Translator: Peter van de Ven Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
So, I was on a roll.
I was an executive with a nice salary,
annual bonuses, and stock options,
all the perks.
Everything was on track.
And on Monday, January 7th, 2008
at three o'clock in the afternoon,
in a small conference room on the top floor of our building,
the president of the company wanted to have a quick meeting with me,
which wasn't unusual since he was my boss.
But the meeting turned out to be even more brief than expected.
He fired me.
And I'll never forget how his words just sucked the breath right out of me,
and I left the conference room in a dazed state,
and I went home and curled up in my bed in the fetal position for three hours.
And while I could go on in vivid detail about how I felt,
what it did to my self-esteem, my finances, and so on,
what I now realize is,
while that event created the greatest amount of discomfort I had ever felt,
it was that discomfort,
the departure from my ordered life,
that forever changed it for the better.
You see, friends,
what makes you comfortable can ruin you,
and what makes you uncomfortable is the only way to grow.
Let me say that again:
What makes you comfortable can ruin you,
and only in a state of discomfort, can you continually grow.
Now, I suppose if on January 8th, had somebody come up and said,
"Gee buddy, getting fired is a good thing because now you're really going to grow!"
I probably would have smacked them.
But, pretty quickly I became motivated to start a new journey,
and after a couple years of work with my new team
and a PhD friend at the University of Nebraska,
we had this epiphany
on how to illustrate and apply the science of discomfort and growth.
We called the concept: the "Growth Rings."
The Growth Rings represent living environments
that promote or hinder growth.
And that includes everything from your place of work,
to even a fishbowl.
You see, what dictates the size of a goldfish
is its environment.
And while this goldfish lives in a very safe environment,
it's also very limiting in most every way.
And when placed in a more robust environment,
like, say, a small pond, this can be the result.
Now, it also means he could be eaten.
But friends, this is you -
the environments in which you work, live, and play,
they're all a proverbial fishbowl that dictates your growth.
So, the first Growth Ring represents a low-performing, low-growth environment,
called stagnation.
Stagnation is understood by having to follow too many steps,
and permissions, and minutiae.
That stifles creativity, independent thought, and action.
To imagine an environment such as this,
think no further than our state and federal governments.
Now, the antithesis of stagnation is chaos,
also low-growth and low-performing.
Chaos can be caused by internal or external events or conditions.
We see chaos occur at times in business mergers,
natural disasters, and horrific events like 9/11.
Chaos is having zero predictability or control
over inputs and outcomes.
Coming back down the Growth Rings,
next to stagnation is the most desirable environment: order.
Order is knowing that what you do, or what is happening in your environment,
leads to a predictable outcome.
And in predictability, comfort is found.
But comfort is also what makes order so dangerous.
Because science shows that anytime you continually do something,
or even think about something the same way,
you'll eventually stop growing.
And this applies to every living thing -
even our dog.
You see, if Aspen had a chance,
she'd choose comfort six days a week and twice on Sundays.
(Laughter)
But too much growth-limiting order
would have prevented her from becoming a therapy dog,
and had this been allowed,
think of the lives this gentle soul would not be touching today.
So, before your order continues to limit the way you think and act,
remember what I said earlier:
Growth only occurs in a state of discomfort.
Now, think about the power of that phrase:
Growth only occurs in a state of discomfort.
I can unequivocally state, I wouldn't be standing on this stage today
without my uncomfortable, order-disrupting day, nine years ago -
by the way I'm not recommending you go get fired to see if it leads to a TEDTalk.
(Laughter)
When you feel discomfort hit,
that means you've entered the complexity ring.
Complexity is nothing more than changed order,
but when your order is changed, outcomes are no longer predictable,
and it's unpredictability that makes you uncomfortable.
And while most times
your visceral response to discomfort is not just "No" but "Hell, no,"
you can actually learn how empowering it is
to consciously acknowledge discomfort,
and then, when appropriate, choose complexity over order.
And I know seeking discomfort sounds odd, and not many people do it,
but you have to learn to embrace it
because it's the only environment
where sustained or exponential growth can occur.
Okay.
To weave high-growth complexity into the fabric of your lives,
there are three primary ways it can be triggered.
Complexity trigger number one is it can be forced upon you.
When I got fired, I didn't have a chance to stay in order,
complexity was selected for me, and when this happens,
how much you grow depends on how you respond to it.
Now, I could have remained angry, I could have used it as an excuse,
but what I actually learned is that I suck as an employee,
and I'm much better off accepting the risks of running my own company.
Complexity trigger number two: Someone can help you get there.
This is the role of parents, teachers, coaches, and bosses.
Because left on their own,
people will consciously or subconsciously select the comfort of order.
And they then need to be pushed into complexity
in order to continue growing.
My youngest daughter spent most of her high school life
training to play tennis,
and her coach was pretty familiar with our work
on complexity and the Growth Rings.
So, I called him up one day to check on Maddie's progress,
and I was able to phrase my question like this, I said:
"Hey, Lee, how long has it been
since Maddie's been pushed deep into complexity?"
Lee's response:
"Hmm, funny you'd ask Bill. We got there yesterday.
She broke down into tears on the tennis court."
"Huh."
Well, knowing how tough my daughter is, and the fact that she never cries,
told me she was deep into complexity.
But, friends, this is where critical developmental decisions are made
because the old Bill, the pre-Growth Ring Bill,
would have intervened and wanted to know what was making her so uncomfortable.
Then I would have done everything I could to try and get her happy again.
What I really would have been doing
is removing the complexity, and putting her in order.
I actually would have been stifling her development.
But the new, post-Growth Ring Bill relished in his daughter's discomfort.
(Laughter)
And it was the coach's next words that told me everything I needed to hear.
He said, "Bill, I've got to tell you, it took a heck of a lot more
to get her to the limits of complexity this month,
than it did last month."
Discomfort was causing her growth.
Okay, but what if you're not lucky enough
to live or work in a robust high-growth environment?
What if you're stuck in order, even worse, stagnation?
Well, the great news is,
everyone can trigger complexity at any time.
So, complexity trigger number three: Trigger it yourself.
Take a journey with me back to Montgomery, Alabama
in the 1950s.
Imagine, if you will a young girl, who's black,
and she attends an all-black high school.
And she takes the city bus to get there and home,
which wasn't unusual in that era.
And on March 2, 1955, she boards a bus to come home from school,
and she sits near the back,
in the first row of seats where blacks were allowed to sit.
And as the bus continues to fill with white people,
there's eventually no more room in the front.
And according to local law
she needed to move further back to create room for white people to sit.
You see, Montgomery had an order in place
that when followed, led to a very predictable outcome:
repression of people with little conflict.
But 15-year-old Claudette Colvin
had just spent the last month in high school studying black history,
and she was understandably fed up with the historic and existing atrocities.
And so on this day, she decided she didn't like Montgomery's order,
and by refusing to give up her seat,
she sent a community, our laws, and our entire country into complexity.
Yes, nine months before Rosa Parks made her famous decision to stay put,
it was a 15-year-old girl
that was handcuffed, dragged from the bus, and taken to prison.
It was Miss Colvin, not Rosa Parks, who first fought the law,
and by the way,
was also the star plaintiff to testify in the famous lawsuit
that went all the way to the US Supreme Court.
So,
I use Claudette's actions not to heighten awareness of race issues,
although that's not necessarily bad,
but I used it as an example of every issue,
of every situation in an ordered environment.
It's a real and perfect example of complexity forcing people,
our communities, and our courts into discomfort,
and the downstream impact that can occur
anytime someone elects to move from order.
Dr. Serene Jones, in a recent book, summarizes this concept very eloquently.
She said: "The constant facade of order
hides the wilderness that is craving to seep out and teach us
that life wasn't created to be what we think it is.
Beyond words, we must experience the wilderness
to be taught what cannot be otherwise known."
So, friends,
it's not the discomfort of losing a job,
it's not having a child break down on the tennis court,
but it's order you should fear the most because it is a threat.
And order-disrupting people
like Jesus, Galileo, Claudette Colvin, Aspen's trainer,
and maybe even a few of you have already proven -
now, think about this -
it's not the complexity-triggering individuals or events
you should fear the most,
but it's your own willingness to accept or seek discomfort
that will dictate the growth of not just you,
but our entire world.
Thank you very much for allowing me to be a part of this.
(Applause)