I’m at TEDx Portland, the first Portland TED event.

The first speaker today was Greg Bell, very inspiring. Here’s my notes from his talk.

Greg Bell
  • What if you started your day by clapping for each other?
  • The cynics and the negaholics are winning.
  • We need to ask ourselves different questions. if you ask yourself lousy questions, you get lousy answers.
  • Ask yourself:
    • what’s going well?
  • Even the negaholic can find something. “At least I woke up.”
  • When you wake up, it sets the tone for your day. And when you go to sleep, it sets the tone for your dreams.
  • Before my toes hit the ground, I set the tone for the day: What’s going well?
  • “I am from another planet…. I grew up in Texas.”
  • I grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing. We were so poor. So poor you can’t even imagine it.
  • But we never knew it.
  • Because of my grandfather.
  • A brilliant man, it was like living with socrates, aristotle, and plato all in one.
  • he would farm the land. my job was to bring water to him.
  • he always had a big smile on his face, and he would drop a pearl of wisdom.
  • love and wisdom multiply.
  • crossroads
    • important for us to think about
    • which way do we go in our lives?
    • three roads of battle: with ourselves, each other, and nature.
  • you are a miracle. everybody in this room is a miracle.
  • when you point to yourself, you point to your heart. follow your heart, clear your mind, and 
  • giant timber bamboo. the farmer will water the seed for a year, and see nothing. they water it for another year, and another year. but then it grows 1 1/2 feet per day to a height of 90 feet. one grove grew at 4 feet per day.
  • Water The Bamboo: Feed your dreams.
    • people will diminish your dreams. “what are you doing over there?” they don’t see anything. tell them to mind their own bamboo.
    • grandfather said “everyone gets an acre. take care of your acre.”
    • we have to be a bit more patient than our instant gratification society.
  • it takes time. 
    • no farmer in the world would ever dig up a seed to see if it is growing.
  • be a bamboo farmer.
  • have patience, persistence, discipline. 
  • None of are perfect. We need courage, because there is doubt in us.
  • Bring your heart and spirit to your life.
  • You have to have belief. How do you do that? How you talk to yourself. What your language is like. 90% of conversations are with yourself. Change your language.
  • All great things start in your head.
  • Confucius said “every great journey starts with a single step.” but really it out to start with a compass or a map or someone to follow. where are we going?
  • Happy people like what’s happening. If you make your values your habit, then you would like what’s happening, and then you would be happy.
  • find something you can do in the next 24 hours, 48 hours around your values. one thing, no matter how small. you will be happy.
  • We have math classes, and science class, but we don’t have relationship classes. What do you care about more, algebra or relationships?