The New Face of Love: The Scary Guy at TEDxSalford

The Scary Guy FRSA is quite possibly 'The Most Powerful Agent For Change' on the planet today! His sole mission is 'The Total Elimination of Hate, Violence and Prejudice Worldwide'. These were the first words that Scary spoke when he began his mission in 1998. Since that day, Scary has worked with over 10 million people around the world promoting peace through the teaching of his core theories on 'Awareness, Understanding, Acceptance and Love,' of all people.

With his face fully tattooed, and often describing himself as the worlds' only living social experiment, Scary's research is based in having to learn how to redefine his own life in order to stop living as a victim of other peoples' words and actions -- whilst maintaining his integrity and learning how to love and understand all people. Scary's work identifies an enormous cultural and educational void in our educational systems. For years, nations have experienced the relentless growth of what Scary describes as the world's number one social disease; hate, violence and prejudice, which Scary sees as polarising our youth and societies and precluding us from achieving the true potential of our common humanity.

CREDITS:

Curators: Mishal Saeed & Uzair F. Butt
Technical Lead: Mark Earnshaw
Camerawork: Nathan Rae & Team - http://nathanrae.co.uk/
Post production: Elliott Wragg - https://www.EchoParkMedia.co.uk
Audio restoration: Jorge Polvorinos - http://jorgepolvorinos.wordpress.com

(Loud exhale)

(Laughter)

Hi

My name is Ted

(Laughter)

Far out.

So I was chilling out in Wales,

in the Black Mountains

Hey-on-Wye

Ever heard of it?

Don't go there unless you like books!

And all of a sudden

these dudes over here

from TEDx Salford

they called me on the phone,

they said: "Hey,

how would you like to come down here

in Salford

and give a little talk

on stage here?"

I said: "Well that'd be fantastic, man.

How much time I've got?"

"You've got 18 minutes."

I also heard before

someone say

everybody on the planet

at some point in their life

will experience 15 minutes of fame.

You with me?

So I'm trying to figure out

what to do with extra three minutes

(Laughter)

What I'd like to talk
to you about today is

my research traveling the world

for the past 16 years

about how to create world peace.

You know, everybody
looks at me, like: "Oh,

this guy's lost his mind."

According to George Smoot, I have!

(Laughter)

I think I've found a solution.

I think I came up with an idea

and a method

for the entire world.

And it's probably
a little bit out of the box,

but that's okay,

look at me now.

The reason I know it works is because

I can walk down
the sidewalk or the pathway

in any street in Manhattan, New York,

and I get the whole sidewalk to myself.

(Laughter)

Now my real name is The Scary Guy.

I changed my name in the Court of Law

16 years ago.

I'm an ex-tattoo artist.

Does that make sense to you, dude?

(Laughter)

I was a happy, sassy,
mouth-running, Harley-riding guy.

I owned three tattoo-shops,

I had ten artists working for me.

I rode my Harley to work every day

at 11 a.m. in the morning.

Turned up my rock-n-roll
as loud as I could

and if you didn't like what I had to say

then I'd just tell you
where the sun didn't shine.

One day someone
I do not know in tattoo business,

a competitor in Tucson, Arizona,

ran a full page ad
in a newspaper and said,

"Are you tired of dealing with scary guys

with warpaint facial tattoos?"

I read the ad in the paper that day,

and I slammed it in the counter

and I thought: "why would
that guy say that about me?

I'm a good guy."

But the very first thought
that came to my mind was:

"What am I gonna do
to get that guy back?"

You know, revenge?

Seems to be a lot of that going around.

So I thought I'd jump
on my hotrod Lincoln,

find out where that guy lives,

go to his house,

and run over his dog.

(Laughter)

Well, a flat dog ought to get him back!

Then I thought:

"No, no, no

I'm a good guy."

And this is where my life changed,

I stepped upon a pedestal.

I declared myself the good guy.

He's a bad guy,

look what he said
about me in the newspaper!

And as I was bragging and gloating

about how great I was
as a human being,

that was when my life
started to flash in front of me.

And over the next two years

I realized I was a name-caller,

a hater,

I could stereotype
and categorize people at will.

I masked my whole life
in sarcasm and humor.

With that realization,
I jumped down off my pedestal,

I went back to my warehouse

where I was living at the time in Tucson,

and told all of my friends,

"I'm packing my bags."

And they said,
"Where are you going, Scary Guy?"

I said: "I'm gonna travel the world,

to help people see each other differently

from the inside out."

They said: "How you gonna do that?"

I said: "I haven't got a clue,

I can tell you one thing though..."

They said: "What is that?"

"I think I just wasted 43 years of my life

running my mounth

calling myself a good guy."

Well now I look back
over the past 16 years,

as I travel and teach people

about all these negative words
as "energy",

I don't think the first 43

really was a waste of my time.

It think I had to live that

to know what I know now.

So I decided to hit the road.

And I went out there and

I started doing my research
about words

and actions,

and what's really going on

with people around the world.

What are we doing?

I saw people reacting to everything

around them.

They would blame other people

for their actions.

They would emulate

exactly what they saw

and heard:

gossip, name calling,
bullying, put-downs.

That's how I did it:

somebody called me name,

I'd call them name back.

After all they made me mad...

That's how I saw it.

I saw mine was okay.

So I said: "ok,

how am I going to do this research?

How are we going
to come up with a real solution"?

And the very very first
group of people

that I approached

in my Scary Guy career...

I thought in my mind

would be the simplest group to talk to.

Besides I didn't want
to leave anybody out.

So I went to a group of
40 5-year-old kids.

I thought that would be easy.

(Laughter)

If you do not have your act together,

and you are standing in front of
40 5-year-old kids,

I have news for you:

they will eat your lunch
in about 2 seconds flat.

That is a tough group.

So I thought I would take a survey,

and I asked the kids the survey,

and I'm going to ask
everybody in the audience

the same survey right now,

cause I'm very interested
in the statistics.

I want to know
what's really going around,

because as I travel around the world,

I see governments and cultures

pointing fingers
at other groups and people

for the problems.

Nobody really comes up with a solution

to all this hate, and anger,
and violence, and name-calling.

So I asked the kids

and I'll ask you guys now:

How many of you people in this audience

have been called rotten words before?

Raise your hands high.

Please, a little higher.

Look around the room:

that's about everybody in the room.

If you have not been called

a rotten word before,

leave your hand up

and I will come down

and call you one now.

(Laughter)

Ha!

We don't want you to go free

of this negative energy.

How many of you people in this room

have called other people rotten words
or negative words before?

Oh you raise your hands

a little faster that time.

How many people in this room

have physically struck or hit
another human before?

Raise your hands high,

and this will include
your brothers and sisters.

(Laughter)

Oh yeah, they are not human.

(Laughter)

Well, that's how you saw them!

My little brother would
come home from school,

I'd be about this tall,

my little brother would about this tall.

He'd come home from school,

he'd be standing in the corner,

I'd walk over to my little brother,

I'd go: "Hi, little brother"

Bam!

(Laughter)

He'd go "Sniff-sniff"

"This means I love you"

He'd say,
"You stop hitting me, or I'll tell ma."

"You tell ma, and
I'll give you more love!"

(Laughter)

That was how it worked,

wasn't it?

Yeah...

So what did I just discover

in those three questions?

I ask them of everybody

I ask the question
of the law enforcement,

we train police officers
all over the world,

I ask the questions
of military people,

We work with the military

I ask them of political officials,

I ask them of the homeless...

I ask them of people
that are drug addict...

I don't discriminate:

people are people
as far as I'm concerned...

I figured out a way to love them all.

I didn't have to like
all of their behavior.

It's an interesting concept, I think.

So what I discovered is,

the whole human race is involved

in the transfer of this negative energy

in some way, shape or form.

We're either involved in producing it,

I used to call mine "self-defense".

After all, you deserve it,

you made me mad.

It was your fault
I punched you in the nose.

Or we're receiving the negative energy,

we call that person a victim.

Or we're watching it and go by:

there's a lot of
by-stander things going on.

But I had those 5-year-olds
in the room and I thought:

"Well, I'm gonna take one more survey."

Hmm..

The question was:

do you think you'll see world peace

in your lifetime?

And I asked a bunch of
40 5-year-olds this question:

do you think you'll see
world peace in your lifetime?

And the first 5-year-old,

I don't know,

I saw Einstein on the screen earlier,

he must have been an Einstein.

Because I walked right up to him

and said:

"Hey, little dude,

Do you think you'll see
world peace in your lifetime?"

"Yep"!

I mean, he didn't even hesitate.

It was an amazing thing.

And then I went the next...

I was, what's wrong with that kid?

In my mind I'm thinking,

"That kid is sick."

And so I go to the next kid.

I said: "Hey there,

Do you think you'll see
world peace in your lifetime?"

"Yep!"

Once the first one said "yep",

they all copied him.

Everybody in the room said "yes".

These are 5-year-olds.

They really believe that they can see

world peace in their lifetime.

So I worked my way up the ladder,

and I was a little bit stunned
by this information.

And I went to the 6-year-olds,
and the 7-year-olds...

And by the time I got to the 12-year-olds

I asked them the question...

and the 15-year-olds

"Do you think you will see
world peace in your lifetime?"

I started to get this answer:

"Maybe"

"It depends"

"No"

"Yep"

So I started to see something different,

I started to see a shift.

Now the funny thing is,

when I was working with the 5-year-olds,

a lot of people think
I would scare a 5-year-old.

After all, my name is Ted.

You know,

No, I can't scare a 5-year-old.

I tried to scare 5-year-olds,

into saying "no" to me.

All they do is laugh.

(Laughter)

They laugh very hard at me

every time I walk in a room.

I don't know what it is.

I try to talk to these kids

about world peace and love,

and getting along,

and kindness...

and every time I talk to them

they're laughing so hard,

they're actually slapping their knees.

Have you ever seen somebody

laugh so hard with mouths

gaping wide open?

Ha-ha-ha!

Actually having fun!

And the coolest part about it is

most of them think

I'm sponsored by

Crayola Crayons.

(Laughter)

It's an amazing process to me.

And I really really enjoy
working with the 5-year-olds.

Now there was a school I went to

not too long ago.

And they said:

"Hey, Scary Guy,

We've got some 3-year-olds

we want you to go talk to."

You know, reception.

And I went,

"Oh sure, no problem."

And I went to talk to these 3-year-olds.

And I've got news for you:

they absolutely knocked me

flat on the floor

with their energy

and their willingness to do the job.

I mean the younger they were,

the more action-driven they were,

the more they believed

that it's possible!

It was a given!

it was crazy.

And when I was working in high-schools...

I'll tell you what I've found

With the high-school kids I'd go:

"C'mon, you guys,
let's change the planet!"

They'd look at me a,d go like this:

"He's gay."

(Laughter)

So I thought:

"Well, I'd better do my best here

with this world peace thing.

I'd better go find a group of adults

and ask them".

So I went out there,

and I found some adults,

just like I see in this room right here.

Do you think you'll see
world peace in your lifetime?

Do you think you'll see
world peace in your lifetime?

Do you think you... How about...

Two no's and and a I-don't-know,

are you running a fever?

(Laughter)

You're getting sicker. Possibly.

Maybe.

You've been hanging out with a 5-year-old.

(Laughter)

Ha!

This is amazing!

Well, what I discovered in my research was,

99.9% of the answers

I received from adults

was "no".

They're not gonna see
world peace in their lifetime.

So what I had to do was,

I had to start looking at

what happens from a kid,
that's 5 years old,

and their belief system
and how they do what they do,

until we get to 25,
and 35, 45, 55, and 105..

What happens?

So I had to analyze the process,

and I looked at it,

and I started asking myself questions:

was it about the word "peace"

that they were having this shift occur?

The difference in the word "peace"

And I said: "No,
I don't think that's the word"...

Was it "world"?

Could it be the word "world"

in a perception of the world
to a 5-year-old

that is different

than the perception
of the world of an adult?

And I said: "oh!

I think this is it."

I think the world to a 5-year-old

from my experience and my research is,

it's about THEM!

They deal with themselves,

and that's their world.

That's what I hear from them:

they don't really have a true concept

of the Earth, or what's outside of them.

I mean they do if it hurts,

you know what I'm talking about,

or if it's fun.

So I went to the adult world

and I said: "Hm,
how do they see the world?"

And what I discovered,

because of reactionary processes going on

and how people would accept
all the words as "energy"

and another human being would speak

and they would become affected by this,

I saw that their world

was out there.

So, ladies and gentlemen,

the long and short of this story

about world peace is, yes,

this is the Earth.

We all are on the Earth.

We do not own this planet.

We are here, we are using it.

We are using it for
a very short period of time.

I am not here for very long.

I am a blink.

I'm a grain of sand.

And I'm grateful that I get to experience

these moments on this planet.

This is my world.

It's inside here.

Yeah!

This is where I run my world.

What I discovered
about world peace was:

it is your and my responsibility

to create my own world peace.

It is a process of creation,

not a thing you go out and wait for.

Or you wait for the government

or the teacher, or the parents
to make it better for you.

It's a process of creation

from the moment
you wake up in the morning,

till the moment
you go to bed at night.

Each and every one of us

are responsible

for creating our own world peace

every day

we walk on this planet.

Thanks.

[Applause]