Transcriber: Shaked Rotlevi Reviewer: Hélène Vernet
From the moment I was born, life has been full of surprises.
"Mazel tov, your baby is a redhead!"
the doctor smiled at my shocked mom.
No one in my family expected a ginger.
and his creativity instilled the magical power of surprise in me.
One day, my mom came home from the grocery store with eggs.
Suddenly, she dropped them, and they splattered all over the floor.
The next day, my dad came home carrying five chickens.
"Surprise! I want us to have five fresh eggs every morning."
Honestly, I think the chickens were more surprised than we were,
having to live in our small apartment.
(Laughter)
Fast forward 30 years later, in my mid-thirties,
my dad attended a leadership seminar I was delivering.
I gave him a good price too.
(Laughter)
Just before the break, I tell the audience:
"Feel free to stick a post-it note with your questions on the whiteboard."
After the break, I walk back on stage and discover a note...
from my dad.
"Gili, when are you getting married?
(Laughter)
I loved his surprises so much,
but I couldn't even imagine
how much they would impact my life.
Now, let's have some fun.
Everyone, please reach for the envelopes.
Open it.
Yes!
And hold what's inside up high so we can all see it.
Now, look around, look around.
Do you see those big smiles?
Well, why are you so happy? It's only a dollar bill.
Yes, you can keep it.
(Laughter)
Now we all know that $1 can't even buy you a cup of coffee.
So, why are we so happy?
Because of the element of surprise.
Research shows,
that the pleasure center in our brain is more active during moments of surprise,
and surprises intensify emotions by up to 400%.
Four hundred percent!
When the brain identifies a surprise, it releases dopamine.
We remember better.
So,
today,
I want to talk about the gift of surprise,
how it impacts our happiness,
improves our connections,
and even helps us deliver powerful messages.
Now, we all know that some surprises are better than others, right?
“Surprise! We're going to Disney World”
versus "Surprise, dad, I broke my phone again." (Laughter)
As humans, we prefer control and stability
over surprise and change,
but even though we want control,
positive surprises still benefit us,
and we can use the art of surprise to impact others.
Have you ever heard of a unique proposal?
In a hot air balloon,
on a mountain, or underwater,
I proposed with a ring
hidden inside a warm... chocolate cake!
(Laughter)
And to this day,
my wife dreads cakes fearing another lifelong commitment.
(Laughter)
See, my dad's note did influence me after all.
But the problem is that many relationships lack an element of surprise.
Life tends to become a predictable gray routine.
So the magic is lost
in the mundane daily tasks of laundry,
driving the kids, or watching "Dancing with the Stars."
However, research shows
that surprising your partner with new activities together
reignites the relationship's spark,
and increases the level of satisfaction.
When was the last time you surprised your loved ones?
I see some of you are smiling at each other. That's lovely.
(Audience) Seven years ago!
Seven years ago? Not good enough!
(Laughter)
You see, it's simple: when you surprise someone,
when you surprise people, you show you care about them,
and surprises are fun.
Last year, I saw my wife's car parked at a shopping center.
So to surprise her,
I left her a very sweet note on the windshield.
Only I didn't tell her it was from me...
(Laughter)
At first, she was excited, thrilled.
She thought she had a secret admirer.
(Laughter)
Then she found out it was me.
So a few weeks later, she left me a surprise,
a love note attached to a parking ticket
(Laughter)
she had received... so sweet!
Now a surprise doesn't have to be expensive or sophisticated.
It can be simple.
Even small surprises make a big impact.
And you can surprise your partners with small gestures
like painting a heart on a mirror, or hiding a love note in their socks,
or buying the book they mentioned the other day.
And the exciting thing about surprises
is that whenever you surprise someone, it also rewards you.
Surprises reward everyone!
And speaking about loved ones, we have three daughters,
all girls...
(Laugther)
Surprising them? Not easy at all.
I'm not even allowed to tag them on social media without their permission.
Yet, with time, they realized that some of our best moments
are from surprising moments,
like when our eldest daughter
flew home to San Diego CA from Washington DC
and jumped out of a box,
(Laughter)
or when our daughters expected a seven-hour layover in New York,
but instead, we stayed there for a week.
Two years ago, after I published my recent book,
my daughters wanted to surprise me,
so they bought me a star,
a real star.
And they named it after my book "Wow."
Now, I guess I can't travel there,
but I will never forget how it made me feel.
Now, besides family,
we can use the art of surprise
with friends, or at work with colleagues, customers, employees,
but now, let's see how we can use it
to deliver compelling messages.
For more than 30 years,
I've delivered hundreds of talks and workshops around the world
on many topics like influence, communication skills,
and the mindset for success,
and ever since I started speaking on stage,
I've used unpredictable moments to engage my audience.
Now why is it important to surprise an audience?
Daniel Gilbert and Matt Killingsworth discovered
that we wander off in our thoughts and fail to be present
almost half the time,
47%.
That means that since I started talking about nine minutes ago,
some of you were present for only four minutes and nine seconds.
(Laughter)
That's exactly why it's a challenge to deliver messages effectively
because if you are not paying attention now, you will not remember anything.
However, the moment you surprise your audience,
you get their attention back.
(Laughter)
(Falling of a ping-pong ball on the scene) Thank you.
(Laughter)
(Audience) Yes!
I call these unexpected moments, "Wow moments".
(Audience) WOW!
Yes! (Applause)
Sometimes people raise their eyebrows, drop their jaws, and even say...
(Audience) Wow!
Yes, "wow," and the great thing about wow is that anyone can wow.
A friend of mine, Ayala Biran, is a safety expert.
She was invited to speak to construction workers
about protecting their heads with safety helmets.
So picture this: she goes on stage,
and suddenly, she picks up a watermelon
and drops it on the stage.
Bam! The watermelon splashes everywhere.
Everyone is shocked.
Can you imagine the chunks of watermelon on the stage?
Then she says, "What happens to the watermelon
can happen to anyone without a helmet."
Wow!
That's exactly how a message becomes not only memorable but also unforgettable.
Now there are many creative ways to wow an audience,
and in my book, I've collected more than a hundred ideas.
When designing a wow moment, you want to ask yourself one question:
what emotion do I wish to evoke to deliver my message?
In most cases, we want to evoke positive emotions
like joy,
trust,
and surprise,
but sometimes we can evoke negative emotions
like sadness,
or fear.
Why is it important to trigger emotions?
Well, when an emotion is attached to a message,
people remember it better.
Sometimes people may forget what you say,
but they never forget how you make them feel.
So if surprises make such a big impact,
why don't we use them more often?
As part of my research, I posted that question on social media,
"Why don't you surprise more often?" and hundreds of people replied.
Most of them said, "What if I fail?"
"What if they don't like my surprise?"
"I'm an introvert,"
"I'm not good at surprising,"
and the best one, "I'm an accountant. We don't do wow."
(Laughter)
However, there are lots of reasons why you should surprise more.
First, "Satisfaction."
When we surprise,
we increase the level of satisfaction in our relationships.
When we surprise, we create unforgettable moments.
We activate the dopamine,
and we create magical moments for the people we care about.
When we surprise, we renew the spark in our life.
We become more present as well as the people that we surprise.
Surprises reward everyone.
And surprises intensify emotions by up to 400%.
And "Simplicity," it's simple to do it.
Even small surprises make a big impact.
And last but not least,
"Enjoyment."
When we surprise, we activate the pleasure center in our brain,
so we impact our happiness.
That's why I'm so passionate about spreading the gift of surprise.
After my dad passed away seven months ago at the age of 94,
I realized that one of his secrets to a great life
was his habit of surprising,
and I truly believe it helped him think with flexibility, humor, and joy,
and kept him young forever.
So now, I invite you all to embrace surprise.
Take a moment to reflect on how you can apply the gift of surprise in your life.
You know, at the beginning of every year,
I pick one word as my inspiration for the whole year,
and every morning, I focus on that word.
This year, I'm choosing the word "surprise,"
and I invite you all to join me
and let "surprise" be your word too
so together, we can create a year full of surprises.
It's wow or never.
Thank you.
(Applause)