[Applause] for those of you who don't know me I'm a famous person I've written two highly regarded books about my life and what a major literary award according to my mother now the Ted organization is very insistent that we not sell or promote anything from the stage but they said nothing about selling in the parking lot so that's where I'll be after this let's be honest you probably don't know me I've never been in People magazine but I do occasionally sign autographs and you can find my books in a real bookstore which blows my mind I grew up in rural Mississippi and that dream seemed a million miles away my high school in rural Mississippi and in Starr Mississippi actually was a very special place we were the state champions of teenage pregnancy so they brought in a lot of motivational speakers they brought in an NFL athlete who said we could have it all just like him the Navy SEAL said that if we put our minds to it we could do anything such as kill people for a living no man in my family had ever graduated from college my father was born in a home without indoor plumbing my own childhood wasn't much better our house only had like two ceiling fans but thanks to all these motivational speakers I've been infected with this idea of the American dream I wanted to achieve greatness I wanted to be the kind of young man who wore Argyle no man in my family had ever worn Argyle before and I'm not ashamed to say it I wanted to be the most famous person to graduate from my high school I wanted to write for The New Yorker or maybe just meet some people who subscribe to the magazine a quarter century later my dream came true I finally got a big fat book deal which bought my family a very luxurious home with five ceiling fans I became the first member of my family to have his name set aloud on NPR which would have felt amazing if any of them listened to NPR I've traveled the world speaking to audiences everywhere Here I am giving a recent TED talk everywhere I go onto our young people want to know how did you do it how did your dream come true and I think about all those motivational speakers from my past and about all their inspirational advice about hard work and having it all and you know what they were wrong they were liars I don't want a lie to young people about what it takes to be awesome like me you can do anything you put your mind to they said now listen I get it this is America the greatest nation in the history of the world alongside Rome and perhaps Iceland we really do have a lot of career options for centuries picking your profession was so much easier back when you did whatever your parents did which was usually to died of typhoid but today thanks to penicillin and Linkedin there exist many kinds of oppression to aspire to my first dream was to be a game warden I really liked the idea of driving around the woods and a truck arresting people for poaching which seemed like the easiest way to keep my father out of prison for poaching dad said I should be a lawyer but mom was actually a lot more open-minded she said well I don't care what you do son so long as you're a medical doctor she needed somebody to show her moles to she went on about her thyroid like it was waiting in the woods across the road with a knife and a gun everybody teachers coaches parents told me I could be anything now I know they were only trying to inspire me but telling a child that can be anything is not helpful what they need is not self confidence but self knowledge they need to discover how weird they are what all of us need to do is to find our inner freak he's in there you've all got one your inner freak is that cluster of talents that makes you the weirdo you are so okay when I was a kid I would do this weird thing where I would count syllables on my fingers TV commercials movie dialogue song lyrics I loved counting beats and I especially loved counting ten beats because I had ten fingers and if the line wasn't ten beats I would revise it in my head because ten felt true I saw the number ten we're in book titles in clothing advertisements in newspaper headlines for example Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy that's ten beats or clothing ads like Chuck Norris action jeans won't bind your legs ten beat our newspaper headlines like snake with human head found in Arkansas I've seen stranger things in Arkansas by the way or how to tell if your dog worship Satan now this obsession with 10 beats makes me a weirdo I get it I know that's why I didn't tell anybody about it I was kind of ashamed and then something even weirder happened I went off to college and I met William Shakespeare and I discovered I ambach pentameter the poetic meter that has ten beats per line but soft what light through yonder window breaks are you kidding me my inner freak was the greatest writer in human history thank you thank you it's true oh then I see Queen Mab has been with you she is the fairies midwife and comes in shape no bigger than an agate-stone on the fore-finger of an alderman drawn with a team of little atomies over men's noses as they lie asleep Mercutio is speaking about Queen Mab the fairy who gives birth to our dreams and now I had a dream I was gonna write books pretty soon I had other dreams I was gonna be wealthy and have a family exercise daily do yoga ride my bike across Europe and be really handsome which leads me to another lie we tell young people they say you can have it all family career happiness can you write around the time this photo is taken is when the NFL athlete told me I could have it all and Here I am five years later it's true does this guy on the right look like somebody who's got it all nobody tells young people that the American dream is gonna take them out behind the woodshed and beat them with a two-by-four what we need are not the false promises of self actualization what we need to achieve something great it's a little self-control it's not sexy but it works which is why I have created what I call the great American dream value menu family so this is like having children having time to mow your lawn a thousand times a year to friends so this is like church or cults everybody needs friends fun this is like hobbies like kickball or protesting a counter protesting one of my hobbies is taking baths fitness so excessive marathoning having clothes that don't make you angry five we have financing this is your day job so promotions cars that smell good and finally six the dream to write a book start a business start a war into war save the whales these are your choices and here's the deal according to my experience at any one time in your life you get to pick three that's it rude guys nobody has it all I mean at some point you can actually have all of this but not at the same time if you want to do something great you have to actually give up really cool stuff for most of my thirties I was focused on my family my day job and my dream to write a book which meant that I had no friends no fun and I was 3,000 pounds overweight which leads me to our third and final lie do what you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life it's not true false here's the truth do what you love and you'll work every day of your life and you'll never stop working at which point your spouse and children will probably leave you because you're a terrible human being at which point you will stop working because you're sad and lonely this is the dirty secret of the American dream it will turn you into a monster if you let it even an honorable dream will tempt you to abandon your friends and family or worse it will turn you into a vampire sucking the life out of everything around you what we need is not so much self absorption as self-forgetting that's what the other items on the list help you do they draw you out of yourself look at those top three family friends and fun these things will not make you famous these things will not even make you money these things will take your money they do my wife and children eat chick-fil-a and Nutella at a rate that cannot be sustained without continual infusions of cash but you know what else they do they help me forget the love of my wife and children and my mom if she's here helps me forget how hard it is to do the thing I'm called to do it's hard you're gonna need to do a lot of forgetting on the road to your own dream because chances are it's going to take you a very long time to achieve anything that feels like success which is why I tell young people if they really want to do something great what they also need to do is to get married start a family and locate one of these doesn't have to be your pool could be your friends pool it's really nice having friends with a pool but trust me you're gonna need something fun and normal to do between the day your dream is born and the day it finally comes true it's gonna take longer than you know long ago and far away I want it to be the most famous person to graduate from my high school in Starr Mississippi and I am NOT that honor belongs to country music superstar Faith Hill who also went to my high school Faith Hill has sold 40 million albums performed at the Super Bowl and been named one of People magazine's 50 most beautiful people and this is me [Laughter] guys I'm no hero I'm not an NFL athlete or a Navy SEAL or even a Faith Hill all I am is a country boy who grew up to become a famous and universally beloved author of two books that can easily be found by googling my name and for me that's enough that's my miracle more miracles can happen if we stop lying to young people and stop lying to ourselves you can't be anything but you can seek your freak and be that you can't have it all but if you willingly give up some really cool stuff you might be able to have some of it maybe even the best parts and you can't do it overnight well you can't do it overnight if you're on Saturn where a single night lasts approximately 15 earth years which is why you need friends with a pool or a pool table or a porch something to alleviate the slings and arrows of this outrageous and beautiful beast of a thing we call the American dream guys this is truth this isn't lies and you know how I know Tim beats baby thank you I'll be in the parking you