Transcriber: Maria Federica Gaeta Reviewer: Maurício Kakuei Tanaka
Who here wants to change the world?
I know I do.
And it’s always inspiring when we hear about people
who are doing their part to change the world,
whether that’s by inventing things to help people in developing countries,
or making some powerful politician change course,
or raising awareness by doing some amazing feat.
For example, the Gates Foundation has donated $50 billion
to fight poverty, inequity, and disease.
Jeff Bezos recently gave $100 million to Dolly Parton
to give to charitable causes.
The Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation has donated over $400 million
to help with education, healthcare, and to stop food insecurity worldwide.
These people have lots of power.
And therefore they have very loud voices
and will find it easy to change the world.
But it’s difficult for everyone else to change things for the better
because the voices of us, normal people,
that aren’t particularly rich or powerful,
are quite quiet.
When you think about it, there are 8 billion people on Earth,
and at any given time, millions of them could be speaking.
So it’s very hard to be heard over all the noise.
There are hundreds of things that are louder than a human voice,
and I’m going to tell you about the four that I think are the most important.
Surprisingly, my first thing louder than a human voice is a silence.
But this silence is different from others.
It’s louder and stronger, and it can’t be filled with words,
nor with politicians saying that “one day” they’ll create a law or a legislation,
or adults saying “one day” they’ll buy an electric car
or insulate their houses better,
nor with children who think that they’re too young to do anything.
“When I’m older, I’ll be able to buy solar panels.
I’ll never use plastic.”
All these “one day”s are much too silent
because when we get to the “one day,” nothing happens.
The adults are too busy,
or the politicians don’t have enough votes,
and the children have lost their hope and their childlike excitement.
These empty promises are worse than saying nothing at all
because it creates the chatter,
which we can’t hear the true promises over.
We need to leave the silences
and change our “one day”s with actions, not meaningless words.
Our “one day” needs to become “today.”
My next thing that is louder than words
is a cry for help.
This could come from an animal drowning in oil or choking on plastic,
or a person who wants to escape a vicious cycle of poverty,
or it could even come from inside of the Earth.
When we pump poison into the air or the sea,
we destroy the forests,
literally killing what we need to breathe.
This cry for help comes from the Earth’s core,
and we can only notice it if we listen.
When we do, we’ll hear it everywhere,
and it will be louder than anything else there is.
We cannot ignore this cry.
We must listen and act on it.
My next thing is the childlike wonder of a smile.
Smile can go with a million things.
The sight of a rainbow in the sky or an autumnal forest,
the sound of birds chirping or wind in the trees,
or the smell of thunderstorms or spring flowers.
If a picture can mean a thousand words, the smile must mean 10,000 more.
We smile alone altogether whatever the weather.
Be it sunshine, rain, hail, or snow.
No matter who we are or where we come from,
or what we’ve been through,
as long as we’ve seen that splash of green or heard that whisper of wind,
or felt that gust of water,
we can all smile.
And it’s contagious.
Even if you’re talking about something that you think is really important,
if you see someone truly smiling,
all you can do is stop.
Everything goes silent in the face of a true smile.
It's a way of coming together with something in common.
It’s a moment of true connection with this universal symbol of happiness.
It makes a ripple effect.
My smiling can make you smile,
can make someone else smile, can make someone else smile.
It’s very infectious.
Look around you.
In a world full of differences, we can all still be together.
We can unite with our one goal of changing the world.
Imagine if we found even more things to smile about.
We could come together like never before.
Then we could truly change the world.
My final thing is a song.
And this is a song that we’re singing unknowingly
whenever we know that we’re truly making a difference.
One voice on its own gets silent.
But lots of voices coming together can make the loudest noise.
Our one voices will make a song which can help us be heard.
And we can use the song to coax the world back to health.
We need to all sing this song to make a difference.
You can try and get your message spread,
but unless you find great people to surround yourself with,
and to repeat your message and amplify your voice,
your voice will be silent.
Changing the world is that simple.
Just tell the world your solution.
If enough people sing their solutions loudly enough,
we can raise the roof,
and the world will eventually listen.
Earlier, I said that changing the world is difficult.
But it doesn’t have to be.
We can all change the world.
We need to recognize the problems,
not put them off for another day,
and find more people to come up with ideas and spread messages of hope.
This talk hasn't physically changed anything,
and I don't have all the solutions now.
Imagine if one person came away from here with a different mindset.
They could change the world.
Imagine if everybody in here did that.
The world would be wonderful.
You can change the world.
Just make your “one day” today and get out there and change it.
Thank you.
(Applause)