher's funky dangle earrings,
and then she'll think I'm paying attention to her."
But that helps.
Well, I tell you what.
My gift today to you all is a little taste of mindfulness.
This little taste of mindfulness is in four steps,
and so, in a moment,
I'm going to take you through four steps.
The first step is this:
I'm going to have everyone close their eyes.
And the second step will be -
I'm going to ring this chime -
I'm going to have you focus the best of your ability -
I know it's tough for some of us, like me -
focus that down just to the tone of that chime.
That's it.
The third step - if you notice your mind wandering,
which mine will, even when I'm up here,
if you notice it wandering,
gently bring it back to that tone of the chime.
Just gently bring it on back.
And step four is when you no longer can hear it,
open your eyes and raise your hand, and we'll take a look around.
All right.
Here we go.
One. Two. Three. Eyes closed.
(Chime tone)
Everyone look around.
Beautiful.
720 people paying attention to the same thing at the same time.
Beautiful.
Well, I want everyone out here
to go spread the good news of mindfulness training,
and go learn about it,
teach your children,
introduce the challenge for yourself.
So I want start a revolution
because we no longer want to lose our dreamers and discoverers and dynamos,
but we want to foster
our future Edisons, our Einsteins, our Picassos, our Louisa May Alcotts
and future great, great TED presenters.
Thank you so much.
(Applause)