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