Rick Warren – he wrote a book, became popular and extremely rich, only to give 90% of the money away. Walk the talk!!
And I guess that’s the main reason I came up here today, to all of you very bright people at TED, is to say, “What’s in your hand?” What do you have that you’ve been given? Talent, background, education, freedom, networks, opportunities, wealth, ideas, creativity. What are you doing with what you’ve been given? That, to me, is the primary question about life. That, to me, is what being purpose-driven is all about. In the book I talk about how you’re wired to do certain things, you’re shaped. This little cross takes spiritual gifts, heart, ability, personality and experiences. These things shape you. And if you want to know what you ought to be doing with your life, you need to look at your shape. What am I wired to do?
TED is an nonprofit organization devoted to ‘Ideas worth spreading’. They arrange conferences and invite inspiring speakers with great ideas – to make our life better. They also record the talks and allow people watch & download the talks freely on their website.
I’ve known about TED for years but only some days ago I decided to watch my first TED talk (downloaded to my N900 phone to watch during the bus trip to work). Since I’ve watched around 10 talks and they’ve all been great trips to new topics and ideas!
Start with this one, Hans Rosling. Great topic, awesome visualization and he’s a fun guy to watch and listen! On the site you can download the video and also read the transcript.
Economic growth to me, as a public-health professor, is the most important thing for development, because it explains 80 percent of survival. Governance. To have a government that functions — that’s what brought California out of the misery of 1850. It was the government which made law function finally. Education, human resources are important. Health is also important, but not that much as a mean. Environment is important. Human rights is also important, but it just gets one cross.
Now what about goals? Where are we going toward? We are not interested in money. Money is not a goal. It’s the best mean, but I give it zero as a goal. Governance, well it’s fun to vote in a little thing, but it’s not a goal. And going to school, that’s not a goal, it’s a mean. Health I give two points. I mean it’s nice to be healthy — at my age especially — you can stand here, you’re healthy. And that’s good, it gets two plusses. Environment is very, very crucial. There’s nothing for the grandkid if you don’t save up. But where are the important goals? Of course, it’s human rights. Human rights is the goal, but it’s not that strong of a mean for achieving development. And culture. Culture is the most important thing, I would say, because that’s what brings joy to life. That’s the value of living.
Last weekend I inherited a GPS tracker from my aunt who got it as subscription gift from a magazine. It says ‘Geotech’ in the back, it has a small 1 inch LCD screen, a on/off button and a four-way button (M, UP, DOWN, ENTER).
I'm a Christian, physics research assistant, wannabe-photographer, biker, Open Source & Linux fan from Helsinki, Finland. I'm passionate about leadership, organization behavior and culture. Check my LinkedIn profile.
