WEBVTT

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Thank you so much.

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You know, sometimes in our lives
something happens to us

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that changes the way we think,
that changes what we're going to do.

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And I wanted to start
by telling you a story

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about something that happened to me
almost five years ago

NOTE Paragraph

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which really set me off into thinking
about this question

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of how do we regenerate ourselves.

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About four years ago I decided to take
my younger son Dominic to Africa.

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You know he's like
many teenagers in London

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spending lots of time
hanging around, you know

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and I wanted him to really understand
what was happening in Africa.

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And in particular you know
he was just becoming a young

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adult, I wanted him to spend
time with a Masai warriors.

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And so we took a plane - we
took a little private plane -

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we got into a car and eventually

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- it took us about two and a half days -
we ended up

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in a Masai village in the middle
of the Masai Mara in Tanzania.

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And just as we had hoped
there were a couple of

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Masai warriors that spent time
with us over a couple of days

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talking to us about their rituals

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and so on, wonderful stuff.
You know this was great

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for a teenager to really understand
what it was like to be a warrior.

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And one morning he took
us to the top of the hill

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and what he was doing
is he was showing us

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his Masai territory and he was
talking about how it was

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to be a Masai warrior
and what it meant

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the implications, that they
you know, had to live by.

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And there he was standing in his whole
Masai wonderful red robes

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carrying a spear, a spear
to kill lions with.

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This was an authentic moment.

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And as we stood there,
there was a funny little sound.

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Can anyone imagine what
that funny little sound was?

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(Audience: It was his phone)

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It's his mobile phone!
So out of his pocket

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you know this sort of
leopard skin pocket

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he gets his mobile phone.

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And like every 23 year-old

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he has a very excited conversation
on his mobile phone.

NOTE Paragraph

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Well at that moment, I realized
that my world had changed

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more than I ever imagined it
would have done or could do.

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But that wasn't the only thing that
happened that afternoon because

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when he put his phone down,
being sort of an inquisitive professor

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at the London Business School
I said to him,

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"What was the conversation about?
Who were you talking to?"

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And he said "Ah!
I was talking to my brother"

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Now he as a warrior, his job
was to look after the cattle.

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But his brother who was younger
than my son a 12 year-old

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was looking after the goats
and in fact his brother

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had gone out that morning,
at six o'clock in the morning

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and had taken the goats out.
This was about 12 o'clock by now.

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He said,
"Well I was talking to my brother."

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I said,
"Well what was the conversation [about]?"

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He said, "My brother
had phoned me to tell me

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that the goats had
just found green grass" .

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Now you see that for me is
the paradox of the future

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because in many ways things
changed beyond imagination.

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Who would imagine that a Masai
warrior four years ago

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would have a mobile phone?

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By the way he had no electricity,
he had no car,

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he had no refrigerator, but he
did have a mobile phone.

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But yet at the same time there
were things about his life

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that had remained essentialy the same

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in terms of his values, his beliefs,
and what was important to him.

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You know, I think the challenge
that we face now

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is we are in the midst of the
biggest transformation

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that the world had ever seen.

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When I wrote my book
"The Shift" I said

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"The biggest transformation
since the industrial revolution" .

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I don't think that's the case anymore.

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In the two years since
that was written

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I realized it's the biggest
transformation ever.

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And one of the challenges that
we face is to ask ourselves

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"What sort of a world do
we want to construct?"

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And more importantly, what sort
of a life do I want to construct?

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And there is no question
that there are some

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pretty tough things happening
to us in the future.

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If we look into the future
what's clear is that

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you could walk into
the future blindfold.

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You know you could walk
into a default future

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where you don't make choices,
you let the future unroll

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in front of you or you could be
a lot more thoughtful

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about the future that
you want to create.

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You can create in other
words a "crafted future".

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Now to do that, I think you
have to think about

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some of the things that are
happening in our lives

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over the next couple of decades.

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Both in terms of the bright side
and in terms of the side

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which is a dark side.

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You know, one of the things
that's really clear about the future,

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about our lives,
about the lives of our children

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is it could be a life
of fragmentation,

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it could be a life where
in fact everything is broken

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into three minute periods.

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If you look even now at your life
you'll find that even now

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you're constantly interrupted
by technology.

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It's sort of like a bad tempered
two year-old.

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You know you can't really
find the time within your life

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that allows you to be reflective,

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that allows you to be thoughtful.

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So isolation, fragmentation,
is a really important part

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potentially of our lives. But yet it
doesn't need to be like that.

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The very technology
that interrupts you

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the very technology
that behaves like

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the bad tempered two year-old

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can also provide enormous
opportunities for co-creation.

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Right now across the world
tens of thousands of people

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are joining together on platforms
like InnoCentive

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to share ideas, to think
through the opportunities,

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to solve problems, both
in their own country

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and indeed in other countries.

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It could be a world of isolation.

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There is a potential for many of us

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to be living in small families.

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We've moved into the city,
we've lost our family roots

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we're very mobile,
we're working at home

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rather than in an office and it could
be a really isolated future.

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It could be a future where
it's hard for you to connect

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but at the same time
you know there are

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opportunities as we've heard
today to really connect

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into your societies to connect
into your communities

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to be part of the place that you live.

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And it's a world of exclusion.

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It's a world where the rich get richer,

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where the poor become poorer,

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wherever they happen to be located.

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It's a world where if you don't

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or you're not educated you can't join 


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the global labor talent pool,

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you have no way
of actually accessing

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the value that the world's creating.

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But it could be a world
where you become engaged

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and where five billion people
can connect to each other

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using the abundant knowledge
that's available now

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through the sort of hand-held
devices that my Masai warrior

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was holding that could create
enormous amounts of engagement.

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And what I want to suggest
is that the challenge

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that we face now
is that we could walk into

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the future blindfolded or instead we
could make some important shifts

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that change the way that we think,

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that change our behavior,
that change some of the ways

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that we want our future to continue.

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And it seems to me, that right now,
we are faced both with choices 


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and with consequences.

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And I want to suggest three shifts

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I think each one of us
should be thinking about

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in terms of how we create
the sort of future

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that's going to be important to us.

NOTE Paragraph

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The first is about the way we
think about our own skills.

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Now you know there was a time

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that you thought maybe,
you know, to be a generalist

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would be wonderful.

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I just need to be like a
T-shaped manager.

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I need to know a little
about a lot of things.

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But frankly if you know a little
about a lot of things

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you're competition is not those smart
highly educated people in China.

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Your competition is
Wikipedia and Google.

NOTE Paragraph

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So, you need to build mastery.

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You need to focus on areas that you
love, that you're passionate about,

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because the future in my view
is about hyperspecialization.

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And if can do two things,
then that's even better.

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So, number one, first shift,
think about what you love,

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what you're passionate about
and really really focus on it.

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Number two. You know
certainly when I was

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growing up what we thought was
the way to get on was to compete.

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You know, that there was a rank
and some people will be at the top

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and some people would
be at the bottom.

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And the way to make sure
that you were at the top

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was to compete with
everybody else around you.

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and to be the best that you can be.

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What we're now realizing
about the future

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is that there are
incredible opportunities

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to build value through collaboration
and through cooperation.

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Technology, those
billions connected,

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abundant knowledge provides
incredible opportunities

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not simply to compete
but also to realize

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that networks are going
to be important.

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And those could be
the sort of networks

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that are the possy, you know those
people who are really close to you

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who understand your knowledge
who can ride with you

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it could be the regenerative community,

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those people who you're close to,
who you give time to,

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who you can reflect to, it could
be the big ideas crowd.

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The thousands of people
you might know

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who between them have ideas
that you can't even imagine

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but the combination with your
ideas could be very valuable.

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And the final shift is this.

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You know when organizations
began to industrialize

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the deal between the worker
was very simple.

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You work to earn money to buy
stuff that makes you happy.

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I don't think that's working anymore.

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I mean what we're
beginning to realize

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is that there's very little correlation
between higher standards of living

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and better feelings about
happiness or quality of life.

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And what we're also
realizing is that

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if we're going to be working
until 75, which we will be,

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and if we're going to have
work as a center

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of our life, which for most of us
it will be,

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work is where we find
meaning and I believe

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that in the future the shift
comes less from thinking

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about work as a means
of making money

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to buy stuff that you
can consume

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but rather to see work
itself as a source

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of enormous creativity
and a source

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of enormous possibilities in
terms of what would help

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each one of us to become
the very best we can.

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You know human potential
is indeed infinite.

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And I believe that
whilst there are

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some very tough parts
of the path ahead

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at the same time,
we have opportunities

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for the next 10, 20 years
to be incredibly exciting

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for every one of us.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)