Full video

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[Music]

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[Applause]

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a few years ago I felt like I was stuck

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in a rut so I decided to follow in the

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footsteps of the Great American

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philosopher Morgan Spurlock and try

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something new for 30 days the idea is

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actually pretty simple think about

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something you've always wanted to add to

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your life and try it for the next 30

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days it turns out 30 days is just about

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the right amount of time to add a new

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habit or subtract a habit like watching

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the news from your life there's a few

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things that I learned while doing these

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30-day

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challenges the first was instead of the

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months flying by forgotten the time was

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much more memorable this was part of a

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challenge I did to take a picture every

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day for a month and I remember exactly

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where I was and what I was doing that

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day I also noticed that as I started to

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do more and harder 30-day challenges my

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self-confidence grew I went from desk

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dwelling computer nerd to the kind of

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guy who bikes to work for

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fun even last year I ended up hiking up

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Mount kilamanjaro the highest mountain

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in Africa I would never have been that

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adventurous before I started my 30-day

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challenge

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I also figured out that if you really

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want something badly enough you can do

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anything for 30

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days have you ever wanted to write a

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novel every November tens of thousands

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of people try to write their own

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50,000-word novel from scratch in 30

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days it turns out all you have to do is

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write 1667 words a day for a

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month so I did by the way secret is not

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to go to sleep until you've written your

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words for the day you might be sleep

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deprived but you'll finish your

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novel now is my book The Next Great

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American novel no I wrote it in a month

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it's

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awful but for the rest of my life if I

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meet John Hodgman at a Ted party I don't

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have to say I'm a computer scientist no

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no if I want to I can say I'm a novelist

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[Applause]

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so here's one last thing I'd like to

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mention I learned that when I made small

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sustainable changes things I could keep

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doing they were more likely to stick

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there's nothing wrong with big crazy

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challenges in fact they're a ton of fun

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but they're less likely to stick when I

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gave up sugar for 30 days day 31 looked

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like

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this so here's my question to you what

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are you waiting for I guarantee you the

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next 30 days are going to pass whether

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you like it or not so why not think

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about something you have always wanted

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to try and give it a shot for the next

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30 days thanks

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[Music]