Time bending -- 365 ways to unlock creativity and innovation | Ken Hughes | TEDxUniversityofNicosia

Summary

In a thought-provoking TED Talk, Ken Hughes, a playologist, challenges the audience to embrace new experiences to 'bend time' and enrich life. He narrates a metaphorical journey through life's memories, represented by Polaroid photos, to illustrate the monotony of routine versus the vibrancy of novelty. Hughes shares his year-long experiment of daily new experiences, which transformed his perspective, fostering creativity, innovation, and joy. He encourages others to say 'yes' to life's possibilities, advocating for a playful approach to break the mundane and ignite personal and professional growth.

Takeaways

• 💡 The speaker encourages embracing creativity and trying new experiences to make life more fulfilling.
• 💀 He uses the metaphor of walking through a warehouse of Polaroid photos representing each day of life to illustrate the importance of unique experiences.
• 🏃‍♂️ The speaker suggests that as we age, our days can become routine, leading to a life that feels like it's slipping away.
• 🎉 At 40, he realized the need to avoid a life of monotony and started a 365-day experiment to do something new every day.
• 📝 He kept a journal to record each new experience, which became a challenge to maintain throughout the year.
• 🤸‍♂️ The speaker found that it's easier to try new things on weekends but the real challenge was incorporating novelty into weekdays.
• 👨‍👧‍👦 He discovered that even small, everyday activities can become new experiences when approached with a fresh perspective.
• 🌐 The 'Time Bending' concept is about stretching the time we have by filling it with new and different activities to make life richer.
• 🤝 The experiment showed that the idea of trying new things is infectious and can inspire others to join in.
• 🙅‍♂️ The speaker emphasizes the importance of saying 'yes' to opportunities to prevent a day from passing without any memorable events.
• 🎈 The experiment led to a personal shift in perspective, fostering a playful attitude that enhances creativity and innovation.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the talk given by Ken Hughes?

The main theme of Ken Hughes' talk is the concept of 'Time Bending', which is about filling one's life with new experiences to make each day unique and, in essence, stretching the perception of time.

What does Ken Hughes suggest we imagine at the beginning of his talk?

Ken Hughes suggests we imagine that we are dead and follow a white light into a warehouse where we see thousands of Polaroid photographs representing each day of our life.

What does Ken Hughes imply about the photographs that are black or blank?

Ken Hughes implies that the black or blank photographs represent days in life where nothing unique or new was done, indicating a routine life that lacks memorable experiences.

What personal milestone did Ken Hughes reach this year, and how did it influence his perspective on life?

Ken Hughes turned 40 this year, which led him to face a midlife crisis and reflect on the importance of living a life full of new experiences rather than falling into a routine.

What does Ken Hughes' father, who is 73 years old, think about time as he gets older?

Ken Hughes' father believes that time seems to move faster as he gets older, especially when he doesn't do many new things, which is a concept that Ken explores in his talk.

What experiment did Ken Hughes undertake starting from the first of January of the current year?

Ken Hughes undertook a 365-day experiment where he aimed to do something new that he had never done before every single day of the year to test the concept of 'Time Bending'.

What did Ken Hughes learn from his experience of cutting his daughter's hair?

Ken Hughes learned that even seemingly ordinary activities like cutting his daughter's hair can become a new and unique experience, contributing to his 'Time Bending' experiment.

How did Ken Hughes' experiment with 'Time Bending' affect his daily life and routine?

The experiment led Ken Hughes to seek out new experiences in his daily life and routine, such as making his own pain au chocolat when they ran out at a hotel, doing his wife's aerobics DVD, and having his toenails painted by his daughter.

What impact did Ken Hughes' 'Time Bending' have on the people around him?

Ken Hughes' 'Time Bending' became infectious, influencing others to join him in trying new experiences, such as friends participating in the spray-cream challenge and people joining him for beach art.

What advice does Ken Hughes give for fostering creativity and innovation in one's personal and professional life?

Ken Hughes advises to adopt a philosophy of openness to new experiences and play, to take risks, and to say 'yes' to opportunities as a way to foster creativity and innovation.

How does Ken Hughes suggest we change our workspace to foster creativity?

Ken Hughes suggests changing the workspace every two or three weeks, varying the art, decor, and even the building, to break the monotony and encourage creative thinking.

Outlines

00:00

💡 Embracing Creativity and Avoiding Routine

The speaker, a playologist, starts his talk by asking the audience to envision their life as a series of Polaroid photographs, each representing a unique day. He humorously recounts childhood memories and significant life events, emphasizing the importance of seeking new experiences to avoid a life of monotony. The speaker reflects on his own life, turning 40 and his father's perspective on aging and time. He suggests that filling one's life with novel experiences could potentially slow down the perception of time passing, challenging the audience to break free from routine and spark creativity.

05:01

🎯 The Time Bending Experiment: A Year of New Experiences

The speaker introduces his 'Time Bending' concept, which involves engaging in a new experience every day for a year to make life more fulfilling and to 'bend' time. He describes his personal challenge, keeping a journal to record daily unique activities. The speaker shares anecdotes from his experiment, such as cutting his daughter's hair, attempting a half-marathon, and engaging in various weekend activities. The experiment's crux is finding novelty in everyday life, not just during leisure time, leading to small yet significant deviations from routine that cumulatively create a richer life experience.

10:03

😂 The Joy of Play and Its Impact on Life and Creativity

The speaker discusses the transformative power of play and openness to new experiences. He shares stories of unconventional activities, such as having his toenails painted by his daughter, which brought him joy and laughter. The speaker argues that play is crucial for fostering creativity and innovation, and he criticizes corporate attempts to enforce play, suggesting it must come from within. His year-long experiment led to a personal shift in perspective, making him more playful, taking more risks, and enhancing his personal and professional life. He encourages the audience to embrace a similar philosophy for lasting change.

15:05

🌟 Becoming a Time-Bender: Encouraging a Life of Color and Creativity

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker shares his ongoing journey of recruiting 'Time-Benders' and emphasizes the importance of making creativity and play a permanent part of one's life. He suggests starting with a list of new experiences and keeping a journal to track daily unique activities. The speaker reflects on his personal transformation and the contagious nature of his Time Bending philosophy, inspiring others to join him in living a life less ordinary. He ends with a call to action, urging the audience to step up and play in the world's playground, leaving the audience with a sense of excitement and possibility.

Keywords

💡Creativity

Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, and patterns to create meaningful new ideas, forms, and interpretations. In the video, the speaker encourages the audience to look deeper within themselves to find and unleash their creative spark. The theme of creativity is central to the talk, as the speaker uses the metaphor of life experiences represented by Polaroid photographs to illustrate the importance of unique and creative living.

💡Time Perception

Time perception refers to the subjective experience of time or how individuals process the passage of time. The speaker discusses how time seems to move faster as one ages, and how engaging in new experiences can potentially slow down one's perception of time. The concept is integral to the video's message, suggesting that by filling one's life with novel activities, one might 'bend' time and make it feel as though it's passing more slowly.

💡Midlife Crisis

A midlife crisis is a period of doubt and anxiety that individuals may experience in middle age, often marked by a reevaluation of one's life, sometimes leading to major changes. The speaker mentions his own midlife crisis as a turning point that led him to reflect on his life's routine and sparked his 'Time Bending' experiment. This personal revelation is used to connect with the audience and to emphasize the importance of breaking out of routine.

💡Routine

Routine refers to a sequence of regular, customary actions or activities requiring little conscious thought. In the video, the speaker uses the concept of routine to contrast a life filled with unique experiences against one that is monotonous and filled with repetitive actions. The script describes how a routine life can lead to 'blank' photographs, symbolizing days without new experiences, which the speaker encourages the audience to avoid.

💡Experience

An experience is an event or occurrence that leaves an impression on someone. The video emphasizes the importance of having new experiences to enrich one's life. The speaker's 'Time Bending' experiment is based on the idea of doing something new every day, which he believes can add color and depth to one's life, as evidenced by his various anecdotes throughout the script.

💡Play

Play is a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities characterized by enjoyment and leisure. The speaker argues that play is crucial for fostering creativity and innovation in adults. He shares his realization that by embracing play and saying 'yes' to new experiences, one can permanently integrate a sense of play into their life, leading to personal and professional growth.

💡Innovation

Innovation refers to the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay. The speaker connects the dots between play, creativity, and innovation, suggesting that a playful mindset can lead to innovative solutions in various aspects of life, including business and personal relationships.

💡Risk

Risk is the possibility of an event occurring that will have a negative effect on one's goals. The video discusses the importance of taking risks as a means to break out of one's comfort zone and to experience life more fully. The speaker's anecdotes about his own risk-taking during the 'Time Bending' experiment serve to illustrate how embracing risk can lead to personal growth and new opportunities.

💡Journaling

Journaling is the act of writing down experiences, thoughts, and observations. In the context of the video, the speaker uses journaling as a tool for his 'Time Bending' experiment, documenting each day's unique activity. This practice helps him to maintain the discipline of seeking out new experiences and serves as a record of his commitment to living a life less ordinary.

💡Polaroid Photographs

Polaroid photographs refer to instant images produced by the now-iconic Polaroid cameras. In the video, the speaker uses the metaphor of Polaroid photographs laid out on the ground to represent each day of one's life. This visual imagery serves as a powerful tool to convey the message that each day should be filled with unique and memorable experiences, rather than being a 'blank' photo indicative of a routine day.

💡Time-Bender

A 'Time-Bender' is a term coined by the speaker to describe someone who actively seeks out new experiences every day as part of the 'Time Bending' experiment. The concept is central to the video's narrative, as it encapsulates the idea of bending or stretching one's perception of time by living a life full of novel activities and experiences.

Highlights

Encouraging creativity by imagining one's life as a series of Polaroid photographs representing each day.

The concept of 'Time Bending' to stretch and make more out of life by engaging in new experiences daily.

The idea that routine can lead to a life lost to monotony, with many 'blank' days in one's memory.

Personal anecdotes, such as the humorous story of a son filling shoes with mashed banana, to illustrate memorable experiences.

The speaker's experiment to complete a new experience every day for a year to test the concept of time bending.

The importance of trying new things even on weekdays, not just during weekends, to break the routine.

Creative solutions to everyday problems, like making pain au chocolat from breakfast cereal.

The joy and laughter derived from simple experiences, like having one's toenails painted by a child.

The infectious nature of 'Time Bending' and how it can inspire others to join in on new experiences.

The impact of saying 'yes' to every opportunity as a way to ensure a non-routine life.

The realization that play is crucial for fostering creativity and innovation in adults.

The speaker's personal transformation through the experiment, becoming more playful and taking more risks.

The idea that creativity and innovation should not be enforced by corporations but should come from within the individual.

The notion that a playful mindset should be a permanent philosophy permeating every aspect of life.

The call to action for the audience to start their own 'Time Bending' journey by writing a list of new experiences.

The suggestion to change one's workspace regularly to foster creativity and avoid stagnation.

The final message that the world is a playground and the importance of stepping up to play.

Transcripts

Transcriber: Maria Pericleous Reviewer: Chryssa R. Takahashi

Host: One here, please.

Ken Hughes: This will cost you 10,000 euros.

(Laughter)

Good afternoon.

As a playologist, I'd like to encourage you all

to look deeper to find that spark of creativity that lies within us all

and let it out.

I want you to imagine for a moment that you are dead.

It's not the most inspiring way to start a talk, I know.

(Laughter)

You follow that white light, through,

you come out into a warehouse,

an empty hangar,

and on the ground in front of you

are thousands of Polaroid photographs lined up one after the other in a row.

Each photograph represents a day of your life, a life just ended.

And now you walk.

You walk along those photographs, looking at the various memories.

You remember your first day at school.

I'm not too sure I quite understood school;

I think I thought I was emigrating.

(Laughter)

So you walk on,

and you walk past your first kiss.

This one isn't me, by the way, this is a stock image.

I didn't hire a photographer to hide in the trees

to record my first kiss - I wish I had.

So you walk past all these big days:

the day you graduated university, the day you got married.

You remember all these big days as you walk along these rows.

There'll be some memories you walk past, each day that you remember.

There'll be small things like the day your eight-year-old son and his friend

took your brand new Converse runners

and filled them with mashed banana for a joke.

These days will stand out to you.

And on your walk - my point is this:

each photograph on the floor in front of you is a unique day.

The photograph is the thing that happened on that day

that was different to every other day of your life.

Different from before and from after:

the new thing that you learnt, the new experience you had.

In the early years as a child or a teenager,

the pictures are quite interesting

because when you're young, you're adventurous; you flirt with risk.

But I want you to think about those rows

that represent your late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s,

the days that become a routine,

days slipping into weeks, into months, into years.

You do the same thing every day:

you get up, you go to school or college, your work,

you come home, you sit on the TV.

These days, think about the photographs,

and how many of those photographs are black.

Blank because you didn't do anything that day that was unique

that you had never ever done before.

Think of the rows and rows of photographs

as you walk along that are completely blank.

A life that could have been full of all sorts of new experiences,

new skills, new people, new places,

but it was just a routine life.

A life lost to the routine.

It's a little bit depressing, isn't it?

And such are the thoughts of a man facing his midlife crisis.

This year I turned 40.

Now, I know I don't look it;

I drink the blood of virgin unicorns every morning at dawn.

(Laughter)

But nevertheless, half my life is potentially over.

Now at the same time, while I'm having my midlife crisis,

my father, who is a healthy 73,

he's having his - I guess you could call his end-of-life crisis.

It's the same as mine except he is more concerned

with things like when the day does actually come,

how many fireworks I'm going to be able to sneak into his coffin

before it's sealed for the crematorium.

Because he thinks this will be great fun.

He's that kind of guy.

So we got talking about time last Christmas,

and he was having a conversation with me that started with,

"I remember being 65, and now I'm 73,

"I have no idea where the last eight years have gone."

He said that time seemed to be moving much faster

now that he was older, and I started to laugh.

I thought, "What? You're blissfully retired.

All you do every day is drink coffee and do some gardening.

Surely your days stretch out in front of you slowly, and time drags."

But apparently not.

He said that no, time slips past faster and faster,

the less you do, oddly, the faster time passes.

For most of us, time is a mental construct really.

You look back on a week or month or year that just passed,

and really it's your memories that you are using

to decide how effective that time was.

So I wondered if that was true.

If my father was right, and he usually is,

what would happen if you reversed that?

If you filled your days and your weeks with new things,

could you, in fact, slow down time?

Just take an average day.

An average day has a start and an end.

So think about it as two fixed points,

like two pins in a cork board, the morning and the night.

And take a piece of string, and run that string from morning to night,

and let's take that as your average day.

And on to that average day, we will put things.

We put things that we do every day:

we get up, we have our breakfast,

we commute to work or college, we spend the day in the office,

and even the things we do on occasion, maybe every week or two,

like that yoga class or soccer training,

these are things that are routine in our lives.

So eventually, each day, each week

becomes this quite predictable straight line.

Morning to night, day after day, week after week.

And I started to think, "I wonder if you took something new,

a brand new experience that you'd never ever done

and dropped that pin into that notice board,

that's a new point that that string has to go round on that day.

So you clearly are going to need a longer piece of string.

Same fixed points, morning and night.

Your day hasn't actually got longer.

But what you do within that day, you are going to bend time.

And that's the concept.

I give you Time Bending:

bending the time you already have,

stretching time, to make more out of your life.

So on the first of January this year,

I set out to complete a 365-day experiment.

Could I spend an entire year

where every single day I did a new experience,

something that I have never ever done before?

Could I bend time? Could I stretch time?

So I decided to keep a journal,

and every day I had to have written something in that journal

that I had done that day that was unique and I'd never ever done before.

And that challenged me.

And If I lost just one day along this year,

I failed the entire experiment.

At the beginning of course, it's quite easy.

We all have things that we've wanted to do in our life

that we have yet to do.

It's like your bucket list.

Those are the first things you do.

It's easy, so eventually I learnt to cut my daughter's hair.

I then went on that mountain bike extreme course

that a friend of mine has been asking me to do for years,

and I never went with him, so I did it.

I finally did that half-marathon

that I had been threatening to sign up to for years but I never had.

So I just did it.

Then I spent four weeks with a physiotherapist

because it turns out that you can't do a half-marathon

on 10 days' training, who knew?

(Laughter)

But I'd never been to a physiotherapist before.

New experience!

Herniated disk, new experience!

(Laughter)

So, the weekends are easy

because the weekends you have the time already.

So you go to the local reptile zoo, and you find your hand shooting up

when they ask for someone to hold the tarantula.

You go on a basket-weaving course to learn how to weave baskets.

You let your children and their friends paint you green from top to bottom,

and you take part, uninvited, in the local Saint Patrick's Day parade.

(Music) (Laughter)

You know? Why wouldn't you? Why would you need an invite?

So, these are easy; these are big things and these are weekends,

because you have the time.

But the trick of the experiment is to do this in your normal life,

your Monday to Friday, your home, your office.

These are the days that are harder.

You've got to look for things to do that you've never done before.

So one day you're in a hotel, and they run out of pain au chocolat,

so you decide, "OK, I'm going to make my own pain au chocolat

with croissants and chocolate cereal from the breakfast table for the kids."

Small things.

You take the DVD that your wife has done all the time for aerobics.

You've seen her do it hundreds of times, but you've never done it,

so you do her aerobics DVD.,

You make shadow portraits from the 18th Century

because you read it in a book.

And this one, you watch your six-year-old daughter paint your toe nails,

and you say, "How did I get to be 40 and never had my toe nails painted?"

(Laughter)

And this one, she painted my toenails

and no joke - this is one of the best things I did all year!

For two weeks I woke up every morning, swung my legs out of bed and laughed!

(Laughter)

It was like having M&Ms for toes!

(Laughter)

And I put my socks on and I...

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

It gets better.

I put my socks on and of course you'd forget.

Of course you'd forget.

And you go about your business, you'd work all day,

and at the end of the day you take your socks off and go,

"Ha! M&Ms!"

(Laughter)

And for two weeks I smiled and I laughed twice a day,

and I thought to myself, "You know what? This is it, this is what life is about!"

We need to be reminded on a continuous basis

to live a better life, to live a life that could be more full.

And when you open a packet of biscuits you could just eat them,

or you could build a Jenga Tower and play biscuit Jenga.

How many people have played biscuit Jenga in your life?

Probably never, and now you all will.

These things are so simple,

and what you learn about yourself

is that you can live a life that's closed or you can live a life that is open,

open to a world of possibilities around you.

Now I would never walk past a notice board without stopping

and reading what events are on in the community that I can go to.

I was the only man in the Zumba class last week.

(Laughter)

What's on? What have I not done yet? What can I do?

You'll be surprised how much there is to do in your life,

in your own community, in your own home.

You just need to open yourself to all these possibilities.

So yes, I've walked on fire, I've done big things,

I've eaten frogs' legs which I'd never done before,

I helped deliver a new born lamb, which was beautiful.

When the first winter snow fell the first thing I thought about

was taking all my clothes off and rolling naked down the hill.

And what you realise is that you feel so alive

when you open up to all these experiences.

When you start to look at the world as a new place to do things,

you are amazed at what the world can offer you.

And you become addicted.

Every day I had my new experience.

Many days three or four experiences, I became addicted to it.

What was interesting is as I became addicted, so did others.

People watching me on social media or having conversations with me

got sucked in.

Time Bending is infectious.

It's like gravity; it'll pull you in.

So when I sent a message to a friend

saying I was going to the beach to do some beach art,

suddenly we had five, 10, 15 people all coming with me.

When I posted the video of the spray-cream challenge on my face,

about six or seven people did the same that day up on Facebook.

You know, I have signed up for a 5K mountain run,

which, by the way, they call a sport.

it is not a sport, it's torture.

(Laughter)

Three or four friends came with me.

Haven't spoken to me since,

(Laughter)

but that's another story.

When I went flyboarding, everyone who saw the video thought,

"Where can I do that? I want to sign up for that, too!"

So people got sucked in to this idea.

And you'd be amazed how open other people are also.

We had a dinner party

where we asked all our friends to wear their wedding dresses one last time.

(Laughter)

How many women in the room, in the world

have a wedding dress they have worn once and never again?

And you give people an opportunity, and suddenly, no problem! Bring it on!

And you'll, again, realise, during this experiment,

just how often you say no.

Do you know how often you all say no in life every day?

People say, "Can you come to this" or "I'm doing that,"

and you say, "Yeah, I'd like to, but hmm, I don't know or I don't, hmm, know."

You hesitate.

When you are a Time-Bender, you have to say yes.

Because this could be the day that passes, that nothing happens in your life,

and you fail the experiment.

So you say yes to everything, to anything that comes your way

to make sure that this one day you don't fail.

Now, this is dangerous,

because your friends learn this, that you will do anything.

(Laughter)

And then on your suggestion wall on Facebook,

they start making you do things.

Like Shane, who suggested that I drink my own urine out of a champagne flute.

(Laughter)

Or I was made get a tattoo.

I don't like tattoos; I have a tattoo.

(Laughter)

I was made wax a part of my body that has never even seen the sunlight.

If you ever want to know,

the face of a man getting the crack of his ass waxed,

(Laughter)

this is the face you make when you get your ass waxed.

(Laughter) (Applause)

The photographs at the other end are not available.

(Laughter)

And your eight-year-old son also learns this

and tells you to go grocery shopping wearing nothing but a towel.

(Laughter)

I think I'm the only person in the world

to be barred from Marks food and vegetable shop.

The lesson I learnt is that it's not a good idea

to leave your eight-year-old old son with your fate in his hands.

But what you also learn by doing this experiment

is that life is great fun.

When you say yes to everything, play will find you.

And I mean play in real play.

Real play actually doesn't really have a purpose.

Real play is just for play's sake.

Kids know this automatically. They know it naturally.

And somehow we unlearn it as adults.

So you say yes to everything. Play will find you.

And what's interesting about this experiment

is I suddenly realised that this is how you permanently foster play in adults.

We all know that play is really important.

OK? We all know that Play leads to creativity, which leads to innovation.

There's been lots of books, articles,

some fantastic TED talks in the past on play

and the importance of play leading to creativity.

Small business know this; big corporations know this.

And as I played on, I thought, do you know what?

Everyone wants creativity; everyone wants innovation.

They want this to lead them to success.

But we need to understand how to foster that creativity,

how can we foster an everyday sense of play?

How can we make the people who work in our hospitals, in our schools,

in our small businesses and corporations

more playful every day so we can fuel this creativity?

How to make them play at everyday level?

The problem with most corporations and their attitude to creativity and play

is that they fail at doing it

because they try to enforce it on their employees.

It's play on their terms.

They send you off to the woods to shoot each other with paintball guns,

or they put a snooker table in the canteen and call it, "Hey! Play!"

But it doesn't really change things.

And I think a corporation or an organization

can't actually be responsible

for your sense of creativity and play anyway.

Just like they can't be responsible for your happiness or your health.

I mean, they can encourage, they can facilitate,

but the actual spark of who you are in terms of creativity and play,

it has to come from you, inside yourself.

So if we are going to solve problems in new ways in the world,

if we are going to challenge norms and push boundaries,

then it needs to start with you, the individual.

You can't hope that a corporation will do it for you.

It also has to last.

This can't be just a book you read or a TED talk you watched

or a one-day workshop you went to.

If we want to be creative, it has to be a permanent thing.

It has to become a philosophy for who you are,

and permeate your every moment, your everyday life.

This is what I became interested in.

100 days into my experiment,

I practically heard it click inside myself.

I had a perspective shift on the world that will never go away now.

It is now who I am.

It has changed my personal life, I've laughed more,

I've learnt more, I've had more fun, I take more risks.

It fuels your relationships, your sex life,

you take risks which then filter into business life,

and in your business life you take more risks.

You become open to opportunities, you solve problems in new ways.

And risk, of course, is the heart of innovation and creativity.

Nothing ever happens unless you take a risk.

A year ago I wouldn't have expected that I would walk across broken glass

or that I would go on Europe's tallest roller coaster.

I hate roller coasters. But you just say yes.

Who would have thought that I would have pierced a friend's ear?

I had no idea of what I was doing.

(Laughter)

I still don't!

But you just say yes.

You go from being a guy who says, "Oh, maybe, I'm not too sure,"

you go to being a guy who says yes.

You say yes to everything.

And here I am on day 318 of my experiment.

My new experience for today? Quite easy. My first TED talk.

(Applause)

Thank you.

But you don't have to follow me on the 365-day version.

100 days of your life, three months, 12 weeks

is all it will take for this perspective shift.

So I'm travelling the world now recruiting Time-Benders,

[who] agree to live a life less ordinary.

A life in colour instead of the black and white.

So go home and write your list, 20 or 30 things.

They can be small things and don't have to be jumping off planes.

Small things that you're going to do.

Ask your family and friends, they'll give you another 20-30 ideas.

Ask the internet, you'll get 2,000 ideas.

Keep a journal; it's a good way.

Keep a journal every day, challenge yourself

into, "What did I do?"

"What did I do today that was different, that was unique?"

How can we expect to solve problems in new ways

if we do the same thing every day, if we take things for granted?

I travel a lot. I spend a lot of time in hotel rooms.

Hotel rooms can be quite boring places.

This is what you get. This is not how I slept last night.

How I slept last night was like this.

(Laughter)

Don't take what's given to you for granted.

And again, this was a hotel two weeks ago around Halloween.

This is how I arrived. This is how I left the hotel room.

(Laughter)

What rule? Is there a rule that says you can't decorate your own hotel room?

(Laughter)

I'd love to have seen the face of housekeeping

when they opened the door.

"What the heck?!"

So I'm curious.

You have to change things all the time.

Look at the work spaces that we work in, your own work space.

Think about your own work space.

Why would you think

you're going to be suddenly be creative one day

if you sit in the same chair, same desk in the same corner,

in the same office every single day.

Change your work space every two or three weeks.

Change the art, change the decor, change the building.

Change where you work.

How are you going to be creative if you keep things the same?

Once you open up, once you start this experiment,

what you learn is that it becomes a habit.

You actually don't need the journal anymore.

You don't need the challenge of having to do something every day

because you will do two or three or four things every single day regardless.

Who would have thought that if you went into your dentist

and asked him, instead of him cleaning your teeth,

that you were going to clean his,

(Laughter)

that he would say yes?

The world will say yes to you.

Time Bending.

The world is a playground.

All you need to do is step up and play.

Thank you.

(Applause)