Transcription
Translator: Hani Eldalees
I asked 20,000 people around the world a simple question. What are the most valuable things in your life? And no one said money or possessions. Which is interesting because I then asked Google about value, and it showed me pictures of piles of diamonds and some weird golden eggs and toilet paper made of $100 bills. So why did I embark on this seemingly random quest? Because I had a hunch that we were being sold a lie about what makes life truly rich. And I wanted to prove it not just to the world, but to myself. Because I didn't start with some lofty philosophical research on how to live a better life. Trust me. I grew up in Flint, Michigan, a place known for its water crisis and Michael Moore movies, I actually only had one ambition, which was to become a rich and famous rock star. And when I say rich, I mean like mansions and Ferraris and arenas full of adoring fans. I'm talking like MTV Cribs level, like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, kind of rich. So I would listen every day to the radio non-stop. I knew all the lyrics, every chord change, every fact about the bands, and every night I would stare at my posters on my ceiling, dreaming of touring the world and hearing people scream my name. I mean, I was obsessed. My email address was literally rockstarwannabe@Aol.com. That's right. But then reality started to set in and I got rejected from school talent shows. The guitar I saved up for got stolen. Then I heard someone say I was the worst singer in my choir class. Damn. So... so I thought maybe the rich and famous lifestyles were fading and I needed to pivot. So I made a new plan. I would become a music mogul instead. I would own the record label. I don't need to be the best guitarist or singer ever to do that, so it should be super easy, right? Not so fast. I didn't know exactly anyone who did anything in the entertainment industry. Everyone said I was unrealistic and I lived in a place that wasn't exactly Hollywood. So at 14, I embarked on my rock and roll fantasy by taking on every music-related job imaginable. I handed out thousands of flyers in the freezing cold. I ran coffee from radio stations, I sold band t-shirts out of trucks, I worked security at a venue in Detroit, I even skipped my high school prom to clean up trash at Lollapalooza for $5 an hour. Also, no one asked me to go to prom. But that's not the point of the story today, okay? And after five years of this hustle, I finally landed a job in the mailroom at a record label, where I was making a whopping $20,000 a year. And at the time, I was living in my car and on my friends' couches. To my 19-year-old self, $20,000 seemed like winning the lottery. And my awesome new job consisted of tasks like setting up a meet-and-greet with Taylor Swift, and demanding local strip clubs play the new Nine Inch Nails song. And even receiving an eviction notice for the office after a very loud visit from Kanye West. Then sadly, my office was actually shut down, but not because of Kanye. So I set my sights on Los Angeles, where the label's headquarters were, and hoped to get a glimpse of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll experience I had been dreaming of. And what I found was there was more Microsoft Excel and cubicles than I had anticipated, but it was still pretty awesome because I worked on hundreds of records and saw thousands of shows. And at night, after the concerts were over, fans would come up to the bands I was working with and tell them things like, "Your music saved my life." And, "I had my wedding to your song," and even, "I named my baby after your album." So I was watching these artists become bigger than themselves, and I realized it wasn't the actual fame and fortune that I was seeking. I was watching them make a huge impact on the lives of millions of people, and I thought it would be amazing if I could make an impact someday. And one day in my office, I stumbled upon a viral YouTube video of a 29-year-old woman named Sloan hearing for the first time thanks to a special kind of hearing aid. When I watched that video, it made me think how I wouldn't be the same person without music. My life would look so different. So I sent the video to my friend Joe, who watched and listened to my idea, which was to create a headphone and speaker company that would give back to provide people with hearing aids all over the world, just like in the video. It would be the world's first for-good social electronics company. And Joe immediately agreed to the idea, and we high-fived instead of a more formal business agreement. And I quit my dream job, the one I had worked so hard for. After cashing out my life savings, I raised $401,000 from Universal Music Group $5,000. So it turns out working with A-list stars doesn't mean you have an A-list bank account. Good to know. And two weeks later, we hopped on a plane to China with no idea how the electronics industry worked to get products for our new social venture, which we named Listen. When we returned, we filled our apartment with as much inventory as we could buy. Then we hand-made our packaging out of boxes from the local craft store, then we cobbled together our first draft of our website, then... then we prayed to every god we could think of. Then everything went perfectly. We sold the company two years later to Apple for $3 billion. (Applause) I'm just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. That was Dr. Dre and Beats. That wasn't us. (Laughs) This is not a rags-to-riches story about making billions of dollars selling headphones, but it is a different kind of rags-to-riches story, because about a year after watching that video of Sloan and dreaming of doing the same, Joe and I found ourselves at a school in Peru with a little girl named Maria. And Maria's parents told us that it was her biggest dream in life, to be able to hear so she could communicate and connect with other kids. But they had struggled for years to make it happen, and they heard about our mission from a relative who saw it on the local news, and they thought, "This might be our chance." So they hopped on a bus for hundreds of miles and came down to meet us. Maria sat there on this hard plastic chair in front of me, and she was nervous and filled with anxiety and hope, and I was in charge of fitting her hearing aids. I popped one in each of her ears. And then what happened next was just one of those moments in life that explodes. Maria's eyes widened and a look of pure wonder came across her face. She was hearing for the first time, and her parents cried as they collapsed on the floor in relief. And so did we. Because what started as a far-fetched dream just one year prior, turned into the closest thing to a miracle we had ever seen. And little did we know, this was just day one of the greatest experience of our lives. Because after that, we would travel for the next decade, to help over 50,000 people hear for the first time. From small villages in Uganda to the streets of Mumbai to the jungles of Sri Lanka. We've seen 40 countries in all 50 states and all seven wonders of the world, and we've had epic adventures along the way, like going on treks with gorillas and learning how to swing and dance with the Northern Lights. And along the way, this ripple effect started to happen, where we started to inspire other companies to add for-good social programs to their businesses. And these people have done things like plant millions of trees and fund cancer charities and help animals to save them. And of course, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, right? That's just the highlight reel. Along the way, we faced financial challenges and mental health battles and a cancer crisis and the loss of friends and family. And honestly, a lot of the things I had to buy a whole bookshelf full of self-help books and listen to them never became the biggest brand in this space. As you know, we never raised a ton of VC capital or sold the company for a billion dollars. But I felt like an experiential billionaire. And that was worth more to me than any number in a bank account. Because money is a means. It is not a meaning, it is not a purpose. And I'm not here today to tell you to quit your job and go hug trees and whistle at people in designer clothes. Everyone loves money. Everyone knows money is important, but it's not the most important. Because if it was, you would go to the hospital and you would see people on their deathbeds asking to see their wallet one last time. You would go to the cemetery and walk around and see headstones that say, "Died with $10 million in the bank." But you don't, because that would be insane, right? And these are things we all know. The problem is we don't act like it while we still have time. It's like a glitch in our psychological code. And I know this as a fact now, because as our experiences with Listen changed the way we thought about wealth and success and living a rich life, we started to wonder how others define their rich lives? And for that, we embarked on a three-step journey. First, we started by asking our friends and family questions like, "What are the most valuable experiences in your life?" And they told us stories like road trips across the country with their grandkids, finally writing that book and learning how to cook and getting married and raising a family. Then they said, "No one has ever asked me that before, and I've never thought about what truly matters to me. I've been so busy maintaining my life that I couldn't think about this kind of thing." But life wasn't created to be maintained. Life was created to be experienced. So that gave us the first key to living a rich life, which is knowing what is truly valuable to you. Next, we sought advice from people with the most life experience in elder care and nursing homes. And we asked them about their regrets. They overwhelmingly told us that they regretted the things they didn't do, not the things they did. And so I said, "Why didn't you do the thing that you wanted to do in your life?" And they said, "Well, I thought I would get around to it someday. I thought I would have more time. Then I made excuses for myself like, I'll do it when I get promoted. I'll do it. When the kids grow up. I'll do it when I retire." And that "someday" never came. And that gave us the second key to living a truly rich life, which is that we have to stop making excuses and start taking radical responsibility for our dreams, because someday is not a day on the calendar. Finally, we conducted one of the largest life experience surveys ever with over 20,000 participants around the world. And we asked them questions like, "What would you do if you knew you had one year left to live? What about one day left?" With one year left, people would embrace nature and family and new experiences. With one day left, they would seek forgiveness and mend relationships and tell the people closest to them how much they love them. So when their priorities or their time became so short, their priorities became crystal clear. So among the people we spoke to, from friends to retirees to survey participants, the most fulfilled people share one trait: they created urgency. They lived life on purpose. So the third and final key to living a rich life is to not wait. Time is our greatest currency. Fast forward to today. I stand here before you, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I am not the rich rock star or mogul I dreamed of being. I don't drive a Ferrari or live in a mansion, and the only fans I have are the ones keeping us cool here today, because those dreams are no longer mine. I am a different person now with a different definition of a rich life. So although you've just heard my story, it's not about me. It's about you. And it's about all of us. What makes us rich is the lives we touch, the relationships we have, and the dreams we pursue. And doing things that truly matter to you. So how will you build your rich life starting today? Thank you. (Applause)