How to achieve your most ambitious goals

By a show of hands, Queenie Lee was the reviewer and translator, Oriel Yu. How many of you think that using just a pencil and sheet of paper, you could draw this same picture of Brad Pitt? I'll walk you through the process now. And in doing so, I will impart to you the knowledge and abilities required to become a professional artist. Additionally, it shouldn't take longer than fifteen seconds. How many of you think you could reproduce this image of a solid gray square, though, before I do that? Every single one of us, laughing. You can also make two, three, or nine gray squares if you can only make one. In actuality, it would be extremely difficult to argue that you couldn't manufacture every gray square required to replicate the image in its whole if you could only make one. There you have it, then. I just taught you the abilities you need to become a top-tier artist. (laughing) I understand your thoughts. 

Let me introduce you to Chuck Close. "That's not real art, certainly wouldn't make me a world-class artist." This precise technique has been used by one of the highest-earning artists in the world for decades. You see, the things that prevent us from realizing even our highest aspirations have much less to do with having some sort of magical ability or talent and much more to do with the way we approach issues and choose how to resolve them.

Furthermore, due to the ongoing and cumulative character of the millions of decisions we must make every day, even a small enhancement in our workflow can have a profound effect on our final outcomes. And I'll show you by looking at Novak Djokovic's career to demonstrate this. When he started playing tennis professionally in 2004, he was ranked 680th in the world. He didn't rise to the third spot in the world until the conclusion of his third year. He increased his prize money from $250,000 to $5 million annually, and naturally, he achieved this by winning more matches. 2011 saw him rise to the top of the world rankings for men's tennis, start taking home an average of $14 million in prize money annually, and win an impressive 90% of his matches. Here's what makes all of these astounding statistics so fascinating. None of them are within Novak's authority. What he can influence, though, are all the seemingly insignificant choices he must make along the route to tip the odds in his favor and produce these kinds of outcomes. And by looking at the percentage of points he wins, we can measure and monitor his improvement in this area.

I prefer to call this his choice success rate since in a regular tennis point, there are one to maybe three decisions involved. Therefore, he was winning roughly 49% of the points he played back when he was winning roughly 49% of the matches he was playing. Then, he needed to raise his decision success rate to just 52% in order to leapfrog everybody, take the third spot in the world, and truly make five million dollars a year for just using a racquet. Then, he needed to raise his decision success rate to just 55 percent in order to surpass all previous players and possibly rank among the best. Furthermore, I keep saying "just." I don't want to give the impression that this is simple to accomplish; it's obviously not. However, everyone in this room is able to readily achieve the kind of marginal improvements I'm talking about. I'll demonstrate what I mean. All of my report cards, from kindergarten until my high school graduation (yep, that's my high school graduation)—basically stated the same thing: Steven is a very brilliant young boy—if only he would just calm down and concentrate.

They were unaware that I couldn't have it even if I wanted it more than they did. And so, I was a fairly constant C, C- student from kindergarten all the way through my second year of college. But by the time I entered my junior year, I was sick of it. I had the idea that I wanted to alter. I'm going to somewhat change, and I'm going to start taking an active role in my decision-making instead of just watching it happen. Therefore, that year, I chose to believe I wouldn't be able to settle down and concentrate on anything for longer than five or ten minutes at a period rather than pretending once more that I would. I would thus need to alter my strategy if I wanted to get the kind of result I was hoping for—performing well in school.

I therefore made a small change. I wouldn't consider reading five chapters of a book—for example—to be an assignment; I wouldn't even consider it to be one chapter. I would divide it up into manageable chores that would only take five or ten minutes of concentrated effort on my part. Thus, three or four paragraphs, perhaps. And that's it. After spending those five or ten minutes doing that, I would get up. I would go shoot some hoops, sketch for a while, and maybe play video games for a short while before returning. Just another task that needed five or ten minutes of my time, not necessarily related to the same project or even the same subject. I continued to receive straight As from that point on, making the Dean's List and President's Honor Roll each semester until I graduated. I continued my education in finance and economics at one of the best graduate schools in the world. Same strategy, same outcome. And with that, I graduate. As I begin my profession, I'm thinking, This truly seems to be working for me. You know, you take these massive ideas, these complex concepts, these large responsibilities, and you break them down into far too many smaller, more doable chores. Somewhere along the line, though, you tweak the procedure slightly to increase your chances of success. This is what I'm going to try to accomplish professionally. Thus, I did. I began my career with Credit Suisse as an exotic derivatives trader. I went on to become the worldwide head of emerging markets for AIG International and the global head of currency option trading for Bank of America as a result. For twelve years, I used it to run global macro hedge funds and achieve superior returns. I

also used it to launch and lead two hedge funds that won awards. By 2001, I'm thinking, "This whole idea worked really well in school and has been serving me well as a professional. Why am I not applying it to all those big, ambitious goals I have for myself in my personal life?" One day, I was walking to work in London, and my commute at the time involved walking from one end of Hyde Park to the other. I spent around 45 minutes traveling each way, 1.5 hours each day, 7 and a half hours per week, 30 hours per month, and 365 hours annually when I was awake and cognizant, essentially squandering time while listening to music on my iPod. I therefore made a stop at the supermarket that day on my way home from work. I downloaded the Pimsleur German language program's first 33 CDs, ripped them, and transferred them to my iPod. I didn't stop there, though. Because I'm an undisciplined person in the real world. And I knew that eventually I would return to the music and stop using the language. So I turned off all the music to avoid that temptation. My only remaining choice was to listen to the language cassettes.

After a decade, I had listened to all 99 CDs in the German language program, three times apiece. And I left for a 16-day intensive German training in Berlin. I invited my wife and children to meet me when I was finished. We explored the city on foot. The Germans spoke to me in German and I answered back to them in German. My children were in awe. (Laughter)They were unable to shut their mouths. However, as you and I both know, there's nothing particularly remarkable about what I just did. I changed my everyday routine just a little bit. This small modification to my workflow. And now, I'm going to speak a little German. I could also speak a little German now. I remember thinking at the time that learning a new language shouldn't be that simple for an elderly man like myself. That is what it is expected of you as a child. And yet, I had succeeded here. This small modification. What other lofty objectives have I been holding onto and delaying until after retirement that could be possible to accomplish if I simply made a small change to my daily schedule? I thus began doing them. My license to race cars was gained. I skydived, went rock climbing, and learned how to pilot a helicopter. I became proficient in aerobatic aircraft flying. If you're anything like me, then you may have had the same objective in 2007. I had recently returned from a trip to London. I wanted to lose the twenty-five pounds that I was overweight and out of shape. I might, then, take the conventional path and write a check to a gym that I would never visit. Alternatively, I may make a self-promise to abstain from foods that I adore but are causing so much harm. And I knew that's rarely how things work out the way you want them to. I therefore made the decision to take an active role. I considered my life's routines and passions and wondered if there was any way I could tweak them just a little bit to make them work for me rather than against me. Thus, I acted.

For the past seven years, I've made it a habit to walk for an hour and a half every day because I love being outside. I didn't really make the decision to drop 25 pounds as my new year's resolution that year. My goal is to hike every one of the thirty-three trails located in the Santa Barbara Mountains' front region. Furthermore, I had never gone on a trek before. In actuality, though, it has nothing to do with the 33 trails (laughing). This enormous, ambitious aim needs to be broken down into smaller, more manageable options. These are the kinds of decisions that must be made wisely along the road to increase your chances of getting the kind of result you want. There isn't just one trail at issue. It's all about the little choices, the ones you make when you sit at your desk and decide to put in a little extra time at the end of the day. Or perhaps you're lounging on your couch and decide to set it down while glancing through your Facebook feed or adjusting the channels on your remote control. You get dressed for hiking, step outside your house, and close the door behind you. You stroll toward your vehicle, hop in, and travel to the trailhead. At the trailhead, you step out of the car and take one step, two steps, three steps. To accomplish the desired result, each of the stages I just outlined involves a minor decision that must be made accurately along the way. People now consider the choices at the top of the mountain when I declare my desire to trek 33 routes in the front country. That isn't the main point. For there is no decision at the top of the mountain if you don't make the appropriate choice while you're lounging on the couch. I therefore trekked all 33 of the front country routes several times by the end of the year.

Some of them were even in the backwoods. I completed the world's most difficult half marathon, the Pier to Peak, to round up the year after dropping the twenty-five pounds. I set out to read fifty novels in 2009—a lofty goal for a guy who still finds it difficult to concentrate and stay focused for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Once more, though, reading 50 novels is not the goal. It goes beyond just reading one book. Reading a chapter, a paragraph, or a sentence is not the point. It's about making the choice to put down your phone when you're sitting at your desk at the end of the day, sleeping on the couch, or scrolling through Facebook. You take up a book and peruse a single page. One word read will become two words, three words, a phrase, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, a book, ten books, thirty books, fifty books. I had a lot of ambition in 2012. I made 24 resolutions for the new year. Twelve of those were what I refer to as giving resolutions—twelve acts of kindness that didn't require me to write a check. It's not without problems, though. They turned me down when I tried to donate blood since I had previously resided in the UK. They turned me down because I was too old when I wanted to donate my sperm. It seems that no one wants grey hair, despite my attempts to donate my hair. (Laughter) So here I was, attempting to do something to lift my spirits, and it was backfiring. In any case, I also set out to master 12 new talents, or 12 learning resolutions. After I finished drumming, unicycling, parkour, slacklining, leaping stilts, and all of that, my wife recommended that I take up knitting. To be honest, I wasn't particularly crazy about knitting (laughing).

However, one day I'm sitting beneath this forty-foot-tall eucalyptus tree in Santa Barbara, which is located 2.6 miles up the cold spring trail, and I can't help but imagine how awesome it would look if it was covered with yarn. (Laughter) I decided to Google this when I got home, and I discovered that yarnbombing is a real occurrence where people wrap yarn around public landmarks. And in just 82 days was the second annual International Yarn Bombing Day. (Laughter) So for the next eighty-two days, I knitted wherever I was—in a boardroom, on the trading floor, on an airline, or in a hospital. A single seam at a time. And I had completed my first-ever yarnbomb 82 days later. And the reaction to it astounded me (applause). Thus, I persisted. (Laughter) with more ambitious, larger-scale projects requiring a higher level of engineering expertise. And I set out to wrap six enormous boulders at the summit of the mountains in the Los Padres National Forest in 2014. But I would need assistance if I was going to pull this off. I was referred to as "The Yarnbomber" on social media and had a few thousand followers at this point. (laughing) I began receiving a lot of packages from 388 donors throughout all 50 states and 36 countries. Ultimately, I wrapped eight large boulders instead of just one. (Applause) So I started moving forward with larger, more ambitious projects that would call for me to work with novel materials, such as metal, wood, and fiberglass. T

his culminated in a project where I wrapped the Children's Hospital for TMC here in Tucson. (Applause) I gave up knitting sometime along the road. It was never really my taste. (laughing) However... I enjoy crocheting. (Laughter) I began creating these seven-inch granny squares since that is the norm for granny squares, but as I went along, I wondered why I was stopping at seven inches. I require large items. I therefore began to create larger granny squares. One day, after returning from a business trip, I went to the Guinness website since I had this enormous grandmother. I wanted to know what the biggest granny square in the world is. And as it happens, there isn't a category for it. (Laughter) I applied, but I was turned down. I thus filed an appeal, but it was denied. I appealed once more, and they said okay, we'll invent a new category and you'll hold the Guinness World Record if you can make it ten meters by ten meters. I

eventually achieved over half a million stitches, included over 30 miles of yarn, and became the official Guinness world record holder for the largest crocheted granny square over the course of the following two years, seven months, and 17 days—one stitch at a time. (Cheers) I've received a great deal of attention for my misadventures along the way. I have appeared in Eric News, Newsweek's magazine for artists, which is like to the Bible. When you hear these things, though, I want you to understand that I'm still that C-student. I remain that child who finds it difficult to focus or calm down for longer than five or ten minutes at a time. And I still am a guy without any unique aptitude or expertise. All I do is take these enormous, ambitious projects that people seem to be amazed by, strip them down to their most basic components, and then make small tweaks here and there to increase my chances of success. Because of this, the entire purpose of my talk is to perhaps motivate a few of you to take out some of your lofty goals and begin pursuing them by making that small change in your daily routine. I'm grateful. (Claps)