Transcriber: Amanda Chu Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Take a moment, and look around.
What do you notice?
The guy with the brightly colored pin on his jacket?
Her gorgeous tattoo?
The man in the purple suit?
Would you ask a stranger about that?
I do.
(Laughter)
And I've been asking people, on average, three times a day since 2006.
That's how I met Jana.
Jana has a smile that'll light up the room.
And the day we met, she wore a V-neck shirt,
and I noticed a deep scar running across her chest.
She made no effort to hide it.
So I took a shot.
"Can I ask about your scar?"
She said, "Sure.
I got the flu, and it damaged my heart."
The day I met Jana,
her feeble heart functioned with just 10% capacity.
A battery pack was the only thing keeping her alive.
That scar represents a life that has changed forever.
But we're taught, "Look away. Don't ask."
Why?
By challenging that idea,
I learned a valuable lesson in the human spirit.
When life gives you a sucker punch,
get up.
With Jana's feeble heart - she was at the crisis of her condition -
she decided to get her MBA.
Eventually she got a heart transplant and a second chance on life.
I got a chance to see that in action.
And it started with a single question.
So, when I started the social experiment over ten years ago,
I made a choice to get curious.
Why?
Because for most of my life, I actively tried to be invisible.
I learned other people's stories because no one was interested in mine.
The people I wanted to care didn't.
So I made a decision
to take an active role in the randomness of my own life.
(Laughter) (Applause) (Cheers)
So every day I left my house,
I'd start a conversation like the one I had with Jana.
On my commute to work, waiting in line,
or in a room just like this,
I learned that I have a fundamental belief
that amazing things are about to happen.
I just need to show up for them.
My favorite musical, Hamilton, has a line -
(Cheers) Yeah.
My favorite musical Hamilton has a line that says,
"I want to be in the room where it happens,
the room where it happens."
For the longest time,
I thought I was never in the room where anything interesting happened.
Growing up in Peoria, Illinois,
I had the belief
that something amazing was happening somewhere else.
(Laughter)
But what if that's not true?
Who's in this room?
Who's in the room that you're in right now?
I decided to find out.
And I learned that there are surprises all around us
if we have the courage to find out and ask.
Let me give you an example.
I was staying at a hostel,
and I was having trouble using the waffle maker
one morning for breakfast.
Turned to the guy next to me and I asked him for help,
and it sparked a moment.
And I learned that he was a scientist chasing the God particle,
(Laughter)
the Higgs boson.
It's the cornerstone of physics
that binds things together and forms the basis of the universe.
(Laughter)
So here I thought
nothing ever happened in the rooms I was in,
(Laughter)
and a nuclear particle physicist was helping me make waffles.
(Laughter) (Applause)
Right?
(Applause)
Don't get me wrong.
It's not easy sparking conversations with strangers.
Sometimes I worry about that too.
I wonder how to get into the conversation,
what's the right question to ask.
But I learned, just like me,
everybody's longing for connection,
and it's worth taking a shot.
So what's it take to have a curiosity conversation?
I learned that there are some fundamental things
that turn an ordinary conversation into something extraordinary.
First, find a point of entry.
People leave clues, yeah? -
the scar, their tattoo, the book they're reading.
Sometimes I think I would know somebody's story -
I'd just invent a story of my own - and then I'd ask.
I'd always be surprised at the reality.
There's a guy in my neighborhood, and I see him frequently,
and frankly, I was afraid of him.
He has a shaved head, and wears heavy black boots
and a trench coat that is covered with pins and patches,
and across his broad shoulders, it says, "Don't touch me."
(Laughter)
I'd cross the street to avoid him.
(Laughter)
Right?
But one day I got curious, and I decided to say hello.
I learned he was soft-spoken, with an Australian accent -
(Laughter)
that's a bonus, right? -
(Laughter)
and he was an author, who wrote five books.
So finally I got a chance to ask him my burning question:
"Dude, what's the deal about your jacket?
'Don't touch me'?"
He said, "My wife suffers from anxiety in public places,
and her support dog died.
We haven't been able to find a replacement yet.
So I told her I would be her support.
(Audience) Aww.
I sewed that patch on my jacket
to help when we're together in public places."
That story I made up -
(Laughter)
I was completely wrong.
How many times do we do that, though?
We make up stories about people, never really knowing their truth.
So ask.
The magic of a conversation happens when we decide to go deeper.
Like the day I met Lila,
Lila is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,
and I learned she's from Syria.
What do you know about Syria?
She's from a beautiful city on the water,
and they were surrounded by friends and family.
She and her husband had a dental practice,
and then the war came.
I asked her,
"What made you decide to leave?"
She said a bomb landed outside of her house,
minutes [after] her son had been playing in that exact same spot.
Tears flowed from her eyes.
And then I asked her,
"Do you still have a house back there,
or did you sell it?"
She said, "Yes, we still have a house.
I'll never see it again.
Who buys houses during war?
You have to have hope for that,
and in Syria, there is no hope."
Meeting Lila brought context to the news.
To date, there are 5 million people who have fled their homes in Syria.
It's the largest refugee crisis in our lifetime.
So let me ask you this.
What shifts a conversation into something extraordinary?
Be present.
I had a meeting downtown in a swanky high-rise building.
And the guy I was meeting,
I wanted to know, "Hey, how did you get your job?"
(Laughter)
He said that he moved across the country for his wife's graduate school program.
And one day they went to a party together.
He struck up conversation with another guest,
who was a CFO of a fast-growing startup,
and he gave him a job.
"Three promotions and five years later," he said, "I'm still here."
I wanted to know,
"What if you never went to that party?"
He said, "My life would be totally different."
"And what if you'd never said hello?
What if just for one night, you checked out?"
"You see, I'm a firm believer
that one conversation can change your entire life."
He was in the room; the opportunity was there.
What would you do with it?
Check your phone?
(Laughter)
No.
Go make your own luck.
Go meet somebody.
I mentioned earlier
I've been meeting people, on average, three times a day.
That's 90 curiosity conversations a month.
In the course of two and a half years,
I could fill this room with the people I've met.
My greatest fear is the moments we let slip by.
Who's in this room?
What curiosity conversations could you be having?
What life-changing conversations could you be having today?
Who's here?
What's their story?
The conversation that you have today could change your life.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)