Translator: Vanessa Soneghet Reviewer: Denise RQ
I was thinking how I could bring you a word
that could represent all human beings do all the time on Earth,
without even noticing what they are doing.
And as at TEDx time is quite short,
and we have to talk a lot in a few words,
I searched for a word that could give me that situation.
And that word is "change."
We all change all the time, every second,
without even realizing it,
and every thing I say that reaches your ears,
a wave of hormones and neurotransmitters
is taken through your bloodflow.
Things we see, or think about, begin to change our very biology.
And changing is part of every moment of our lives.
Being here is already a great possibility of change,
of significantly changing all we have lived.
If, for example, you touched the person next to you right now--
How about we do that for a second?
Please, a respectful spot, right?
(Laughter)
You are changing this person's life, you are changing your own.
Surely, some marriages may happen from such dynamics,
but that's not what I'm saying.
I am talking about subtle, sensitive changes
that may occur to us at a bio-chemical level.
My friends, it all changes all the time.
There was a Greek philosopher in 500 b.C., named Heraclitus,
who used to say,
"No man dips his foot in the same river twice."
First, because the first time, the river
isn't the same anymore, the water has changed.
Secondly, why? The man isn't the same either.
He has changed, transformed. Change, change, change, change.
We are changing all the time all our lives.
And there are people who seem to have been built by the Universe
to influence our lives to change who we are,
to change our minds all the time.
I say they are
people who are eager to influence significantly;
our parents.
You have probably caught yourself, for example,
doing, thinking or saying things that your father or mother used to say.
And suddenly, you realize
how much you are reproducing things they used to say.
So, you received some kind of contribution from your parents.
But it also possible those people in therapy sessions
might realize they are speaking ill of their parents.
Am I saying any bullshit?
Has anyone been in therapy and spoken ill of their parents?
It is very common.
People eager to influence our lives significantly.
Our parents.
I remember once, when I was around 11 years old,
my brother and I were always hanging on a guava tree branches
that we had in the yard.
This guava tree was our playground, we were like monkeys,
we picked guavas, and we were happy with that tree.
Then one day, my father came to me in a solemn way
and said,"Son, we are cutting down the guava tree.
We can't change this decision
because its roots are interfering with the sewage pipes,
and that will be a problem."
I was very sad, and so was my bother, we were going to lose our playground.
Then, the day before they were cutting down the tree,
I went to say goodbye to it. I solemnly said goodbye to the tree.
Suddenly, I saw a last guava on one branch. It was perfect.
I picked it and stared at it, beautiful, perfumed, appetizing.
And before taking a nice bite I thought,
"What if the tree poisoned this guava?
It knew it would be cut down, and out of revenge,
it decided to poison this last guava."
I wanted to bite the guava,
but I put it away fearing it might be poisoned.
Just kid-teenage thing who loved comic book horror stories,
fantastic realism, fiction, fantasy.
Then I thought to look for my father.
And I said,"Dad, I'm afraid of eating this guava
because it might be poisoned."
And my father said, "Kauzinho, my son, my little boy,
it's more likely that as the tree knew it would be cut down,
it didn't poison this guava, but it put its best in it.
It wanted us to remember it as a good tree that gave good fruit.
It wanted to be perpetuated through its seeds,
and put in it the best it had to offer."
Immediately, as I heard that, my mind reset.
My father's words made me lose all my fear.
And we shared the guava.
We have programming "Ps", guys.
Not only our parents, but...
priests, preachers, politicians, propaganda,
professor, our partners, friends,
our love partners, spouses who may program our minds.
You may have already realized how some people are important,
decisive in our lives saying things we absorb,
as if it was true.
Even speakers may program your minds.
Actually, that's why we came here.
I believe you've come to have a shower of positive programming.
But there is also positive programming from the Ps,
and there is negative programming.
Life is like a programming rain, and we are always getting wet.
It is very important to realize when we can reset our mind
to actually clean that bad programming and capture the powerful ones.
For example, there is a thinker,
who is very important to me:
William James, considered the father of modern psychology.
He used to say,
"The biggest discovery of my generation
is that people can change their lives, changing their minds."
So, I brought this bonsai.
I want to show you a guava tree bonsai.
It's a guava tree bonsai,
but before being a guava tree, it is a bonsai.
And bonsai means "tree in a tray."
People regularly cut their roots, branches, and leaves,
add compost and earth in small quantities
so that this guava tree remains tiny, small.
And it's interesting that despite being Na art
very delicate, beautiful, coming from the Far East,
it as also a metaphor that brings a sad idea,
if we bring it to our reality as human beings.
This is a tree that was not allowed to grow.
And there are bonsai minds.
Minds that were not allowed to grow
because they are being pruned with bounding information,
which makes their lives smaller.
Bounding beliefs.
I will ask you to complete with me.
Money does not bring...
(Audience) Happiness.
Kau Mascarenhas: Do you believe that?
But whoever believes that might have their lives limited
regarding professional and financial success.
Imagine a mother who said to her daughter many times,
"Be careful, dear, because men ..."
(Audience)... are no good.
KM: Have you ever heard that? Have you said that? "Men are no good"?
Anyway, whoever believes this has put in their minds something
that prunes their possibilities of interesting love life realities.
Anyway, these beliefs are not true,
but they disguise as truths.
And we receive language, from popular tales,
or our own background, that makes us smaller,
language that makes our life smaller.
One very important thing that I want to say to you,
because here we are not only talking about negative things,
I want to bring you some great news:
we also have one absolutely fantastic programming P.
It is called "personal programming."
Another one from my favorite programming P: my father.
My father was shaving in the bathroom,
I was six and looked up at him, obviously.
And while he was there, shaving, I also saw a mosquito on the wall.
Then I killed it, and it was there dead stuck to the wall.
And I said to my father,
"Dad, why did the mosquito stay like that when I killed it?"
The mosquito was there.
And my dad said,
"Kauzinho, my son, it is very simple:
his father told him to stay like that when he died, so he did it."
(Laughter)
Did you noticed it?
At that moment, my father was giving me a belief, a programming.
Of what?
That we must obey our parents until we die.
And I have embraced that belief in my life,
it has guided my existence; I was a very obedient boy,
a troubleless teenager,
and at 16, I took my first college application test to chemical engineering,
that has nothing to do with me, my dad's influence.
But then, my possibilities grew bigger
when I started to reprogram, to reset my mind by myself.
I got a lot of positive information from him,
but I also got some that had nothing to do with who I am.
And that's what we can do when we start a process of self-discovery:
observe which beliefs work, which do not work in our lives,
and use our self-programming power to reset our lives
by changing what we have in our minds.
My friends, a French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, who I love reading,
used to say,"The most important thing is not what is done to us,
but what we do with what is done to us."
Right now, I am very happy and honored to participate in a TEDx.
This is a moment to show gratitude to my father, Mr. Carlos Mascarenhas,
for what he has done, helping me to be the human being I am,
making some occasional mistakes, but being right so many times;
he helped me take the bonsai in my mind, into my own hands,
and put it back in the earth.
And I think we can all do that.
Each of us has the power to make the tree inside of us huge
and not be condemned to a tiny size.
If we dig a place for the bonsai to be buried,
it may have all the growth potential.
I could say to my father, for example,
that his little Kauzinho, his son, is well planted in the earth,
because he's contributed decisively to that.
And I think each one of us, besides having our programming Ps,
are also programming Ps, and our talks, our communication,
our smile, our posture can change the world.
I would like to say that people who help to put more bonsais in the earth
will always be remembered.
That is connection.
Help human beings put their mental bonsais in the soil,
and become giant beings.
I believe this is our purpose.
At TEDx, we want to help human beings not to be bonsais anymore
and to become grand and connected to also grand beings,
so that this world is also grandiose.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)