Transcriber: Andrea Carrer Reviewer: Adriane Miller
I am really grateful to be here today
and I wanna to thank all of you for being here today also.
So, yeah, we are here talking about ideas empowered.
And we already heard a few amazing ideas.
And I am willing to bet that the people on the stage
aren't the only ones that have the great ideas.
I am willing to bet every single person
in this audience has also had amazing, empowering ideas.
Ideas that can quite possibly change the world.
So, some of you maybe took those ideas and actually turned them
into reality right away.
Others of you, maybe took those ideas and just put them on the shelf,
for a little while.
And some of you maybe took those ideas and shared them with a friend
and empowered them to take your ideas forward because you
just don't think that you ever gonna have the time.
I've pretty much done all of the above.
But what I am here to share with you today is how I have taken some
of my more empowered ideas and I've turned them into reality.
Turned them into a conscious, purposeful life, doing what I absolutely love
with the people I adore.
Now, I lived a pretty privileged life.
I am incredibly lucky.
I was brought up with a really loving and supportive family.
I went to some of the best schools.
I've traveled the world and I've experienced so much.
I've had some great ideas.
I've also had some not so great ideas.
But I think one of the best ideas I've ever had in my life
was in 1999, when I made the choice to leave the corporate world.
I left it because I wanted to go on a mission to make the world a better place
and send out an SOS to Save Our Seas.
Why? You may ask?
Well, ever since I was a little girl, I loved water.
Whether it's the oceans, rivers, lakes, streams, pools, puddles,
yes, even bathtubs.
(Laughter)
Still to this day.
But the oceans truly are our life support system.
And we need them to be healthy to survive.
And currently, as I am sure a lot of you know,
the situation is very grim, okay?
So, from ocean acidification to plastic pollution, to shark finning,
overfishing, the oceans really need our help.
So, I knew I wanted to do something but I wasn't exactly
sure what or how.
So I spoke, well, luckily, my father at the time, said to me:
"Look, don't worry about the details Lisa, they will come. Just follow your
passion and success will follow you".
So, in 1999, I was training for the MacLehose trail. The 100 kilometers
MacLehose trail.
Yes, it was definitely one of my crazier ideas.
And I got to the some of Hong Kong's most incredible natural beauty.
And, you know, the beaches, they look great from afar.
But the fact is, they are far from great.
So, I said to myself when I saw this:
"This is insane, right? I've never seen anything like this."
I grew up in Canada.
So I was gonna do something about it.
So, I joined a beach clean up that was led by Christine Loh.
And I believe this is one of the first beach clean ups ever in Hong Kong.
And it changed my life forever.
I mean, I picked up personally thousands of pieces of trash that day.
And I just thought: "This is insane!"
So, that same year, I remember the policy address very clearly.
And it was quite shocking.
They said that the Hong Kong landfills were gonna be full,
completely full, by 2014, if we didn't do something about it now.
And like I said, I grew up in Canada.
So, I was practically born recycling.
And I couldn't believe that there was no recycling in Hong Kong,
at that time. Right?
So I thought, ok, well, here is an idea:
Maybe I set up a recycling company.
So, I shared the idea with my dad, who at that time was a partner at KPMG,
here in Hong Kong.
And he, along with an number of others, thought it was a terrific idea.
So, I mean it was scalable, it had great earning potential, it was a win-win
proposition for Hong Kong.
So, that's what I did.
I mean, how hard can it be, right?
This was the birth of Ecovision.
And, this is year 2000, and so we designed a manufactured recycling bin.
So, we placed them in schools and around the city.
And it did ok, the company, for a few years.
And in 2003, SARS hit.
That same year, my father was diagnosed with cancer,
I broke up with the man I thought I was gonna marry,
and the company was not in very good financial situation.
So, what was I gonna do?
Well, I was advised to shut the company, but I refused,
because I am a very determined person.
And so I thought: "Gosh, it's gotta be a solution,
so what is that solution?"
(Party music playing)
Yes, so this wasn't one of my greatest ideas I ever had.
(Laughter)
But, you know, I needed to escape, I really did.
And so, I threw myself into the nightclub scene in Hong Kong.
And I became a master of escape.
I was really quite good at it.
I am sure some of you may even know first hand, that, you know,
the rock star lifestyle is actually quite hard work
(Laughter)
You know, it's pretty long hours.
(Laughter)
But here is the thing, right? It is not sustainable.
And so, as I was going to meetings, and conferences, and meeting
all these new people in the environmental industry,
because I was new in the industry, I really felt like a fraud.
I felt like an impostor.
I mean, honestly, who am I to be preaching sustainability,
when I am not living a sustainable life myself?
In 2006, my dad died and throughout that period things were going
from bad to worse.
So, I literally sunk into a world of grief, guilt, sadness and fear.
I felt like I was drowning.
I hit a low point on my roller coaster of ride life in 2007.
And I give you a hint:
that's not me in the blue bikini top.
(Laughter)
But thankfully, I woke up.
I had a massive awakening, actually.
And I realized, deep in my heart, that I was here to do so much more.
So, I knew the first place I had to look was at my passion, at my true purpose.
And that passion is water.
So, was what I was doing with the Ecovision really
aligned with my passion?
To be honest, you know, the waste management industry,
recycling infrastructure,
didn't really float my boat. Okay?
But what did light me up, what really lighted me up, was the education,
and events, working with people and affecting behavior change.
So, this was the beginning of the restructure of my Ecovision.
And it took me on a beautiful and worth healing journey.
One that continues.
And this is what I want to share with you, it's that I discovered
that, you know, before we can save our seas, we really have to look
at saving ourselves.
So, this quote by Rumi really inspired me.
You probably can't read it. It says:
"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today, I'm wise, and I am changing myself."
So, yes, of course the roller coaster of live continues
with its ups and downs.
But now, the ride for me, is so much more gentle,
it's so much more flowing, smooth, and it's a hell of a lot less dramatic.
So, together with my best friend and business partner, the amazing Nissa,
and our incredible team, we have created a couple of vehicles
to save both ourselves and our seas.
So, I would love to see a show of hands now:
Has anybody heard of the International Coastal Clean Up
or the Hong Kong Clean Up?
Wow!
(Cheers and applause)
Wow! Amazing!
Yes, this event has really... it's just amazing how much
it's grown.
In the year 2000, we started and we had 40 volunteers.
Couple of years later, we had a couple hundred,
then we had a couple thousands.
The growth period was a little slow between 2003 and 2006,
but in 2007 onwards we have literally grown exponentially.
Last year, we mobilized more than 39,000 volunteers.
And we picked up over 100,000 kilograms of trash.
Now, this is part of a global initiative.
So, globally, we mobilized more than 500,000 volunteers
and picked up over 5,000,000 kilograms of trash.
And actually, that's not what this event is all about.
It's really about educating and making people more aware
of their actions at home, at school, in the office,
so that the trash won't end up on the beaches in the first place.
We hit a massive milestone this year.
It was just recently announced that Hong Kong came fourth out of
97 countries around the world.
(Applause)
Yes, yeah. It really, really says something. It really says something about our community right now.
And this is in terms of total volunteer participation, by the way.
So, imagine the population of Hong Kong compared to that of the United States. Yeah...
So, another venture that we created is a social enterprise called
Ecozine.com.
Has anybody heard of Ecozine.com?
(Cheers and applause)
Wow!
Maybe a fewer, but it's newer, so that's okay.
Ecozine.com is an online sustainable lifestyle magazine that aims
to make green mainstream.
And we want to prove that you don't have to live a life of lack
to live sustainably.
So please check out the site and join the community.
So, these projects have both brought great joy and a lot of beauty
in our lives.
But of course, they didn't just happen over night.
They required structure, and planning, the right people, funding.
And so, pulling all of these things together, I've learn though,
the most important thing, for me,
is to make sure that things that I take on in the future
are related directly to water and wellness.
This is what drives me.
So, one of the tools that we created it, we call it "The ABC's of SOS".
And it's just a fun, little thing we've created, which is
all about the alphabet.
And there are 26 letters in the alphabet, so I'm gonna just go through them
rather quickly.
And while I am doing that,
please feel free to think about your own alphabet,
what that might look like.
My alphabet, just like my life, is about wellness and
personal transformation. About really connecting our body, mind and spirit.
So, "a" is for acceptance.
Whatever your saying, whatever you resist, persists?
Yeah, me too.
Believe. Believe in yourself, first and foremost.
Co-create, with a divine energy.
Detachment. Just let go.
Exercise.
And you can see here from the slides, majority of sport I do involves water,
either frozen or fluid.
Friendship.
It's truly the backbone of my transformation.
I mean, friends to me are family.
And I don't know if it's because I've lived overseas for so long,
but I doubt it.
I think that friendship, it surpasses... I mean, it's just one of the most
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful treasures.
Gratitude.
Healing.
So, I started practicing Reiki 14 years ago,
and I honestly don't know if I would even be standing here today
if I didn't have that in my life.
I am.
These two words create our reality. So whatever follows, is who you are.
And today, I am pure...
joy.
Kindness, and compassion.
Love.
It's truly the essence of our being, it's who we all are.
And for me, love is also the opposite of fear.
Now, has anybody ever been stopped by fear in their life,
experienced any kind of fear? Right?
So, from what I understand, fear,
one of the top fears is public speaking.
And...
(Laughter)
You know, yeah, you can relate, right?
So, I've experienced the fear of public speaking first hand.
So much so in fact, that 3 years ago, when I was invited to do
the TEDx talk, I declined, because I just could not cope with that.
So, I went on a mission at that point to fight the fear.
And what I got to do was... Well, of course, I started by
taking a few great courses, and then I went deeper into
my spiritual practice and really got to see what caused that fear
and how I can alleviate it.
And I've got to see, I got to learn that when love is fully present,
fear can't exist.
Actually, it's completely impossible.
So, I'm love.
Meditation. Yes...
(Laughter)
Yes.
And this is something that I used to be...
Yeah... I'm not the kind of person that can meditate...
And I now do it a daily practice.
It transforms my life.
Nutrition.
I mean, I could do a whole talk on nutrition, and I'm not even an expert.
But it is true, we really are what we eat and drink.
Observer.
Just know that we are not our body, our mind, our thoughts and our feelings.
Be Present.
And yes, this is easier said than done.
(Chi) Qi.
We are energy beings.
Responsibility.
This word used to occur to me as quite heavy and significant,
and now I chose to see it as the greatest gift in the word.
And it's amazing. It's just a perception, really.
Surrender.
Trust.
Understanding.
Visualize.
This was me about a year ago.
I competed in my first triathlon in Bali.
And I was asked to visualize coming across the finish line on a "podium finish",
which I didn't even know what that meant.
So, I did visualize it and it worked.
I couldn't believe it.
I came second in my age-group and third overall fastest female.
Amazing.
(Applause)
Thank you.
We are one.
X. For me means triple x.
And I'm gonna leave that up to your imagination.
(Laughter)
Yoga.
It keeps me peaceful, calm and centered.
And last, but certainly not least, Zero waste.
So now, I'm gonna share a video with you,
a short film, it's one minute long,
that continues to fill my passion every single time I see it.
...
"Do we have the courage to face the realities of our time?
And allow ourselves to feel, deeply enough, that it transforms us and our future?"
Do you know that in Hong Kong,
we throw away over 1,000,000 single-used plastic bottles
every single day?
Guess what guys?
As you can see from this video,
there is no "away".
So, that's it.
That completes on a little bit of a heavy note, I know,
the ABC's of my SOS.
My invitation to all of you now,
is when you leave today,
to think about your own ABC's is, right?
To create your own.
And, to do this, I am inviting you to go deep within your heart,
and to really think about what lights you up.
What's you passion?
And if it's the arts, or the environment,
whether it's education, curing disease,
diversity, equality...
Come up with The best idea that you can think of.
An idea that can quite possibly change the world.
And take that idea, and let's turn it
into reality.
Because just imagine how much better the world would be
if every single one of us did that today.
Just imagine.
Thank you.
(Applause).