The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Getting stuck in the negatives (and how to get unstuck) | Alison Ledgerwood | TEDxUCDavis
Published on Jun 22, 2013
Alison Ledgerwood joined the Department of Psychology at UC Davis in 2008 after completing her PhD in social psychology at New York University. She is interested in understanding how people think, and how they can think better. Her research, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, investigates how certain ways of thinking about an issue tend to stick in people's heads. Her classes on social psychology focus on understanding the way people think and behave in social situations, and how to harness that knowledge to potentially improve the social world in which we all live.
In this blog, teachers, students and all those who have some kind of interest in the English language will find useful, interesting, curious and funny things to be used in their classes or for their personal enjoyment.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
GralInt-TED Talks-Forget big change, start with a tiny habit: BJ Fogg at TEDxFremont
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Forget big change, start with a tiny habit: BJ Fogg at TEDxFremont
Published on Dec 5, 2012
What if someone told you to floss only one tooth everyday? Or start the new year, not with grand resolutions, but with a simple challenge.. like ONE pushup a day? BJ Fogg shows us that the key to lasting change does not lie in planning big, monumental changes, but in thinking really, really small. Chosen by Fortune Magazine as one of "10 New Gurus You Should Know", Fogg directs the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University.
Forget big change, start with a tiny habit: BJ Fogg at TEDxFremont
Published on Dec 5, 2012
What if someone told you to floss only one tooth everyday? Or start the new year, not with grand resolutions, but with a simple challenge.. like ONE pushup a day? BJ Fogg shows us that the key to lasting change does not lie in planning big, monumental changes, but in thinking really, really small. Chosen by Fortune Magazine as one of "10 New Gurus You Should Know", Fogg directs the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University.
GralInt-Oración del Espíritu Santo: 10-01-17
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Oración del Espíritu Santo: 10-01-17
"No hace falta que te digan que estamos en una época difícil,
que hoy no es fácil vivir, que muchas veces nos ataca el
desaliento,que nos cuesta querernos, comunicarnos y
ayudarnos, que cada uno piensa demasiado en sí mismo, que
no reconocemos fácilmente el amor de Dios en nuestra
propia vida.
Además, hay viejos rencores y heridas que nos cuesta sanar,
frecuentemente nos sentimos insatisfechos, y otras veces no
sabemos para qué trabajamos, para qué nos estamos
esforzando, para qué vivimos en realidad.
O quizás en el fondo nos sentimos solos,
con una oculta tristeza.
Nadie puede negar que algunas de estas cosas
anidan en su corazón.
A veces nos va mal, la vida nos golpea duro, pero lo peor que
nos puede pasar es sí, además, perdemos la esperanza, la fe,
la unidad con los seres queridos, las ganas de luchar.
Para solucionar este profundo problema, para vivir con
ganas y con fortaleza, hay algo que necesitamos,
algo que nos falta.
En definitiva, nos falta espíritu. A nuestras existencias les
falta el fuego, la luz, la vitalidad, la fortaleza, el empuje,
la paz del Espíritu Santo.
Y en el fondo, todo tu ser está sediento de él, de su presencia,
de su río de vida.
Por eso, recibamos una buena noticia:
"El Espíritu Santo viene en ayuda de nuestra debilidad" (Rom. 8,26)
Él viene. Cuando lo invoques él se acerca a tu vida, para
ofrecerte agua viva, paz, consuelo, esperanza.
Él viene, siempre viene."
Fuente: "Los Cinco Minutos del Espíritu Santo" de Víctor Manuel Fernández
Oración del Espíritu Santo: 10-01-17
"No hace falta que te digan que estamos en una época difícil,
que hoy no es fácil vivir, que muchas veces nos ataca el
desaliento,que nos cuesta querernos, comunicarnos y
ayudarnos, que cada uno piensa demasiado en sí mismo, que
no reconocemos fácilmente el amor de Dios en nuestra
propia vida.
Además, hay viejos rencores y heridas que nos cuesta sanar,
frecuentemente nos sentimos insatisfechos, y otras veces no
sabemos para qué trabajamos, para qué nos estamos
esforzando, para qué vivimos en realidad.
O quizás en el fondo nos sentimos solos,
con una oculta tristeza.
Nadie puede negar que algunas de estas cosas
anidan en su corazón.
A veces nos va mal, la vida nos golpea duro, pero lo peor que
nos puede pasar es sí, además, perdemos la esperanza, la fe,
la unidad con los seres queridos, las ganas de luchar.
Para solucionar este profundo problema, para vivir con
ganas y con fortaleza, hay algo que necesitamos,
algo que nos falta.
En definitiva, nos falta espíritu. A nuestras existencias les
falta el fuego, la luz, la vitalidad, la fortaleza, el empuje,
la paz del Espíritu Santo.
Y en el fondo, todo tu ser está sediento de él, de su presencia,
de su río de vida.
Por eso, recibamos una buena noticia:
"El Espíritu Santo viene en ayuda de nuestra debilidad" (Rom. 8,26)
Él viene. Cuando lo invoques él se acerca a tu vida, para
ofrecerte agua viva, paz, consuelo, esperanza.
Él viene, siempre viene."
Fuente: "Los Cinco Minutos del Espíritu Santo" de Víctor Manuel Fernández
Saturday, January 7, 2017
NUT/GralInt-TED Talks-Sam Kass: Want kids to learn well? Feed them well
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Filmed November 2015 at TED Talks Live
Sam Kass: Want kids to learn well? Feed them well
What can we expect our kids to learn if they're hungry or eating diets full of sugar and empty of nutrients? Former White House Chef and food policymaker Sam Kass discusses the role schools can play in nourishing students' bodies in addition to their minds.
Transcript:
I am a chef and a food policy guy, but I come from a whole family of teachers. My sister is a special ed teacher in Chicago. My father just retired after 25 years teaching fifth grade. My aunt and uncle were professors. My cousins all teach. Everybody in my family, basically, teaches except for me. They taught me that the only way to get the right answers is to ask the right questions.
So what are the right questions when it comes to improving the educational outcomes for our children? There's obviously many important questions, but I think the following is a good place to start: What do we think the connection is between a child's growing mind and their growing body? What can we expect our kids to learn if their diets are full of sugar and empty of nutrients? What can they possibly learn if their bodies are literally going hungry? And with all the resources that we are pouring into schools, we should stop and ask ourselves: Are we really setting our kids up for success?
Now, a few years ago, I was a judge on a cooking competition called "Chopped." Its four chefs compete with mystery ingredients to see who can cook the best dishes. Except for this episode -- it was a very special one. Instead of four overzealous chefs trying to break into the limelight -- something that I would know nothing about --
(Laughter)
These chefs were school chefs -- you know, the women that you used to call "lunch ladies," but the ones I insist we call "school chefs." Now, these women -- God bless these women -- spend their day cooking for thousands of kids, breakfast and lunch, with only $2.68 per lunch, with only about a dollar of that actually going to the food. Now, in this episode, the main course mystery ingredient was quinoa. Now, I know it's been a long time since most of you have had a school lunch, and we've made a lot of progress on nutrition, but quinoa still is not a staple in most school cafeterias.
(Laughter)
So this was a challenge. But the dish that I will never forget was cooked by a woman named Cheryl Barbara. Cheryl was the nutrition director at High School in the Community in Connecticut. She cooked this delicious pasta. It was amazing. It was a pappardelle with Italian sausage, kale, Parmesan cheese. It was delicious, like, restaurant-quality good, except -- she basically just threw the quinoa, pretty much uncooked, into the dish. It was a strange choice, and it was super crunchy.
(Laughter)
So I took on the TV accusatory judge thing that you're supposed to do, and I asked her why she did that.
Cheryl responded, "Well, first, I don't know what quinoa is." (Laughter) "But I do know that it's a Monday, and that in my school, at High School in the Community, I always cook pasta."
See, Cheryl explained that for many of her kids, there were no meals on the weekends. No meals on Saturday. No meals on Sunday, either. So she cooked pasta because she wanted to make sure she cooked something she knew her children would eat. Something that would stick to their ribs, she said. Something that would fill them up. By the time Monday came, her kids' hunger pangs were so intense that they couldn't even begin to think about learning. Food was the only thing on their mind. The only thing. And unfortunately, the stats -- they tell the same story.
So, let's put this into the context of a child. And we're going to focus on the most important meal of the day, breakfast. Meet Allison. She's 12 years old, she's smart as a whip and she wants to be a physicist when she grows up. If Allison goes to a school that serves a nutritious breakfast to all of their kids, here's what's going to follow. Her chances of getting a nutritious meal, one with fruit and milk, one lower in sugar and salt, dramatically increase. Allison will have a lower rate of obesity than the average kid. She'll have to visit the nurse less. She'll have lower levels of anxiety and depression. She'll have better behavior. She'll have better attendance, and she'll show up on time more often. Why? Well, because there's a good meal waiting for her at school. Overall, Allison is in much better health than the average school kid.
So what about that kid who doesn't have a nutritious breakfast waiting for him? Well, meet Tommy. He's also 12. He's a wonderful kid. He wants to be a doctor. By the time Tommy is in kindergarten, he's already underperforming in math. By the time he's in third grade, he's got lower math and reading scores. By the time he's 11, it's more likely that Tommy will have to have repeated a grade. Research shows that kids who do not have consistent nourishment, particularly at breakfast, have poor cognitive function overall.
So how widespread is this problem? Well, unfortunately, it's pervasive. Let me give you two stats that seem like they're on opposite ends of the issue, but are actually two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, one in six Americans are food insecure, including 16 million children -- almost 20 percent -- are food insecure. In this city alone, in New York City, 474,000 kids under the age of 18 face hunger every year. It's crazy.
On the other hand, diet and nutrition is the number one cause of preventable death and disease in this country, by far. And fully a third of the kids that we've been talking about tonight are on track to have diabetes in their lifetime. Now, what's hard to put together but is true is that, many times, these are the same children. So they fill up on the unhealthy and cheap calories that surround them in their communities and that their families can afford. But then by the end of the month, food stamps run out or hours get cut at work, and they don't have the money to cover the basic cost of food.
But we should be able to solve this problem, right? We know what the answers are. As part of my work at the White House, we instituted a program that for all schools that had 40 percent more low-income kids, we could serve breakfast and lunch to every kid in that school for free. This program has been incredibly successful, because it helped us overcome a very difficult barrier when it came to getting kids a nutritious breakfast. And that was the barrier of stigma. See, schools serve breakfast before school, and it was only available for the poor kids. So everybody knew who was poor and who needed government help. Now, all kids, no matter how much or how little their parents make, have a lot of pride.
So what happened? Well, the schools that have implemented this program saw an increase in math and reading scores by 17.5 percent. 17.5 percent. And research shows that when kids have a consistent, nutritious breakfast, their chances of graduating increase by 20 percent. 20 percent. When we give our kids the nourishment they need, we give them the chance to thrive, both in the classroom and beyond.
Now, you don't have to trust me on this, but you should talk to Donna Martin. I love Donna Martin. Donna Martin is the school nutrition director at Burke County in Waynesboro, Georgia. Now, Burke County is one of the poorest districts in the fifth-poorest state in the country, and about 100 percent of Donna's students live at or below the poverty line. A few years ago, Donna decided to get out ahead of the new standards that were coming, and overhaul her nutrition standards. She improved and added fruit and vegetables and whole grains. She served breakfast in the classroom to all of her kids. And she implemented a dinner program. Why? Well, many of her kids didn't have dinner when they went home.
So how did they respond? Well, the kids loved the food. They loved the better nutrition, and they loved not being hungry. But Donna's biggest supporter came from an unexpected place. His name from Eric Parker, and he was the head football coach for the Burke County Bears. Now, Coach Parker had coached mediocre teams for years. The Bears often ended in the middle of the pack -- a big disappointment in one of the most passionate football states in the union. But the year Donna changed the menus, the Bears not only won their division, they went on to win the state championship, beating the Peach County Trojans 28-14.
(Laughter)
And Coach Parker, he credited that championship to Donna Martin.
When we give our kids the basic nourishment, they're gonna thrive. And it's not just up to the Cheryl Barbaras and the Donna Martins of the world. It's on all of us. And feeding our kids the basic nutrition is just the starting point. What I've laid out is really a model for so many of the most pressing issues that we face. If we focus on the simple goal of properly nourishing ourselves, we could see a world that is more stable and secure; we could dramatically improve our economic productivity; we could transform our health care and we could go a long way in ensuring that the Earth can provide for generations to come. Food is that place where our collective efforts can have the greatest impact.
So we have to ask ourselves: What is the right question? What would happen if we fed ourselves more nutritious, more sustainably grown food? What would be the impact? Cheryl Barbara, Donna Martin, Coach Parker and the Burke County Bears -- I think they know the answer.
Thank you guys so very much.
(Applause)
Filmed November 2015 at TED Talks Live
Sam Kass: Want kids to learn well? Feed them well
What can we expect our kids to learn if they're hungry or eating diets full of sugar and empty of nutrients? Former White House Chef and food policymaker Sam Kass discusses the role schools can play in nourishing students' bodies in addition to their minds.
Transcript:
I am a chef and a food policy guy, but I come from a whole family of teachers. My sister is a special ed teacher in Chicago. My father just retired after 25 years teaching fifth grade. My aunt and uncle were professors. My cousins all teach. Everybody in my family, basically, teaches except for me. They taught me that the only way to get the right answers is to ask the right questions.
So what are the right questions when it comes to improving the educational outcomes for our children? There's obviously many important questions, but I think the following is a good place to start: What do we think the connection is between a child's growing mind and their growing body? What can we expect our kids to learn if their diets are full of sugar and empty of nutrients? What can they possibly learn if their bodies are literally going hungry? And with all the resources that we are pouring into schools, we should stop and ask ourselves: Are we really setting our kids up for success?
Now, a few years ago, I was a judge on a cooking competition called "Chopped." Its four chefs compete with mystery ingredients to see who can cook the best dishes. Except for this episode -- it was a very special one. Instead of four overzealous chefs trying to break into the limelight -- something that I would know nothing about --
(Laughter)
These chefs were school chefs -- you know, the women that you used to call "lunch ladies," but the ones I insist we call "school chefs." Now, these women -- God bless these women -- spend their day cooking for thousands of kids, breakfast and lunch, with only $2.68 per lunch, with only about a dollar of that actually going to the food. Now, in this episode, the main course mystery ingredient was quinoa. Now, I know it's been a long time since most of you have had a school lunch, and we've made a lot of progress on nutrition, but quinoa still is not a staple in most school cafeterias.
(Laughter)
So this was a challenge. But the dish that I will never forget was cooked by a woman named Cheryl Barbara. Cheryl was the nutrition director at High School in the Community in Connecticut. She cooked this delicious pasta. It was amazing. It was a pappardelle with Italian sausage, kale, Parmesan cheese. It was delicious, like, restaurant-quality good, except -- she basically just threw the quinoa, pretty much uncooked, into the dish. It was a strange choice, and it was super crunchy.
(Laughter)
So I took on the TV accusatory judge thing that you're supposed to do, and I asked her why she did that.
Cheryl responded, "Well, first, I don't know what quinoa is." (Laughter) "But I do know that it's a Monday, and that in my school, at High School in the Community, I always cook pasta."
See, Cheryl explained that for many of her kids, there were no meals on the weekends. No meals on Saturday. No meals on Sunday, either. So she cooked pasta because she wanted to make sure she cooked something she knew her children would eat. Something that would stick to their ribs, she said. Something that would fill them up. By the time Monday came, her kids' hunger pangs were so intense that they couldn't even begin to think about learning. Food was the only thing on their mind. The only thing. And unfortunately, the stats -- they tell the same story.
So, let's put this into the context of a child. And we're going to focus on the most important meal of the day, breakfast. Meet Allison. She's 12 years old, she's smart as a whip and she wants to be a physicist when she grows up. If Allison goes to a school that serves a nutritious breakfast to all of their kids, here's what's going to follow. Her chances of getting a nutritious meal, one with fruit and milk, one lower in sugar and salt, dramatically increase. Allison will have a lower rate of obesity than the average kid. She'll have to visit the nurse less. She'll have lower levels of anxiety and depression. She'll have better behavior. She'll have better attendance, and she'll show up on time more often. Why? Well, because there's a good meal waiting for her at school. Overall, Allison is in much better health than the average school kid.
So what about that kid who doesn't have a nutritious breakfast waiting for him? Well, meet Tommy. He's also 12. He's a wonderful kid. He wants to be a doctor. By the time Tommy is in kindergarten, he's already underperforming in math. By the time he's in third grade, he's got lower math and reading scores. By the time he's 11, it's more likely that Tommy will have to have repeated a grade. Research shows that kids who do not have consistent nourishment, particularly at breakfast, have poor cognitive function overall.
So how widespread is this problem? Well, unfortunately, it's pervasive. Let me give you two stats that seem like they're on opposite ends of the issue, but are actually two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, one in six Americans are food insecure, including 16 million children -- almost 20 percent -- are food insecure. In this city alone, in New York City, 474,000 kids under the age of 18 face hunger every year. It's crazy.
On the other hand, diet and nutrition is the number one cause of preventable death and disease in this country, by far. And fully a third of the kids that we've been talking about tonight are on track to have diabetes in their lifetime. Now, what's hard to put together but is true is that, many times, these are the same children. So they fill up on the unhealthy and cheap calories that surround them in their communities and that their families can afford. But then by the end of the month, food stamps run out or hours get cut at work, and they don't have the money to cover the basic cost of food.
But we should be able to solve this problem, right? We know what the answers are. As part of my work at the White House, we instituted a program that for all schools that had 40 percent more low-income kids, we could serve breakfast and lunch to every kid in that school for free. This program has been incredibly successful, because it helped us overcome a very difficult barrier when it came to getting kids a nutritious breakfast. And that was the barrier of stigma. See, schools serve breakfast before school, and it was only available for the poor kids. So everybody knew who was poor and who needed government help. Now, all kids, no matter how much or how little their parents make, have a lot of pride.
So what happened? Well, the schools that have implemented this program saw an increase in math and reading scores by 17.5 percent. 17.5 percent. And research shows that when kids have a consistent, nutritious breakfast, their chances of graduating increase by 20 percent. 20 percent. When we give our kids the nourishment they need, we give them the chance to thrive, both in the classroom and beyond.
Now, you don't have to trust me on this, but you should talk to Donna Martin. I love Donna Martin. Donna Martin is the school nutrition director at Burke County in Waynesboro, Georgia. Now, Burke County is one of the poorest districts in the fifth-poorest state in the country, and about 100 percent of Donna's students live at or below the poverty line. A few years ago, Donna decided to get out ahead of the new standards that were coming, and overhaul her nutrition standards. She improved and added fruit and vegetables and whole grains. She served breakfast in the classroom to all of her kids. And she implemented a dinner program. Why? Well, many of her kids didn't have dinner when they went home.
So how did they respond? Well, the kids loved the food. They loved the better nutrition, and they loved not being hungry. But Donna's biggest supporter came from an unexpected place. His name from Eric Parker, and he was the head football coach for the Burke County Bears. Now, Coach Parker had coached mediocre teams for years. The Bears often ended in the middle of the pack -- a big disappointment in one of the most passionate football states in the union. But the year Donna changed the menus, the Bears not only won their division, they went on to win the state championship, beating the Peach County Trojans 28-14.
(Laughter)
And Coach Parker, he credited that championship to Donna Martin.
When we give our kids the basic nourishment, they're gonna thrive. And it's not just up to the Cheryl Barbaras and the Donna Martins of the world. It's on all of us. And feeding our kids the basic nutrition is just the starting point. What I've laid out is really a model for so many of the most pressing issues that we face. If we focus on the simple goal of properly nourishing ourselves, we could see a world that is more stable and secure; we could dramatically improve our economic productivity; we could transform our health care and we could go a long way in ensuring that the Earth can provide for generations to come. Food is that place where our collective efforts can have the greatest impact.
So we have to ask ourselves: What is the right question? What would happen if we fed ourselves more nutritious, more sustainably grown food? What would be the impact? Cheryl Barbara, Donna Martin, Coach Parker and the Burke County Bears -- I think they know the answer.
Thank you guys so very much.
(Applause)
PHYSICS/SC/GralInt-TED Talks-James Beacham: How we explore unanswered questions in physics
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Filmed September 2016 at TEDxBerlin
James Beacham: How we explore unanswered questions in physics
James Beacham looks for answers to the most important open questions of physics using the biggest science experiment ever mounted, CERN's Large Hadron Collider. In this fun and accessible talk about how science happens, Beacham takes us on a journey through extra-spatial dimensions in search of undiscovered fundamental particles (and an explanation for the mysteries of gravity) and details the drive to keep exploring.
Transcript:
There is something about physics that has been really bothering me since I was a little kid. And it's related to a question that scientists have been asking for almost 100 years, with no answer. How do the smallest things in nature, the particles of the quantum world, match up with the largest things in nature -- planets and stars and galaxies held together by gravity?
As a kid, I would puzzle over questions just like this. I would fiddle around with microscopes and electromagnets, and I would read about the forces of the small and about quantum mechanics and I would marvel at how well that description matched up to our observation. Then I would look at the stars, and I would read about how well we understand gravity, and I would think surely, there must be some elegant way that these two systems match up. But there's not. And the books would say, yeah, we understand a lot about these two realms separately, but when we try to link them mathematically, everything breaks.
And for 100 years, none of our ideas as to how to solve this basically physics disaster, has ever been supported by evidence. And to little old me -- little, curious, skeptical James -- this was a supremely unsatisfying answer.
So, I'm still a skeptical little kid. Flash-forward now to December of 2015, when I found myself smack in the middle of the physics world being flipped on its head. It all started when we at CERN saw something intriguing in our data: a hint of a new particle, an inkling of a possibly extraordinary answer to this question.
So I'm still a skeptical little kid, I think, but I'm also now a particle hunter. I am a physicist at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the largest science experiment ever mounted. It's a 27-kilometer tunnel on the border of France and Switzerland buried 100 meters underground. And in this tunnel, we use superconducting magnets colder than outer space to accelerate protons to almost the speed of light and slam them into each other millions of times per second, collecting the debris of these collisions to search for new, undiscovered fundamental particles. Its design and construction took decades of work by thousands of physicists from around the globe, and in the summer of 2015, we had been working tirelessly to switch on the LHC at the highest energy that humans have ever used in a collider experiment.
Now, higher energy is important because for particles, there is an equivalence between energy and particle mass, and mass is just a number put there by nature. To discover new particles, we need to reach these bigger numbers. And to do that, we have to build a bigger, higher energy collider, and the biggest, highest energy collider in the world is the Large Hadron Collider. And then, we collide protons quadrillions of times, and we collect this data very slowly, over months and months. And then new particles might show up in our data as bumps -- slight deviations from what you expect, little clusters of data points that make a smooth line not so smooth. For example, this bump, after months of data-taking in 2012, led to the discovery of the Higgs particle -- the Higgs boson -- and to a Nobel Prize for the confirmation of its existence.
This jump up in energy in 2015 represented the best chance that we as a species had ever had of discovering new particles -- new answers to these long-standing questions, because it was almost twice as much energy as we used when we discovered the Higgs boson. Many of my colleagues had been working their entire careers for this moment, and frankly, to little curious me, this was the moment I'd been waiting for my entire life. So 2015 was go time.
So June 2015, the LHC is switched back on. My colleagues and I held our breath and bit our fingernails, and then finally we saw the first proton collisions at this highest energy ever. Applause, champagne, celebration. This was a milestone for science, and we had no idea what we would find in this brand-new data. And then a few weeks later, we found a bump. It wasn't a very big bump, but it was big enough to make you raise your eyebrow. But on a scale of one to 10 for eyebrow raises, if 10 indicates that you've discovered a new particle, this eyebrow raise is about a four.
(Laughter)
I spent hours, days, weeks in secret meetings, arguing with my colleagues over this little bump, poking and prodding it with our most ruthless experimental sticks to see if it would withstand scrutiny. But even after months of working feverishly -- sleeping in our offices and not going home, candy bars for dinner, coffee by the bucketful -- physicists are machines for turning coffee into diagrams --
(Laughter)
This little bump would not go away. So after a few months, we presented our little bump to the world with a very clear message: this little bump is interesting but it's not definitive, so let's keep an eye on it as we take more data. So we were trying to be extremely cool about it.
And the world ran with it anyway. The news loved it. People said it reminded them of the little bump that was shown on the way toward the Higgs boson discovery. Better than that, my theorist colleagues -- I love my theorist colleagues -- my theorist colleagues wrote 500 papers about this little bump.
(Laughter)
The world of particle physics had been flipped on its head. But what was it about this particular bump that caused thousands of physicists to collectively lose their cool? This little bump was unique. This little bump indicated that we were seeing an unexpectedly large number of collisions whose debris consisted of only two photons, two particles of light. And that's rare.
Particle collisions are not like automobile collisions. They have different rules. When two particles collide at almost the speed of light, the quantum world takes over. And in the quantum world, these two particles can briefly create a new particle that lives for a tiny fraction of a second before splitting into other particles that hit our detector. Imagine a car collision where the two cars vanish upon impact, a bicycle appears in their place --
(Laughter)
And then that bicycle explodes into two skateboards, which hit our detector.
(Laughter)
Hopefully, not literally. They're very expensive.
Events where only two photons hit out detector are very rare. And because of the special quantum properties of photons, there's a very small number of possible new particles -- these mythical bicycles -- that can give birth to only two photons. But one of these options is huge, and it has to do with that long-standing question that bothered me as a tiny little kid, about gravity.
Gravity may seem super strong to you, but it's actually crazily weak compared to the other forces of nature. I can briefly beat gravity when I jump, but I can't pick a proton out of my hand. The strength of gravity compared to the other forces of nature? It's 10 to the minus 39. That's a decimal with 39 zeros after it.
Worse than that, all of the other known forces of nature are perfectly described by this thing we call the Standard Model, which is our current best description of nature at its smallest scales, and quite frankly, one of the most successful achievements of humankind -- except for gravity, which is absent from the Standard Model. It's crazy. It's almost as though most of gravity has gone missing. We feel a little bit of it, but where's the rest of it? No one knows.
But one theoretical explanation proposes a wild solution. You and I -- even you in the back -- we live in three dimensions of space. I hope that's a non-controversial statement.
(Laughter)
All of the known particles also live in three dimensions of space. In fact, a particle is just another name for an excitation in a three-dimensional field; a localized wobbling in space. More importantly, all the math that we use to describe all this stuff assumes that there are only three dimensions of space. But math is math, and we can play around with our math however we want. And people have been playing around with extra dimensions of space for a very long time, but it's always been an abstract mathematical concept. I mean, just look around you -- you at the back, look around -- there's clearly only three dimensions of space.
But what if that's not true? What if the missing gravity is leaking into an extra-spatial dimension that's invisible to you and I? What if gravity is just as strong as the other forces if you were to view it in this extra-spatial dimension, and what you and I experience is a tiny slice of gravity make it seem very weak? If this were true, we would have to expand our Standard Model of particles to include an extra particle, a hyperdimensional particle of gravity, a special graviton that lives in extra-spatial dimensions.
I see the looks on your faces. You should be asking me the question, "How in the world are we going to test this crazy, science fiction idea, stuck as we are in three dimensions?" The way we always do, by slamming together two protons --
(Laughter)
Hard enough that the collision reverberates into any extra-spatial dimensions that might be there, momentarily creating this hyperdimensional graviton that then snaps back into the three dimensions of the LHC and spits off two photons, two particles of light. And this hypothetical, extra-dimensional graviton is one of the only possible, hypothetical new particles that has the special quantum properties that could give birth to our little, two-photon bump.
So, the possibility of explaining the mysteries of gravity and of discovering extra dimensions of space -- perhaps now you get a sense as to why thousands of physics geeks collectively lost their cool over our little, two-photon bump. A discovery of this type would rewrite the textbooks. But remember, the message from us experimentalists that actually were doing this work at the time, was very clear: we need more data. With more data, the little bump will either turn into a nice, crisp Nobel Prize --
(Laughter)
Or the extra data will fill in the space around the bump and turn it into a nice, smooth line.
So we took more data, and with five times the data, several months later, our little bump turned into a smooth line. The news reported on a "huge disappointment," on "faded hopes," and on particle physicists "being sad." Given the tone of the coverage, you'd think that we had decided to shut down the LHC and go home.
(Laughter)
But that's not what we did. But why not? I mean, if I didn't discover a particle -- and I didn't -- if I didn't discover a particle, why am I here talking to you? Why didn't I just hang my head in shame and go home?
Particle physicists are explorers. And very much of what we do is cartography. Let me put it this way: forget about the LHC for a second. Imagine you are a space explorer arriving at a distant planet, searching for aliens. What is your first task? To immediately orbit the planet, land, take a quick look around for any big, obvious signs of life, and report back to home base. That's the stage we're at now. We took a first look at the LHC for any new, big, obvious-to-spot particles, and we can report that there are none. We saw a weird-looking alien bump on a distant mountain, but once we got closer, we saw it was a rock.
But then what do we do? Do we just give up and fly away? Absolutely not; we would be terrible scientists if we did. No, we spend the next couple of decades exploring, mapping out the territory, sifting through the sand with a fine instrument, peeking under every stone, drilling under the surface. New particles can either show up immediately as big, obvious-to-spot bumps, or they can only reveal themselves after years of data taking.
Humanity has just begun its exploration at the LHC at this big high energy, and we have much searching to do. But what if, even after 10 or 20 years, we still find no new particles? We build a bigger machine.
(Laughter)
We search at higher energies. We search at higher energies. Planning is already underway for a 100-kilometer tunnel that will collide particles at 10 times the energy of the LHC. We don't decide where nature places new particles. We only decide to keep exploring. But what if, even after a 100-kilometer tunnel or a 500-kilometer tunnel or a 10,000-kilometer collider floating in space between the Earth and the Moon, we still find no new particles? Then perhaps we're doing particle physics wrong.
(Laughter)
Perhaps we need to rethink things. Maybe we need more resources, technology, expertise than what we currently have. We already use artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques in parts of the LHC, but imagine designing a particle physics experiment using such sophisticated algorithms that it could teach itself to discover a hyperdimensional graviton.
But what if? What if the ultimate question: What if even artificial intelligence can't help us answer our questions? What if these open questions, for centuries, are destined to be unanswered for the foreseeable future? What if the stuff that's bothered me since I was a little kid is destined to be unanswered in my lifetime? Then that ... will be even more fascinating.
We will be forced to think in completely new ways. We'll have to go back to our assumptions, and determine if there was a flaw somewhere. And we'll need to encourage more people to join us in studying science since we need fresh eyes on these century-old problems. I don't have the answers, and I'm still searching for them. But someone -- maybe she's in school right now, maybe she's not even born yet -- could eventually guide us to see physics in a completely new way, and to point out that perhaps we're just asking the wrong questions. Which would not be the end of physics, but a novel beginning.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Filmed September 2016 at TEDxBerlin
James Beacham: How we explore unanswered questions in physics
James Beacham looks for answers to the most important open questions of physics using the biggest science experiment ever mounted, CERN's Large Hadron Collider. In this fun and accessible talk about how science happens, Beacham takes us on a journey through extra-spatial dimensions in search of undiscovered fundamental particles (and an explanation for the mysteries of gravity) and details the drive to keep exploring.
Transcript:
There is something about physics that has been really bothering me since I was a little kid. And it's related to a question that scientists have been asking for almost 100 years, with no answer. How do the smallest things in nature, the particles of the quantum world, match up with the largest things in nature -- planets and stars and galaxies held together by gravity?
As a kid, I would puzzle over questions just like this. I would fiddle around with microscopes and electromagnets, and I would read about the forces of the small and about quantum mechanics and I would marvel at how well that description matched up to our observation. Then I would look at the stars, and I would read about how well we understand gravity, and I would think surely, there must be some elegant way that these two systems match up. But there's not. And the books would say, yeah, we understand a lot about these two realms separately, but when we try to link them mathematically, everything breaks.
And for 100 years, none of our ideas as to how to solve this basically physics disaster, has ever been supported by evidence. And to little old me -- little, curious, skeptical James -- this was a supremely unsatisfying answer.
So, I'm still a skeptical little kid. Flash-forward now to December of 2015, when I found myself smack in the middle of the physics world being flipped on its head. It all started when we at CERN saw something intriguing in our data: a hint of a new particle, an inkling of a possibly extraordinary answer to this question.
So I'm still a skeptical little kid, I think, but I'm also now a particle hunter. I am a physicist at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the largest science experiment ever mounted. It's a 27-kilometer tunnel on the border of France and Switzerland buried 100 meters underground. And in this tunnel, we use superconducting magnets colder than outer space to accelerate protons to almost the speed of light and slam them into each other millions of times per second, collecting the debris of these collisions to search for new, undiscovered fundamental particles. Its design and construction took decades of work by thousands of physicists from around the globe, and in the summer of 2015, we had been working tirelessly to switch on the LHC at the highest energy that humans have ever used in a collider experiment.
Now, higher energy is important because for particles, there is an equivalence between energy and particle mass, and mass is just a number put there by nature. To discover new particles, we need to reach these bigger numbers. And to do that, we have to build a bigger, higher energy collider, and the biggest, highest energy collider in the world is the Large Hadron Collider. And then, we collide protons quadrillions of times, and we collect this data very slowly, over months and months. And then new particles might show up in our data as bumps -- slight deviations from what you expect, little clusters of data points that make a smooth line not so smooth. For example, this bump, after months of data-taking in 2012, led to the discovery of the Higgs particle -- the Higgs boson -- and to a Nobel Prize for the confirmation of its existence.
This jump up in energy in 2015 represented the best chance that we as a species had ever had of discovering new particles -- new answers to these long-standing questions, because it was almost twice as much energy as we used when we discovered the Higgs boson. Many of my colleagues had been working their entire careers for this moment, and frankly, to little curious me, this was the moment I'd been waiting for my entire life. So 2015 was go time.
So June 2015, the LHC is switched back on. My colleagues and I held our breath and bit our fingernails, and then finally we saw the first proton collisions at this highest energy ever. Applause, champagne, celebration. This was a milestone for science, and we had no idea what we would find in this brand-new data. And then a few weeks later, we found a bump. It wasn't a very big bump, but it was big enough to make you raise your eyebrow. But on a scale of one to 10 for eyebrow raises, if 10 indicates that you've discovered a new particle, this eyebrow raise is about a four.
(Laughter)
I spent hours, days, weeks in secret meetings, arguing with my colleagues over this little bump, poking and prodding it with our most ruthless experimental sticks to see if it would withstand scrutiny. But even after months of working feverishly -- sleeping in our offices and not going home, candy bars for dinner, coffee by the bucketful -- physicists are machines for turning coffee into diagrams --
(Laughter)
This little bump would not go away. So after a few months, we presented our little bump to the world with a very clear message: this little bump is interesting but it's not definitive, so let's keep an eye on it as we take more data. So we were trying to be extremely cool about it.
And the world ran with it anyway. The news loved it. People said it reminded them of the little bump that was shown on the way toward the Higgs boson discovery. Better than that, my theorist colleagues -- I love my theorist colleagues -- my theorist colleagues wrote 500 papers about this little bump.
(Laughter)
The world of particle physics had been flipped on its head. But what was it about this particular bump that caused thousands of physicists to collectively lose their cool? This little bump was unique. This little bump indicated that we were seeing an unexpectedly large number of collisions whose debris consisted of only two photons, two particles of light. And that's rare.
Particle collisions are not like automobile collisions. They have different rules. When two particles collide at almost the speed of light, the quantum world takes over. And in the quantum world, these two particles can briefly create a new particle that lives for a tiny fraction of a second before splitting into other particles that hit our detector. Imagine a car collision where the two cars vanish upon impact, a bicycle appears in their place --
(Laughter)
And then that bicycle explodes into two skateboards, which hit our detector.
(Laughter)
Hopefully, not literally. They're very expensive.
Events where only two photons hit out detector are very rare. And because of the special quantum properties of photons, there's a very small number of possible new particles -- these mythical bicycles -- that can give birth to only two photons. But one of these options is huge, and it has to do with that long-standing question that bothered me as a tiny little kid, about gravity.
Gravity may seem super strong to you, but it's actually crazily weak compared to the other forces of nature. I can briefly beat gravity when I jump, but I can't pick a proton out of my hand. The strength of gravity compared to the other forces of nature? It's 10 to the minus 39. That's a decimal with 39 zeros after it.
Worse than that, all of the other known forces of nature are perfectly described by this thing we call the Standard Model, which is our current best description of nature at its smallest scales, and quite frankly, one of the most successful achievements of humankind -- except for gravity, which is absent from the Standard Model. It's crazy. It's almost as though most of gravity has gone missing. We feel a little bit of it, but where's the rest of it? No one knows.
But one theoretical explanation proposes a wild solution. You and I -- even you in the back -- we live in three dimensions of space. I hope that's a non-controversial statement.
(Laughter)
All of the known particles also live in three dimensions of space. In fact, a particle is just another name for an excitation in a three-dimensional field; a localized wobbling in space. More importantly, all the math that we use to describe all this stuff assumes that there are only three dimensions of space. But math is math, and we can play around with our math however we want. And people have been playing around with extra dimensions of space for a very long time, but it's always been an abstract mathematical concept. I mean, just look around you -- you at the back, look around -- there's clearly only three dimensions of space.
But what if that's not true? What if the missing gravity is leaking into an extra-spatial dimension that's invisible to you and I? What if gravity is just as strong as the other forces if you were to view it in this extra-spatial dimension, and what you and I experience is a tiny slice of gravity make it seem very weak? If this were true, we would have to expand our Standard Model of particles to include an extra particle, a hyperdimensional particle of gravity, a special graviton that lives in extra-spatial dimensions.
I see the looks on your faces. You should be asking me the question, "How in the world are we going to test this crazy, science fiction idea, stuck as we are in three dimensions?" The way we always do, by slamming together two protons --
(Laughter)
Hard enough that the collision reverberates into any extra-spatial dimensions that might be there, momentarily creating this hyperdimensional graviton that then snaps back into the three dimensions of the LHC and spits off two photons, two particles of light. And this hypothetical, extra-dimensional graviton is one of the only possible, hypothetical new particles that has the special quantum properties that could give birth to our little, two-photon bump.
So, the possibility of explaining the mysteries of gravity and of discovering extra dimensions of space -- perhaps now you get a sense as to why thousands of physics geeks collectively lost their cool over our little, two-photon bump. A discovery of this type would rewrite the textbooks. But remember, the message from us experimentalists that actually were doing this work at the time, was very clear: we need more data. With more data, the little bump will either turn into a nice, crisp Nobel Prize --
(Laughter)
Or the extra data will fill in the space around the bump and turn it into a nice, smooth line.
So we took more data, and with five times the data, several months later, our little bump turned into a smooth line. The news reported on a "huge disappointment," on "faded hopes," and on particle physicists "being sad." Given the tone of the coverage, you'd think that we had decided to shut down the LHC and go home.
(Laughter)
But that's not what we did. But why not? I mean, if I didn't discover a particle -- and I didn't -- if I didn't discover a particle, why am I here talking to you? Why didn't I just hang my head in shame and go home?
Particle physicists are explorers. And very much of what we do is cartography. Let me put it this way: forget about the LHC for a second. Imagine you are a space explorer arriving at a distant planet, searching for aliens. What is your first task? To immediately orbit the planet, land, take a quick look around for any big, obvious signs of life, and report back to home base. That's the stage we're at now. We took a first look at the LHC for any new, big, obvious-to-spot particles, and we can report that there are none. We saw a weird-looking alien bump on a distant mountain, but once we got closer, we saw it was a rock.
But then what do we do? Do we just give up and fly away? Absolutely not; we would be terrible scientists if we did. No, we spend the next couple of decades exploring, mapping out the territory, sifting through the sand with a fine instrument, peeking under every stone, drilling under the surface. New particles can either show up immediately as big, obvious-to-spot bumps, or they can only reveal themselves after years of data taking.
Humanity has just begun its exploration at the LHC at this big high energy, and we have much searching to do. But what if, even after 10 or 20 years, we still find no new particles? We build a bigger machine.
(Laughter)
We search at higher energies. We search at higher energies. Planning is already underway for a 100-kilometer tunnel that will collide particles at 10 times the energy of the LHC. We don't decide where nature places new particles. We only decide to keep exploring. But what if, even after a 100-kilometer tunnel or a 500-kilometer tunnel or a 10,000-kilometer collider floating in space between the Earth and the Moon, we still find no new particles? Then perhaps we're doing particle physics wrong.
(Laughter)
Perhaps we need to rethink things. Maybe we need more resources, technology, expertise than what we currently have. We already use artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques in parts of the LHC, but imagine designing a particle physics experiment using such sophisticated algorithms that it could teach itself to discover a hyperdimensional graviton.
But what if? What if the ultimate question: What if even artificial intelligence can't help us answer our questions? What if these open questions, for centuries, are destined to be unanswered for the foreseeable future? What if the stuff that's bothered me since I was a little kid is destined to be unanswered in my lifetime? Then that ... will be even more fascinating.
We will be forced to think in completely new ways. We'll have to go back to our assumptions, and determine if there was a flaw somewhere. And we'll need to encourage more people to join us in studying science since we need fresh eyes on these century-old problems. I don't have the answers, and I'm still searching for them. But someone -- maybe she's in school right now, maybe she's not even born yet -- could eventually guide us to see physics in a completely new way, and to point out that perhaps we're just asking the wrong questions. Which would not be the end of physics, but a novel beginning.
Thank you.
(Applause)
GralInt-TED Talks-Sofia Jawed-Wessel: The lies we tell pregnant women
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Filmed October 2016 at TEDxOmaha
Sofia Jawed-Wessel: The lies we tell pregnant women
"When we tell women that sex isn't worth the risk during pregnancy, what we're telling her is that her sexual pleasure doesn't matter ... that she in fact doesn't matter," says sex researcher Sofia Jawed-Wessel. In this eye-opening talk, Jawed-Wessel mines our views about pregnancy and pleasure to lay bare the relationship between women, sex and systems of power.
Transcript:
We're going to share a lot of secrets today, you and I, and in doing so, I hope that we can lift some of the shame many of us feel about sex.
How many here have ever been catcalled by a stranger? Lots of women. For me, the time I remember best is when that stranger was a student of mine. He came up to me after class that night and his words confirmed what I already knew:
"I am so sorry, professor. If I had known it was you, I would never have said those things."
(Laughter)
I wasn't a person to him until I was his professor. This concept, called objectification, is the foundation of sexism, and we see it reinforced through every aspect of our lives. We see it in the government that refuses to punish men for raping women. We see it in advertisements. How many of you have seen an advertisement that uses a woman's breast to sell and entirely unrelated product? Or movie after movie after movie that portrays women as only love interests? These examples might seem inconsequential and harmless, but they're insidious, slowly building into a culture that refuses to see women as people. We see this in the school that sends home a 10-year-old girl because her clothes were a distraction to boys trying to learn, or the government that refuses to punish men for raping women over and over, or the woman who is killed because she asked a man to stop grinding on her on the dance floor.
Media plays a large role in perpetuating the objectification of women. Let's consider the classic romantic comedy. We're typically introduced to two kinds of women in these movies, two kinds of desirable women, anyway. The first is the sexy bombshell. This is the unbelievably gorgeous woman with the perfect body. Our leading man has no trouble identifying her and even less trouble having sex with her. The second is our leading lady, the beautiful but demure woman our leading man falls in love with despite not noticing her at first or not liking her if he did. The first is the slut. She is to be consumed and forgotten. She is much too available. The second is desirable but modest, and therefore worthy of our leading man's future babies. Marriage material. We're actually told that women have two roles, but these two roles have a difficult time existing within the same woman.
On the rare occasion that I share with a new acquaintance that I study sex, if they don't end the conversation right then, they're usually pretty intrigued.
"Oh. Tell me more."
So I do.
"I'm really interested in studying the sexual behaviors of pregnant and postpartum couples." At this point I get a different kind of response.
(Laughter)
"Oh. Huh. Do pregnant people even have sex? Have you thought about studying sexual desire or orgasms? That would be interesting, and sexy."
Tell me. What are the first words that come to mind when you picture a pregnant woman? I asked this question in a survey of over 500 adults, and most responded with "belly" or "round" and "cute." This didn't surprise me too much. What else do we label as cute? Babies. Puppies. Kittens. The elderly. Right?
(Laughter)
When we label an adult as cute, though, we take away a lot of their intelligence, their complexity. We reduce them to childlike qualities. I also asked heterosexual men to imagine a woman that they're partnered with is pregnant, and then asked women to imagine that they are pregnant, and then tell me the first words that come to mind when they imagine having sex. Most of the responses were negative. "Gross." "Awkward." "Not sexy." "Odd." "Uncomfortable." "How?"
(Laughter)
"Not worth the trouble." "Not worth the risk."
That last one really stuck with me. We might think that because we divorce pregnant women and moms from sexuality, we are removing the constraints of sexual objectification. They experience less sexism. Right? Not exactly. What happens instead is a different kind of objectification. In my efforts to explain this to others, one conversation led to the Venus of Willendorf, a Paleolithic figurine scholars assumed was a goddess of love and beauty, hence the name Venus. This theory was later revised, though, when scholars noted the sculptor's obvious focus on the figurine's reproductive features: large breasts, considered ideal for nursing; a round, possibly pregnant belly; the remnants of red dye, alluding to menstruation or birth. They also assumed that she was meant to be held or placed lying down because her tiny feet don't allow her to be freestanding. She also had no face. For this reason, it was assumed that she was a representation of fertility and not a portrait of a person. She was an object. In the history of her interpretation, she went from object of ideal beauty and love to object of reproduction.
I think this transition speaks more about the scholars who have interpreted her purpose than the actual purpose of the figurine herself. When a woman becomes pregnant, she leaves the realm of men's sexual desire and slides into her reproductive and child-rearing role. In doing so, she also becomes the property of the community, considered very important but only because she's pregnant. Right? I've taken to calling this the Willendorf effect, and once again we see it reinforced in many aspects of her life.
Has anyone here ever been visibly pregnant?
(Laughter)
Yeah. Lots of you, right? So how many of you ever had a stranger touch your belly during pregnancy, maybe without even asking your permission first? Or told what you can and cannot eat by somebody who is not your doctor, your medical care provider? Or asked private questions about your birth plan? And then told why those choices are all wrong? Yeah, me too. Or had a server refuse to bring you a glass of wine? This one might give you pause, I know, but stay with me. This is a huge secret. It is actually safe to drink in moderation during pregnancy. Many of us don't know this because doctors don't trust pregnant women with this secret --
(Laughter)
especially if she's less educated or a woman of color.
What this tells us is, this Willendorf effect, it's also classist and racist. It's present when the government reminds women with every new anti-choice bill that the contents of her uterus are not her own, or when an OBGYN says, "While it's safe to have sex during pregnancy, sometimes you never know. Better safe than sorry, right?" She's denied basic privacy and bodily autonomy under the guise of "be a good mother." We don't trust her to make her own decisions. She's cute, remember? When we tell women that sexual pleasure -- excuse me.
When we tell women that sex isn't worth the risk during pregnancy, what we're telling her is that her sexual pleasure doesn't matter. So what we are telling her is that she in fact doesn't matter, even though the needs of her fetus are not at odds with her own needs.
So medical providers, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have the opportunity to educate about the safety of sex during pregnancy. So what do the experts say? ACOG actually has no public official statement about the safety of sex during pregnancy. Guidance from the Mayo Clinic is generally positive but presented with a caveat: "Although most women can safely have sex throughout pregnancy, sometimes it's best to be cautious."
Some women don't want to have sex during pregnancy, and that's OK. Some women do want to have sex during pregnancy, and that's OK, too. What needs to stop is society telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
(Applause)
Pregnant women are not faceless, identity-less vessels of reproduction who can't stand on their own two feet. But the truth is, the real secret is, we tell all women that their sexual pleasure doesn't matter. We refuse to even acknowledge that women who have sex with women or women who don't want children even exist.
"Oh, it's just a phase ...
she just needs the right man to come along."
Every time a women has sex simply because it feels good, it is revolutionary. She is revolutionary. She is pushing back against society's insistence that she exist simply for men's pleasure or for reproduction. A woman who prioritizes her sexual needs is scary, because a woman who prioritizes her sexual needs prioritizes herself.
(Applause)
That is a woman demanding that she be treated as an equal. That is a woman who insists that you make room for her at the table of power, and that is the most terrifying of all because we can't make room for her without some of us giving up the extra space we hold.
(Applause)
I have one last secret for you. I am the mother of two boys and we could use your help. Even though my boys hear me say regularly that it's important for men to recognize women as equals and they see their father modeling this, we need what happens in the world to reinforce what happens in our home. This is not a men's problem or a women's problem. This is everyone's problem, and we all play a role in dismantling systems of inequality. For starters, we have got to stop telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
(Applause)
This includes not treating pregnant women like community property. If you don't know her, don't even ask to touch her belly. You wouldn't anybody else. Don't tell her what she can and cannot eat. Don't ask her private details about her medical decisions. This also includes understanding that even if you are personally against abortion, you can still fight for a woman's right to choose. When it comes to women's equality, the two need not oppose one another. If you're somebody who has sex with women, prioritize her pleasure. If you don't know how, ask. If you have children --
(Laughter)
have conversations about sex as early as possible, because kids don't look up s-e-x in the dictionary anymore. They look it up on the internet. And when you're having those conversations about sex, don't center them on reproduction only. People have sex for many reasons, some because they want a baby, but most of us have sex because it feels good. Admit it.
And regardless of whether you have children or not, support comprehensive sex education that doesn't shame our teenagers.
(Applause)
Nothing positive comes from shaming teens for their sexual desires, behaviors, other than positive STD and pregnancy tests.
Every single day, we are all given the opportunity to disrupt patterns of inequality. I think we can all agree that it's worth the trouble to do so.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Filmed October 2016 at TEDxOmaha
Sofia Jawed-Wessel: The lies we tell pregnant women
"When we tell women that sex isn't worth the risk during pregnancy, what we're telling her is that her sexual pleasure doesn't matter ... that she in fact doesn't matter," says sex researcher Sofia Jawed-Wessel. In this eye-opening talk, Jawed-Wessel mines our views about pregnancy and pleasure to lay bare the relationship between women, sex and systems of power.
Transcript:
We're going to share a lot of secrets today, you and I, and in doing so, I hope that we can lift some of the shame many of us feel about sex.
How many here have ever been catcalled by a stranger? Lots of women. For me, the time I remember best is when that stranger was a student of mine. He came up to me after class that night and his words confirmed what I already knew:
"I am so sorry, professor. If I had known it was you, I would never have said those things."
(Laughter)
I wasn't a person to him until I was his professor. This concept, called objectification, is the foundation of sexism, and we see it reinforced through every aspect of our lives. We see it in the government that refuses to punish men for raping women. We see it in advertisements. How many of you have seen an advertisement that uses a woman's breast to sell and entirely unrelated product? Or movie after movie after movie that portrays women as only love interests? These examples might seem inconsequential and harmless, but they're insidious, slowly building into a culture that refuses to see women as people. We see this in the school that sends home a 10-year-old girl because her clothes were a distraction to boys trying to learn, or the government that refuses to punish men for raping women over and over, or the woman who is killed because she asked a man to stop grinding on her on the dance floor.
Media plays a large role in perpetuating the objectification of women. Let's consider the classic romantic comedy. We're typically introduced to two kinds of women in these movies, two kinds of desirable women, anyway. The first is the sexy bombshell. This is the unbelievably gorgeous woman with the perfect body. Our leading man has no trouble identifying her and even less trouble having sex with her. The second is our leading lady, the beautiful but demure woman our leading man falls in love with despite not noticing her at first or not liking her if he did. The first is the slut. She is to be consumed and forgotten. She is much too available. The second is desirable but modest, and therefore worthy of our leading man's future babies. Marriage material. We're actually told that women have two roles, but these two roles have a difficult time existing within the same woman.
On the rare occasion that I share with a new acquaintance that I study sex, if they don't end the conversation right then, they're usually pretty intrigued.
"Oh. Tell me more."
So I do.
"I'm really interested in studying the sexual behaviors of pregnant and postpartum couples." At this point I get a different kind of response.
(Laughter)
"Oh. Huh. Do pregnant people even have sex? Have you thought about studying sexual desire or orgasms? That would be interesting, and sexy."
Tell me. What are the first words that come to mind when you picture a pregnant woman? I asked this question in a survey of over 500 adults, and most responded with "belly" or "round" and "cute." This didn't surprise me too much. What else do we label as cute? Babies. Puppies. Kittens. The elderly. Right?
(Laughter)
When we label an adult as cute, though, we take away a lot of their intelligence, their complexity. We reduce them to childlike qualities. I also asked heterosexual men to imagine a woman that they're partnered with is pregnant, and then asked women to imagine that they are pregnant, and then tell me the first words that come to mind when they imagine having sex. Most of the responses were negative. "Gross." "Awkward." "Not sexy." "Odd." "Uncomfortable." "How?"
(Laughter)
"Not worth the trouble." "Not worth the risk."
That last one really stuck with me. We might think that because we divorce pregnant women and moms from sexuality, we are removing the constraints of sexual objectification. They experience less sexism. Right? Not exactly. What happens instead is a different kind of objectification. In my efforts to explain this to others, one conversation led to the Venus of Willendorf, a Paleolithic figurine scholars assumed was a goddess of love and beauty, hence the name Venus. This theory was later revised, though, when scholars noted the sculptor's obvious focus on the figurine's reproductive features: large breasts, considered ideal for nursing; a round, possibly pregnant belly; the remnants of red dye, alluding to menstruation or birth. They also assumed that she was meant to be held or placed lying down because her tiny feet don't allow her to be freestanding. She also had no face. For this reason, it was assumed that she was a representation of fertility and not a portrait of a person. She was an object. In the history of her interpretation, she went from object of ideal beauty and love to object of reproduction.
I think this transition speaks more about the scholars who have interpreted her purpose than the actual purpose of the figurine herself. When a woman becomes pregnant, she leaves the realm of men's sexual desire and slides into her reproductive and child-rearing role. In doing so, she also becomes the property of the community, considered very important but only because she's pregnant. Right? I've taken to calling this the Willendorf effect, and once again we see it reinforced in many aspects of her life.
Has anyone here ever been visibly pregnant?
(Laughter)
Yeah. Lots of you, right? So how many of you ever had a stranger touch your belly during pregnancy, maybe without even asking your permission first? Or told what you can and cannot eat by somebody who is not your doctor, your medical care provider? Or asked private questions about your birth plan? And then told why those choices are all wrong? Yeah, me too. Or had a server refuse to bring you a glass of wine? This one might give you pause, I know, but stay with me. This is a huge secret. It is actually safe to drink in moderation during pregnancy. Many of us don't know this because doctors don't trust pregnant women with this secret --
(Laughter)
especially if she's less educated or a woman of color.
What this tells us is, this Willendorf effect, it's also classist and racist. It's present when the government reminds women with every new anti-choice bill that the contents of her uterus are not her own, or when an OBGYN says, "While it's safe to have sex during pregnancy, sometimes you never know. Better safe than sorry, right?" She's denied basic privacy and bodily autonomy under the guise of "be a good mother." We don't trust her to make her own decisions. She's cute, remember? When we tell women that sexual pleasure -- excuse me.
When we tell women that sex isn't worth the risk during pregnancy, what we're telling her is that her sexual pleasure doesn't matter. So what we are telling her is that she in fact doesn't matter, even though the needs of her fetus are not at odds with her own needs.
So medical providers, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have the opportunity to educate about the safety of sex during pregnancy. So what do the experts say? ACOG actually has no public official statement about the safety of sex during pregnancy. Guidance from the Mayo Clinic is generally positive but presented with a caveat: "Although most women can safely have sex throughout pregnancy, sometimes it's best to be cautious."
Some women don't want to have sex during pregnancy, and that's OK. Some women do want to have sex during pregnancy, and that's OK, too. What needs to stop is society telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
(Applause)
Pregnant women are not faceless, identity-less vessels of reproduction who can't stand on their own two feet. But the truth is, the real secret is, we tell all women that their sexual pleasure doesn't matter. We refuse to even acknowledge that women who have sex with women or women who don't want children even exist.
"Oh, it's just a phase ...
she just needs the right man to come along."
Every time a women has sex simply because it feels good, it is revolutionary. She is revolutionary. She is pushing back against society's insistence that she exist simply for men's pleasure or for reproduction. A woman who prioritizes her sexual needs is scary, because a woman who prioritizes her sexual needs prioritizes herself.
(Applause)
That is a woman demanding that she be treated as an equal. That is a woman who insists that you make room for her at the table of power, and that is the most terrifying of all because we can't make room for her without some of us giving up the extra space we hold.
(Applause)
I have one last secret for you. I am the mother of two boys and we could use your help. Even though my boys hear me say regularly that it's important for men to recognize women as equals and they see their father modeling this, we need what happens in the world to reinforce what happens in our home. This is not a men's problem or a women's problem. This is everyone's problem, and we all play a role in dismantling systems of inequality. For starters, we have got to stop telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
(Applause)
This includes not treating pregnant women like community property. If you don't know her, don't even ask to touch her belly. You wouldn't anybody else. Don't tell her what she can and cannot eat. Don't ask her private details about her medical decisions. This also includes understanding that even if you are personally against abortion, you can still fight for a woman's right to choose. When it comes to women's equality, the two need not oppose one another. If you're somebody who has sex with women, prioritize her pleasure. If you don't know how, ask. If you have children --
(Laughter)
have conversations about sex as early as possible, because kids don't look up s-e-x in the dictionary anymore. They look it up on the internet. And when you're having those conversations about sex, don't center them on reproduction only. People have sex for many reasons, some because they want a baby, but most of us have sex because it feels good. Admit it.
And regardless of whether you have children or not, support comprehensive sex education that doesn't shame our teenagers.
(Applause)
Nothing positive comes from shaming teens for their sexual desires, behaviors, other than positive STD and pregnancy tests.
Every single day, we are all given the opportunity to disrupt patterns of inequality. I think we can all agree that it's worth the trouble to do so.
Thank you.
(Applause)
BUS/PSYCH/GralInt-TED Talks-Adam Grant: Are you a giver or a taker?
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Filmed November 2016 at TED@IBM
Adam Grant: Are you a giver or a taker?
In every workplace, there are three basic kinds of people: givers, takers and matchers. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant breaks down these personalities and offers simple strategies to promote a culture of generosity and keep self-serving employees from taking more than their share.
Transcript:
I want you to look around the room for a minute and try to find the most paranoid person here -
(Laughter)
And then I want you to point at that person for me.
(Laughter)
OK, don't actually do it.
(Laughter)
But, as an organizational psychologist, I spend a lot of time in workplaces, and I find paranoia everywhere. Paranoia is caused by people that I call "takers." Takers are self-serving in their interactions. It's all about what can you do for me. The opposite is a giver. It's somebody who approaches most interactions by asking, "What can I do for you?"
I wanted to give you a chance to think about your own style. We all have moments of giving and taking. Your style is how you treat most of the people most of the time, your default. I have a short test you can take to figure out if you're more of a giver or a taker, and you can take it right now.
[The Narcissist Test]
[Step 1: Take a moment to think about yourself.]
(Laughter)
[Step 2: If you made it to Step 2, you are not a narcissist.]
(Laughter)
This is the only thing I will say today that has no data behind it, but I am convinced the longer it takes for you to laugh at this cartoon, the more worried we should be that you're a taker.
(Laughter)
Of course, not all takers are narcissists. Some are just givers who got burned one too many times. Then there's another kind of taker that we won't be addressing today, and that's called a psychopath.
(Laughter)
I was curious, though, about how common these extremes are, and so I surveyed over 30,000 people across industries around the world's cultures. And I found that most people are right in the middle between giving and taking. They choose this third style called "matching." If you're a matcher, you try to keep an even balance of give and take: quid pro quo -- I'll do something for you if you do something for me. And that seems like a safe way to live your life. But is it the most effective and productive way to live your life? The answer to that question is a very definitive ... maybe.
(Laughter)
I studied dozens of organizations, thousands of people. I had engineers measuring their productivity.
(Laughter)
I looked at medical students' grades -- even salespeople's revenue.
(Laughter)
And, unexpectedly, the worst performers in each of these jobs were the givers. The engineers who got the least work done were the ones who did more favors than they got back. They were so busy doing other people's jobs, they literally ran out of time and energy to get their own work completed. In medical school, the lowest grades belong to the students who agree most strongly with statements like, "I love helping others," which suggests the doctor you ought to trust is the one who came to med school with no desire to help anybody.
(Laughter)
And then in sales, too, the lowest revenue accrued in the most generous salespeople. I actually reached out to one of those salespeople who had a very high giver score. And I asked him, "Why do you suck at your job --" I didn't ask it that way, but --
(Laughter)
"What's the cost of generosity in sales?" And he said, "Well, I just care so deeply about my customers that I would never sell them one of our crappy products."
(Laughter)
So just out of curiosity, how many of you self-identify more as givers than takers or matchers? Raise your hands. OK, it would have been more before we talked about these data.
But actually, it turns out there's a twist here, because givers are often sacrificing themselves, but they make their organizations better. We have a huge body of evidence -- many, many studies looking at the frequency of giving behavior that exists in a team or an organization -- and the more often people are helping and sharing their knowledge and providing mentoring, the better organizations do on every metric we can measure: higher profits, customer satisfaction, employee retention -- even lower operating expenses. So givers spend a lot of time trying to help other people and improve the team, and then, unfortunately, they suffer along the way. I want to talk about what it takes to build cultures where givers actually get to succeed.
So I wondered, then, if givers are the worst performers, who are the best performers? Let me start with the good news: it's not the takers. Takers tend to rise quickly but also fall quickly in most jobs. And they fall at the hands of matchers. If you're a matcher, you believe in "An eye for an eye" -- a just world. And so when you meet a taker, you feel like it's your mission in life to just punish the hell out of that person.
(Laughter)
And that way justice gets served.
Well, most people are matchers. And that means if you're a taker, it tends to catch up with you eventually; what goes around will come around. And so the logical conclusion is: it must be the matchers who are the best performers. But they're not. In every job, in every organization I've ever studied, the best results belong to the givers again.
Take a look at some data I gathered from hundreds of salespeople, tracking their revenue. What you can see is that the givers go to both extremes. They make up the majority of people who bring in the lowest revenue, but also the highest revenue. The same patterns were true for engineers' productivity and medical students' grades. Givers are overrepresented at the bottom and at the top of every success metric that I can track. Which raises the question: How do we create a world where more of these givers get to excel? I want to talk about how to do that, not just in businesses, but also in nonprofits, schools -- even governments. Are you ready?
(Cheers)
I was going to do it anyway, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.
(Laughter)
The first thing that's really critical is to recognize that givers are your most valuable people, but if they're not careful, they burn out. So you have to protect the givers in your midst. And I learned a great lesson about this from Fortune's best networker. It's the guy, not the cat.
(Laughter)
His name is Adam Rifkin. He's a very successful serial entrepreneur who spends a huge amount of his time helping other people. And his secret weapon is the five-minute favor. Adam said, "You don't have to be Mother Teresa or Gandhi to be a giver. You just have to find small ways to add large value to other people's lives." That could be as simple as making an introduction between two people who could benefit from knowing each other. It could be sharing your knowledge or giving a little bit of feedback. Or It might be even something as basic as saying, "You know, I'm going to try and figure out if I can recognize somebody whose work has gone unnoticed." And those five-minute favors are really critical to helping givers set boundaries and protect themselves.
The second thing that matters if you want to build a culture where givers succeed, is you actually need a culture where help-seeking is the norm; where people ask a lot. This may hit a little too close to home for some of you.
[So in all your relationships, you always have to be the giver?]
(Laughter)
What you see with successful givers is they recognize that it's OK to be a receiver, too. If you run an organization, we can actually make this easier. We can make it easier for people to ask for help. A couple colleagues and I studied hospitals. We found that on certain floors, nurses did a lot of help-seeking, and on other floors, they did very little of it. The factor that stood out on the floors where help-seeking was common, where it was the norm, was there was just one nurse whose sole job it was to help other nurses on the unit. When that role was available, nurses said, "It's not embarrassing, it's not vulnerable to ask for help -- it's actually encouraged."
Help-seeking isn't important just for protecting the success and the well-being of givers. It's also critical to getting more people to act like givers, because the data say that somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of all giving in organizations starts with a request. But a lot of people don't ask. They don't want to look incompetent, they don't know where to turn, they don't want to burden others. Yet if nobody ever asks for help, you have a lot of frustrated givers in your organization who would love to step up and contribute, if they only knew who could benefit and how.
But I think the most important thing, if you want to build a culture of successful givers, is to be thoughtful about who you let onto your team. I figured, you want a culture of productive generosity, you should hire a bunch of givers. But I was surprised to discover, actually, that that was not right -- that the negative impact of a taker on a culture is usually double to triple the positive impact of a giver. Think about it this way: one bad apple can spoil a barrel, but one good egg just does not make a dozen. I don't know what that means -
(Laughter)
But I hope you do.
No -- let even one taker into a team, and you will see that the givers will stop helping. They'll say, "I'm surrounded by a bunch of snakes and sharks. Why should I contribute?" Whereas if you let one giver into a team, you don't get an explosion of generosity. More often, people are like, "Great! That person can do all our work." So, effective hiring and screening and team building is not about bringing in the givers; it's about weeding out the takers. If you can do that well, you'll be left with givers and matchers. The givers will be generous because they don't have to worry about the consequences. And the beauty of the matchers is that they follow the norm.
So how do you catch a taker before it's too late? We're actually pretty bad at figuring out who's a taker, especially on first impressions. There's a personality trait that throws us off. It's called agreeableness, one the major dimensions of personality across cultures. Agreeable people are warm and friendly, they're nice, they're polite. You find a lot of them in Canada -
(Laughter)
Where there was actually a national contest to come up with a new Canadian slogan and fill in the blank, "As Canadian as ..." I thought the winning entry was going to be, "As Canadian as maple syrup," or, "... ice hockey." But no, Canadians voted for their new national slogan to be -- I kid you not -- "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."
(Laughter)
Now for those of you who are highly agreeable, or maybe slightly Canadian, you get this right away. How could I ever say I'm any one thing when I'm constantly adapting to try to please other people? Disagreeable people do less of it. They're more critical, skeptical, challenging, and far more likely than their peers to go to law school.
(Laughter)
That's not a joke, that's actually an empirical fact.
(Laughter)
So I always assumed that agreeable people were givers and disagreeable people were takers. But then I gathered the data, and I was stunned to find no correlation between those traits, because it turns out that agreeableness-disagreeableness is your outer veneer: How pleasant is it to interact with you? Whereas giving and taking are more of your inner motives: What are your values? What are your intentions toward others?
If you really want to judge people accurately, you have to get to the moment every consultant in the room is waiting for, and draw a two-by-two.
(Laughter)
The agreeable givers are easy to spot: they say yes to everything. The disagreeable takers are also recognized quickly, although you might call them by a slightly different name.
(Laughter)
We forget about the other two combinations. There are disagreeable givers in our organizations. There are people who are gruff and tough on the surface but underneath have others' best interests at heart. Or as an engineer put it, "Oh, disagreeable givers -- like somebody with a bad user interface but a great operating system."
(Laughter)
If that helps you.
(Laughter)
Disagreeable givers are the most undervalued people in our organizations, because they're the ones who give the critical feedback that no one wants to hear but everyone needs to hear. We need to do a much better job valuing these people as opposed to writing them off early, and saying, "Eh, kind of prickly, must be a selfish taker."
The other combination we forget about is the deadly one -- the agreeable taker, also known as the faker. This is the person who's nice to your face, and then will stab you right in the back.
(Laughter)
And my favorite way to catch these people in the interview process is to ask the question, "Can you give me the names of four people whose careers you have fundamentally improved?" The takers will give you four names, and they will all be more influential than them, because takers are great at kissing up and then kicking down. Givers are more likely to name people who are below them in a hierarchy, who don't have as much power, who can do them no good. And let's face it, you all know you can learn a lot about character by watching how someone treats their restaurant server or their Uber driver.
So if we do all this well, if we can weed takers out of organizations, if we can make it safe to ask for help, if we can protect givers from burnout and make it OK for them to be ambitious in pursuing their own goals as well as trying to help other people, we can actually change the way that people define success. Instead of saying it's all about winning a competition, people will realize success is really more about contribution.
I believe that the most meaningful way to succeed is to help other people succeed. And if we can spread that belief, we can actually turn paranoia upside down. There's a name for that. It's called "pronoia." Pronoia is the delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being.
(Laughter)
That they're going around behind your back and saying exceptionally glowing things about you. The great thing about a culture of givers is that's not a delusion -- it's reality. I want to live in a world where givers succeed, and I hope you will help me create that world.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Filmed November 2016 at TED@IBM
Adam Grant: Are you a giver or a taker?
In every workplace, there are three basic kinds of people: givers, takers and matchers. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant breaks down these personalities and offers simple strategies to promote a culture of generosity and keep self-serving employees from taking more than their share.
Transcript:
I want you to look around the room for a minute and try to find the most paranoid person here -
(Laughter)
And then I want you to point at that person for me.
(Laughter)
OK, don't actually do it.
(Laughter)
But, as an organizational psychologist, I spend a lot of time in workplaces, and I find paranoia everywhere. Paranoia is caused by people that I call "takers." Takers are self-serving in their interactions. It's all about what can you do for me. The opposite is a giver. It's somebody who approaches most interactions by asking, "What can I do for you?"
I wanted to give you a chance to think about your own style. We all have moments of giving and taking. Your style is how you treat most of the people most of the time, your default. I have a short test you can take to figure out if you're more of a giver or a taker, and you can take it right now.
[The Narcissist Test]
[Step 1: Take a moment to think about yourself.]
(Laughter)
[Step 2: If you made it to Step 2, you are not a narcissist.]
(Laughter)
This is the only thing I will say today that has no data behind it, but I am convinced the longer it takes for you to laugh at this cartoon, the more worried we should be that you're a taker.
(Laughter)
Of course, not all takers are narcissists. Some are just givers who got burned one too many times. Then there's another kind of taker that we won't be addressing today, and that's called a psychopath.
(Laughter)
I was curious, though, about how common these extremes are, and so I surveyed over 30,000 people across industries around the world's cultures. And I found that most people are right in the middle between giving and taking. They choose this third style called "matching." If you're a matcher, you try to keep an even balance of give and take: quid pro quo -- I'll do something for you if you do something for me. And that seems like a safe way to live your life. But is it the most effective and productive way to live your life? The answer to that question is a very definitive ... maybe.
(Laughter)
I studied dozens of organizations, thousands of people. I had engineers measuring their productivity.
(Laughter)
I looked at medical students' grades -- even salespeople's revenue.
(Laughter)
And, unexpectedly, the worst performers in each of these jobs were the givers. The engineers who got the least work done were the ones who did more favors than they got back. They were so busy doing other people's jobs, they literally ran out of time and energy to get their own work completed. In medical school, the lowest grades belong to the students who agree most strongly with statements like, "I love helping others," which suggests the doctor you ought to trust is the one who came to med school with no desire to help anybody.
(Laughter)
And then in sales, too, the lowest revenue accrued in the most generous salespeople. I actually reached out to one of those salespeople who had a very high giver score. And I asked him, "Why do you suck at your job --" I didn't ask it that way, but --
(Laughter)
"What's the cost of generosity in sales?" And he said, "Well, I just care so deeply about my customers that I would never sell them one of our crappy products."
(Laughter)
So just out of curiosity, how many of you self-identify more as givers than takers or matchers? Raise your hands. OK, it would have been more before we talked about these data.
But actually, it turns out there's a twist here, because givers are often sacrificing themselves, but they make their organizations better. We have a huge body of evidence -- many, many studies looking at the frequency of giving behavior that exists in a team or an organization -- and the more often people are helping and sharing their knowledge and providing mentoring, the better organizations do on every metric we can measure: higher profits, customer satisfaction, employee retention -- even lower operating expenses. So givers spend a lot of time trying to help other people and improve the team, and then, unfortunately, they suffer along the way. I want to talk about what it takes to build cultures where givers actually get to succeed.
So I wondered, then, if givers are the worst performers, who are the best performers? Let me start with the good news: it's not the takers. Takers tend to rise quickly but also fall quickly in most jobs. And they fall at the hands of matchers. If you're a matcher, you believe in "An eye for an eye" -- a just world. And so when you meet a taker, you feel like it's your mission in life to just punish the hell out of that person.
(Laughter)
And that way justice gets served.
Well, most people are matchers. And that means if you're a taker, it tends to catch up with you eventually; what goes around will come around. And so the logical conclusion is: it must be the matchers who are the best performers. But they're not. In every job, in every organization I've ever studied, the best results belong to the givers again.
Take a look at some data I gathered from hundreds of salespeople, tracking their revenue. What you can see is that the givers go to both extremes. They make up the majority of people who bring in the lowest revenue, but also the highest revenue. The same patterns were true for engineers' productivity and medical students' grades. Givers are overrepresented at the bottom and at the top of every success metric that I can track. Which raises the question: How do we create a world where more of these givers get to excel? I want to talk about how to do that, not just in businesses, but also in nonprofits, schools -- even governments. Are you ready?
(Cheers)
I was going to do it anyway, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.
(Laughter)
The first thing that's really critical is to recognize that givers are your most valuable people, but if they're not careful, they burn out. So you have to protect the givers in your midst. And I learned a great lesson about this from Fortune's best networker. It's the guy, not the cat.
(Laughter)
His name is Adam Rifkin. He's a very successful serial entrepreneur who spends a huge amount of his time helping other people. And his secret weapon is the five-minute favor. Adam said, "You don't have to be Mother Teresa or Gandhi to be a giver. You just have to find small ways to add large value to other people's lives." That could be as simple as making an introduction between two people who could benefit from knowing each other. It could be sharing your knowledge or giving a little bit of feedback. Or It might be even something as basic as saying, "You know, I'm going to try and figure out if I can recognize somebody whose work has gone unnoticed." And those five-minute favors are really critical to helping givers set boundaries and protect themselves.
The second thing that matters if you want to build a culture where givers succeed, is you actually need a culture where help-seeking is the norm; where people ask a lot. This may hit a little too close to home for some of you.
[So in all your relationships, you always have to be the giver?]
(Laughter)
What you see with successful givers is they recognize that it's OK to be a receiver, too. If you run an organization, we can actually make this easier. We can make it easier for people to ask for help. A couple colleagues and I studied hospitals. We found that on certain floors, nurses did a lot of help-seeking, and on other floors, they did very little of it. The factor that stood out on the floors where help-seeking was common, where it was the norm, was there was just one nurse whose sole job it was to help other nurses on the unit. When that role was available, nurses said, "It's not embarrassing, it's not vulnerable to ask for help -- it's actually encouraged."
Help-seeking isn't important just for protecting the success and the well-being of givers. It's also critical to getting more people to act like givers, because the data say that somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of all giving in organizations starts with a request. But a lot of people don't ask. They don't want to look incompetent, they don't know where to turn, they don't want to burden others. Yet if nobody ever asks for help, you have a lot of frustrated givers in your organization who would love to step up and contribute, if they only knew who could benefit and how.
But I think the most important thing, if you want to build a culture of successful givers, is to be thoughtful about who you let onto your team. I figured, you want a culture of productive generosity, you should hire a bunch of givers. But I was surprised to discover, actually, that that was not right -- that the negative impact of a taker on a culture is usually double to triple the positive impact of a giver. Think about it this way: one bad apple can spoil a barrel, but one good egg just does not make a dozen. I don't know what that means -
(Laughter)
But I hope you do.
No -- let even one taker into a team, and you will see that the givers will stop helping. They'll say, "I'm surrounded by a bunch of snakes and sharks. Why should I contribute?" Whereas if you let one giver into a team, you don't get an explosion of generosity. More often, people are like, "Great! That person can do all our work." So, effective hiring and screening and team building is not about bringing in the givers; it's about weeding out the takers. If you can do that well, you'll be left with givers and matchers. The givers will be generous because they don't have to worry about the consequences. And the beauty of the matchers is that they follow the norm.
So how do you catch a taker before it's too late? We're actually pretty bad at figuring out who's a taker, especially on first impressions. There's a personality trait that throws us off. It's called agreeableness, one the major dimensions of personality across cultures. Agreeable people are warm and friendly, they're nice, they're polite. You find a lot of them in Canada -
(Laughter)
Where there was actually a national contest to come up with a new Canadian slogan and fill in the blank, "As Canadian as ..." I thought the winning entry was going to be, "As Canadian as maple syrup," or, "... ice hockey." But no, Canadians voted for their new national slogan to be -- I kid you not -- "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."
(Laughter)
Now for those of you who are highly agreeable, or maybe slightly Canadian, you get this right away. How could I ever say I'm any one thing when I'm constantly adapting to try to please other people? Disagreeable people do less of it. They're more critical, skeptical, challenging, and far more likely than their peers to go to law school.
(Laughter)
That's not a joke, that's actually an empirical fact.
(Laughter)
So I always assumed that agreeable people were givers and disagreeable people were takers. But then I gathered the data, and I was stunned to find no correlation between those traits, because it turns out that agreeableness-disagreeableness is your outer veneer: How pleasant is it to interact with you? Whereas giving and taking are more of your inner motives: What are your values? What are your intentions toward others?
If you really want to judge people accurately, you have to get to the moment every consultant in the room is waiting for, and draw a two-by-two.
(Laughter)
The agreeable givers are easy to spot: they say yes to everything. The disagreeable takers are also recognized quickly, although you might call them by a slightly different name.
(Laughter)
We forget about the other two combinations. There are disagreeable givers in our organizations. There are people who are gruff and tough on the surface but underneath have others' best interests at heart. Or as an engineer put it, "Oh, disagreeable givers -- like somebody with a bad user interface but a great operating system."
(Laughter)
If that helps you.
(Laughter)
Disagreeable givers are the most undervalued people in our organizations, because they're the ones who give the critical feedback that no one wants to hear but everyone needs to hear. We need to do a much better job valuing these people as opposed to writing them off early, and saying, "Eh, kind of prickly, must be a selfish taker."
The other combination we forget about is the deadly one -- the agreeable taker, also known as the faker. This is the person who's nice to your face, and then will stab you right in the back.
(Laughter)
And my favorite way to catch these people in the interview process is to ask the question, "Can you give me the names of four people whose careers you have fundamentally improved?" The takers will give you four names, and they will all be more influential than them, because takers are great at kissing up and then kicking down. Givers are more likely to name people who are below them in a hierarchy, who don't have as much power, who can do them no good. And let's face it, you all know you can learn a lot about character by watching how someone treats their restaurant server or their Uber driver.
So if we do all this well, if we can weed takers out of organizations, if we can make it safe to ask for help, if we can protect givers from burnout and make it OK for them to be ambitious in pursuing their own goals as well as trying to help other people, we can actually change the way that people define success. Instead of saying it's all about winning a competition, people will realize success is really more about contribution.
I believe that the most meaningful way to succeed is to help other people succeed. And if we can spread that belief, we can actually turn paranoia upside down. There's a name for that. It's called "pronoia." Pronoia is the delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being.
(Laughter)
That they're going around behind your back and saying exceptionally glowing things about you. The great thing about a culture of givers is that's not a delusion -- it's reality. I want to live in a world where givers succeed, and I hope you will help me create that world.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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