TED Day 2 – Session 3

1) Speaker: Michael Shermer (publisher of Skeptic magazine – love it!, author, lecturer).
– For more background read “Why People Believe Weird Things?” Kind of like the print version of Mythbusters (anyone watch that show…what a day job!).
– His presentation was not really blogabble..but pretty neat about how easy it is to fool human beings.

Interlude: Stew, love the bio. Sharp sharp humor.

2) Speaker: Pastor Rick Warren (author of the second bestselling hardback nonfiction book in history, The Purpose Driven Life).

Rick Warren
– Lot of people lacking in spirituality.
– There’s more to life than just existing.
– When the book became a best-seller, he had his own crisis. It brought in lots of money and lots of attention. When he started his church, he never wanted to be a celebrity preacher. He asked himself what is the purpose of this?
– He began to think about the stewardship of affluence and the stewardship of leadership.
– Most people never establish/codify your worldview. What do you believe in? What’s important to you? What you believe determines your behavior, and your behavior determines what you become. The test of your worldview is how you act in the tough times.
– The good life is not about looking good, feeling good and having the goods, it’s about being good. He believes that human beings find significance when they give..
– Rick and his wife made 5 decisions on what to do with the money: 1) They decided not to use the money for themselves; 2) He had his church stop paying him a salary; 3) He paid back to the church all the money he’d been paid; 4) Set up three foundations focusing on the world’s big problems; 5) They became reverse tithers – now give away 90% of what they make.
– Chapter in the bible – Psalm 72. When you read it, it sounds very selfish but read the whole chapter – why is he asking for all this influence? To assist the marginalized in society. Moral of the story, the purpose of influence is so that you can speak up of those who have no influence.
– Ask yourself, what’s in your hand? What do you have in your life that you’ve been given..ideas? money? Networks? Creativity? Influence? What are you wired to do and what are you doing about it.
– God smiles when you be you.
– Some people have the misguided that God is only happy when you do “spiritual things” but the truth is that God is happy when you are doing what you were wired to do.