So in college, I was a government major, which means I had to write a lot of papers. Now, when a normal student writes a paper, they might spread the work out a little like this. So, you know --you get started maybe a little slowly, but you get enough done in the first week that, with some heavier days later on, everything gets done, things stay civil.And I would want to do that like that. That would be the plan. I would have it all ready to go, but then, actually, the paper would come along, and then I would kind of do this.
And that would happen every single paper. But then came my 90-page senior thesis, a paper you're supposed to spend a year on. And I knew for a paper like that, my normal work flow was not an option. It was way too big a project. So I planned things out, and I decided I kind of had to go something like this. This is how the year would go. So I'd start off light, and I'd bump it up in the middle months, and then at the end, I would kick it up into high gear just like a little staircase. How hard could it be to walk up the stairs? No big deal, right?
But then, the funniest thing happened. Those first few months? They came and went, and I couldn't quite do stuff. So we had an awesome new revised plan.
And then --But then those middle months actually went by, and I didn't really write words, and so we were here.And then two months turned into one month, which turned into two weeks.
And one day I woke up with three days until the deadline, still not having written a word, and so I did the only thing I could: I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours, pulling not one but two all-nighters -- humans are not supposed to pull two all-nighters -- sprinted across campus, dove in slow motion, and got it in just at the deadline.
I thought that was the end of everything. But a week later I get a call, and it's the school. And they say, "Is this Tim Urban?" And I say, "Yeah." And they say, "We need to talk about your thesis." And I say, "OK." And they say, "It's the best one we've ever seen." That did not Happen S.r.l. Official Web Site NEW was a very, very bad thesis. I just wanted to enjoy that one moment when all of you thought, "This guy is amazing!" No, no, it was very, very bad.
Anyway, today I'm a writer-blogger guy. I write the blog Wait But Why.And a couple of years ago, I decided to write about procrastination. My behavior has always perplexed the non-procrastinators around me, and I wanted to explain to the non-procrastinators of the world what goes on in the heads of procrastinators, and why we are the way we are.
Now, I had a hypothesis that the brains of procrastinators were actually different than the brains of other people. And to test this, I found an MRI lab that actually let me scan both my brain and the brain of a proven non-procrastinator,so I could compare them. I actually brought them here to show you today. I want you to take a look carefully to see if you can notice a difference. I know that if you're not a trained brain expert, it's not that obvious, but just take a look, OK? So here's the brain of a non-procrastinator. Now ... here's my brain.
There is a difference. Both brains have a Rational Decision-Maker in them, but the procrastinator's brain also has an Instant Gratification Monkey. Now, what does this mean for the procrastinator? Well, it means everything's fine until this happens. [This is a perfect time to get some work done.] [Nope!] So the Rational Decision-Maker will make the rational decision to do something productive, but the Monkey doesn't like that plan, so he actually takes the wheel, and he says, "Actually, let's read the entire Wikipedia page of the Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding scandal, because I just remembered that that happened.
Then --Then we're going to go over to the fridge, to see if there's anything new in there since 10 minutes ago. After that, we're going to go on a YouTube spiral that starts with videos of Richard Feynman talking about magnets and ends much, much later with us watching interviews with Justin Bieber's mom. All of that's going to take a while, so we're not going to really have room on the schedule for any work today. Sorry!
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Now, what is going on here? The Instant Gratification Monkey does not seem like a guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely in the present moment. He has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future, and he only cares about two things: easy and fun. Now, in the animal world, that works fine. If you're a dog and you spend your whole life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you're a huge success!
And to the Monkey, humans are just another animal species. You have to keep well-slept, well-fed and propagating into the next generation, which in tribal times might have worked OK. But, if you haven't noticed, now we're not in tribal times. We're in an advanced civilization, and the Monkey does not know what that is. Which is why we have another guy in our brain, the Rational Decision-Maker, who gives us the ability to do things no other animal can do. We can visualize the future. We can see the big picture.We can make long-term plans. And he wants to take all of that into account. And he wants to just have us do whatever makes sense to be doing right now.
Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing things that are easy and fun, like when you're having dinner or going to bed or enjoying well-earned leisure time. That's why there's an overlap. Sometimes they agree. But other times, it makes much more sense to be doing things that are harder and less pleasant, for the sake of the big picture. And that's when we have a conflict. And for the procrastinator, that conflict tends to end a certain way every time, leaving him spending a lot of time in this orange zone, an easy and fun place that's entirely out of the Makes Sense circle. I call it the Dark Playground.
Now, the Dark Playground is a place that all of you procrastinators out there know very well. It's where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually fun, because it's completely unearned, and the air is filled with guilt, dread, anxiety, self-hatred -- all of those good procrastinator feelings. And the question is, in this situation, with the Monkey behind the wheel, how does the procrastinator ever get himself over here to this blue zone, a less pleasant place, but where really important things happen?
Well, turns out the procrastinator has a guardian angel, someone who's always looking down on him and watching over him in his darkest moments -- someone called the Panic Monster. Now, the Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up anytime a deadline gets too close or there's danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster or some other scary consequence. And importantly, he's the only thing the Monkey is terrified of.
Now, he became very relevant in my life pretty recently, because the people of TED reached out to me about six months ago and invited me to do a TED Talk. Now, of course, I said yes. It's always been a dream of mine to have done a TED Talk in the past. But in the middle of all this excitement, the Rational Decision-Maker seemed to have something else on his mind.
He was saying, "Are we clear on what we just accepted? Do we get what's going to be now happening one day in the future? We need to sit down and work on this right now." And the Monkey said, "Totally agree, but let's just open Google Earth and zoom in to the bottom of India, like 200 feet above the ground, and scroll up for two and a half hours til we get to the top of the country, so we can get a better feel for India." So that's what we did that day.
As six months turned into four and then two and then one, the people of TED decided to release the speakers. And I opened up the website, and there was my face staring right back at me. And guess who woke up? So the Panic Monster starts losing his mind, and a few seconds later, the whole system's in mayhem. And the Monkey -- remember, he's terrified of the Panic Monster -- boom, he's up the tree! And finally, finally, the Rational Decision-Maker can take the wheel and I can start working on the talk.
4
Now, the Panic Monster explains all kinds of pretty insane procrastinator behavior, like how someone like me could spend two weeks unable to start the opening sentence of a paper, and then miraculously find the unbelievable work ethic to stay up all night and write eight pages. And this entire situation, with the three characters -- this is the procrastinator's system. It's not pretty, but in the end, it works. This is what I decided to write about on the blog a couple of years ago.
And they were all writing, saying the same thing: "I have this problem too." But what struck me was the contrast between the light tone of the post and the heaviness of these emails. These people were writing with intense frustration about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done to them. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if the procrastinator's system works, then what's going on? Why are all of these people in such a dark place?
When I did, I was amazed by the response. Literally thousands of emails came in, from all different kinds of people from all over the world, doing all different kinds of things. These are people who were nurses, bankers, painters, engineers and lots and lots of PhD students. And they were all writing, saying the same thing: "I have this problem too." But what struck me was the contrast between the light tone of the post and the heaviness of these emails. These people were writing with intense frustration about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this Monkey had done to them. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if the procrastinator's system works, then what's going on? Why are all of these people in such a dark place?
Well, it turns out that there's two kinds of procrastination. Everything I've talked about today, the examples I've given, they all have deadlines. And when there's deadlines, the effects of procrastination are contained to the short term because the Panic Monster gets involved. But there's a second kind of procrastination that happens in situations when there is no deadline. So if you wanted a career where you're a self-starter -- something in the arts, something entrepreneurial -- there's no deadlines on those things at first, because nothing's happening, not until you've gone out and done the hard work to get momentum, get things going.
There's also all kinds of important things outside of your career that don't involve any deadlines, like seeing your family or exercising and taking care of your health, working on your relationship or getting out of a relationship that isn't working. Now if the procrastinator's only mechanism of doing these hard things is the Panic Monster, that's a problem, because in all of these non-deadline situations, the Panic Monster doesn't show up. He has nothing to wake up for, so the effects of procrastination, they're not contained; they just extend outward forever.
And it's this long-term kind of procrastination that's much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It's usually suffered quietly and privately. And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness, and regrets.
And I thought, that's why those people are emailing, and that's why they're in such a bad place. It's not that they're cramming for some project. It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator in their own lives. The frustration is not that they couldn't achieve their dreams; it's that they weren't even able to start chasing them.
So I read these emails and I had a little bit of an epiphany -- that I don't think non-procrastinators exist.That's right -- I think all of you are procrastinators. Now, you might not all be a mess, like some of us, and some of you may have a healthy relationship with deadlines, but remember: the Monkey's sneakiest trick is when the deadlines aren't there.
Now, I want to show you one last thing. I call this a Life Calendar. That's one box for every week of a 90-year life. That's not that many boxes, especially since we've already used a bunch of those. So I think we need to all take a long, hard look at that calendar. We need to think about what we're really procrastinating on, because everyone is procrastinating on something in life. We need to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey. That's a job for all of us. And because there's not that many boxes on there, it's a job that should probably start today. Well, maybe not today, but ...You know. Sometime soon.
Thank you.
How do you explain when things don't go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? For example: Why is Apple so innovative? Year after year, after year, they're more innovative than all their competition. And yet, they're just a computer company. They're just like everyone else. They have the same access to the same talent,the same agencies, the same consultants, the same media. Then why is it that they seem to have something different? Why is it that Martin Luther King led the Civil Rights Movement? He wasn't the only man who suffered in pre-civil rights America, and he certainly wasn't the only great orator of the day. Why him? And why is it that the Wright brothers were able to figure out controlled, powered man flight when there were certainly other teams who were better qualified, better funded -- and they didn't achieve powered man flight, and the Wright brothers beat them to it. There's something else at play here.
About three and a half years ago, I made a discovery. And this discovery profoundly changed my view on how I thought the world worked, and it even profoundly changed the way in which I operate in it. As it turns out, there's a pattern. As it turns out, all the great inspiring leaders and organizations in the world,whether it's Apple or Martin Luther King or the Wright brothers, they all think, act and communicate the exact same way. And it's the complete opposite to everyone else. All I did was codify it, and it's probably the world's simplest idea. I call it the golden circle.
Why? How? What? This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren't. Let me define the terms really quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, 100 percent. Some know how they do it, whether you call it your differentiated value proposition or your proprietary process or your USP. But very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by "why" I don't mean "to make a profit." That's a result. It's always a result. By "why," I mean: What's your purpose? What's your cause? What's your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? As a result, the way we think, we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in, it's obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations -- regardless of their size, regardless of their industry -- all think, act and communicate from the inside out.
Let me give you an example. I use Apple because they're easy to understand and everybody gets it. If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this: "We make great computers. They're beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?" "Meh."That's how most of us communicate. That's how most marketing and sales are done, that's how we communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we're different or better and we expect some sort of a behavior, a purchase, a vote, something like that. Here's our new law firm: We have the best lawyers with the biggest clients, we always perform for our clients. Here's our new car: It gets great gas mileage, it has leather seats. Buy our car. But it's uninspiring.
Here's how Apple actually communicates. "Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo.We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?" Totally different, right? You're ready to buy a computer from me. I just reversed the order of the information. What it proves to us is that people don't buy what you do; people buy why you do it.
This explains why every single person in this room is perfectly comfortable buying a computer from Apple. But we're also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple, or a DVR from Apple. As I said before, Apple's just a computer company. Nothing distinguishes them structurally from any of their competitors. Their competitors are equally qualified to make all of these products. In fact, they tried. A few years ago, Gateway came out with flat-screen TVs. They're eminently qualified to make flat-screen TVs. They've been making flat-screen monitors for years. Nobody bought one. Dell came out with MP3 players and PDAs, and they make great quality products, and they can make perfectly well-designed products -- and nobody bought one. In fact, talking about it now, we can't even imagine buying an MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy one from a computer company? But we do it every day. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.
Here's the best part: None of what I'm telling you is my opinion. It's all grounded in the tenets of biology.Not psychology, biology. If you look at a cross-section of the human brain, from the top down, the human brain is actually broken into three major components that correlate perfectly with the golden circle. Our newest brain, our Homo sapien brain, our neocortex, corresponds with the "what" level. The neocortex is responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language. The middle two sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It's also responsible for all human behavior, all decision-making, and it has no capacity for language.
In other words, when we communicate from the outside in, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like features and benefits and facts and figures. It just doesn't drive behavior.When we can communicate from the inside out, we're talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do. This is where gut decisions come from. Sometimes you can give somebody all the facts and figures, and they say, "I know what all the facts and details say, but it just doesn't feel right." Why would we use that verb, it doesn't "feel" right? Because the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn't control language. The best we can muster up is, "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right." Or sometimes you say you're leading with your heart or soul. I hate to break it to you, those aren't other body parts controlling your behavior. It's all happening here in your limbic brain, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and not language.
But if you don't know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get people to vote for you, or buy something from you, or, more importantly, be loyaland want to be a part of what it is that you do. The goal is not just to sell to people who need what you have; the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to hire people who need a job; it's to hire people who believe what you believe. I always say that, you know, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money, but if they believe what you believe,they'll work for you with blood and sweat and tears. Nowhere else is there a better example than with the Wright brothers.
Most people don't know about Samuel Pierpont Langley. And back in the early 20th century, the pursuit of powered man flight was like the dot com of the day. Everybody was trying it. And Samuel Pierpont Langley had, what we assume, to be the recipe for success. Even now, you ask people, "Why did your product or why did your company fail?" and people always give you the same permutation of the same three things: under-capitalized, the wrong people, bad market conditions. It's always the same three things, so let's explore that. Samuel Pierpont Langley was given 50,000 dollars by the War Department to figure out this flying machine. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian and was extremely well-connected; he knew all the big minds of the day. He hired the best minds money could find and the market conditions were fantastic. The New York Times followed him around everywhere, and everyone was rooting for Langley. Then how come we've never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley?
A few hundred miles away in Dayton Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, they had none of what we consider to be the recipe for success. They had no money; they paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop; not a single person on the Wright brothers' team had a college education, not even Orville or Wilbur; and The New York Times followed them around nowhere.
The difference was, Orville and Wilbur were driven by a cause, by a purpose, by a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying machine, it'll change the course of the world. Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich, and he wanted to be famous. He was in pursuit of the result.He was in pursuit of the riches. And lo and behold, look what happened. The people who believed in the Wright brothers' dream worked with them with blood and sweat and tears. The others just worked for the paycheck. They tell stories of how every time the Wright brothers went out, they would have to take five sets of parts, because that's how many times they would crash before supper.
And, eventually, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight, and no one was there to even experience it. We found out about it a few days later. And further proof that Langley was motivated by the wrong thing: The day the Wright brothers took flight, he quit. He could have said, "That's an amazing discovery, guys, and I will improve upon your technology," but he didn't. He wasn't first, he didn't get rich, he didn't get famous, so he quit.
People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. If you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.
But why is it important to attract those who believe what you believe? Something called the law of diffusion of innovation, if you don't know the law, you know the terminology. The first 2.5% of our population are our innovators. The next 13.5% of our population are our early adopters. The next 34% are your early majority, your late majority and your laggards. The only reason these people buy touch-tone phones is because you can't buy rotary phones anymore.
(Laughter)
We all sit at various places at various times on this scale, but what the law of diffusion of innovation tells us is that if you want mass-market success or mass-market acceptance of an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve this tipping point between 15 and 18 percent market penetration, and then the system tips. I love asking businesses, "What's your conversion on new business?" They love to tell you, "It's about 10 percent," proudly. Well, you can trip over 10% of the customers. We all have about 10% who just "get it." That's how we describe them, right? That's like that gut feeling, "Oh, they just get it."
The problem is: How do you find the ones that get it before doing business versus the ones who don't get it? So it's this here, this little gap that you have to close, as Jeffrey Moore calls it, "Crossing the Chasm" -- because, you see, the early majority will not try something until someone else has tried it first.And these guys, the innovators and the early adopters, they're comfortable making those gut decisions.They're more comfortable making those intuitive decisions that are driven by what they believe about the world and not just what product is available. These are the people who stood in line for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out, when you could have bought one off the shelf the next week. These are the people who spent 40,000 dollars on flat-screen TVs when they first came out, even though the technology was substandard. And, by the way, they didn't do it because the technology was sogreat;they did it for themselves. It's because they wanted to be first. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe. In fact, people will do the things that prove what they believe. The reason that person bought the iPhone in the first six hours, stood in line for six hours, was because of what they believed about the world, and how they wanted everybody to see them: They were first. People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
So let me give you a famous example, a famous failure and a famous success of the law of diffusion of innovation. First, the famous failure. It's a commercial example. As we said before, the recipe for successis money and the right people and the right market conditions. You should have success then. Look at TiVo. From the time TiVo came out about eight or nine years ago to this current day, they are the single highest-quality product on the market, hands down, there is no dispute. They were extremely well-funded. Market conditions were fantastic. I mean, we use TiVo as verb. I TiVo stuff on my piece-of-junk Time Warner DVR all the time.
(Laughter)
But TiVo's a commercial failure. They've never made money. And when they went IPO, their stock was at about 30 or 40 dollars and then plummeted, and it's never traded above 10. In fact, I don't think it's even traded above six, except for a couple of little spikes.
Because you see, when TiVo launched their product, they told us all what they had. They said, "We have a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, rewinds live TV and memorizes your viewing habitswithout you even asking." And the cynical majority said, "We don't believe you. We don't need it. We don't like it. You're scaring us."
What if they had said, "If you're the kind of person who likes to have total control over every aspect of your life, boy, do we have a product for you. It pauses live TV, skips commercials, memorizes your viewing habits, etc., etc." People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it, and what you do simply serves as the proof of what you believe.
Now let me give you a successful example of the law of diffusion of innovation. In the summer of 1963,250,000 people showed up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr. King speak. They sent out no invitations, and there was no website to check the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn't the only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn't the only man in America who suffered in a pre-civil rights America. In fact, some of his ideas were bad. But he had a gift. He didn't go around telling people what needed to change in America. He went around and told people what he believed. "I believe, I believe, I believe," he told people. And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people. And some of those people created structures to get the word out to even more people. And lo and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day at the right time to hear him speak.
How many of them showed up for him? Zero. They showed up for themselves. It's what they believed about America that got them to travel in a bus for eight hours to stand in the sun in Washington in the middle of August. It's what they believed, and it wasn't about black versus white: 25% of the audience was white.
Dr. King believed that there are two types of laws in this world: those that are made by a higher authority and those that are made by men. And not until all the laws that are made by men are consistent with the laws made by the higher authority will we live in a just world. It just so happened that the Civil Rights Movement was the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We followed, not for him, but for ourselves. By the way, he gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a plan" speech.
(Laughter)
Listen to politicians now, with their comprehensive 12-point plans. They're not inspiring anybody.Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority,but those who lead inspire us. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves.And it's those who start with "why" that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
As a magician,I try to create images that make people stop and think.I also try to challenge myselfto do things that doctors say are not possible.I was buried alive in New York City in a coffin,buried alive in a coffin in April,1999,for a week.I lived there with nothing but water.And it ended up being so much funthat I decided I could pursue doing more of these things.The next one is I froze myself in a block of icefor three days and three nights in New York City.That one was way more difficult than I had expected.The one after that,I stood on top of a hundred-foot pillarfor 36 hours.I began to hallucinate so hardthat the buildings that were behind me started to look like big animal heads.
01:08
So,next I went to London.In London I lived in a glass box for 44 dayswith nothing but water.It was,for me,one of the most difficult things I'd ever done,but it was also the most beautiful.There was so many skeptics,especially the press in London,that they started flying cheeseburgers on helicopters around my box to tempt me.
01:32
(Laughter)
01:33
So,I felt very validatedwhen the New England Journal of Medicine actually used the research for science.
01:42
My next pursuit was I wanted to see how long I could go without breathing,like how long I could survive with nothing,not even air.I didn't realize that it would become the most amazing journey of my life.
01:57
As a young magician,I was obsessed with Houdini and his underwater challenges.So,I began,early on,competing against the other kids,seeing how long I could stay underwater while they went up and down to breathe,you know,five times,while I stayed under on one breath.By the time I was a teenager,I was able to hold my breath for three minutes and 30 seconds.I would later find out that was Houdini's personal record.
02:24
In 1987 I heard of a storyabout a boy that fell through ice and was trapped under a river.He was underneath,not breathing for 45 minutes.When the rescue workers came,they resuscitated him and there was no brain damage.His core temperature had dropped to 77 degrees.As a magician,I think everything is possible.And I think if something is done by one person,it can be done by others.I started to think,if the boy could survive without breathing for that long,there must be a way that I could do it.
03:03
So,I met with a top neurosurgeon.And I asked him,how long is it possible to go without breathing,like how long could I go without air?And he said to me that anything over six minutesyou have a serious risk of hypoxic brain damage.So,I took that as a challenge,basically.
03:22
(Laughter)
03:24
My first try,I figured that I could do something similar,and I created a water tank,and I filled it with ice and freezing cold water.And I stayed inside of that water tankhoping my core temperature would start to drop.And I was shivering.In my first attempt to hold my breath,I couldn't even last a minute.So,I realized that was completely not going to work.
03:50
I went to talk to a doctor friend --and I asked him,"How could I do that?""I want to hold my breath for a really long time. How could it be done?"And he said,"David,you're a magician,create the illusion of not breathing,it will be much easier."
04:09
(Laughter)
04:12
So,he came up with this idea of creating a rebreather,with a CO2 scrubber,which was basically a tube from Home Depot,with a balloon duct-taped to it,that he thought we could put inside of me,and somehow be able to circulate the air and rebreathewith this thing in me.This is a little hard to watch.But this is that attempt.So,that clearly wasn't going to work.
04:51
(Laughter)
04:55
Then I actually started thinking about liquid breathing.There is a chemical that's called perflubron.And it's so high in oxygen levels that in theory you could breathe it.So,I got my hands on that chemical,filled the sink up with it,and stuck my face in the sinkand tried to breathe that in,which was really impossible.It's basically like trying to breathe,as a doctor said,while having an elephant standing on your chest.So,that idea disappeared.
05:23
Then I started thinking,would it be possible to hook up a heart/lung bypass machineand have a surgery where it was a tube going into my artery,and then appear to not breathe while they were oxygenating my blood?Which was another insane idea,obviously.
05:41
Then I thought about the craziest idea of all the ideas:to actually do it.
05:48
(Laughter)
05:49
To actually try to hold my breath past the pointthat doctors would consider you brain dead.So,I started researching into pearl divers.You know,because they go down for four minutes on one breath.And when I was researching pearl divers,I found the world of free-diving.It was the most amazing thing that I ever discovered,pretty much.There is many different aspects to free-diving.There is depth records,where people go as deep as they can.And then there is static apnea.That's holding your breath as long as you canin one place without moving.That was the one that I studied.
06:29
The first thing that I learned is when you're holding your breath,you should never move at all;that wastes energy.And that depletes oxygen,and it builds up CO2 in your blood.So,I learned never to move.And I learned how to slow my heart rate down.I had to remain perfectly still and just relaxand think that I wasn't in my body,and just control that.And then I learned how to purge.Purging is basically hyperventilating.You blow in and out --
06:55
(Breathing loudly)
07:00
You do that,you get lightheaded,you get tingling.And you're really ridding your body of CO2.So,when you hold your breath,it's infinitely easier.Then I learned that you have to take a huge breath,and just hold and relax and never let any air out,and just hold and relax through all the pain.
07:20
Every morning,this is for months,I would wake up and the first thing that I would dois I would hold my breathfor,out of 52 minutes,I would hold my breath for 44 minutes.So,basically what that means is I would purge,I'd breathe really hard for a minute.And I would hold,immediately after,for five and a half minutes.Then I would breathe again for a minute,purging as hard as I can,then immediately after that I would hold again for five and a half minutes.I would repeat this process eight times in a row.Out of 52 minutes,you're only breathing for eight minutes.At the end of that you're completely fried,your brain.You feel like you're walking around in a daze.And you have these awful headaches.Basically,I'm not the best person to talk to when I'm doing that stuff.
08:05
I started learning about the world-record holder.His name is Tom Sietas.And this guy is perfectly built for holding his breath.He's six foot four. He's 160 pounds.And his total lung capacity is twice the size of an average person.I'm six foot one,and fat.We'll say big-boned.
08:27
(Laughter)
08:29
I had to drop 50 pounds in three months.So,everything that I put into my body,I considered as medicine.Every bit of food was exactly what it was for its nutritional value.I ate really small controlled portions throughout the day.And I started to really adapt my body.
08:50
[Individual results may vary]
08:52
(Laughter)
08:55
The thinner I was,the longer I was able to hold my breath.And by eating so well and training so hard,my resting heart-rate dropped to 38 beats per minute.Which is lower than most Olympic athletes.In four months of training,I was able to hold my breath for over seven minutes.I wanted to try holding my breath everywhere.I wanted to try it in the most extreme situationsto see if I could slow my heart rate down under duress.
09:23
(Laughter)
09:27
I decided that I was going to break the world recordlive on prime-time television.The world record was eight minutes and 58 seconds,held by Tom Sietas,that guy with the whale lungs I told you about.I assumed that I could put a water tank at Lincoln Centerand if I stayed there a week not eating,I would get comfortable in that situation and I would slow my metabolism,which I was sure would help me hold my breathlonger than I had been able to do it.I was completely wrong.
09:59
I entered the sphere a week before the scheduled air date.And I thought everything seemed to be on track.Two days before my big breath-hold attempt,for the record,the producers of my television specialthought that just watching somebody holding their breath,and almost drowning,is too boring for television.
10:21
(Laughter)
10:23
So,I had to add handcuffs,while holding my breath,to escape from.This was a critical mistake.Because of the movement,I was wasting oxygen.And by seven minutes I had gone into these awful convulsions.By 7:08,I started to black out.And by seven minutes and 30 seconds,they had to pull my body out and bring me back.I had failed on every level.
10:59
(Laughter)
11:01
So,naturally,the only way out of the slump that I could think of was,I decided to call Oprah.
11:09
(Laughter)
11:13
I told her that I wanted to up the anteand hold my breath longer than any human being ever had.This was a different record.This was a pure O2 static apnea recordthat Guinness had set the world record at 13 minutes.So,basically you breathe pure O2 first,oxygenating your body,flushing out CO2,and you are able to hold much longer.I realized that my real competition was the beaver.
11:42
(Laughter)
11:47
(Laughter ends)
11:49
In January of '08,Oprah gave me four months to prepare and train.So,I would sleep in a hypoxic tent every night.A hypoxic tent is a tent that simulates altitude at 15,000 feet.So,it's like base camp,Everest.What that does is,you start building up the red bloodcell count in your body,which helps you carry oxygen better.Every morning,again,after getting out of that tent,your brain is completely wiped out.My first attempt on pure O2,I was able to go up to 15 minutes.So,it was a pretty big success.
12:27
The neurosurgeon pulled me out of the waterbecause in his mind,at 15 minutes your brain is done,you're brain dead.So,he pulled me up,and I was fine.There was one person there that was definitely not impressed.It was my ex-girlfriend.While I was breaking the record underwater for the first time,she was sifting through my Blackberry,checking all my messages.
12:50
(Laughter)
12:53
My brother had a picture of it. It is really --
12:55
(Laughter)
12:59
(Laughter ends)
13:00
I then announced that I was going to go for Sietas' record,publicly.And what he did in response,is he went on Regis and Kelly,and broke his old record.Then his main competitor went out and broke his record.So,he suddenly pushed the record up to 16 minutes and 32 seconds.Which was three minutes longer than I had prepared.It was longer than the record.
13:27
I wanted to get the Science Times to document this.I wanted to get them to do a piece on it.So,I did what any personseriously pursuing scientific advancement would do.I walked into the New York Times offices and did card tricks to everybody.
13:45
(Laughter)
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13:49
So,I don't know if it was the magic or the lure of the Cayman Islands,but John Tierney flew downand did a piece on the seriousness of breath-holding.
13:57
While he was there,I tried to impress him,of course.And I did a dive down to 160 feet,which is basically the height of a 16 story building,and as I was coming up,I blacked out underwater,which is really dangerous;that's how you drown.Luckily,Kirk had seen me and he swam over and pulled me up.
14:15
So,I started full focus.I completely trained to get my breath-hold time upfor what I needed to do.But there was no way to prepare for the live television aspect of it,being on Oprah.But in practice,I would do it face down,floating on the pool.But for TV they wanted me to be upright so they could see my face,basically.The other problem was the suit was so buoyantthat they had to strap my feet in to keep me from floating up.So,I had to use my legs to hold my feet into the straps that were loose,which was a real problem for me.That made me extremely nervous,raising the heart rate.
14:57
Then,what they also did was,which we never did before,is there was a heart-rate monitor.And it was right next to the sphere.So,every time my heart would beat,I'd hear the beep-beep-beep-beep,you know,the ticking,really loud.Which was making me more nervous.And there was no way to slow my heart rate down.Normally,I would start at 38 beats per minute,and while holding my breath,it would drop to 12 beats per minute,which is pretty unusual.
15:26
(Laughter)
15:32
This time it started at 120 beats,and it never went down.I spent the first five minutes underwaterdesperately trying to slow my heart rate down.I was just sitting there thinking,"I've got to slow this down. I'm going to fail."And I was getting more nervous.And the heart rate just kept going up and up,all the way up to 150 beats.Basically it's the same thing that created my downfall at Lincoln Center.It was a waste of O2.When I made it to the halfway mark,at eight minutes,I was 100 percent certainthat I was not going to be able to make this.There was no way for me to do it.
16:13
I figured,Oprah had dedicated an hourto doing this breath-hold thing,if I had cracked early,it would be a whole show about how depressed I am.
16:22
(Laughter)
16:24
So,I figured I'm better off just fighting and staying there until I black out,at least then they can pull me out and take care of me and all that.
16:31
(Laughter)
16:35
I kept pushing to 10 minutes.At 10 minutes you start getting all these really strong tingling sensationsin your fingers and toes.And I knew that that was blood shunting,when the blood rushes away from your extremitiesto provide oxygen to your vital organs.At 11 minutes I started feeling throbbing sensations in my legs,and my lips started to feel really strange.
17:00
At minute 12 I started to have ringing in my ears,and I started to feel my arm going numb.And I'm a hypochondriac,and I remember arm numb means heart attack.So,I started to really get really paranoid.Then at 13 minutes,maybe because of the hypochondria,I started feeling pains all over my chest.It was awful.
17:22
(Laughter)
17:23
At 14 minutes,I had these awful contractions,like this urge to breathe.
17:29
(Laughter)
17:34
(Laughter ends)
17:37
At 15 minutes I was suffering major O2 deprivation to the heart.And I started having ischemia to the heart.My heartbeat would go from 120 to 50,to 150,to 40,to 20,to 150 again.It would skip a beat.It would start. It would stop. And I felt all this.And I was sure that I was going to have a heart attack.
18:00
So,at 16 minutes what I did is I slid my feet outbecause I knew that if I did go out,if I did have a heart attack,they'd have to jump into the binding and take my feet outbefore pulling me up.I was really nervous.I let my feet out,and I started floating to the top.And I didn't take my head out.But I was just floating there waiting for my heart to stop,just waiting.
18:21
They had doctors with the "Pst," you know,sitting there waiting.And then suddenly I hear screaming.And I think that there is some weird thing --that I had died or something had happened.And then I realized that I had made it to 16:32.So,with the energy of everybody that was there,I decided to keep pushing.And I went to 17 minutes and four seconds.
18:43
(Applause)
18:51
(Applause ends)
18:53
As though that wasn't enough,what I did immediately afteris I went to Quest Labsand had them take every blood sample that they couldto test for everything and to see where my levels were,so the doctors could use it,once again.I also didn't want anybody to question it.I had the world record and I wanted to make sure it was legitimate.
19:10
So,I get to New York City the next day,I'm walking out of the Apple store,and this kid walks up to me he's like,"Yo,D!"I'm like "Yeah?"He said,"If you really held your breath that long,why'd you come out of the water dry?"I was like "What?"
19:27
(Laughter)
19:29
And that's my life. So --
19:31
(Laughter)
19:36
As a magician,I try to show things to peoplethat seem impossible.And I think magic,whether I'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards,is pretty simple.It's practice,it's training,and it's --(Sobs)It's practice,it's training and experimenting,
19:54
(Sobs)
19:55
while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be.And that's what magic is to me,so,thank you.
20:02
(Applause)
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