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Thank you.
There once was a king in India, a Maharaja, and for his birthday, a decree went out
that all the chiefs should bring gifts fit for the king.
Some brought fine silks, some brought fancy swords, some brought gold.
At the end of the line came walking a very wrinkled little old man
who'd walked up from his village many many days journey by the sea.
And as he walked up, the king's son asked, "What gift do you bring for the King?"
And the old man very slowly opened his hand to reveal
a very beautiful seashell, with swirls of purple and yellow, red and blue.
And the King's son said,
"That's no gift for the King! What kind of gift is that?"
The old man looked up at him slowly and said,
"Long Walk, Part of Gift."
In a few moments I'm going to give you a gift,
a gift that I believe is a gift worth spreading. But before I do, let me take you on
my Long Walk.
Like most of you,
I started out life as a little kid. How many of you started life as a little kid?
Born young... About half of you...ok...
And the rest of you, what? You were born full-grown?
I wanna meet your momma! Talk about impossible!
As a little kid I always had a fascination with doing the impossible.
Today is a day I've been looking forward to for many many years, because
today is the day I'm going to attempt
to do the impossible right before your very eyes, right here at TEDx Maastricht.
I'm going to start by giving you a gift,
by revealing the ending: I'm going to prove to you
that the impossible is NOT impossible. And I'm going to end by giving you
a gift worth spreading:
I'm gonna show you that you can do the impossible in your life.
In my quest to do the impossible, I've found that there are
two things that are universal among people around the world: Everybody has
fears, and everyone has dreams. In my quest to do the impossible,
I've found there are three things that I do around the world, or that I've done
over my years that have
kinda caused me to do the impossible:
Dodgeball, or as you call it "Treffball",
Superman, and Mosquito. Those are my three keywords. Now you know why I do the impossible in my life.
So I'm gonna take you on my journey, my long walk
from fears to dreams, from words to swords,
from Dodgeball to Superman to Mosquito.
And I hope to show you
how you can do the impossible in your life.
October 4th, 2007: My heart was racing, my knees were shaking as I stepped out on stage at
Sanders Theatre
at Harvard University to accept the 2007
Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine for a little medical research paper I'd co-written
called "Sword Swallowing and its Side Effects" that was published in a little
medical journal that I'd never read before, the British Medical Journal.
And for me, that was an impossible
dream come true, it was an unexpected surprise for someone like me,
it was an honor I will never ever forget.
But it wasn't the most memorable part of my life.
On October 4th 1967,
this scared, shy, skinny, wimpy kid suffered from extreme fears.
As he got ready to step out on stage
his heart was racing, his knees were shaking,
he went to open his mouth to speak...
The words just would not come out. He stood trembling in tears, paralyzed in panic,
frozen in fear. This scared, shy, skinny wimpy kid
suffered from extreme fears: he had fear of the dark,
fear of heights, fear spiders and snakes, Any of you afraid of spiders and snakes?
He had a fear of water and sharks, (yeah a few of you)...
fear of doctors and nurses and dentists, and needles and drills and sharp objects.
But more than anything, he had a fear of people
that scared, shy skinny wimpy kid
was me. I had a fear of
failure and rejection, low self-esteem inferiority complex,
and something we didn't even know you could sign up for back then:
Social Anxiety Disorder
Because I had fears, the bullies would tease me and beat me up;
They used to laugh and call me names, they never let me play in any of their
reindeer games. Well, there was one game they let me play in...
Dodgeball, and I was not a good dodger.
The bullies would call my name and I'd look up and see these red dodge balls
hurtling at my face at supersonic speeds... Bam, bam, BAM
And I remember many days walking home from school,
my face was red and stinging, my ears were red and ringing
My eyes were burning with tears,
and their words were burning in my ears. And whoever said,
"Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me",
it's a LIE. Words can cut like a knife;
Words can pierce like a sword, words can make wounds that are so deep
they can't be seen.
So I had fears. And words were my worst enemy.
still are... But I also had dreams
I would go home and I'd escape to Superman comics - I'd read Superman comic books
and I
dreamed I wanted to be a superhero like Superman. I wanted to
fight for truth and justice, I want to fight against villains and kryptonite
I wanted to fly around the world doing superhuman feats and saving lives.
I also had a fascination with things that were real. I would read Guinness
Book of World Records and Ripley's Believe It or Not book
Any of you ever read Guinness Book of World Records or
Ripley's?
I love those books. And I saw a real people doing real feats.
And I said, I wanna do that. If the bullies will not let me play any of their
sports games,
I wanna do real magic, real feats; I wanna do something really remarkable that
those bullies can't do.
I want to find my purpose and calling, I want to know that my life has meaning,
I want to do something incredible to change the world.
I want to prove the impossible is NOT Impossible.
Fast forward 10 years...
It was the week before my 21st birthday, two things happened in one day
that would change my life forever. I was living in Tamil Nadu, South India
I was a missionary there and my mentor, my friend asked me, he said, "Do you have Thromes,
Daniel?"
And I said, "Thromes? What are Thromes?" He said,
"Thromes are major life goals. They're like
a combination of dreams and goals, like if you could
do anything you wanted to do, go anyplace you wanted to go, be anyone you wanted to be,
where would you go, what would you do, who would you be?
I said, "No man, I cant do that! I'm too scared! I've got too many fears!"
That night I took my little rice mat up on the roof of the bungalow
laid out underneath the stars, and watched the bats dive bombing for mosquitoes.
And all I could think about were Thromes and dreams and goals,
and those bullies with the dodgeballs. A few hours later I woke up,
my heart was racing, my knees were shaking; This time it wasn't in with fear.
My entire body was convulsing. And for the next five days
I was in and out of consciousness, on my deathbed fighting for my life,
my brain was burning up with a 105 degree malaria fever.
And whenever I was conscious, all I could think about were Thromes.
I thought "What do I want to do with my life?" Finally on the night before my 21st
birthday, in a moment of clarity,
I came to a realization: I realized that little mosquito
Anopheles Stephensi,
that little mosquito that weighs less than five micrograms, less than a grain
of salt, that mosquito could take out a 170 pound man
80 kilo man. And I realized that was my kryptonite.
Then I realized, "No, no, no, it's not themosquito, it's the little parasite inside the
mosquito,
Plasmodium Falciparum that kills over a million people a year!"
Then I realized, No, no it's even smaller than that, but to me it
seemed so much greater. I realized fear
was my kryptonite, my parasite, that had crippled and paralyze me my entire life.
You know, there's a difference between danger and fear. Danger is real,
Fear is a choice. And I realized I had a choice:
I could either live in fear and die in failure that night,
or I could put my fears to death and I could
reach for my dreams, I could dare to live life.
And you know, there's something about being on your deathbed
and facing death that actually makes you really
want to live life. I realized everyone dies, not everyone really lives.
It's in dying that we we live. You know, when you learn to die,
you really learn to live. So I decided I was gonna change
my story that night. I did not want to die. So I prayed a little prayer. I said, "God,
if you'll let me live to my 21st birthday, I will not let fear rule my life any
longer.
I'm gonna put my fears to death, I'm gonna reach for my dreams,
I'm gonna change my attitude;
I want to do something incredible with my life, to find my purpose and
calling,
I wanna know that the impossible is not impossible.
I won't tell you if I survived that night or not. I'll let you figure that out for
yourself...
But that night I made my list of my first 10 Thromes.
I decided I wanted to visit all the major continents, visit the Seven Wonders
of the World, learned a bunch of languages,
live on a deserted island, live on a ship in the ocean, live with the tribe of
Indians in the Amazon,
climb to the top of the highest mountain in Sweden, wanted to see Mount
Everest at sunrise,
I wanted to work in the music business in Nashville, wanted to work with the circus,
and I wanted to jump out of an airplane. Over the next 20 years,
I accomplished most to those thromes, Every time I would check a throme off my list,
I'd add 5 or 10 more on to my list and my list continued to grow.
For the next 7 years I lived on a little island in the
Bahamas ...for about seven years
lived in a thatched hut,
spearing sharks and stingrays to eat, the only one on the island
in a loincloth, and
I got to learn to swim with sharks. From there I moved to Mexico,
and then I moved to the Amazon River Basin
in Ecuador, Pujo Pongo Ecuador, lived with a tribe there
and little by little I began to gain confidence just by
my thromes. I moved to the music business in Nashville, and then in Sweden
moved to Stockholm, worked in the music business there where climbed to the top of Mount
Kebnekaise, high above the Arctic Circle
I learned clowning and juggling
and stilt walking, unicycle riding,
fire eating, glass eating. In 1997 I heard there were less than a dozen sword
swallowers left and I said, "I've gotta do that!"
I met a sword swallower and I asked him for some tips. He said, "I'll give you
two tips:
Number one: It's extremely dangerous, people have died doing this
Number two: Don't try it!"
So I added it to my list of thromes. And I practiced 10 to 12 times a day every
day
for four years. Now I calculated those out
four x 365 (x 10-12)
is about 13,000 unsuccessful attempts before I got my first sword
down my throat in 2001. During that time a set a throme to become the world's leading
expert in sword swallowing.
So I searched for every book magazine newspaper article,
every medical report, I study physiology,
anatomy... I talked with doctors and nurses, networked all the sword swallowers together
into the Sword Swallowers Association International,
and conducted a 2-year medical research paper on "Sword Swallowing and it's Side Effects"
that was published in the British Medical Journal...
and... thank you
and I learned some fascinating things about sword swallowing...
some things I bet you never thought about before, but you will after tonight
Next time you go home when you're cutting your steak with your knife
or a sword, your "besteck", you'll think about this...
I realized sword swallowing... I learned that sword swallowing started
in India right where I'd seen it first of all as a 20-year old kid
about 4000 years ago, about 2000 BC.
Over the past 150 years sword swallowers have been used in the fields of
science and medicine to help develop the develop the rigid endoscope in 1868
by Dr. Adolf Kusmaul
in Freiburg Germany, in 1906 the electrocardiogram in Wales
to study swallowing disorders, and digestion,
bronchialscopes, that type of thing, but over the past 150 years, we know of hundreds
of injuries and dozens of deaths...
Here's the rigid endoscope there that was developed by doctor
Adolf Kussmaul... But we discovered that there were 29 deaths over the past 150 years
or so including
this sword swallower jn London who impaled his heart with his sword.
We also learned that there from 3 to 8
serious sword swallowing injuries each year... I know because I get the phone calls every
year... I just had
two of them, one from Sweden and one from Orlando just over the past few weeks,
of sword swallowers who are in the hospital from injuries.
So it is extremely dangerous. The other thing I learned is that sword swallowing
takes from 2 years to 10 years to learn how to swallow a sword for most
for many people.
But the most fascinating discovery I learned was how sword swallowers learn
to do the impossible. And I'm gonna give you a little secret:
Don't focus on the 99.9%
that is impossible; You focus on that .1%
that is possible and you figure out how to make it possible. Now let me take you on a little
journey into the mind of a sword swallower...
In order to swallow a sword, it requires mind over matter meditation,
razor-sharp concentration, pinpoint accuracy in order to isolate
internal body organs and overcome automatic body reflexes
tthrough reinforced brain synopsis through repeated muscle memory
by deliberate practice of over 10,000 times.
Now let me take you on a little incredible journey into the body of
a sword swallower: In order to swallow a sword,
I have to slide the blade over my tongue, repress the gag reflex in the cervical
esophagus,
navigate a 90 degree turn down the epiglottis,
go through the crycopharyngeal upper esophageal sphincter,
repress the perystalys reflex, slide the blade into the chest cavity between
the lungs,
at this point at this point
I actually have to nudge my heart aside. If you watch very carefully,
you can see the heartbeat with my sword, because it's leaning against the heart
separated by about an eighth of an inch of esophageal tissue
that's not something you can fake. Then I have to slide it past the breastbone,
past the lower esophageal sphincter, down into the stomach repress the retch
reflex in the stomach, all the way down to the duodenum
piece a cake. If I were to go further than that,
all the way down to my Fallopian tubes. (Dutch: "eileiders, eierstokken")
Guys, you can ask your wives about that one later...
People ask me, they say, "It must take a lot of courage in order to risk your life
to nudge your heart and swallow a sword..." No. What takes real courage
is for that scared, shy, skinny, wimpy kid to risk failure
and rejection, to bear his heart, and swallow his pride, and stand up in front
of a bunch a total strangers
and tell you his simple story about his fears and dreams,
to risk spilling his guts, both literally and figuratively
you see... thank you
the really amazing thing is I've always wanted to do the remarkable in my life,
and now I am
but the really remarkable thing is not that I can swallow
21 swords at once, or
or 20 feet underwater in a tank of 88 sharks and stingrays for
Ripley's Believe It or Not,
or heated to 1500 degrees F red-hot for Stan Lee's Superhumans
as a "Man of Steel", (and that sucker was hot!)
or to pull a car by sword for Ripley's
or Guinness, or make it on the Finals of America's Got Talent, or win the 2007
Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine... no, that's not the really remarkable thing
That's what people think, no no no no That's not it. The really remarkable
thing is
that God could take that scared, shy, skinny wimpy kid who was afraid of heights,
who was afraid of water and sharks and doctors and nurses and needles and sharp
objects and speaking to people, and now he's got me flying around the world
at heights of 30,000 feet, swallowing sharp objects under water in tanks of
sharks,
and speaking to doctors nurses and audiences like you around the world.
That's the really amazing thing
for me. I always wanted to do the impossible... thank you
thank you
I always wanted to do the impossible and now I am
I wanted to do something remarkable with my life and change the world, and now I am.
I always wanted to fly around the world doing superhuman feats and
saving lives, and now I am.
And you know what? There's still a small part to that little kid's big dream
deep inside.
You know, I always wanted to find my purpose and calling, and now I've found it.
But guess whata? It's not with the swords, not what you think not with my strengths
it's actually with my weakness my words. My purpose in calling is to change the
world
by cutting through fear, one sword at a time, one word at a time
one knife at a time, one life at a time, to inspire people to to be superheroes
and do the impossible in
their lives. My purpose is to help others find their's.
What's yours? What's your purpose? What were you put here to do?
I believe we're all called to be superheroes
What is your superpower? Out of a world population of over 7 billion people,
there are less than a few dozen sword swallowers left around the world today
but there's only one you.
You are unique. What is your story?
What makes you different?
Tell your story, even if your voice is thin and shaky
What are your Thromes? If you could do anything, be anyone, go anywhere,
what would you do, where would you go, what would you do, what would you want to
do with your life?
What are your big dreams? What were your big dreams as a little kid? Think back...
I bet this was it, was it? What were your wildest dreams that you thought were so
strange and so obscure?
I bet this makes your dreams look not so strange after all, doesn't it?
What is your sword? Each one of you has a sword,
a double-edged sword of fears and dreams.
Swallow your sword, whatever it might be; Follow your dreams, ladies and gentlemen,
it's never too late to be whatever you wanted to be.
For those bullies with the dogdeballs, those kids who thought that I
would never do the impossible, I've got just one thing to say to them:
Thank you. Because if it weren't for villains, we wouldn't have superheroes.
I'm here to prove the impossible
is not impossible. This is extremely dangerous,
it could kill me... I hope you enjoy it.
I'm gonna need your help with this one...
No, no, no... I need your help on the counting part, all of you, ok?
if you know the words? Ok, Count with me, ready?
1, 2, 3... No that's two, but you get the idea
(screaming)
Yeah
Thank you very much
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Actually
thank you from the bottom of my stomach.
I told you I came here to do the impossible and now I have
but this was not the impossible. I do this every day. The impossible thing
was for that scared shy skinny wimpy kid to face his fears to stand up here on a
TED stage
and to change the world, one word at a time, one sword at a time,
one life at a time. If I've made you think in new ways, if I've made you believe
the impossible is not impossible,
if I've made you realize that you can do the impossible in your life,
then my job is done, and yours is just beginning. Never stop dreaming,
Never stop believing. Thank you for believing in me and thanks for being
part of my dream.
And here's my gift to you: The impossible is not...
Impossible. Long walk part of gift.
Thank you