When I was a young researcher, doctoral student, my first year, I had a research professor who said to us, "Here's the thing, if you cannot measure it, it does not exist."
(Laughter) And so to think that I had found my way, to found a career that takes me -- really, one of the big sayings in social work is, "Lean into the discomfort of the work."
Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word "cor, " meaning "heart" -- and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.
They didn't talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they really talk about it being excruciating -- as I had heard it earlier in the shame interviewing.
just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive."
Work in my lab is focused on the first critical period in development, and that is the period in which babies try to master which sounds are used in their language.
The babies in the United States are getting a lot better, babies in Japan are getting a lot worse, but both of those groups of babies are preparing for exactly the language that they are going to learn.
And they're saying, "Hey, this is nice, but --" Like that focus graph, a lot of the teachers said, "I have a feeling a lot of the kids are jumping around and not focusing on one topic."
The other volunteer who had arrived just before me -- let's call him Lex Luther -- (Laughter) got to the captain first and was asked to go inside and save the homeowner's dog.
And the richest people over there -- there's one billion people, and they live above what I call the "air line" -- (Laughter) because they spend more than 80 dollars a day on their consumption.
(Applause) And I want to remind you that the giants upon whose shoulders today's intelligentsia stand did not have to have English, they didn't have to pass an English test.
(Applause) When he received his award, he said these lovely words: "The children can lead Africa from what it is today, a dark continent, to a light continent."
Okay, so what this tells us is that, contrary to the old adage, "monkey see, monkey do, " the surprise really is that all of the other animals really cannot do that -- at least not very much.
Whatever it may be, you know the kind of thing I'm talking about -- people who are attracted to the ritualistic side, the moralistic, communal side of religion, but can't bear the doctrine.
So obviously when we think about nonverbal behavior, or body language -- but we call it nonverbals as social scientists -- it's language, so we think about communication.
So you have people who are like caricatures of alphas, really coming into the room, they get right into the middle of the room before class even starts, like they really want to occupy space.
They have no idea who's been posing in what pose, and they end up looking at these sets of tapes, and they say, "We want to hire these people, " all the high-power posers.
I don't have ego involved in this. (Laughter) Give it away. Share it with people, because the people who can use it the most are the ones with no resources and no technology and no status and no power.
Over the past few years, I've been wondering if I can break down this wall, so anyone who wants to understand and appreciate the beauty of this sophisticated language could do so.
Because they process information differently, each of our hemispheres think about different things, they care about different things, and, dare I say, they have very different personalities.
Eventually, the whole number gets dialed and I'm listening to the phone, and my colleague picks up the phone and he says to me, "Woo woo woo woo." (Laughter) (Laughter) And I think to myself, "Oh my gosh, he sounds like a Golden Retriever!"
At the beginning, I was going to write, "[In Arabic], " which means, "In your face, " but -- (Laughter) I decided to be smarter and I wrote, "[In Arabic], " which means, "Open your heart."
Like the harnessing of electricity in our cities, or the fall of the Berlin Wall, English represents hope for a better future -- a future where the world has a common language to solve its common problems.
Every time we make irrational demands, exhibit irresponsible behavior, or display any other signs of being normal American citizens, we are called childish.
The resident artist said they got some of their best ideas from the program, because kids don't think about the limitations of how hard it can be to blow glass into certain shapes, they just think of good ideas.
Now, I do most of my speaking in front of an education crowd -- teachers and students, and I like this analogy: It shouldn't be a teacher at the head of the class, telling students, "Do this, do that."
Okay, so they didn't tell us to become doctors or lawyers or anything like that, but my dad did read to us about Aristotle and pioneer germ-fighters, when lots of other kids were hearing "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round."
He said I was throwing my life away if that's all I chose to do with it; that I should go to college, I should become a professional person, that I had great potential and I was wasting my talent to do that."
And this gap between the West and the rest has created a mindset of the world, which we still use linguistically when we talk about "the West" and "the Developing World."
And that's what I'm going to show you, because since 1960 what has happened in the world up to 2010 is that a staggering four billion people have been added to the world population.
CA: And -- I mean, to cut a long story short -- word of the report leaked into Kenya, not from the official media, but indirectly, and in your opinion, it actually shifted the election.
CA: I mean, there's been this U.S. intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, arrested, and it's alleged that he confessed in a chat room to have leaked this video to you, along with 280, 000 classified U.S. embassy cables.
Harry went back to New York, asked his brother, an investment banker, to loan him 3, 000 dollars, and his brother's immortal words were, "You idiot, nobody eats hamburgers."
Well, in 1994, when Pete Best was interviewed -- yes, he's still a drummer; yes, he's a studio musician -- he had this to say: "I'm happier than I would have been with the Beatles."
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When I was a young researcher, doctoral student, my first year, I had a research professor who said to us, "Here's the thing, if you cannot measure it, it does not exist." 