Transcriber: Dan Edelston Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
There is one thing in this life
that will never change ...
and that is the realization
that everything is continuously changing.
The day-to-day weather, your relationships or even your emotions,
nothing remains the same.
Intellectually, you know change is happening,
yet when the unknown arrives,
you might experience feelings of doubt, insecurity, or fear.
When you don't embrace change,
conditions such as anxiety, depression,
and even phobias can manifest.
Three and a half years ago I had an epiphany
that would completely change the way I looked at change.
On the morning of April 4th, 2016 at 3:37 in the morning
an idea came rushing into my head,
like a massive bull charging down the narrow streets
of Pamplona, Spain.
It was a solution to embracing change,
and, it had been hidden beneath my nose the entire time.
The answer is simple,
but if you don't apply it in your life, tragic consequences might await you.
For example,
some of us here can remember driving to our local Blockbuster store
to rent a video that came in a blue and white plastic box.
(Laughter)
When the movie wasn't sold out, we'd stand in line, pay to rent it,
then make the drive home back to watch it.
Days later we'd go back to the same store again just to return it.
In the early 2000s, just as the world was changing
with the convenience of the of the internet,
startup company Netflix approached Blockbuster offering to sell their company
for 50 million dollars.
The CEO of Blockbuster, John Antico, at the time, turned down the offer
because he felt Netflix was a niche business.
Today, Netflix is worth over 150 billion dollars
and Blockbuster has only one niche store in the world.
Also in the early 2000s, a cell phone company named Blackberry
at the time was worth around 83 billion dollars.
The co-founder fully believed in his product
and was not initially open to the new changing technology
of touch screen phones.
The company took years
before feeling the pressure to release its Blackberry Storm.
Unfortunately, the phone had many technical issues and was difficult to use.
This turned consumers away.
On that consumer level, Blackberry is almost an irrelevant company,
especially compared to Apple.
Now, speaking of Apple, Ronald Wayne was a lesser-known individual
who co-founded the company with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976.
Wayne designed the company's first logo, an image of Sir Issac Newton,
the man who founded the law of gravity sitting under an apple tree.
After just two weeks of being with the company,
he bailed and took back his 800 dollar investment with him.
If he had stayed with the company and embraced the new changing technology,
he would have close to 95 billion dollars today
instead of his current net worth
of $300,000.
Now, all of you don't have to miss out on multi-million
and billion-dollar opportunities to feel the pain of not embracing change.
Every day you are faced with the challenges of change.
Sometimes, it's the day-to-day like the weather,
your emotions or your attitudes.
Other times its life-altering events
such as being fired from a job,
losing a loved one,
or even having a romantic relationship come to an end.
On that morning of April 4th, I was lying in my bed
staring up at a dusty ceiling fan slowly spinning around.
I couldn't sleep, not only because how dirty I knew the fan was,
(Laughter)
but I was distraught, demoralzied and frankly devastated
over a heart-wrenching breakup.
The woman who I thought I was going to marry and spend my life with
was no longer my significant other.
Feeling full of doubt, insecurity, and fear at that time,
I told myself
to let go.
Then a few minutes later I heard a voice and a solution.
It was simple and straight-forward.
The message was ...
You're feeling overwhelmed.
(Inhales, exhales)
Breathe.
You're feeling stuck.
Move.
The message sounded so clear and beautiful,
it felt like Morgan Freeman was narrating the solution.
(Laughter)
In that moment, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
There was a place I could go to learn how to embody this technique.
But I would need to step outside my comfort zone
and try this weird, strange, crazy thing
called yoga.
But what is yoga?
Is it walking into your local boutique studio with your mat
to exercise in a hot, 95-degree environment?
Is it traveling to India to meet with a guru
who has a beard that's longer than the red carpet at the Oscars?
Or, is it turning yourself ...
into a pretzel.
Technically,
that is all yoga.
But the real answer goes beyond all the stereotypical versions of the practice.
In it's simplest, modern-day, Western definition,
yoga means to bind, to create union, to bring together,
or the partciular version I was reminded about at 3:37 in the morning ...
one breath, one movement.
The answer for you to embrace change
has been hidden right beneath your nose this entire time.
Literally, the space where your breath
comes in and out.
And just below there is a thing attached to your head called your body.
Your body can do more than just carry your big overthinking brain around.
Feeling motivated I decided to attend yoga five days per week.
And during my first class, I felt like the tin man, barely able to move.
But with each class, I learned how to use my breath
to put my body in a number of difficult situations and poses.
After a few classes, my mind became clear,
my body more relaxed.
And these same changes were happening off the mat as well.
Simple things like getting my life back together,
throwing away old photos of the relationship,
changing the residential address on my bank account,
or just working through each emotion of the breakup became really easy.
Yoga became a tool of healing
and empowerment for me.
Inspired, I wanted to share this technique with others.
I enrolled in a yoga teacher training program, graduated,
and then soon found myself standing in front of a room teaching others.
As new students arrived,
I noticed they were full of physical and mental restlessness.
They would fall out of poses,
forget to breath,
and always move around in the meditative part of class known as savasana.
However, after a few classes,
they begin to settle down,
hold their ground in poses,
and learn how to breathe.
They went from saying things like "I can't do yoga, I'm not flexible"
to "Oh, yoga is just linking breath with movement."
As time went on,
the students made amazing progress.
Now, yoga is not woo-woo, hippie-aged nonsense.
In fact, research is now proving just how powerful yoga can be.
For instance, breathing in and out through your nose in a yogic practice
can reduce levels of a hormone called cortisol.
When the body is stressed, cortisol floods your blood stream,
which can cause irritability, fatigue, and weight gain.
However, yoga lowers the presence of this hormone,
allowing you to feel relaxed
and reduce those symptoms.
Linking breath with movement has also been shown to affect GABA,
a brain neurotransmitter.
More studies are finding that when you perform yoga
and breath in and out through your nose,
you increase GABA, which decreases blood pressure.
And for those of you with a very overactive mind, have trouble sleeping,
there's fantastic news.
Breathing in and out through your nose in yoga
affects something called the vagus nerves.
Not Las Vegas, but these nerves in your body when they're stimulated
release a chemical called acetylcholine.
When that chemical is released,
it sends a message to your body to turn on your parasympathetic nervous system,
enabling your body to relax.
It takes you out of that fight-or-flight response.
And not only that,
yoga is now showing how you can make positive behavioral changes both on
and off your mat.
A yoga mat is almost your subconscious training ground to reprogram your mind.
In a yoga class,
you're consciously putting yourself in a number of challenging situations,
which include difficult balancing postures, fast sequence,
and constant change.
However, in the class, you begin to train yourself to take action
during these difficult times
instead of feeling stuck, overwhelmed and not moving,
you embody an action-taking behavior
so that when there's stress on your mat, you respond as well
as off your mat.
For example,
in this moment right now,
I am performing yoga.
Not the move you saw eariler, but right now in this present moment,
yoga is taking place.
Even before coming up to this stage, I had my own feelings of doubt,
insecurity, and fear.
It's quite a change to go from a yoga studio to then stand on a TEDx stage
in front of all you amazing people.
However,
as I stand here, the only thing getting me through this right now
is taking the whole experience,
one breath,
one movement
at a time.
Imagine how applying this simple technique
could make changes in your own life.
It could be something life-altering,
like a romantic relationship coming to an end,
losing a loved one.
Or it could be in the day-to-day changes like the weather, your emotions,
or your attitude.
When you begin to use one breath
and one movement,
you can navigate these difficult, uneasy times
and eventually
embrace change.
Now, if you're skeptical, don't have the time,
or are still unsure of whether yoga is right for you,
I have a simple exercise to share with you
the next time you find yourself not embracing change.
Stay in your seats, you might sit upright,
and then take a deep breath
in through your nose,
(Inhales)
out through your mouth.
(Exhales)
Again, deep breath in through your nose,
out through your mouth.
(Exhales)
This time even louder and more obnoxious so you can hear your own voice
on this YouTube clip.
Deep breath in through your nose,
out through your mouth. (Exhales)
Yeah, there it is.
Now, this time,
deep breath in through your nose,
seal your lips, make the same sound.
In through your nose,
out through your nose. (Exhales)
As you continue with that breath,
a gentle constriction to the back of your throat.
It's called an Ujjayi breath,
a Sanskrit word which means to be victorious.
A victorious breath over your thoughts, emotions, and feelings.
Now that you know how to breathe,
let's link this breath with movement.
With an inhale, turn your palms up,
(Inhales)
exhale turn them down. (Exhales)
Inhale turns them up, (Inhales)
exhale turns them down. (Exhales)
Inhale reaches your arms up toward the sky,
exhale brings them down.
Inhale to lift a finger up,
exhale brings it back down.
Believe it or not ...
this is yoga.
You can tell all your family and friends that today you ...
practiced a form of yoga.
(Laughter)
Perform any of these movements the next time you have feelings of doubt,
insecurity, or fear of the unknown.
Or
get your butt into a yoga studio and experience the power ...
of the practice.
My fellow ...
yogis,
you've always had the answer
to embracing change.
The solution this whole time has been hidden right beneath
your nose.
Now, all you have to do is link one breath ...
and one movement.
Namaste.
(Applause)