TEDxTampaBay, Happiness and Ushahidi by Grant R. Nieddu at State of the Spark.com

TEDxTampaBay, Happiness and Ushahidi

If you have been able to think above Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs any time recently, you may have heard of TED.com, or the Technology-Entertainment-Design forum.

Not many actually have. Even fewer have heard of TEDx, the local TED affiliated conferences.

I have thrived off of TED for the last 2 years, watching their forum videos by everyone from Tony Robbins, to the Google guys, to Al Gore, to Muhammad Yunus. (See my two favorite videos below!)

Quick note about TED; it is a convention of the best-of-the-best illuminaries from a vast array of areas of expertise sharing principles and ideas. If you are familiar at all with our work with Principles in the Raw, then you know we are all about principles.

So, TED is for me.

And, somehow, I managed to get an invitation to TEDxTampaBay! And what an honor and powerful event it was!

The organizing team impressed me beyond measure and ignited me for so much more. And, more importantly, as a TED conference should, it got me thinking…

Happiness is Not Only a Virtue, Its Organic

What was interesting to watch unfold was the live, spontaneous evolution of the conference. You could even see it in the speakers and presenters as each subsequent speaker delivered.Happiness.

Happiness as a theme arose quite decidedly. From Brent Britton’s talk directly about happiness, to Emily Roff’s acoustic jazzy lyrics about seeking happiness and relationships, to Diego Uribe’s search for peace and happiness in dynamic balance and releasing a false-paradigm of eternal expansionism, Happiness presented herself very clearly. The professional pizza maker and the poet laureate alike expressed that one of the major principles in their life’s success to be attributed to the active pursuit of happiness.

Aside from being a powerful dynamic of this meeting of minds, I cannot help but wonder how telling this is that the world is priming for a great leap forward toward not only attention and desire for happiness but also an active pursuit of it.

AGES: Agrarian, Industrial, Information, Knowledge, and then..?

In his book, The 8th Habit, Steven Covey conveys one of the most powerful cases for the coming age; the Age of Wisdom.

Aside from being one of the most powerful reads I have found in some time (I started in January and am still plowing through it), it also looks to the future age of humanity. Between its useful and interesting understanding of human nature and its plan of action on implementing a value-based life both personally and organizationally is a stark and clear message; we are on a path to Happiness. It is not a given, but as a race, he indirectly poses, we are on that trajectory.

Check out the powerful 16 min. talk by clicking the photo.

And if Diego Uribe, my favorate TEDxTampaBay speaker, is correct, a “massive corrective action” is coming due as a response to the unsustainable nature of the Industrial Age. In the midst of the Industrial Age, he said, an assumption gained acceptance of continuous expansion, a universal manifest destiny of sorts.

Expansion as an ideal was accepted and passed on for several generations. This manifests as “more, more, more”, “bigger is better”, and the erroneous concept that technology is here so that we can accomplish, do, see, and produce more. Diego says that this is wrong on one account; the principle is not true at every level.

Instead, he believes that the correct principle is that of expansion and contraction. He says that once a thing has expanded to is natural limit, a massive correct action is due.

That correction, I believe, will be a complete reversal from expansionist pursuits (more/bigger business, more clothes, more parishioners, etc.) and contract (less is more, dynamically-balanced life, quiet time, etc.)

This will be a switch from pursuit of “more” to a socially noticeable pursuit of “happiness.”

Covey calls it the transition to The Age of Wisdom

I believe that we are already well on our way.

The amount of dissatisfaction I hear from friends, clients, and family is astounding. Not to ignore our immense amount of wealth relative to the rest of the world. (A post on Prosperity Disparity and Haiti coming soon. I promise.) However, this discontentment is evidence that we want something else, not necessarily something more. These things tell of a coming transition.

Our pursuit of Successes in whatever forms we have chosen to pursue are failing to fulfill us. It is high time we moved on to Significance. Not that Success is bad. Successes, acquisitions, attainments are good things and can teach us much (in the proper context of course.)

The main thing it will teach us, I believe, is the pearl of wisdom that says

It is not what we get but what we give that gives us Significance.

I foresee a society-wide transition to a massive focus on how we can serve others. This “entropy of prosperity” will be THE move of the millennium. It will not be social welfare, but society ensuring the well-being of one another.

It will be a good this for us to move away from the Age of Knowledge and into the Age of Wisdom.

Individuals Are Catching On, and, thus, Are Their Businesses

In the wake of the recent Haitian earthquakes that claimed the lives of over 200,000 mothers, fathers, children, and house-hold providers in an already devastated nation, a human-focused team of TED-sters offered their gifts.

The Ushahidi.com (Ory Okolloh, Erik Hersman, and more) stepped up to the plate to offer their gifts in this extraordinary time of need. They were young, Successful and Significant people sparking themselves and others by offering their gifts and talents in the service of others. They have attested to achieving great amounts of fulfillment through their service. Several of the founders were TED interns and believe in living a life of humanitarianism, to serve their fellow man.

As people take on the responsibility to move from Success-focus (what can I obtain?Earn? Keep? Get?) to Significance-focus (how can I help? who can I help? what can I give?), their work ignites as well, as it did with Ushahidi.

TOM’s shoes (which donates a free pair of shoes for each purchased from them)
Intentional Chocolate (which donates 50% of their net)
Even the books Jason Northington (the Architect of Wow) and I are writing together, Principles in the Raw (which will give away a Haitian Creole version of our books for each one purchased.)

The trend toward a society-wide Age of Wisdom is here and happening. It is exploding around the world, and lighting up the hearts of many.

But there is a lot of work left.

I recently read that if America micro-loaned just 1% of its income (to informed, responsible hands) it could improve the standard of living for poorest 1 billion people by 50%.

TED has had the profound effect in my life of putting my focus on how I can help. Our work in Haiti has opened my eyes to the gritty breadth and width of the need in the world.

The more developed we become, the more we experience the lack of fulfillment in most Successes, the quicker we will realize that we could be putting our hands to more important matters. We could be doing the same work, seeing the same degree of profits, and still be Significantly improving the lives of those around us and in other countries.

I encourage you to learn from groups like TED, Ushahidi, CPI Haiti, or whoever you can meet up with.
I encourage you to seek ways to give back.
I encourage you to get involved, get informed, and get in the mix of those ushering in the Age of Wisdom.

Now, I must digress as the need calls my typing-fingers away.

Grant R. Nieddu