Transcriber: Tijana Mihajlović
Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Matt Dajer: Oh, God, you're beautiful.
Thomas Brag: Alright,
thank you guys for having us.
So, when was the last time
you felt most alive?
Was it when you
were watching TV at home
before going to bed for three hours
or playing video games?
Or was it going to work?
Or going to the same bar
you go to every weekend?
Or was it when you took a big risk,
when you walked up
to a stranger and said "hi"
and suddenly became friends?
Or when you went on a spontaneous trip
having no idea what might happen?
Or when you took on
a seemingly insurmountable challenge
and ended up overcoming it?
Three years ago
when I graduated university,
I had never felt more lost.
My entire life, I knew exactly
what I had to do:
I had to go to school, get good grades,
and I thought that
by the time I'd graduate,
I'd know exactly what I wanted to do.
But the reality was quite the opposite:
I never felt more confused.
So I ended up doing the exact opposite
of what I should have done,
which was sitting at home
in front of my computer,
just find good jobs, watching movies.
I don't want to work at the bar
around the corner.
In my mind, this was just temporary.
I was going to figure this out.
This was just a temporary
phase in my life.
I'm going to figure out what I want to do,
and I'm going to do it.
But quickly a week turned
into a month, which turned into four.
And then something terrible
but also incredible happened to me.
I was walking down the street,
coming back from the same grocery store
I walk to every single day,
and I ran into a friend
I hadn't seen in a while.
He asked me, "Hey man,
what did you do last weekend?"
I stood there for a second,
and I couldn't remember.
I was like, "Damn. I don't know."
He was like, "How do you mean
'I don’t know'? Are you crazy?
It was like five days ago."
And I kind of laughed it off awkwardly,
and we walked in separate directions.
And I couldn't stop thinking about it:
"I can't remember
what I did five days ago."
What I realized was that all of my weeks
had started to look exactly the same.
I'd fallen into a routine
and kind of turned on autopilot,
and I was just doing the same thing
over and over again.
The worst thing that could possibly
happen to humans had happened to me:
I'd become comfortable.
And the reason why that terrified
the crap out of me
is because what happens
when you become comfortable
is that time and life just flies by.
You forget what it feels like
to be in a situation
that makes your heart race,
or you palms sweat,
or give a speech in the country
that you've never been in before.
Yeah, that was kind of ... that part.
(Laughter)
But then, a few weeks after that,
I ended up meeting Matt.
And he felt the same way I did.
And we decided to make a list
of all the things that scared us:
talking to strangers,
doing stand-up comedy,
getting our ears pierced, fear of heights.
And we decided to dedicate
one month for one summer
to tackling one of those fears
or discomforts, every single day.
And the result was
that we'd never felt more alive.
I'm actually still wearing the piercing
I got on the second day.
I haven't taken it out a single time.
It's probably not that good for me.
(Laughter)
But I want to be reminded,
every single time
I look myself in the mirror,
of what we do and why we do it,
and the piercing has kind of
become that for me.
The best part about all this
is that we didn't need a lot of money
to do most of these things.
We kind of felt tricked by commercials,
because in commercials they tell you
that you need Bahamas,
you need a nice car,
and a big house to be happy.
But we'd just spent an entire month
completely broke on a stranger's couch
and had the best month of our lives.
MD: Thank you for saying that.
Alright, so that's me
on top of a mountain,
(Laughter)
butt-naked, and I'll explain why.
As Thomas explained, we've been doing
this for three years now.
And after three years, you start
to ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?
How does this make sense,
and why does every single adventure
make me so happy
and make us all so happy?"
And after doing a little research
and looking into it,
we came across an idea,
and that idea is this:
it's that every single one of you
looking up at us right now,
you are a living, breathing
hunter-gatherer
stuck in an age of robots.
Our vacations are planned
like scripts for actors,
our schools, our workplaces
are scheduled to the dot,
our meals are at the same time,
and they are the same meal
every single day.
But if we look back
12,000 years at who we were,
what were we?
Hunter-gatherers.
We were nomads without fixed homes,
omnivores without strict diet plans,
explorers without Google Maps.
But 12,000 years ago,
we got a super dope gift -
a great gift, it looked great -
and it was comfort, it was agriculture,
it was a fixed home, a fixed house,
the grocery store down the street,
the gym that you go to every morning,
the school and the workplace
that you go to at nine o'clock
and leave at five o'clock.
But what we didn't know would happen
was that this comfort
would make us extremely unhappy.
And that's what had happened to us:
we’d developed a routine.
And so, many people in society today
attack that by medicating themselves,
whether it's alcohol, drugs,
antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds,
mood suppressors,
painkillers, you name it.
And then we realized there was a problem.
And the problem lies in the fact
that we forgot our evolution,
we forgot our roots.
We forgot that our ancestors roamed
under the hot Eastern African sun,
not knowing whether they'd get food,
not knowing whether they'd get the water,
not knowing whether they'd survive.
There's a great author named Nassim Taleb,
and he wrote, "Consider that
all the wealth in the world
cannot buy a liquid as pleasurable
as water after intense thirst."
And by our very nature,
we are built to be thirsty:
thirsty for risk taking, for adventure,
for exploration, experimentation,
for trying new things.
It's how we evolved.
And so the mantra of seeking discomfort,
which we live by,
is a mantra that goes
hand in hand with humanity
because we are natural born
discomfort seekers.
So that feeling you get
when you walk up to that stranger
or walk up to that girl
that you really want to talk to,
and your heart is pounding,
or you're on stage and it's terrifying,
it's so natural and it's so pure
that when it's over,
the number one thing
you can describe it as is "human"
because that's what you
are supposed to do.
Another part of being human,
or homo sapiens,
is the fact that we are
supposed to be in tribes,
we're supposed to be in groups.
And for us that's why
it's felt so natural,
doing all that crazy stuff
together, as a group,
and sharing those experiences.
It's also why we love
taking strangers with us.
For those of you who watch our videos,
a lot of them involve asking strangers
to go sky diving with us,
or bungee jumping with us,
or throwing a party at their house
randomly that night.
Part of the reason is
because we want them in our tribe,
but the other part of the reason
is because we want
to disrupt their routine too.
Because maybe they've been working
from nine to five for the last three years
and they just need a little wake-up.
And by saying yes just once to us,
to our crazy requests,
maybe it'll spark
that thing inside of them
that says,"You know what?
Maybe I should say yes more to my gut,
to what my heart wants,
and maybe my life could be
so much more memorable."
Because every time you go
on these experiences, I'm telling you,
it makes life last so much longer.
Like, these last two to three years
have been the longest of our lives.
On this stage today,
it was supposed to be
Thomas, and I, and Ammar,
a cofounder of Yes Theory
that you saw on the videos.
Unfortunately, Ammar could not make it
due to personal reasons.
But we decided that, instead of having it
just us two boring you guys,
that we would disrupt a stranger's day,
just like we always do,
and just like we've been doing
for the last three years.
So literally two days ago
we went out on the street with Ammar,
walked up to strangers and asked,
"Would you take this ticket to Panama,
fly out here,
get up on this stage with us,
and tell your story to this audience?"
Now, public speaking
is a pretty terrifying thing.
I think it's considered
like the most terrifying thing for people.
So it's a big ask, you know,
especially in a foreign country.
And then - sorry - this is what happened.
(Video) Ammar: Hey guys, can I
ask you something real quick?
Logan: What?
A: Can I ask you something real quick?
Me and my two best friends were invited
to give a Tedx Talk in Panama, on Sunday.
For personal reasons
I can't go anywhere,
so we thought,"What a better way
to explain what Yes Theory is to people
than get a stranger to say yes
to going on stage with these guys?"
L: This is so crazy.
Are you fu*ing with us?
A: No, no.
L: If she can come with me, I'll say yes.
A: Done. L: Oh, my God!
Are you kidding me?
MD: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
our new friends, Logan and Jasmin.
(Applause) (Cheering)
L: My name is Logan
and I am from New Zealand,
and this is my good friend Jasmine.
And we are here today because we said yes.
(Applause) (Cheering)
But I almost said no.
I called someone
whose opinion I really value,
and she was not happy.
She said, "Are you crazy?
This is dangerous.
There are many other reasons.
You have, you know, priorities."
And it was at this point
where I was like,"Oh, my goodness,
have I made the right decision?
I might change my mind."
If one other person
had told me that this was crazy,
I definitely would have said no.
Isn't it wild how one person
can change everything?
One person coming up to you on the street
and asking you to do something fun,
and one person telling you,
"Don't do that. It's dangerous."
So, I've been with my gut
and the good vibes, and I said yes.
So, lately I've been working on myself,
my inner self, with a life coach,
and she puts me
in uncomfortable situations
and challenges me every day
so that I can learn about myself.
Sometimes I laugh,
when I'm really uncomfortable,
and sometimes I'm filled
with anxiety and fear,
and I'm crying,
and I don't want to do this.
Because it is so much easier
just to be mediocre and be safe
so that you don't need to worry
about fear and failure.
But I didn't want to do that.
So for the past six months,
I've been working with
the life coach on my inner self.
And if I hadn't gone through that journey,
there's no way I would have said yes
to these guys; no way.
(Laughter)
In my life I had a lot of people say,
"Oh no, that's too expensive."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that.
That's really hard."
"Oh, a lot of people
have tried that and failed."
(Laughter)
So I moved to the USA
from New Zealand six months ago,
and it was the biggest,
scariest thing I've ever done.
And I'm so glad that I did it
because I met this
wonderful woman, Jasmine,
who pushes me out of my boundaries
and helps me to be bold.
And why not be bold
and go outside of your boundaries?
Why not ask for what you want in life?
Because what's the worst that can happen?
You get a no.
M-hm.
But what if you get a yes?
You literally could be flying
to another country
with three random strangers and a friend.
(Laughter)
So because I met Yes Theory,
I have decided to challenge myself
to say yes more often,
and be bold and be brave,
and I challenge all of you to do the same.
(Applause) (Cheering)
TB: So, I'm going to wrap this up.
So what does Yes Theory mean?
Does it mean saying yes to everything?
Definitely not.
Matt did that once,
(Laughter)
and he ended up with pink hair,
spray tanned, and in a pink dress,
and we sent him to Mexico,
all the way to the airport
wearing all that.
I wouldn't recommend that,
and I don't think Matt would recommend it.
(Laughter)
So what should you take away
walking away from this?
Do you have to quit your job and drop out
of school and travel the world?
Again, definitely not.
Some of you might do that,
and that's fine,
but you don't have to do that
to live the Yes Theory.
Live the Yes Theory means
consciously making time
to doing things you've never done before.
Maybe cutting a little TV
or skipping a night out at the bar,
and instead going out in nature
on a hike you've never been on before,
or signing up to a new dancing class
and learn how to dance,
or walk up to a stranger and say "hi,"
or pack a tent at the back
of your car with a few friends,
start driving south
and just figure it out.
The point is that you don't need
to make a drastic decision in your life
to live the Yes Theory;
you can do that after school,
after work or on the weekends.
And I promise you
that by seeking discomfort,
you'll never feel more alive.
So I hope that the next time a friend
asks you to go on a spontaneous adventure,
that you'll say yes.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheering)
