Translator: Peter van de Ven
Reviewer: Ellen Maloney So, I was on a roll. I was an executive with a nice salary, annual bonuses, and stock options, all the perks. Everything was on track. And on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at three o'clock in the afternoon, in a small conference room
on the top floor of our building, the president of the company
wanted to have a quick meeting with me, which wasn't unusual since he was my boss. But the meeting turned out
to be even more brief than expected. He fired me. And I'll never forget how his words
just sucked the breath right out of me, and I left the conference room
in a dazed state, and I went home and curled up in my bed
in the fetal position for three hours. And while I could go on
in vivid detail about how I felt, what it did to my self-esteem,
my finances, and so on, what I now realize is, while that event created the greatest
amount of discomfort I had ever felt, it was that discomfort, the departure from my ordered life, that forever changed it for the better. You see, friends, what makes you comfortable can ruin you, and what makes you uncomfortable
is the only way to grow. Let me say that again: What makes you comfortable can ruin you, and only in a state of discomfort,
can you continually grow. Now, I suppose if on January 8th,
had somebody come up and said, "Gee buddy, getting fired is a good thing
because now you're really going to grow!" I probably would have smacked them. But, pretty quickly I became motivated
to start a new journey, and after a couple years
of work with my new team and a PhD friend
at the University of Nebraska, we had this epiphany on how to illustrate and apply
the science of discomfort and growth. We called the concept: the "Growth Rings." The Growth Rings represent
living environments that promote or hinder growth. And that includes everything
from your place of work, to even a fishbowl. You see, what dictates
the size of a goldfish is its environment. And while this goldfish
lives in a very safe environment, it's also very limiting in most every way. And when placed
in a more robust environment, like, say, a small pond,
this can be the result. Now, it also means he could be eaten. But friends, this is you - the environments
in which you work, live, and play, they're all a proverbial fishbowl
that dictates your growth. So, the first Growth Ring represents
a low-performing, low-growth environment, called stagnation. Stagnation is understood
by having to follow too many steps, and permissions, and minutiae. That stifles creativity,
independent thought, and action. To imagine an environment such as this, think no further than our state
and federal governments. Now, the antithesis
of stagnation is chaos, also low-growth and low-performing. Chaos can be caused by internal
or external events or conditions. We see chaos occur at times
in business mergers, natural disasters,
and horrific events like 9/11. Chaos is having
zero predictability or control over inputs and outcomes. Coming back down the Growth Rings, next to stagnation is
the most desirable environment: order. Order is knowing that what you do,
or what is happening in your environment, leads to a predictable outcome. And in predictability, comfort is found. But comfort is also
what makes order so dangerous. Because science shows that anytime
you continually do something, or even think about something
the same way, you'll eventually stop growing. And this applies to every living thing - even our dog. You see, if Aspen had a chance, she'd choose comfort six days a week
and twice on Sundays. (Laughter) But too much growth-limiting order would have prevented her
from becoming a therapy dog, and had this been allowed, think of the lives this gentle soul
would not be touching today. So, before your order continues
to limit the way you think and act, remember what I said earlier: Growth only occurs
in a state of discomfort. Now, think about the power of that phrase: Growth only occurs
in a state of discomfort. I can unequivocally state,
I wouldn't be standing on this stage today without my uncomfortable,
order-disrupting day, nine years ago - by the way I'm not recommending you go
get fired to see if it leads to a TEDTalk. (Laughter) When you feel discomfort hit, that means you've entered
the complexity ring. Complexity is nothing more
than changed order, but when your order is changed,
outcomes are no longer predictable, and it's unpredictability
that makes you uncomfortable. And while most times your visceral response to discomfort
is not just "No" but "Hell, no," you can actually learn
how empowering it is to consciously acknowledge discomfort, and then, when appropriate,
choose complexity over order. And I know seeking discomfort sounds odd,
and not many people do it, but you have to learn to embrace it because it's the only environment where sustained
or exponential growth can occur. Okay. To weave high-growth complexity
into the fabric of your lives, there are three primary ways
it can be triggered. Complexity trigger number one
is it can be forced upon you. When I got fired, I didn't have
a chance to stay in order, complexity was selected for me,
and when this happens, how much you grow
depends on how you respond to it. Now, I could have remained angry,
I could have used it as an excuse, but what I actually learned
is that I suck as an employee, and I'm much better off accepting
the risks of running my own company. Complexity trigger number two:
Someone can help you get there. This is the role of parents,
teachers, coaches, and bosses. Because left on their own, people will consciously or subconsciously
select the comfort of order. And they then need to be
pushed into complexity in order to continue growing. My youngest daughter
spent most of her high school life training to play tennis, and her coach was
pretty familiar with our work on complexity and the Growth Rings. So, I called him up one day
to check on Maddie's progress, and I was able to phrase
my question like this, I said: "Hey, Lee, how long has it been since Maddie's been pushed
deep into complexity?" Lee's response: "Hmm, funny you'd ask Bill.
We got there yesterday. She broke down into tears
on the tennis court." "Huh." Well, knowing how tough my daughter is,
and the fact that she never cries, told me she was deep into complexity. But, friends, this is where critical
developmental decisions are made because the old Bill,
the pre-Growth Ring Bill, would have intervened and wanted to know
what was making her so uncomfortable. Then I would have done everything I could
to try and get her happy again. What I really would have been doing is removing the complexity,
and putting her in order. I actually would have been stifling
her development. But the new, post-Growth Ring Bill
relished in his daughter's discomfort. (Laughter) And it was the coach's next words
that told me everything I needed to hear. He said, "Bill, I've got to tell you,
it took a heck of a lot more to get her to the limits
of complexity this month, than it did last month." Discomfort was causing her growth. Okay, but what if you're not lucky enough to live or work in a robust
high-growth environment? What if you're stuck in order,
even worse, stagnation? Well, the great news is, everyone can trigger
complexity at any time. So, complexity trigger number three:
Trigger it yourself. Take a journey with me
back to Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s. Imagine, if you will
a young girl, who's black, and she attends an all-black high school. And she takes the city bus
to get there and home, which wasn't unusual in that era. And on March 2, 1955,
she boards a bus to come home from school, and she sits near the back, in the first row of seats
where blacks were allowed to sit. And as the bus continues
to fill with white people, there's eventually
no more room in the front. And according to local law she needed to move further back
to create room for white people to sit. You see, Montgomery had an order in place that when followed,
led to a very predictable outcome: repression of people with little conflict. But 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had just spent the last month
in high school studying black history, and she was understandably fed up
with the historic and existing atrocities. And so on this day, she decided
she didn't like Montgomery's order, and by refusing to give up her seat, she sent a community, our laws,
and our entire country into complexity. Yes, nine months before Rosa Parks
made her famous decision to stay put, it was a 15-year-old girl that was handcuffed, dragged
from the bus, and taken to prison. It was Miss Colvin, not Rosa Parks,
who first fought the law, and by the way, was also the star plaintiff to testify
in the famous lawsuit that went all the way
to the US Supreme Court. So, I use Claudette's actions
not to heighten awareness of race issues, although that's not necessarily bad, but I used it as an example
of every issue, of every situation
in an ordered environment. It's a real and perfect example
of complexity forcing people, our communities,
and our courts into discomfort, and the downstream impact that can occur anytime someone elects to move from order. Dr. Serene Jones, in a recent book,
summarizes this concept very eloquently. She said: "The constant facade of order hides the wilderness that is craving
to seep out and teach us that life wasn't created
to be what we think it is. Beyond words, we must
experience the wilderness to be taught what cannot
be otherwise known." So, friends, it's not the discomfort of losing a job, it's not having a child break down
on the tennis court, but it's order you should fear the most
because it is a threat. And order-disrupting people like Jesus, Galileo,
Claudette Colvin, Aspen's trainer, and maybe even a few of you
have already proven - now, think about this - it's not the complexity-triggering
individuals or events you should fear the most, but it's your own willingness
to accept or seek discomfort that will dictate the growth
of not just you, but our entire world. Thank you very much
for allowing me to be a part of this. (Applause)
