How to build your creative confidence
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0:00 - 0:02I wanted to talk to you today
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0:02 - 0:04about creative confidence.
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0:04 - 0:07I'm going to start way back in the third grade
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0:07 - 0:11at Oakdale School in Barberton, Ohio.
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0:11 - 0:15I remember one day my best friend Brian was working on a project.
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0:15 - 0:18He was making a horse out of the clay
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0:18 - 0:21that our teacher kept under the sink.
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0:21 - 0:24And at one point one of the girls who was sitting at his table,
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0:24 - 0:26seeing what he was doing,
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0:26 - 0:28leaned over and said to him,
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0:28 - 0:32"That's terrible. That doesn't look anything like a horse."
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0:32 - 0:35And Brian's shoulders sank.
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0:35 - 0:38And he wadded up the clay horse and he threw it back in the bin.
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0:38 - 0:44I never saw Brian do a project like that ever again.
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0:44 - 0:46And I wonder how often that happens.
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0:46 - 0:50It seems like when I tell that story of Brian to my class,
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0:50 - 0:55a lot of them want to come up after class
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0:55 - 0:57and tell me about their similar experience,
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0:57 - 0:58how a teacher shut them down
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0:58 - 1:00or how a student was particularly cruel to them.
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1:00 - 1:04And some opt out thinking of themselves
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1:04 - 1:06as creative at that point.
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1:06 - 1:10And I see that opting out that happens in childhood,
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1:10 - 1:13and it moves in and becomes more ingrained,
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1:13 - 1:16even by the time you get to adult life.
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1:16 - 1:21So we see a lot of this.
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1:21 - 1:24When we have a workshop
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1:24 - 1:26or when we have clients in to work with us side-by-side,
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1:26 - 1:27eventually we get to the point in the process
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1:27 - 1:30that's funny or unconventional.
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1:30 - 1:34And eventually these bigshot executives whip out their Blackberries
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1:34 - 1:37and they say they have to make really important phone calls,
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1:37 - 1:40and they head for the exits.
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1:40 - 1:42And they're just so uncomfortable.
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1:42 - 1:45When we track them down and ask them what's going on,
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1:45 - 1:49they say something like, "I'm just not the creative type."
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1:49 - 1:51But we know that's not true.
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1:51 - 1:54If they stick with the process, if they stick with it,
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1:54 - 1:56they end up doing amazing things
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1:56 - 1:59and they surprise themselves just how innovative
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1:59 - 2:01they and their teams really are.
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2:01 - 2:06So I've been looking at this fear of judgment that we have.
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2:06 - 2:11That you don't do things, you're afraid you're going to be judged.
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2:11 - 2:15If you don't say the right creative thing, you're going to be judged.
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2:15 - 2:17And I had a major breakthrough
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2:17 - 2:21when I met the psychologist Albert Bandura.
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2:21 - 2:23I don't know if you know Albert Bandura.
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2:23 - 2:25But if you go to Wikipedia,
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2:25 - 2:29it says that he's the fourth most important psychologist in history --
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2:29 - 2:33like Freud, Skinner, somebody and Bandura.
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2:33 - 2:36Bandura's 86 and he still works at Stanford.
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2:36 - 2:39And he's just a lovely guy.
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2:39 - 2:42And so I went to see him
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2:42 - 2:46because he has just worked on phobias for a long time,
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2:46 - 2:48which I'm very interested in.
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2:48 - 2:54He had developed this way, this kind of methodology,
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2:54 - 2:57that ended up curing people in a very short amount of time.
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2:57 - 3:01In four hours he had a huge cure rate of people who had phobias.
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3:01 - 3:05And we talked about snakes. I don't know why we talked about snakes.
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3:05 - 3:09We talked about snakes and fear of snakes as a phobia.
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3:09 - 3:13And it was really enjoyable, really interesting.
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3:13 - 3:17He told me that he'd invite the test subject in,
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3:17 - 3:19and he'd say, "You know, there's a snake in the next room
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3:19 - 3:20and we're going to go in there."
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3:20 - 3:26To which, he reported, most of them replied,
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3:26 - 3:28"Hell no, I'm not going in there,
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3:28 - 3:30certainly if there's a snake in there."
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3:30 - 3:35But Bandura has a step-by-step process that was super successful.
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3:35 - 3:38So he'd take people to this two-way mirror
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3:38 - 3:39looking into the room where the snake was,
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3:39 - 3:42and he'd get them comfortable with that.
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3:42 - 3:45And then through a series of steps,
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3:45 - 3:48he'd move them and they'd be standing in the doorway with the door open
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3:48 - 3:50and they'd be looking in there.
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3:50 - 3:52And he'd get them comfortable with that.
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3:52 - 3:54And then many more steps later, baby steps,
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3:54 - 3:58they'd be in the room, they'd have a leather glove like a welder's glove on,
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3:58 - 4:01and they'd eventually touch the snake.
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4:01 - 4:07And when they touched the snake everything was fine. They were cured.
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4:07 - 4:09In fact, everything was better than fine.
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4:09 - 4:11These people who had life-long fears of snakes
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4:11 - 4:13were saying things like,
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4:13 - 4:16"Look how beautiful that snake is."
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4:16 - 4:18And they were holding it in their laps.
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4:18 - 4:24Bandura calls this process "guided mastery."
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4:24 - 4:27I love that term: guided mastery.
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4:27 - 4:31And something else happened,
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4:31 - 4:34these people who went through the process and touched the snake
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4:34 - 4:37ended up having less anxiety about other things in their lives.
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4:37 - 4:41They tried harder, they persevered longer,
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4:41 - 4:44and they were more resilient in the face of failure.
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4:44 - 4:48They just gained a new confidence.
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4:48 - 4:54And Bandura calls that confidence self-efficacy --
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4:54 - 4:57the sense that you can change the world
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4:57 - 4:59and that you can attain what you set out to do.
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4:59 - 5:03Well meeting Bandura was really cathartic for me
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5:03 - 5:07because I realized that this famous scientist
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5:07 - 5:10had documented and scientifically validated
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5:10 - 5:14something that we've seen happen for the last 30 years.
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5:14 - 5:17That we could take people who had the fear that they weren't creative,
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5:17 - 5:19and we could take them through a series of steps,
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5:19 - 5:23kind of like a series of small successes,
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5:23 - 5:30and they turn fear into familiarity, and they surprise themselves.
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5:30 - 5:31That transformation is amazing.
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5:31 - 5:34We see it at the d.school all the time.
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5:34 - 5:36People from all different kinds of disciplines,
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5:36 - 5:39they think of themselves as only analytical.
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5:39 - 5:42And they come in and they go through the process, our process,
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5:42 - 5:46they build confidence and now they think of themselves differently.
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5:46 - 5:48And they're totally emotionally excited
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5:48 - 5:50about the fact that they walk around
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5:50 - 5:53thinking of themselves as a creative person.
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5:53 - 5:57So I thought one of the things I'd do today
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5:57 - 6:00is take you through and show you what this journey looks like.
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6:00 - 6:05To me, that journey looks like Doug Dietz.
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6:05 - 6:10Doug Dietz is a technical person.
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6:10 - 6:12He designs medical imaging equipment,
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6:12 - 6:13large medical imaging equipment.
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6:13 - 6:17He's worked for GE, and he's had a fantastic career.
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6:17 - 6:20But at one point he had a moment of crisis.
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6:20 - 6:24He was in the hospital looking at one of his MRI machines in use
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6:24 - 6:26when he saw a young family.
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6:26 - 6:28There was a little girl,
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6:28 - 6:31and that little girl was crying and was terrified.
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6:31 - 6:34And Doug was really disappointed to learn
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6:34 - 6:39that nearly 80 percent of the pediatric patients in this hospital
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6:39 - 6:42had to be sedated in order to deal with his MRI machine.
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6:42 - 6:46And this was really disappointing to Doug,
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6:46 - 6:50because before this time he was proud of what he did.
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6:50 - 6:52He was saving lives with this machine.
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6:52 - 6:54But it really hurt him to see the fear
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6:54 - 6:57that this machine caused in kids.
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6:57 - 7:00About that time he was at the d.school at Stanford taking classes.
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7:00 - 7:03He was learning about our process
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7:03 - 7:05about design thinking, about empathy,
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7:05 - 7:08about iterative prototyping.
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7:08 - 7:10And he was take this new knowledge
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7:10 - 7:12and do something quite extraordinary.
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7:12 - 7:17He would redesign the entire experience of being scanned.
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7:17 - 7:20And this is what he came up with.
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7:20 - 7:23He turned it into an adventure for the kids.
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7:23 - 7:26He painted the walls and he painted the machine,
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7:26 - 7:28and he got the operators retrained by people who know kids,
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7:28 - 7:31like children's museum people.
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7:31 - 7:35And now when the kid comes, it's an experience.
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7:35 - 7:37And they talk to them about the noise and the movement of the ship.
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7:37 - 7:39And when they come, they say,
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7:39 - 7:40"Okay, you're going to go into the pirate ship,
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7:40 - 7:45but be very still because we don't want the pirates to find you."
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7:45 - 7:48And the results were super dramatic.
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7:48 - 7:53So from something like 80 percent of the kids needing to be sedated,
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7:53 - 7:57to something like 10 percent of the kids needing to be sedated.
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7:57 - 7:59And the hospital and GE were happy too.
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7:59 - 8:00Because you didn't have to call the anesthesiologist all the time,
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8:00 - 8:05they could put more kids through the machine in a day.
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8:05 - 8:07So the quantitative results were great.
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8:07 - 8:11But Doug's results that he cared about were much more qualitative.
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8:11 - 8:13He was with one of the mothers
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8:13 - 8:15waiting for her child to come out of the scan.
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8:15 - 8:18And when the little girl came out of her scan,
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8:18 - 8:20she ran up to her mother and said,
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8:20 - 8:22"Mommy, can we come back tomorrow?"
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8:22 - 8:26(Laughter)
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8:26 - 8:27And so I've heard Doug tell the story many times,
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8:27 - 8:31of his personal transformation
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8:31 - 8:33and the breakthrough design that happened from it,
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8:33 - 8:37but I've never really seen him tell the story of the little girl
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8:37 - 8:40without a tear in his eye.
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8:40 - 8:41Doug's story takes place in a hospital.
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8:41 - 8:45I know a thing or two about hospitals.
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8:45 - 8:48A few years ago I felt a lump on the side of my neck,
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8:48 - 8:53and it was my turn in the MRI machine.
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8:53 - 8:56It was cancer. It was the bad kind.
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8:56 - 8:59I was told I had a 40 percent chance of survival.
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8:59 - 9:04So while you're sitting around with the other patients in your pajamas
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9:04 - 9:07and everybody's pale and thin
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9:07 - 9:11and you're waiting for your turn to get the gamma rays,
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9:11 - 9:12you think of a lot of things.
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9:12 - 9:15Mostly you think about, Am I going to survive?
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9:15 - 9:17And I thought a lot about,
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9:17 - 9:21What was my daughter's life going to be like without me?
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9:21 - 9:24But you think about other things.
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9:24 - 9:27I thought a lot about, What was I put on Earth to do?
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9:27 - 9:30What was my calling? What should I do?
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9:30 - 9:33And I was lucky because I had lots of options.
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9:33 - 9:35We'd been working in health and wellness
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9:35 - 9:38in K through 12 in the Developing World.
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9:38 - 9:39And so there were lots of projects that I could work on.
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9:39 - 9:42But I decided and I committed to at this point
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9:42 - 9:44to the thing I most wanted to do --
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9:44 - 9:48was to help as many people as possible
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9:48 - 9:51regain the creative confidence they lost along the way.
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9:51 - 9:56And if I was going to survive, that's what I wanted to do.
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9:56 - 9:58I survived, just so you know.
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9:58 - 10:00(Laughter)
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10:00 - 10:05(Applause)
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10:05 - 10:08I really believe
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10:08 - 10:10that when people gain this confidence --
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10:10 - 10:13and we see it all the time at the d.school and at IDEO --
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10:13 - 10:17they actually start working on the things that are really important in their lives.
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10:17 - 10:22We see people quit what they're doing and go in new directions.
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10:22 - 10:29We see them come up with more interesting, and just more, ideas
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10:29 - 10:31so they can choose from better ideas.
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10:31 - 10:34And they just make better decisions.
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10:34 - 10:35So I know at TED you're supposed to have a change-the-world kind of thing.
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10:35 - 10:39Everybody has a change-the-world thing.
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10:39 - 10:42If there is one for me, this is it to help this happen.
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10:42 - 10:44So I hope you'll join me on my quest --
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10:44 - 10:46you as thought leaders,
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10:46 - 10:52if would be really great if you didn't let people divide the world
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10:52 - 10:56into the creatives and the non-creatives, like it's some God-given thing,
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10:56 - 11:00and to have people realize that they're naturally creative.
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11:00 - 11:03And those natural people should let their ideas fly.
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11:03 - 11:07That they should achieve what Bandura calls self-efficacy,
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11:07 - 11:11that you can do what you set out to do,
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11:11 - 11:15and that you can reach a place of creative confidence
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11:15 - 11:18and touch the snake.
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11:18 - 11:20Thank you.
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11:20 - 11:24(Applause)
- Title:
- How to build your creative confidence
- Speaker:
- David Kelley
- Description:
-
Is your school or workplace divided into "creatives" versus practical people? Yet surely, David Kelley suggests, creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few. Telling stories from his legendary design career and his own life, he offers ways to build the confidence to create... (From The Design Studio session at TED2012, guest-curated by Chee Pearlman and David Rockwell.)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 11:46
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence | ||
Alessandra Tadiotto accepted English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence | ||
Jenny Zurawell approved English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for How to build your creative confidence |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 4/3/2017.