WEBVTT

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We speak ourselves into the world.

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We speak ourselves
into transformation, or not.

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Into new possibilities
and new results for ourselves, or not.

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TED is about ideas worth spreading,

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I believe it's also about ideas
worth reminding ourselves of,

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because what I want
to share with you today,

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I believe many of us know, or knew,

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but somehow, somewhere
along the way, we forgot.

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And it's easy to forget this

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because in some ways
it's so close we don't see it,

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it's so obvious we can miss it.

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What I would love to do today

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is to reintroduce you,
to remind you of this idea

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- which is really
two sides of the same coin,

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two aspects of the same powerful idea -

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and do so in such a way
that you can leave here today

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more conscious and more aware

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of how to purposely
apply this in your life.

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I ask a room full of people,

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"What is language? What is language for?"

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And what would
the giant majority answer with?

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A tool for communication,
or some variation of this.

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This is such a widely held idea,

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or a way of understanding language,

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that most people
don't see it as an idea at all.

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We see it as a definition. As a fact.

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I offer this: if language is a tool,
it's a tool we cannot put down.

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When we look a little bit more closely,

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we can see that we are doing
a great deal more

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than communicate
and describe with our language.

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So, point number one:

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language creates and generates,
it does not simply describe.

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Some examples: think about
every single time in your life

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you've ever said the word "yes".

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Every time.

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Now consider: if all
those times you had said no,

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would your life be different?

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You wouldn't be here.

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The simple act of saying yes,
you move in the world this way,

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these doors open,
these doors close, and vice versa.

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We're not describing.

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One of my favorite stories
about how language creates

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is a baseball story.

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Two umpires sitting around talking,
and the first one is saying,

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"You know, Joe is a fabulous umpire:

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there's balls in his strikes,
he calls them like they are."

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The second umpire said,
"No no no, Joe is a great umpire.

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There's balls in his strikes,
but he calls them like he sees them."

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Joe said, "Ya'll both wrong."

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He says, "There's balls in my strikes,
but they are nothing till I call them."

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(Laughter)

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When he says "Strike three",
it is "Strike three".

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This question is for everybody

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who is married,
or who has ever been married.

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It's a simple question:

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Is it different being married
than not being married?

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Yes.

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It's different legally, socially,
sexually, emotionally, financially.

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It's different.

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So the question:

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how do we go from being
not married to being married?

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How'd that happen?

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Somebody said something.

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And in that moment it's different,

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and it's not a little bit different,
it's really different.

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We speak ourselves into the world.

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How was the United States
of America created?

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What is there, in the Archives,
right next to the Constitution

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in Washington D.C.?

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The Declaration.

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This country was declared into being.

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Now, there was work to do after that, yes,

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but without the Declaration
does not happen.

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How was Jim's Auto Body Shop
down the street created?

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And all organizations for that matter?

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They were also declared into being,

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and Jim and the rest of us
can find the evidence in the file cabinet,

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"We hereby shareholders
declare part 100, a, b, c;

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August, 1, the company doesn't exist,
August, 2, it does."

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Leaders get paid
to have effective conversations.

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Leaders create
and continually sustain and cultivate

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this non-physical but very real
and very powerful thing

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called corporate culture,

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not with shovels
and fertilizer, of course,

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but with the conversations they have,
the conversations they require,

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and the conversations
they prohibit in their organizations.

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These conversations
shape and impact that culture

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every bit as much as the culture
influences the workplace conversations.

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Causality is two-way.

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Now, let's get personal.

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Think about somebody in your life

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with whom you have
a close, deep, excellent relationship.

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Your conversations with that person

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create the experience of intimacy,

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generate the space of authenticity
and vulnerability, not describe it.

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You change those conversations,

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and you change that relationship.

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You end those conversations,

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and you end the relationship.

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Back to the wedding:
Is there not a moment in most weddings

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when the person doing the ceremony
will say some version of this:

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"Anybody here thinks that so and so
and so and so should not be married?

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Speak now, or forever hold your peace."

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Here's my promise to you:

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you stand up in that moment
and you scream: "I object!",

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you are not describing,
you are creating. (Laughter)

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Think about it.

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You're creating chaos, a crisis,

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you're also creating
a brand new relationship with the groom.

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Think about it.

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And a brand, spanking new
public identity for yourself.

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(Laughter)

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I am not saying
we don't describe with language.

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What I'm saying is
that is not all that we do.

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And it's this whole other
"not all that we do"

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that's worth looking at.

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One more example.

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In times of ongoing change,
exactly like those we live in today,

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our ability to continually learn
is critically important.

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And one of the most spectacularly
powerful prerequisites for learning,

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regardless of whether
we're learning to ride a bike,

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learning to rebuild a relationship,
learning to lead a company,

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that prerequisite is a language step,

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and it's when the learner says,
either internally or out loud,

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"I don't know."

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Declaring "I don't know"
does not describe a state of affairs,

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it produces something.

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What it produces
is called a context for learning;

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not physical, very real.

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We declare beginnerhood into being.

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We speak it so.

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Just like the umpire.

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Everybody here knows this:

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Who here in this room has ever tried
to teach somebody something

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when the learner thought
they already knew it?

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How much learning takes place?

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Not much.

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So point number one:

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language creates and generates,
it does not simply describe.

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Point number two: we live in language.

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We live in language.

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Now, that expression, what does it mean?

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I like to frame it this way.

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Who here in this room
has the little voice inside?

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When it's saying,
"What's he talking about?"

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that's what I'm talking about.

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Who has a debate team?

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(Laughter)

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One of my favorite quotes
of all time is Mark Twain.

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He said, "I'm always in a conversation.

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And sometimes, other people are involved."

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(Laughter)

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It's not just Mark Twain, it's us.

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It's all of us.

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And because we live in language,
this is what we do.

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You, and I, and all of us,
we are confronted with events.

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Events at home, events at work,
events with our kids,

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events in college,
events at the beach; events.

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And what we do as a human beings,
we make up stories about these events,

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we hold these stories to be the truth,

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and we forget that we made them up.

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(Laughter)

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Now, when I say "story",
I don't mean fib, or fabrication,

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it's not a purposeful manipulation,
it's not a self-deception.

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It's an interpretation.

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An explanation.

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A crucial distinction
for us to possess

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is event is not equal explanation.

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Event is not equal explanation.

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One example:

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your child comes home from school,

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looks up at you straight in the eye,
and says, "I'm stupid."

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"What are you talking about?"
"I'm stupid."

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"What are you talking about?"

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"I got an F on my English test."

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In this little example, what's the event?

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The F on the test.

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What's the explanation?

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"I'm stupid."

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Question: if that kid lives
in that conversation long enough,

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is that a descriptive thing
or a creative thing?

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That's a creative thing.

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And let's back up from the F
on the test and think more broadly.

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Is it the events of your life
or your explanations about those events

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that are more influential

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as to the actual actions
you end up taking in the world?

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It's the explanations.

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And not only actual actions
we take in the world,

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we produce something
called results in the world

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in a wide variety of areas, do we not?

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Yes.

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And the explanation
is the spring board, not the event.

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Out of any given event,

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how many possible explanations are there?

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Infinite.

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What if we can break a habit?

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What if we can break the habit
of throwing the right wrong scaffolding

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on top of our and other
people's explanations?

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"My explanation is right, yours is wrong,
this is right, this is wrong."

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What if we can stop that,

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and instead have something
called 'powerful-unpowerful'.

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It would look like this:

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Is your explanation
powerful or unpowerful,

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given the results you say you want?

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Does my explanation
serve me or not serve me,

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given what I say I want to be,
do, or have in this situation,

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in this relationship?

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Always with the tagline
"given the results we say we want"

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never in a vacuum.

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Never in a vacuum.

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Because we're doing it already anyway.

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That's not in doubt.

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We are Mark Twain.

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Have you ever known someone
who didn't see themselves as doing this?

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Because this is about self awareness.

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It's not a problem that we do this.

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The only problem is
we don't see that we're doing it!

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Here's what someone must look like
who does not see himself as doing this.

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It's wonderful to meet everyone today,
and it's obvious to me how each of you

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are necessarily influenced
by your age, your race, your sex,

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your degree of travel
or non-travel when you were little,

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and your cultural, educational,
and work histories,

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and all these necessarily service filters
to which you perceive reality.

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I, on the other hand, am somehow
blessed with cosmic objectivity,

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was somehow born
unfettered in this regard,

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and unburdened by all the cognitive,

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emotional, and cultural filters
that clog you up.

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My eyes are more like
clear panes of glass,

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amazingly allowing me
access to native reality

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in such a way that it yields
cosmically objective viewpoints.

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How excellent for me

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that I was somehow born
and blessed with such a gift?

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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I get to this part in a workshop,

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a guy stands up in the back
of the room and says,

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"My brother, my brother, finally!
Someone who understands me!" (Laughter)

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"I thought I was alone!
The burden of this gift!

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The only one with any objectivity!"

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Everybody is interpreting, no matter what,

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no exceptions, ever.

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One of my teachers said this,

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"Everything that is said,
is said by someone."

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(Laughter)

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Think about it.

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Somebody who was born somewhere,

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in some culture,
in some time period somewhere,

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raised by individual human beings,

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each of whom had standards,
distinctions, values, practices,

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experiences, moods, like each of us.

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But folks, here is the consequence,
and we know this:

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if you do not see yourself
as doing this now, making up explanations,

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and you couple that with not producing

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some important result
that you say you want,

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well, then the option for you of offering
a more powerful interpretation,

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it'll never occur to you.

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It'll be off your radar screen,

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because if you don't think
you're doing it now,

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there's nothing to update.

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And what you have effectively done
is take off the table

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a spectacular leverage point.

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For intervening at the level

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you can make a real
difference, which is you.

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We live in language
like a fish lives in water.

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A fish is born in water,
lives in water; water, water, water.

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Question: when would a fish first know,
he's born in water and lives in water?

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When would he first know that?

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When you take him out.

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We are born in language, live in language,
language all around, language everywhere.

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Part of what I want to do today
is create a space

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where we can begin to look at language
instead of living through it,

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so we can be more aware
of what we're up to in language

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and more conscious and more purposeful

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about how we wield this creative,
generative energy we call language.

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We are swimming, each of us,
in an ocean of stories,

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interpretations, explanations and beliefs,

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all of which live in language

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and a great majority of which we have
long since forgotten that we authored.

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Some of these stories, interpretations,
explanations, and beliefs

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absolutely do not take us today
and will not take us tomorrow

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where we say we want to go.

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But because we have forgotten
that we are the author,

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we have also forgotten that we have
the authority and the ability

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to change them, update them,
transcend them or let them go.

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So number one:
language creates and generates.

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Plus, number two:
we live in language equals,

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we are always creating
or generating something,

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it just may or may not be
what we say we want.

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What do you most seek in
to be, do, or have in your life?

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Because regardless of how you answer
that question, these questions,

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I'm here today to remind you
you speak yourself into the world.

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We are not human beings,
we are human becomings.

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We are.

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And in this neverending dance of learning,
growing, evolving, and becoming,

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this ideal, this way
of understanding language,

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this way of understanding ourselves,

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is the key.

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I invite you, I challenge you
as you leave here today,

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to be a more powerful observer of yourself
and what you're up to in language

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and live with ongoing awareness
and acceptance of your role

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as the author of your life.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)