Transcriber: Lara Su Yaman
Reviewer: Ines Dif What if I told you that every little
choice you make could be the beginning of an incredible journey? Doesn't
that sound exciting? Let's do a little exercise together. I invite you to close your eyes for a
moment, and I’m going to do it with you, of course. As you do so let the sound of
whispers fade into the background. Now in this silent space, think
of a small decision, small choice that you made. Maybe one
without even thinking about it. Somethin
g that became a pivotal
moment in your life. Visualize the chain of
events that followed. As you start to open your eyes.
Hold on to that feeling. Hold on to that memory. I would like to welcome all
of you to Tedxteen SMU, and I would like to remind you that you're
not just opening your eyes to this beautiful room, but to the endless
possibilities that lay in the quiet moments of our everyday lives. The thoughts you just experienced are
the essence of today's theme action, potential, extraordina
ry
power that lies in the smallest choices we
make every single day. Now, until we go to this journey
of exploring action potential, I want you to consider this: What
untold stories are hidden in the small choices you make every day? Could these moments hold the secrets to the greatest transformations of your life? I invite you to join me in uncovering
tales of transformation and seeing the incredible power that lies in
choices that we often overlook. I want you to look at the acorn
on the scree
n. It is tiny. Tiny, yet it has the potential to grow
into a magnificent oak tree. Now, this acorn is not just a seed,
it is a symbol of possibilities. It is a reminder that grand outcomes often
have the most humble beginnings. Now I want to start our exploration by
taking you to the journey of past and present. I want to tell
you a little bit about the magnificent examples of action
potential that are intertwined in our history. Now, these are examples
where the smallest actions or smallest beg
innings spark the monumental transformations in
different fields of our life. If you look at the screen, you see
this beautiful lady, Hedy Lamarr. Now, in order to hear her story, we need
to travel into the early 20th century. Some of you might know her as a
renowned Hollywood actress, and she was renowned with her stunning
beauty as well as you can see. But probably most of you do not
know that she was an inventor also. What did she invent, you might ask? She co-founded Navigation Technologies
that assisted Allied forces with their torpedoes during World War II. Now, you might say, okay, we don't really
use torpedoes today, do we? Well, her inventions was the basis of
modern Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology. Now, can any of you tell me that you
haven't used Wi-Fi or Bluetooth? You cannot. The digital landscape
that she helped so much develop is part
of our daily lives, and is going to take more and more of it. She probably didn't know at the
time that today in Tbilisi, a girl named Chri
stina would give her
example as an example of action potential, as an example of how small action can
create grandiose innovations. Now let's look at the Sir
Alexander Fleming. Medical students in the audience might
know him more than others. Now, in 1928, this man found a little
petri dish that had a mold on it. It sounds pretty insignificant. Most of the people would have just
thrown it in the trash, right? That's not what he did, though. And that was the beginning that resulted
in the develop
ment of penicillin. That drug has revolutionized the
whole medicine industry, and it has changed the countless
lives since. Now, both of these stories are clear
examples of action potential, of how seemingly insignificant action can
result into groundbreaking innovation, whether in technology or in medicine. Now, I want to bring you to the present time where this principle
still holds true. Everybody knows the story of Malala,
brave girl from Pakistan. What she did was she stood up against
extre
me adversity and violence for the right of education. This not only
earned her a Nobel Peace Prize, but it caused the global movement for
the support of education for girls and for all. Or let's look
at the Wikipedia. Everybody has used the Wikipedia
at some point, but did you know that it started as a
little idea between two friends in 2001? What they wanted to do, they wanted to
build an online encyclopedia of sorts. What they did not know was that
it would become one of the most accessed info
rmational
sources in the world. Think about it for a moment. If you have a computer or any
device in that matter, an Internet which in nowadays
most of the world has. Everybody can go and find out about
any topic. This is revolutionary. This is basically democratizing
the knowledge and information for everyone. Once again, these are
examples of how one word, one stand, or one simple idea can result in
something that changes lives for generations to come. Now. Action potential isn't just
a metaph
or that we use. It is deeply rooted in the science,
specifically in the neuroscience. In the human brain, action potential
refers to a little spark of neurons. Now this happens when the neuron fires. It might sound a little out of touch of
our everyday lives, but the truth is, my dears, every single of our actions,
every single of our thoughts, everything we do comes from these tiny,
tiny electrical impulses. Now, just like these impulses decide how
we feel or what we do, so is our life. So in o
ur lives, the small actions
could become catalysts for chain of events that we
would never have imagined. Now I want to make this story
a little more relatable. So I want to tell you about my experience.
When I was fifteen, a little girl. I got accepted. I was chosen for the
Future Leaders Exchange program. Now this is an exchange program financed
by the US State Department. As a result of this win, I had to go to
United States to live there for a year. Now, this took me from everything I knew
t
o the vast expanse of the United States. You might not believe me, but before
going to United States, I had never even been to Tbilisi. Can
you believe that? My own hometown. My own country's capital. I lived in
a small hometown, Akhaltsikhe. If any of you have heard it, I remember
the first time I came to Tbilisi. It was to go to the airport,
to go to the United States. I remember the mix of fear and excitement
the first time I got into the airplane. When I got there and it was
time to go to Am
erican high school, things did not get easy. I remember
standing in front of this door open and I could see kids standing in groups,
chatting and laughing. Nobody cared who I was. Nobody cared
why I was there and what did I want to do there? It was
my job to make myself seen. I remember how my legs shake, and I remember how hard it was to take
that first step inside the building. That step wasn’t just a physical step.
It was my own action potential. It was a step into the unknown,
into the chal
lenging. And the experiences I got as a result
of that, the friendships I formed, confidence I got. It has been with
me on my journey ever since. Now, this is my personal story very
closely aligns to today's theme, because I never knew that that
small step into the doors of a high school would be the beginning
of me becoming somebody that I know I could become. It was my own way of
turning acorn into an oak tree. Now, I want to tell you about a little beautiful phenomenon that we see
when explor
ing the action potential. I'm sure many of you have heard
of Butterfly Effect. Now, Butterfly Effect originally
comes from the Chaos Theory. It was originally applied
to weather conditions. Essentially, it tells us
that tiny actions, something as tiny as a flutter
of a butterfly, could influence complex systems
and can result in magnificent and often very unpredictable outcomes,
like changing a course of tornado. The exciting part is that our life,
both personal and scientific, are full of examp
les of butterfly
effect in action. And I want to tell you about a few of them
with your permission. Now, the first thing I want to tell you
about is the start of a World War I. I'm sure many of you have heard that the assassination of one
Franz Ferdinand was the beginning of that conflict that took
countless lives and forever changed the world. But did you know that that
happened as a result of few, let's call it coincidences. And I'm
going to tell you how it went. And the assassin who was prepa
ring to
kill Archduke was waiting for him on the route that he was supposed to go on. Out of nowhere, driver decided to take
a completely different route. Of course, this was due to security. Now, what driver did not know was that
the killer got hungry and was buying a sandwich on exactly that same street. So driver himself basically brought him
the victim in front of his eyes. Now think about that. Think about the
the effects that World War I had on our world. And think about
how that tiny thin
g, the fact that the killer got hungry
and driver had an idea, caused all of that. Another beautiful
example is this letter you see on the screen. This is a letter that the Vietnam government sent to United
States president in 1946. In this letter, to put it in a nutshell, they basically asked them to help
and support their independence. Now, what did America do? They
totally ignored the letter. What happened afterwards. This ignorance
influenced Vietnam's path towards communism and ultimately r
esulted
in a Vietnam War, which was one of the deadliest wars
that the world has experienced, and it took countless lives from America
or Vietnam and again changed the world forever in ways that
none of us would want to. More modern example is the
fall of Berlin Wall. I'm sure you've all seen
this iconic photo, but did you know how it all started? And there was a press conference where
it was announced that they would ease the travel restrictions
between East and West. However, the person who wa
s responsible
to announce this made a little mistake in communicating
what the actual relaxes were. Now, this resulted in people accumulating
really fast and just destroying the wall all together. This
ended a Cold War era, just because it was a miscommunication
that somebody who was talking did not take a few seconds to get their thoughts
straight. This is fascinating. When we talk about this, it's almost
unreal to think that such tiny actions could result in these magnificent
transformations.
But here we are. This is real, and you are going to see
examples of this in your life every single day. Now all these stories, all these stories again closely aligned
to our action potential. The results might not always be positive
as in words we've discussed. However, the chain of events that
follow certain actions always, always covers a large magnitude. Now, the important part in action
potential is understanding that most of these results, these chained results,
come from these silent, smal
l decisions that we
very often overlook. I like to call them silent
whispers of life. Did you know that life speaks to you? It speaks to you in many ways,
sometimes in strange ways. It could be a thought you get. It
could be somebody you meet. It could be an event you attend
like this one today. The important part is to tune
in to these silent whispers. So I want to urge you to listen
to these silent whispers. To listen to what life is telling you,
to take chances in your life, to not be afraid
to step into the unknown. Because exactly, these are the territories
that provide us with the immense potential for
growth and development. Now, as we get close to my presentation
of action potential, I want to sum up what we talked about. We traveled through the neural
intricacies of our brain. We traveled through the
history and present. We saw how each word, each action, each thought can be a catalyst for
monumental change in the world. Now, I want to ask you to not only think
about these ide
as, but to act on them. Listen to those silent whispers. Dare to take the steps there to
find your action potential. Now imagine a world where every single
one of us realizes, appreciates, and harnesses their action potential. The world where we see the power
of our small choices and magnificent ripples that they create. For me, that is the world
where compassion, kindness and empathy are taking charge. Where we understand the immense potential
that lies within each and every one of you. I would
like to thank you for joining me in this exploration. I would like to ask you
to go forth and be the catalyst of positive change
in your life and in the world. And I want you to remember that acorn
I showed you. You know why? Because you are that acorn, within you lies the potential to change
your life and in doing so, change the world. Thank you.
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