That Sheehan Family foundation and many things to jack and mary, our sponsors for this venue Trinity United Methodist church. And also to those donors and to make the free festival events possible. 90 of revenue comes from donors just like you. So look in your program for instructions how to download. Immediately following the presentation celeste will be signing purchase copies of her book and if you plan to stay for the following author presentation and then we can let everybody in that we can so take a moment to set your phone to do not disturb or turn it off. No flasht photography. If you dont know how the dont take that picture questionandanswer major hand they will bring a microphone to you. Dont start asking your question until the microphone gets there. So please keep your questions short so from Savannah State university. The host of the georgia Public Broadcasting Program as well as the cohost of the correspondent for National Public radio and classically trained soprano and has even written a book called we need to talk a very good book about communications i will have my wife read that very soon. [laughter] please give a warm welcome to t19t19. [applause] i am a buddhist so this feels a little uncomfortable. So for generation after generation to cause an argument we dont talk about it so politics and religion willll be address and Climate Change and guns and eventually we will add everything until we are not talking about anything anymore. We dont talk to people unless they agree with you or if you will never be challenged you cannot learn anything new. Also forgive me if i get emotional because after the shooting in florida last week i keep seeing those headlines saying it was the unspeakable tragedy but it is not. You have to speak about it. [applause] so most of us that disagree with us. You can get along with peopled. Who dont agree with you and you can talk to them and instead of avoiding the subjectsts what you have to learn to talk to them without arguing. So to tell you exactly how tomu do that there is a number of steps and stop trying to change peoples money. Stop trying to convince them when his last time you had a disagreement . H i am completely wrong you are right. [laughter] that is totally changed my mind. That doesnt happen science can tell you that. They dont change their minds over the course of the conversation and the intent to change peoples minds we can frustrated and miserable so part of the reason we are arguing is we are trying to change peoples minds and beating your head against the wall repeatedly. I will never do that again it is the beating of the head against the wall making you upset. You have control over what they think this is 100 not in your control. What you think of what you hear what you listen to so to say we will have this out score points and win the debate that will make you upset and instead of doing that to sample not leave this conversation that you can accomplish that 100 of the time. I dont care guns is more divisive than race or abortion or samesex marriage or marijuana. Really . Really . We cant talk about firearms . I do care if you are a member of the nra. How many of you know everything you need to know about guns and you dont have to learn from anybody ever . You really thank you know everythingn about guns . I own a smart phone i dont know everything about that phone. There isth no issue on which you can tell me you are the ultimate expert with nothing to learn about it. That is not true. And that means you have to change your habits. Imr sorry but im tired of doing the same thing over and over and over in the disruptor hands to say they called me an idiot. Of course they did because they did not listen to you. If we plan to progress you cannot stand on principle. You are just standing and not going anywhere. How many of you made promises about what you were going to do . And then n ended up . When i had a kid when i was pregnant i said i would never raise my voice to my child in anger. [laughter] we all make principles in ourak heads. It is ridiculous to think they will never change. But then it would be a huge pain in the butt was my son. You have to evolve but to put our own comfort above Everything Else but comfort is the enemy of innovation and growth we have created bubbles around ourselves. So with after all the research to have Academic Research going on that they are telling us the same thing over and over. Because social media which we dreamed would open up a conversation those who were nervous state your opinion open the conversation and it did the opposite. It turns out people who get shut down on social media are less likely to have a facetoface conversation social media shutting down conversation so the smart phones in her hands they would increase the conversations that we have. So at this point the average american that he spent 30 minute today texting Companies Like cocacola in cisco in j. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs use their phones so little they eliminated the voice mail syste system. But heres the thing your smart phone is a crappy replacement for conversation. I do not know why we keep inventing new replacement for the things that human beings do better than any other species. S. Probably the only thing we do better than other species. Im not trying to be funny but we all know we lose a fight with a mosquito. But the one thing that we do well the reason we have dominated on the planet is because we collaborate because when you mess with one human you usually mess with a bunch of others. That is why we have succeeded. The formula we are messing with. We are breaking it so google tricks us to think we are an expert everything. We are beginning to think in and of ourselves maybe our family unit there is no replacement for the human voice it is so complex and magical science cannot explain how this works research at princeton right now called neuro coupling they had one person come in to be hooked up to a functional Magnetic Imaging machine while the person is conscious and they have them tell a story from their life one case it was a story of prom then they listen to her tell the story. And they found something miraculous that when these people were listening in the engaged way their brains synced up moving in perfect inc. It was so exact the listeners brains change by a fraction of the second that is mind meld if you see that in star trek you would think it is realistic but that is what happens when the parent human ears listens to a human voice. Wewe cant explain it, we dont know how or why. But that is something humans do that other species cant. We can bond with one another. Beyond what science can tract. And now we replace that with the mlg. [laughter] seriously. And move it up one inch. And move it back one inch. Thats the Compassion Center of your brain. And when the process of forgiveness begins, you have to get an apology in some form and your Compassion Center goes on and that leads you to the whole rest of the process that makes you able to forgive the person and forget about it. I someone reads an apology in any form nothing happens. You send an apology by email or god forbid, text, nothing, crickets. Why do we avoid calling the person or seeing them to apologize . Why . Its easier. That is exactly right. It is tough to say youre sorry to member. Its really tough. And its painful and, get what,own apologizing to someone and they either hear or see it is tough for you, bing, the Compassion Center lights up, and then the process begins. The apology is effective because its hard. And if its not hard, theres no point. This is another way in which you cannot replace human communication between one voice and one pair of ears. And, listen, there are tons of things humans do tear my. A lot of ways that our smartphone can fill in for things were not great at. Our brains are not computers. Right . Our memories are bad. We are bad at storing information, and then recalling it when we want to. So, thats what a computer is for. Thats great. Thats awesome. And, like it or not, even though most people cant find their way home from the Grocery Store without their phones anymore, gps is pretty awesome. We used to have to rely on people to give us directions to their houses. Remember that . Some people are terrible at it. And after following their crappy directions and getting loss, you get to their house and youre like, hi. Yeah. That doesnt happen anymore. You dont have to get angry at your flippeds and family members for giving you terrible, terrible directions. You have a gps. Thats fantastic. Mine, i use it tell mets if theres a traffic jam, which is i live in atlanta. There are plenty things for us to use technology for. But not conversation. Theres in replacement. It cant be improved upon at this point. And the other part of that is, the adoption of Smartphone Technology has been so rapid. As of i think it was 2003, only maybe 10 of American Adults in the United States owned a cell phone. Raise your hand if you own a smartphone right now. Over 90 , in the world more people have access 0 cell phone than access to a working toilet. That is incredibly rapid growth and has outpaced or ability to understand the effect, because clinical studies take years, and then they have to be Peer Reviewed and then the have to be replicated. So were only now beginning to see some of the effects of smartphones on our brains. And its not great. For example, they did a study in the uk in which they had hundreds of people come in and sit done and have a conversation if with strangers and then ask them, tell us about the other person . What were they like, friendly, blah blah blah. In half of the conversations they would come and place a cell phone down on the table. I months to neither person and never made a noise. But in those conversations in which there was a cell phone present, and visible. They were 62 more likely to come out and say the person was unfriendly, untrustworthy and up likeable. I want you to think about how many times you have again to lunch with somebody and just set your cell phone down on the table and felt good because you didnt look at it. The thing is, its having an effect on their brain because they can see it. And the other side of that is, its having an effect on your brain because part of your brain, they say, about 1 of your brian, is thinking about that cell phone. Its basically in fight or flight mode. Ready for it to make a noise. Which means, if you are sitting at your desk and one of the people that habitually keeps your email client all the time. Your iq drops by ten points. Because part of your brain is thinking about the email. It is occupied in wonder, its making sure its ready for that notification to come in. So, again, im not telling you to get rid of your cell phone. Just saying, put it away. When its time to have a conversation, put it away. Dont put it down. Put it away. Its not about getting rid of technology and becoming the unibomber in a shack. Its about being aware of the power of that technology and being smart about it. Its not about not letting technology do the things were bad at. Its about reclaiming the things we do better than anybody else. Reclaiming what is basically our humanity. And theres more really, really mindblowing research. My favorite researcher, and my son would tell you that shows what dork i am because i have a favorite researcher is a guy named nicholas eppley, and he has been researching intangibles of human nature for years. Just recently a few months ago he did this very long study, not just nicholas. But a bunch of people. When how read an opinion you dent agree with, whether its in a newspaper, book, an email, facebook, if we read it, we are much moyer likely to think we disagree because that person is stupid and ignorant of the real issues. If we hear someone telling us the same opinion, whether its recorded in a podcast, doesnt mary. If we hear their voice telling us that opinion were much more lickly to think they disagree with us because they have a different experience and perspective. And what that means is that the human voice is literally humanizing. It is the voice itself, some quality of the human voice, that helps to us recognize each other as human beings, deserving of respect, and we do deserve respect. Every person deserves respect. Not every opinion but every person. And it also means that this process that were going through right now, of transferring all of our communication to the digital world, is dehumanizing us. Of course we hate each other. We dont see each other as human beings, deserving of respect. And this is not a partisan issue. I you think, absolutely though, liberals are always jerks, or the other way. Doesnt matter what youre thinking are its not partisan. Every Single Person is equally appropriate prone to do this to the other side. Equally prone to confirmation bias. Its where you believe something and then someone gives you evidence proving that belief is wrong, and it makes you believe it harder. We are the only species that suffers from confirmation bias. And that is because confirmation bias is not helpful. Well, its not really helpful. If you have a cat and the cat truly believes theres no cats in the next room i mean, mouse. Sorry a mouse and the mouse totally believes theres no cat in the next room, and you show them evidence of cats in the next room, lots of cats and that makes the mouse believe harder there are no cats in the next room, mice would basically be wiped off the face of the planet. So you have to ask yourself, why do we have confirmation bias . Why do all of us have confirmation bias, and how does it help us . Because, frankly, why would it survive through all of millenia of evolution, if it did not in some way help. And ill tell you what i believe, even though we fully dont understand it yet. I think confirmation bias is actually a strength. Think it proves to us constantly we need each other. That we need to talk to each other. Because we are our own checks and balances. I need you guys to tell me when ive said something nutballs. And i need to believe you. We need each other. All of us. There is no virtue in saying, i dont talk to people like that. Its not a virtue. I dont care how vial you think their opinion is. Thats not something to brag about. You can talk to everybody. And ill just give you two examples. One is georgias own, does anyone know who rein nona clayton is . One person. A street name after her in atlanta. She was a good friend of the kings, dr. King and his wife, coretta. She when they decided to great the great neighborhoods initiative, Great Society initiative to strengthen neighborhoods in atlanta, she was the head of the program and had a whole bunch of different neighborhood captains, and the mayor came to her and said, listen, i have to warn you because the was an africanamerican still is an africanamerican woman. Hasnt changed. One of your neighborhood captains is a grand dragon in the kkk. Just so you know. And she described that very first meeting where all the captains name and one refuse today touch her or shake her hand. She was, oops, thats the one. So, he would come in from time to time and sit in her office and she would talk to him. About whatever. And she says, dr. King told her, you dont try to change hearts. Leave that to god. You have no control over whether a heart is changed. You dont have that power. But you can be a human being and respectful, and thats what she did. And they would talk to each other. He ended up coming, sometimes two or three times a week and sat down. At one point she asked him why do you keep coming sneer you dont even like me. And he says, i know, but i like to talk to you. And about a year later, after all this, he held a press conference and he renounced his membership in the kkk. And he said, just because this woman you probably never heard of, because i was wrong. And i rule give you one more example. Another black guy, africanamerican, a jazz pianist, darryl davis. A pbs documentary called accidental courtesy. What he does is convince people to leave the kkk and hate organizations, and he is so successful that he almost dismantled the kkk operation in the state of maryland. And people ask him, what do you say . What is it your saying to convince them . He says, i dont say anything. In fact, he said this is really important he said, by actively listening to them i am passively teaching them about myself. And sometimes people just need to be heard. And this is what i would say to you after telling you, you cant change peoples minds, after dr. King said you cant change anybodys hearts, and thats true. Sometimes. Sometimes the act of listening can be such a gift, it he can be such an act of love, that you may not be aware of when it happens, over time, you can change people and more importantly, you can be changed. By listening and by being heard. We have about 25 minutes left. I can keep talking but there are usually a lot of questions, so im going to go ahead and take questions if you have them. If there arent any, ill keep going. Celeste, over here. Far back. Oh, i see you. Right here. A couple years ago you came to savannah and dade ted caulk, and ted talk and it was one of the best ever. Thank you, 13 million views, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] tell us something you learned doing a ted talk. Next time get a haircut and put on makeup. [laughter] that is what i learned. Other people will be watching this. Brush your hair. Wait, they want me here and here. Theyll bring you a microphone. Okay. You talked about the challenges to great conversations but you didnt say anything specific about how to have great conversations. Well, thats because i wrote a book about it. And it took me a long time. No, i mean, the number one challenge to having a great conversation is listening and its not just a matter of none of you are going to leave here and say, shes right, im going to be a great listener. Human beings are not born knowing how to listen well. Were just not. Its not something we do well. As a species. Anyone who has been around a baby knows that. Right . You dont come out of the womb knowing how to listen. You come out of the womb knowing how to scream, and some of us never stop. Listening hawse to be taught. Thats the secret. How many of you were offered at some point a public speaking course in your life . How many of were offered a listening course in your life . Yeah, like two. It really is its something you have to learn. Quite literally. Incredible research out of australia the School System inside