The Fear Of Change Vs The Fear Of Complacency

imagine

if a patent clerk tried to change the

laws of physics

imagine being able to become a friend

with anyone in the world

imagine your job didn’t even exist when

you were born

well these three things have already

happened

that peyton clerk changed the world of

science forever

his name was albert einstein we can all

send a friend request

with a click of a button this was made

possible

by mark zuckerberg i was born in 1999

youtube was created in 2005 and in 2018

youtube became my job hello nice to meet

you

my name is adam bills and yep i really

just did that i compare myself to mark

zuckerberg and einstein why not first

ted talk

see these things that i’ve laid out are

all results of change

being able to embrace it live with it

imagine it i’ll give you change

imagine doing your first ted talk in

front of a bunch of cameras and laptops

instead of a real audience

that’s a change we probably couldn’t

have seen coming 12 to 18 months ago

but we adapt we overcome and i mean look

we’re all here today

this event is going ahead why because

it’s change

that makes us versatile

when i say imagine change what’s the

first thing that comes to your head

imagine changing your phone imagine

changing your car

imagine changing something you do in

everyday life

see when i say imagine change we

probably all think about these small

little changes

almost like new year’s resolutions

little promises that we like to make to

help make life that little bit better

whether that’s to get healthier get

smarter

improve our mental health little

promises

just to better ourselves in some way i

mean i’m constantly asking myself

imagine eating less packets of crisps

every day my little brother he’s always

asking imagine spending less time

playing xbox

and my mom well she’s always asking

imagine if i would clean the house more

still working on that change but doesn’t

mean it’s not right

but then we go to the other side of the

spectrum

of change i like to think about change

in this

range the range of change i like to call

it

imagine if i was a poet but one side we

have the small little changes to help

better our lives in some way

then we have change in the other side

this is where we have

our mark zuckerbergs or albert einsteins

or thomas edisons and so on

people on this side made a change to

better humanity as a whole

a change that impacted all of our lives

as we know it so we have the

small little changes on this side then

we have the huge

massive changes in the other but

what about the middle see these

middle changes are the changes that

change

our own lives the most

so we have the small changes that help

us become better people the big changes

and these middle changes is what changes

us and guess what these are the scariest

changes to make because

no matter how many new year’s

resolutions you set yourself in the

matter

how many times it took thomas edison to

light a bulb it’s these middle changes

that impact us the most

i’m talking about changes that affect

you for the rest of your life

changes that set you on a different path

changes that are very hard to undo

and to be honest when i first decided to

take this ted talk i was a bit skeptical

on what people

think because of my age and because i’m

a bit younger than other ted speakers

that i’ve seen in the past but that

doesn’t mean

i don’t have a story to tell

these big metal changes that we’re

scared to make often get dismissed

by these series of statements oh it’s

too risky

i don’t have the time uh maybe another

day

i’m comfortable where i am i don’t need

to do it

what did i get from it oh sure it’s

already been done

up would you wise up that’s never going

to happen well

i’ve got news for you change is never

going to happen with that attitude

wise up now what would you say

if i said imagine a child right this

child

goes to school he’s doing great at

school getting on great with friends

he’s excelling in all of his subjects so

much so in fact that he got 11a stars at

gcse

what would you say well you’d probably

say okay well this is

very clearly a young academic person who

has their head screwed on

fair enough now what would you say

if i said that young academic person

sacrificed all that

to start a youtube channel what would

you say no

well you probably say okay well this is

very clearly a stupid young person who

doesn’t have their head screwed

on trust me i’ve been called worse

that child that i was talking about is

in fact me

someone who was once very academic going

places had the likes of

oxford and harvard university in their

crosshairs

what made me want to go from that to

uploading videos online

see change means something

it means going from point a to point

b but it’s this

transition that scares people

how was i ever going to tell my teachers

that i didn’t really fancy the likes of

oxford or cambridge never mind wanting

to go to university at all

how was i going to tell my parents how

did i explain that how you what when

it’s in this moment that inhabits change

the fear of change

but what if we didn’t fear change at all

why are we not telling our children the

exact same theme

of this ted talk imagine change

why is a society have we accepted this

traditional flow of passage where we

we go to school go to university and get

a job somewhere

no what i’m not saying is that all kids

should just drop out of school and

become youtubers that’s not what i’m

saying but what i’m saying is for kids

to open their eyes more but

let’s let’s rewind a second

what if i told you that stupid young

person who threw his life away

two years later bought his mum and dad

the house of their dreams bought himself

his dream car

became a host in one of the longest

running kids tv programs in the planet

and invested so much so into property

that he wouldn’t have to worry about

paying his mom and dad

their wages to leave their full-time

jobs would you say noy

you know what doesn’t matter it doesn’t

matter because you judged him

you judged him based solely on that

change he committed to

you didn’t give him the chance and it’s

this problem why we don’t have more

young people asking themselves

imagine change it’s that judgment that

makes

imagining change even harder

the funny thing is that making a change

brings about more change

there’s a lot of change in these

sentences if you haven’t noticed already

for example i didn’t think i would ever

be stood here

on this red dot and you know what

i want to fill this with that

that’s that off the bucket list i also

didn’t think i’d be stood here caressing

carpet during my first ted talk but

there you go

but now i’m gonna i’m gonna throw a

spanner in the works that made me want

to imagine change

all the time and everything that i do

breathe work on

and it was this what if instead of being

afraid of change

we feared complacency the complacency of

the norm

is what i’m scared of and it’s why i

have this constant battle with myself

to always be thinking on my toes always

trying to be better

i know that if i ever get comfortable

i’m doing something wrong

i know these middle changes are the

scariest to make but they’re also the

hardest to carry through with personally

it takes a lot of guts to imagine change

in a world where

there’s not a lot of judgment both

online and offline

so i salute you to all those

people who went through one of those

middle changes

in your lives you have my respect

because a lot of the time these people

made the leap

before they could even see the safety

net

we have to imagine change before we

begin

to move toward it thank you for

listening to my ted talk