Communication, emotion and dreams: Javier Cebreiros at TEDxGalicia

In this talk, Javier invokes the need to care for our communication in detail because, according to him, at all times we are communicating whether willing to or not, and “with communication we can change the world”.

Dear diary,

today has been a great day.

I've worked on being happy at work

and also -

Oh, no!

Another nightmare!

Today there are about 200 people

and it seems that they are hoping
that I speak in public...

Speak in public...

How terrible!

Well,

since this is just a dream

I'll take advantage to practice the TED Talk.

Good morning my friends,

I am Javier Cebreiros and without a doubt
being here is a dream for me.

During the next 10 minutes,

I'm going to try to offer you
a different vision of communication

from a perspective that you know how

to communicate perfectly;
something that you do well.

And it will be 10 minutes
for a specific reason:

because it's a magical number for me,
special, meaningful

10 is composed of 2 numbers, 1 and 0,

That mean the beginning and the end

which means that every ending
always implies a beginning.

Just like life: 10 minutes.

And since I'm dreaming, I'm going to share
my dream with you:

4 years ago, I knew that I wanted to be

the best communications professor
in the world.

I dream of filling an auditorium
of more than 1,000 people

in the United States
and giving a speech in English.

And every time I tell this,
somebody tells me that it's impossible.

And I'm happy!

I'm happy because a while ago I realized

that there's no dream too big
without someone saying it's impossible.

We only lose when we don't aspire
to great heights.

Therefore, 10 minutes to convince you
that you communicate perfectly.

I must be sincere and say that I hate 80%

of the public speaking courses.

And I hate them for a reason.

Because if what's supposed to happen,
is to make you communicate well

during 10, 20 minutes or one hour,

well they made a mistake
in the name and it wasn't

a "How to speak in public" course.

It was "Beginner theatre and acting class"
course.

We communicate 24 hours a day.

How I walk, how I smile,
everything, continuously.

And there are no hints
since everyone is different,

each one has their own nature.

There is not a key for us all
to speak in the same way.

There are no hints but there is
something indeed: mistakes.

For the last 2 years,
I have been researching

and I've identified in hundreds
of courses, speeches and conferences

3 communication mistakes.

And they are always repeated.

There's nothing worse
than repeating a mistake

therefore, let's get at it!

First mistake: "Emotionless people".

We have thousands
of good and bad emotions every day

and we communicate them:
and even better... or worse,

we spread them.

This I will explain
with a personal anecdote.

When I was 7 years old,
I decided to surprise my mother

and during an entire week
I was working on something big

from the perspective of
a 7 year old boy, of course.

Something spectacular
so the day she came

home at 9pm I ran and I said to her:

Mother! I've got a surprise for you!
And she opened the door...

and, to give you all a better idea,
I brought you a photograph

"Mother, I've got a surprise for you!"

And in that moment I told her:
"This is for you", and I gave her this.

(Laughter)

Ok, I don't know what you see here.

I see a pretty bad drawing

there are some 200
spelling mistakes in 7 words,

which is very hard to achieve,

but now you understand
why my parents are proud of me

for being able to write a book.

It didn't get good scores.

The fact is, when I gave it to her,
she had 2 options:

one was the realistic one:

"Javier, this drawing is awful!

Tomorrow I'm putting you
in private classes",

"What a crappy surprise",

slightly exaggerated but...
it was a realistic view,

after all the drawing is what it is.

However, my mother decided
on another option:

She chose to get excited
the day I gave it to her,

and to get excited the day she learnt
I would be giving this presentation.

And, why?

Well, because we are
the emotions that we communicate,

and the boy communicated
eagerness, love, happiness, tenderness...

And that was what I transmitted
to my mother.

So then... we choose what we communicate:

and my mother chose to make me feel
like the most special son in the world.

And you know what?

Believe it or not, I still haven't
dedicated myself to painting,

but it's true there wasn't
a single day I wouldn't work

for exciting the people that surround me.

What do we communicate?

With a little boy, it's very easy,

but what about at work?
And with our families?

What about our loved ones?
We choose what we communicate.

So, do we want to communicate
positive emotions?

Well, then we must live, jump, laugh...
put passion in life!

Do we want to communicate
negative emotions?

Well for that we turn on the news,

or work in something that we don't like.

Because that's another one,

I want to communicate
something positive

about something that I don't like...
Good!

The second communication mistake:
"People who don't make sense".

Let's see, if I want to communicate
something good

about something that I don't like.
Do you know how that sounds?

Bad. And we are then communicating
something bad.

Something isn't right,
we should change,

we must give sense to everything we do.

Today's speech is brilliant.

Great! I will go home happy,

some of the things I said will make sense.

Today's speech is awful.

Great! I will go home crying
and you learn how not to do a speech.

The fact is that in the two lines,

it makes sense for my United States speech

because I am going to make it make sense.

I'm positive that no one told Gandhi:

"You'll see, you go on a hunger strike,
that's excellent marketing,

they'll probably award you
the Noble Peace prize,

you go and find out, Mahatma, you'll see."

No!

Gandhi did it because
it made sense to him,

and that later brought things.

Does it make sense to you
what you communicate everyday?

Does it make sense to you
what you do everyday?

I say it, because when things
make sense and emotions,

there's only one nuance left,

and that is the third
communication mistake:

"People without a message".

We have a lot to say to this world,

everyone and everybody.

A lot to say and nonetheless,

I think that we don't let ourselves go

and we arrive at what I call
"bisociety" in which I believe we live in,

with 2 messages:

Black or white, right or left,
Barça or Madrid.

I don't know if it's because I'm Galician
but a lot of times I say "It depends".

And in communication we do the same:

"You must smile when speaking in public";

and I just love it
because I bring my smile as a standard,

I'm a happy person,
it's great when they tell me that.

But I'll tell you something,

the entrepreneur I admire most of all
is my father.

My father looks at you
and he reassures you,

my father is a person
that you want by your side,

because he is trustworthy,
integrated, with values.

But

don't ask him to smile.

(Laughter)

You know how much humor my father has?

None! Whatsoever!

So, if we make him smile
when he speaks in public,

the people become suspicious of him,

"What a strange smile",
"This man doesn't give me a good feeling".

How come?

Because we are making him
resign his own nature.

He is the best, when he is he.

And why to they tell him
in a course "Smile",

work on your smile
when speaking in public?

Because we are carried away
by double messages:

"You must smile,
it's what most people say".

And, why are we carried away
by double messages?

Do you know what happens
when someone says:

"I want to be the best
communications professor in the world"?

Well, we encourage them
by saying "It's impossible!"

We are just like that.
What do we do?

Do we become discouraged
or continue rising up?

I believe that we should have
ideas for which

300 years ago we would have been
burned alive,

it's a way of seeing life,

because society nowadays does something
much worse than burning us,

and it's that it tries to discourage us.

With a very important twist,

and it's that, that bonfire
wasn't an option,

they tied me to a pole amongst everyone,
and they burnt me

in the center of the square;

but I only become discouraged
if I let myself.

Therefore, we must be ourselves,

we must our own personal messages.

I know it may seem strange,

because here comes some guy who says
there are no clues for communication,

and he's saying 3 things that we should do
to communicate; he contradicts himself.

But let me explain this too.

I'm not giving clues,

I'm encouraging you
to have your own emotions,

whatever they may be.

I'm encouraging you to give sense

to things you believe in as they must be,

and I'm encouraging you to be yourselves.

And encouraging to be
and giving hints are not the same.

We should make our own
conclusions of life,

we should do our own research;

and I come here today
to reveal one that I already did.

I have gone through all the teachers
I've ever had,

and in those from which I learnt
the most, the ones I liked the most,

I discovered one thing in common, one!

And it's humility!

I realized that when a teacher is here,
and I'm here

if he isn't able to get down to my level,
I can't learn anything from him.

I've had professors that knew very much,
that I didn't learn anything from.

Humility. In 2 ways:

knowing that when we believe that somebody
is here, as Kennedy said:

"The most important lesson is delivered
by the most unexpected person".

And so Javier,

with what you are saying,
with these 3 things, with humility...

Will we speak well in public
if we follow your advice?

No!

Not at all!

This is about communicating,
and that's what you'll do.

And now I will show you how we can
change the world with communication.

We are 200 people here,

- and now I will ask for your participation -

if I said,
that with the smallest gesture,

we can better the life
of 200 people outside,

how many of you would join me?
Please raise your hands.

Ok, and if I also said,

that it's for the most important people
of your lives,

how many would join me?
Now there's no excuses.

Great, as soon as this speech ends,
I am going to ask one thing,

and it is that you send a simple
text message from your cell phones.

It will be to the most important person
in your life and you'll tell them:

"Even though I don't say it enough...
I love you!"

Nothing else.

And I know that many of you won't do it,

and I'm thankful.
(Laughter)

Because it's useful for 2 things:

first showing that we choose
what we communicate,

because today we will choose to send
an "I love you" message to this person,

not the "You forgot to buy..."

Not that one, the "I love you" one.

We will choose the message,
and we will send it...

It just depends on us.

So does changing in the world,
our world,

it only depends on us,

We choose if we send that message.

I ask this question wherever I go,

and 2 months ago at a workshop in Coruña
at the end someone came to me

all emotional, started crying
and said "Thank you".

I said, "What happened?"

She said:

"Thank you because it's been
a rough year with my daughter,

we live alone and all year long
I never told her not one day,

that she is the most important person in my life".

It was magic.

2 days later she wrote me an email saying

"Again thanks,
because when I got home,

my daughter was thrilled
and she said to me:

'I've missed you so much mom'".

That is my way of changing the world.

And me, what did I do?
Nothing!

I encouraged her to communicate.

So, don't tell me you don't know
how to communicate,

because only you,

with a simple 8-word message,

can change someone's life.

Only you

with a simple 8-word message,

can touch anyone that will touch

the person that you send it to.

That is what communication is,
and you know what it's about in the end?

Everything is just to be better
than the other guy.

Those who dedicate ourselves
to speaking or being teachers,

we just want to be better
than someone else,

it's a tough truth.

Always be better...

than our previous selves.

Therefore allow me to dedicate this dream,

to the best communicator of history.

The person that taught me
that in communication,

with feeling, with sense
and with a message,

sometimes our dreams...
become true.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.
[Thanks grandfather]

(Applause)