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So if I told you that

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this was the face of pure joy,

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would you call me crazy?

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I wouldn't blame you,

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because every time I look
at this Arctic selfie,

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I shiver just a little bit.

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I want to tell you
a little bit about this photograph.

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I was swimming around
in the Lofoten Islands in Norway,

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just inside the Arctic Circle,

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and the water was hovering
right at freezing.

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The air? A brisk -10 with windchill,

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and I could literally feel the blood
trying to leave my hands,

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feet, and face, and rush
to protect my vital organs.

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It was the coldest I've ever been.

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But even with swollen lips, sunken eyes,
and cheeks flushed red,

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I have found that this place right here

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is somewhere I can find great joy.

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Now, when it comes to pain,
psychologist Brock Bastian

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probably said it best when he wrote,

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"Pain is a kind of shortcut
to mindfulness.

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It makes us suddenly aware
of everything in the environment.

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It brutally draws us in

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to a virtual sensory
awareness of the world

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much like meditation."

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If shivering is a form of meditation,
then I would consider myself a monk.

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Now, before we get into the why,

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would anyone ever want to surf
in freezing cold water?

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I would love to give you
a little perspective

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on what a day in my life can look like.

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(Music)

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(Video) Chris Burkard: I mean, I know
we were hoping for good waves,

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but I don't think anybody thought
that was going to happen.

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I can't stop shaking.

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I am so cold.

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(Music)

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(Applause)

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Chris Burkard: So,
surf photographer, right?

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I don't even know
if it's a real job title, to be honest.

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My parents definitely didn't think so

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when I told them at 19
I was quitting my job

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to pursue this dream career:

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blue skies, warm tropical beaches,
and a tan that lasts all year long.

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I mean, to me, this was it.
Life could not get any better:

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sweating it out, shooting surfers
in these exotic tourist destinations.

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But there was just this one problem.

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You see, the more time I spent traveling
to these exotic locations,

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the less gratifying it seemed to be.

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I set out seeking adventure,
and what I was finding was only routine.

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It was things like Wifi, TV, fine dining,
and a constant cellular connection

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that to me were all the trappings
of places heavily touristed

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in and out of the water,

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and it didn't take long
for me to start feeling suffocated.

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I began craving wild, open spaces,

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and so I set out to find the places
others had written off

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as too cold, too remote,
and too dangerous to surf,

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and that challenge intrigued me.

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I began this sort of personal crusade
against the mundane,

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because if there's
one thing I've realized,

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it's that any career,

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even one as seemingly glamorous
as surf photography,

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has the danger of becoming monotonous.

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So in my search to break up
this monotony, I realized something:

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there's only about a third
of the Earth's oceans that are warm,

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and it's really just that thin band
around the equator.

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So if I was going to find perfect waves,

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it was probably going
to happen somewhere cold,

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where the seas are notoriously rough,

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and that's exactly where I began to look.

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And it was my first trip to Iceland

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that I felt like I found
exactly what I was looking for.

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I was blown away
by the natural beauty of the landscape,

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but most importantly, I couldn't believe

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we were finding perfect waves

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in such a remote and rugged
part of the world.

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At one point, we got to the beach

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only to find massive chunks of ice
had piled on the shoreline.

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They created this barrier
between us and the surf,

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and we had to weave through this thing
like a maze just to get out into the lineup,

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and once we got there,
we were pushing aside these ice chunks

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trying to get into waves.

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It was an incredible experience,
one I'll never forget,

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because amidst those harsh conditions,

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I felt like I stumbled onto
one of the last quiet places,

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somewhere that I found a clarity
and a connection with the world

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I knew I would never find
on a crowded beach.

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I was hooked. I was hooked. (Laughter)

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Cold water was constantly on my mind,

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and from that point on, my career

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focused on these types of harsh
and unforgiving environments,

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and it took me to places like Russia,
Norway, Alaska, Iceland, Chile,

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the Faroe Islands,
and a lot of places in between,

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and one of my favorite things
about these places

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was simply the challenge and
the creativity it took just to get there:

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hours, days, weeks spent on Google Earth

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trying to pinpoint any remote
stretch of beach or reef

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we could actually get to.

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And once we got there,

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the vehicles were just as creative:

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snowmobiles, six-wheel
Soviet troop carriers,

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and a couple of super-sketchy
helicopter flights.

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(Laughter)

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Helicopters really scare me, by the way.

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There was this one particularly
bumpy boat ride

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up the coast of Vancouver Island
to this kind of remote surf spot,

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where we ended up watching
helplessly from the water

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as bears ravaged our camp site.

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They walked off with our food
and bits of our tent,

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clearly letting us know that we
were at the bottom of the food chain

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and that this was their spot, not ours.

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But to me, that trip

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was a testament to the wildness
I traded for those touristy beaches.

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Now, it wasn't until I traveled to Norway

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-- (Laughter) --

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that I really learned
to appreciate the cold.

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So this is the place

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where some of the largest,
the most violent storms in the world

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send huge waves smashing
into the coastline.

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We were in this tiny, remote fjord,

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just inside the Arctic Circle.

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It had a greater population
of sheep than people,

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so help if we needed it
was nowhere to be found.

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I was in the water
taking pictures of surfers,

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and it started to snow.

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And then the temperature

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began to drop.

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And I told myself, there's not a chance
you're getting out of the water.

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You traveled all this way. This is
exactly what you've been waiting for:

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freezing cold conditions
with perfect waves,

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and although I couldn't even feel
my finger to push the trigger,

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I knew I wasn't getting out.

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So I just did whatever I could.
I shook it off, whatever.

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But that was the point that I felt

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this wind gush through
the valley and hit me,

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and what started as this light snowfall

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quickly became a full on blizzard,

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and I started to lose perception

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of where I was.

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I didn't know if I was drifting out to sea

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or towards shore,

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and all I could really make out
was the faint sound of seagulls

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and crashing waves.

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Now, I knew this place had a reputation

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for sinking ships and ground planes,

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and while I was out there floating,

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I started to get a little bit nervous.

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Actually, I was totally freaking out

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-- (Laughter) -- and I was
borderline hypothermic,

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and my friends eventually
had to help me out of the water.

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And I don't know if it was
delirium setting in or what,

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but they told me later

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I had a smile on my face the entire time.

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Now, it was this trip

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and probably that exact experience
where I really began to feel

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like every photograph was precious,

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because all of a sudden in that moment,
it was something I was forced to earn.

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And I realized,

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all this shivering had actually
taught me something:

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in life, there are no shortcuts to joy.

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Anything that is worth pursuing
is going to require us to suffer

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just a little bit,

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and that tiny bit of suffering
that I did for my photography,

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it added a value to my work
that was so much more meaningful to me

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than just trying to fill
the pages of the magazines.

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See, I gave a piece of myself

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in these places,

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and what I walked away with

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was a sense of fulfillment

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I had always been searching for.

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So I look back at this photograph.

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It's easy to see frozen fingers
and cold wetsuits

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and even the struggle
that it took just to get there,

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but most of all, what I see

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is just joy.

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Thank you so much.

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(Applause)