Andrew Horn: "The Art of Meaningful Conversation" | Talks at Google

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[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE]
ANDREW HORN: Hey, Google.
Can you guys hear me?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
ANDREW HORN: We're on.
Rock and roll.
Hi, guys.
Welcome.
Awesome.
So as you can see, we're here to talk about human connection
in the digital age.
Thank you guys for taking the time to be here.
So I want to start by thanking you all, because being
at Google, I know that you could be
getting a massage for free, lunch for free, haircut
for free.
A lot of other things, but you're here with me,
and that makes me happy.
And so what I want to promise you before we dig in today
is that we're not just going to talk about human connection.
We're actually going to talk about how
to connect in a digital age.
And so my goal is that you guys walk out of here
with tangible techniques that you
can use to connect with the people you want
and the people that you want to know.
How's that sound?
AUDIENCE: Good.
AUDIENCE: Great.
ANDREW HORN: Rock and roll.
So you guys, before we dig in, this talk
is going to be broken up into three specific sections.
So stories about how I was able to take this deep yearning
for connections, curiosity about relationships,
turn it into this business that has helped 100,000
people to give what we think is the most meaningful gift
in the world.
We're going to talk about stats.
How do strong social ties and relationships affect our brains
and affect our bodies?
And we're going to talk about tangible takeaways.
So how we can actually communicate to connect.
So those are those three components.
And before we start, it's always nice to actually establish,
what is human connection?
And my favorite definition is this one by Brene Brown.
"I define connection as energy that exists between people when
they feel seen, and heard, and valued;
and when they can give and receive without judgment;
and when they derive strength and sustenance
from the relationship."
A beautiful articulation of that energy
that exists between two people when we feel connected.
And at Tribute, we've actually broken that down even further.
So we've created a construct that
can allow people to evaluate the depth of their relationships,
that which they have an abundance of, that which
they're really seeking.
And we call that AVS.
So AVS is a mutual feeling of A, appreciation,
mutual recognition of the other person.
Do you see that person?
Do you appreciate who they are?
Needs to exist for human connection.
Second, vulnerability.
Can I be honest with this person?
Can I be truthful with this person?
Can I be fully myself with this person?
Vulnerability is the bridge to connection.
Next is support, and support's a beautiful thing.
And the way you think about it in human connection
is a natural call to support and be supported.
And so these are the three components
that we can break down when human connection truly exists.
An easy way to evaluate your friendships, as well as
those new relationships that you're adding depth to.
That's our definition of human connection.
So we all know that human connection
is important to experience, to have fun, to magnify joy.
But I also want to introduce you to why we should really
care about our social ties, our relationships.
And to do that, I'm going to introduce you to a guy
named Dr. Robert Waldinger.
So Dr. Waldinger did the longest study on happiness
in our history.
It's a 75-year longitudinal study of 750 people.
When they released his research, he gave this famous TED Talk.
And also, as I was perusing through the results
of that research, there was one statement
that they literally highlighted and bolded
to emphasize its importance.
And that statement was this.
"The clearest message we got from this study
is that good relationships keep us happier and healthier.
Period.
Good relationships keep us happier and healthier.
Period."
So from this research, we can assume
that strong social ties, investing in our relationships,
is probably the smartest investment we can
make in our overall happiness.
But it goes beyond just happiness.
What about our health?
What about our brains?
What about our bodies?
So recent research also shows, people
who have strong social ties, the medical term
to connotate relationships, have longer lives, stronger
immune systems, literally higher levels of white blood cells
to fight off disease, lower levels of stress and anxiety,
and they're less likely to dive into bad habits
like smoking or drinking.
An alarming study I recently ran into said this.
Having weak social ties is as harmful to ongoing health
as being an alcoholic and twice as harmful as obesity."
So again, when we have weak social ties,
it's not just a detriment to our happiness.
It's a detriment to our health and our mental well-being.
So it's something that we need to care about.
And so now I want to tell you guys a little bit about how
I got into this line of work, how
I was able to study human connection,
start businesses that are bolstering relationships
and gratitude in the world, and started
when I was 10 years old.
The first job I can remember is selling these books
in a back of a room for my mom.
My mom's an eight-time published author.
She talks about communication, networking, articulating
the value of your ideas.
So this thread of communicating to connect
was something that was ingrained in me at a very young age.
And so one of the common threads through my childhood
was sports.
It was how I connected, playing basketball, football,
and lacrosse.
Right before I graduated, I was enlightened
to the power of adaptive athletics,
helping young people with disabilities
to unite with their peers through sports.
And that inspired me to start dreams
for Kids DC, a community that brought kids together
to play all these incredible things you see up here.
Water skiing, outdoor adventures, hockey, lacrosse.
Using sport as a facilitator of human connection.
Then I got really interested in tech,
and I started to look at bigger problems affecting
the people with disabilities in their community.
And so we built Ability List, an online platform
that allows people with disabilities
to share the resources they know about and that they need.
So again, building community with an online platform.
So this passion for connection, this curiosity
about communication took a step up to the next level
when I was 27 years old, and it all started with a gift.
So my fiance Miki is in the back of the room right now,
and on my 27th birthday, she took me out
to dinner in Brooklyn where we live.
We come back to our apartment, and I'll always
remember that I swing the door open, thinking that we're
going to have a low-key night.
Then there's a silence.
And then three, two, one, all these people jump out.
She had planned this incredible surprise party.
So I'm hanging out with all of our favorite people
in the apartment.
Halfway through the party, Miki jumps up on a chair
and she yells, (YELLING) everyone in the living room!
So everyone runs into the living room.
She sits me right in the back, and she had
rented this projection screen.
So she puts it up on the wall.
I have no idea what's going on, and I would soon find out.
So Miki had taken the time to reach out
to 25 of my closest friends and all my family members.
She asked each one of them to submit a one-minute video
telling me why they love me.
Even telling you this, I get goosebumps over my entire body.
So as I sat there in the back of the room,
these videos started to stream.
My best friend in New York calling me his best friend
for the first time ever.
My brother telling me how grateful
he is that we're finally friends again.
My mom telling me how proud of me she is.
And that was about the moment that--
what Alan Watts would call tears of wonder joy started to flow.
Not even a cute little cry, but like a big, ugly, like, massive
drops coming down.
One of those cries.
And I did that for the next 20 minutes straight.
So I remember when it stopped, the first thought
I had in my head was, wow.
I just watched my eulogy at 27, which
is a much better time to watch your eulogy, in my opinion.
So I needed a break, and I walked over to the next room,
and I just looked at Miki, and I said,
that was the best gift I've ever received.
And I said, how did you do it?
And she just looks back at me and she says,
well, it was terrible.
[LAUGHTER]
And so she says again, it was hundreds
of emails to remind people to submit their videos,
collecting files through Dropbox, drive, text message.
And last but not least, editing everything together in iMovie.
So it took her about 15 hours.
It was then and there, I had this innate understanding
of the power of this gift.
And I realized the only reason more people
didn't get it was because of how difficult it was to create.
So then and there, Tribute was born.
And so Tribute is our website that
automates the process of building
one of these gratitude-filled video montages.
It automates the process of inviting your friends,
of collecting videos.
And we built the first web-based collaborative video editor
to easily put these things together.
And it started as a simple mission
to share that joy, those tears of wonder joy
that I felt in the back of the room with the world.
And the last two years have been really fun.
So over 50,000 tributes in 40 countries around the world.
Yep, that's Regis, checking us out on "The Today Show."
That was appearance number two, which was very fun.
But most importantly, what we're most excited
about is that we feel that we're deeply
ingrained in this digital intimacy movement.
It's that we are on a mission to leverage
the power of video to spread gratitude and human connection
in the world.
It's, how can we build technology
that adds significant value to our users'
offline relationships?
And we think that this is not only something
that we are personally passionate about, but something
that is incredibly relevant right now.
Because as a society, we are more connected
than we have ever been, and we are
quantifiably lonelier than we have ever
been at the same time.
In 1980, AARP ran a study of their entire membership,
the Association for Retired Persons.
In 1980, the number of people who identified as lonely
was 20%.
That's a lot.
They did that same study in 2010,
and the number had doubled to 40%.
40% of their entire membership identifying
as lonely, at the same time when they were identifying
more connections and more acquaintances
than they were in 1980.
So next, an even more alarming study
talking about in 1985, the "American Sociological Review"
did a study.
And what they found was that in 1985,
the average person had three confidantes,
three people that they could confide in, that they
considered close friends.
When they redid that study in 2004,
that number dropped from a three to one close confidant,
to one close friend.
And to put it in even more perspective,
of the people that they surveyed, 25%
said that they didn't have one person
that they could confide in.
25% are saying that they essentially
don't have one person they consider a close friend,
and that matters.
We just talked about what happiness-- or excuse
me-- what relationships do for our happiness, what
it does for our health.
When people don't feel they belong,
they'll do crazy things to fit in.
So this is a human connection crisis.
This is something that matters, something that
deserves to be looked into.
So what's the role of technology?
Here at Google as an entrepreneur, as a designer,
how can we think about tech's role in this?
And when we first started seeing social media explode
onto the scene, there were a lot of surveys
that correlated loneliness and depression
with increased exposure to social media networks.
More research coming out today actually
has conflicting reports, whether it's actually
lonely people, depressed people who
spend more time on social media and on the internet.
And so I want to move beyond that,
and I want to focus on one thing that the research does back up,
and that is that we get out of the internet,
we get out of social media what we put into it.
And the clearest example I can leave for you
guys is that if you're on Facebook, if you're browsing
your friends' profiles passively,
if you're taking what we call the one-click actions
attribute, if you're just liking a photo,
if you're sending one on your friend's birthday to trigger
that birthday message that both of you know
took no thought, no effort, you are not
adding to your social capital.
You're going to leave that experience
feeling more isolated.
But if you're going onto these platforms,
if you are composing messages, if you are being thoughtful,
sending authentic birthday messages,
sharing the articles that you're discovering,
then you are going to leave those experiences more
connected.
So at Tribute, what we think about our design ethos is, what
are the human values of the people that are using Tribute,
as opposed to the traditional KPIs of a tech product
of virality, of interactions, of growth, of revenue?
How do we quantify the values of our users?
And that's why we have metrics like TOJ,
which literally tracks the number of recipients
who cried tears of joy.
And guess what that number is today?
80%.
80% of those 50,000 reported the recipient crying tears of joy,
quantifying the number of people who
said I love you in their videos, quantifying
the percentage of people who feel more connected
after giving their tribute.
So we move from things like more interaction to,
what is a meaningful interaction quantified by our users?
Looking at ease and focusing more on thoughtfulness.
What is a thoughtful interaction for our user?
And looking at more connections, the number of invitees,
the number of friends, and actually understanding,
what does a deep relationship look like?
And how can we move towards those relationships?
And so if we understand that we need
to help people make these thoughtful, thoughtful
decisions for themselves, that's the role of technology.
That's what we can do to help people as technologists,
as designers, as entrepreneurs.
And so at Tribute, we really believe
in the power of communication, the power of communication
to help us connect.
And like I promised in the beginning of the talk,
I really do want to help you guys walk away
from today with tangible techniques,
things that you can use in everyday interactions
with friends, family, networking events, everything you've got.
So the first thing we want to talk about
is sharing gratitude.
Sharing gratitude may seem like a simple thing in theory,
but as we talked about when we defined connection,
appreciation is that first cornerstone
of meaningful connection,
And appreciation is powerful for a few reasons.
Number one, it allows the recipient
to see those qualities in themselves that they sometimes
may deny.
Second, it reinforces those feelings
of appreciation and gratitude that we
have for that other person.
So it's literally like a mini gratitude meditation
when you actually say and articulate your gratitude
out loud.
And third and most beautifully is
when we share a compliment with someone--
and recent research backs this up--
they're not only more likely to reciprocate with us,
but they're more likely to give someone
a compliment in your local community.
So it creates this beautiful chain reaction of gratitude
every time we tell someone why we appreciate them.
And so now I want to introduce you
to a few of our favorite sharing gratitude techniques.
And so the first is not, I love you.
The first is, I love you, because.
And one thing that we should understand
is that it is not our articulation or sentiment
of affection that impacts the recipient.
So when I walk out the door, it's not,
I love you, Miki, that truly impacts her.
It's, I love you, Miki, because you inspire me,
and you support me as much as anyone I know.
It's not saying, thank you to your coworker.
It's saying, thank you.
I was going through a really tough week,
and this really helped me out.
It's when we go beyond that simple sentiment of affection
that the recipient truly feels the meaning, the intention
of what we want to express.
It's that simple transition of, I love you to, I
love you, because.
Use that one word and watch how it transforms
the way that you communicate.
The next is the idea of the power of the prompt.
And I was just talking about with Florian in the front row.
And it's the idea that sharing our gratitude
can sometimes bring on a little bit of anxiety.
We don't want to tell someone how they've impacted our lives
or that we love them, because we don't know
what they'll say back to us.
We don't know if they'll reciprocate.
We don't know if we'll make them uncomfortable.
And when we don't know those things,
oftentimes, we don't push our boundaries.
We just don't do it.
And so oftentimes, we need these prompts.
We need to help people by giving them
a question that helps them to articulate
their appreciation for someone.
So the way that we do this on Tribute is every campaign we do
is based around prompt questions.
So it's not, what do you love about Katya--
or sorry, it's not, send Katya a birthday message.
It is, what do you love about Katya?
It is, what's your favorite memory with Katya?
How has Katya impacted your life?
So prompt questions allow you to unify the conversation
for an individual.
It automatically plants an emotional sentiment
in someone's brain.
So if you ask someone a question,
now they already have this feeling,
as opposed to giving someone an open slate and saying, film
a birthday video.
Tell them you're grateful for them.
It's really when you provide that context for creativity
that people are more comfortable and compelled sharing.
So the challenge here would be, the next time that you're
at a birthday dinner, or the next time someone is taking off
or they just landed a huge project,
be what we call a conversation catalyst.
Be the person who stops the dinner and says, hey.
We're all here for Heather.
Let's go around the table and everyone tell her,
what's your favorite thing about Heather?
Be a conversation catalyst, and watch
how that unites your group, your community,
and how impactful that will be on the person
that you focus on.
Does that make sense?
Awesome.
So the next one is another simple one,
and it's the idea of being nice first.
It's that so often, we wait for permission
to share that kindness that we feel, the gratitude we feel,
the thanks that we feel.
And the way that I want to kind of ground
this in your memory banks is to think
about that saying that we all heard a thousand
times growing up.
So you tease a kid on the playground.
Your mom would see you.
She'd come over to you and she'd say,
if you don't have anything nice to say--
AUDIENCE: Don't say it at all.
ANDREW HORN: Don't say it at all.
So watch this.
If you look at those two don'ts and you get rid of them,
you know what it becomes?
If you have anything nice to say, say it all.
It's this simple idea that whenever
we have a kind feeling, a compliment,
we feel thankful for someone, there
is no good reason to ever keep that inside of your head.
Just think about any time you've ever received a compliment
and said, gross.
[LAUGHTER]
Never happened.
So if you have anything nice to say, say it all.
So next, I want to move into our second part
of the communication techniques, and that's something
that we call the art of meaningful conversation.
Before we move into this, does anyone
have any questions about that first element of sharing
gratitude, articulating our gratitude, and appreciation?
We'll open up for questions at the end as well.
So the art of meaningful conversation
is grounded in the idea that human connection
starts with communication.
So the art of meaningful conversation
is about overcoming anxiety.
It's about adding value in conversation.
It's about listening attentively.
It's about connecting and feeling
confident in any social interaction.
And we can think about it broken up this way, FAM.
Finding your authentic voice, asking better questions,
and the metamorphic two-step to translate presence.
So before we get into that, I want
to address something that is the biggest deterrent and barrier
to human connection in my opinion,
and that is social anxiety and shyness.
And so again, I want to define social anxiety in clear terms.
Social anxiety can be defined as the fear of negative judgment.
So social anxiety is the fear of negative judgment.
And another thing that I want to establish
is that recent research shows that about 60% of all people
say that they are dealing with some issues of social anxiety
or shyness.
It is not rare.
And when we were dealing with social anxiety or shyness,
we have an aversion to social interaction.
It's going to keep us from dating
the people we want to date, from meeting the friends we
want to be friends with, from getting
the job that we deserve.
And so again, if social anxiety is simply
the fear of being negatively judged,
some people leap to the assumption
that we should just stop caring what people think.
But that is not the path to connection.
That is an easy path to narcissism, and sometimes
the White House.
[LAUGHTER]
So we can start by finding our authentic voice.
And the authentic voice is this deep understanding
of who we are, what we care about, and what we want.
And the reason this is so important
is that if we don't know who we are,
what we stand for, we will constantly
revert to seeking validation from others.
It's that we will need other people
to tell us what is acceptable, what is cool,
as opposed to being driven by our own intuition, morals,
values.
And there's a simple test that you can use in any situation,
whether you're in a meeting at Google,
whether you're in a party, whether you're at Thanksgiving
dinner with your family.
That simple test is this one question.
Am I doing this because I want to be
or because I think people will like it,
or think it looks cool?
And the clearest example I can give you of this--
and we've all been there, don't even lie that you haven't--
is you're at a party.
Your friends haven't showed up.
And then you pull out your phone and you're just looking at it,
doing absolutely nothing.
Like, everyone just smiled, so we've been there.
You don't want to just do nothing on your phone.
You're doing that because you're worried
about the perception of other people thinking you're weird,
or whatever it might be.
And the easiest construct that you can think about
in these moments is, am I being driven by internal motivation
or external motivation?
Internal versus external.
Why am I doing what I'm doing right now?
Always ask yourself and remind yourself to revert back
to that internal motivation.
And we can all start.
Here's another challenge.
How to find your authentic voice starts
by articulating your answers to these questions.
And to many of them, I hope that you do.
You have a feeling, an understanding of these.
But when you actually take the time to answer them,
to put the words that these questions deserve,
you'll go into social interactions
with more power, a higher understanding of yourself,
and it will translate to greater presence and greater
connection.
And one of the beautiful things I
think about when I look at questions like this
is that, the answers will always change, and that's OK.
That's a beautiful part of life.
The questions will remain the same,
but just the mere fact that these answers will change
is not an excuse for not having an answer.
So meaningful conversation starts with us,
and establishing that understanding of self.
So the second is to ask better questions.
And one thing that we can establish
when we think about asking better
questions as a path to human connection
are these two things.
It's that when we are asking questions and listening
attentively, we will always leave a good impression
on our counterpart.
And beyond that, we will always make them feel valued.
So if we are asking questions and listening,
you are always going to leave a positive impression
on the person that you're speaking with.
On top of that, questions are the most effective path
for learning and growth.
If we are learning, if we are growing,
there is always fulfillment to be had there.
And as our pal Gandhi said, "When you talk,
you are merely repeating what you know.
When you listen, you may learn something new."
And again, I love these constructs
that allow you to evaluate how you're
being in any given moment.
And another question that you can think about.
Whenever you go into a meeting, before you
go to your next conference, ask yourself this one question.
What am I most excited to learn about this person?
It's actually taking 60 seconds before you hop on that call
and just identifying, what am I most curious about?
When you establish a foundation of curiosity
to take into any social interaction,
you now have a virtuous path through that entire interaction
because of those two things we established before.
Articulating our curiosity will lead us
into virtuous connection in every interaction.
We can trust that.
Here's another one of those constructs,
the idea of being interested over interesting.
And it actually should be an equal sign there.
It should say that if you are interested,
you are interesting, and you will be received well
by other people.
And again, this incredible quote by Einstein.
"I have no special talent.
I'm only passionately curious."
And the idea of going through life to understand people,
to understand the world, in my opinion,
is just one of the best ways to experience life,
and something we can all aspire towards.
And you can also help yourself by giving
a foundation of questions that I call your go-tos.
Is that, give yourself a leg up.
I've been talking about human connection and relationships
for so many years, but at the end of the day,
I revert back to the same questions,
because there is a through line.
There is a theme to what I want to understand about the people
I meet.
So if you think about these questions,
you can trust yourself to fall back
to these, these more virtuous paths of communication
and conversation in any given moment.
So think about what yours are.
Here's a few that I've always loved.
What are you most excited about?
What's most challenging right now?
Because when we talk about challenge and struggle,
we open up an opportunity to support and to be supported.
What's your focus at the moment?
What's important right now?
What's the dream?
Identifying what people really want to do.
And do you guys want to talk about your dreams or your day
job?
Well, you guys work at Google, so it's probably very cool.
But at the same time, talking about our dreams, what
we really want is where we can find
that energy, that passion, the stuff
that we really want to connect on.
What do you care about?
That simple question to get to what
is important to people, which is an incredible thing
to understand and get to know someone.
So the next is probably the simplest step
of all these things that we're going
to talk about in the art of meaningful conversation.
And so the reason that we need this is because presence
is tantamount if we want to connect with people.
If we have a negative internal dialogue,
if we're thinking about other things,
if I'm not right here to talk to you
and to look you in the eyes, I'm not
fully capable of articulating myself.
I can't listen to you fully.
And so presence is important.
And another thing to identify is that our brain's priority
is not to connect.
Our brain's priority is to keep us safe.
And our brain is really good at telling us all the things that
are going to go wrong.
Our brain is really good at taking us into the meeting
and telling us why this person's not
going to invest in us, about why this person's not
going to like us.
They're not going to think I'm smart.
They're not going to think I'm pretty.
Whatever it might be.
And so we need to remind our brain what
feeling good looks like.
We need to remind our brain what we want to happen.
And so it's, again, this simple two-step process
that I learned from a hypnotherapist
in New York City.
I remember, I walked into a party.
I met this guy.
and I said, so what do you do?
And he's like, well, I'm a hypnotherapist.
And I stopped and I said, I'm going
to corner you and ask you a hundred questions.
Are you OK with that?
And he was like, yes.
And so the first thing I asked is,
so what's the number one thing that people try to get rid of?
And what do you guys think it is?
AUDIENCE: Smoking.
ANDREW HORN: Smoking is the one everyone says.
That's what I said too.
But it is not smoking.
He said, self-doubt.
Self-doubt is the number one thing
that hypnotherapists are asked to cure.
And so then I went down this line of questioning.
I said, so if you want to cure someone
of self-doubt, what do you do?
And he said that the first step is articulating
the undesired state.
So putting words to this negative feeling,
because then it has less control over us.
So it's, again, before you go into that meeting,
it's actually saying, what's going to go wrong?
How do I not want to feel?
Those things that we just talked about.
They're not going to think I'm smart.
They're not going to think I'm experienced enough.
We're not going to connect.
That's the undesired state of being.
And so this one little question in step two
can change everything, and will take you
15 seconds before you go into any meaningful interaction.
How do I want to feel?
How do I want to feel?
So before I step foot in this room today, I ask myself,
how do I want to feel?
And I said, I want to be passionate.
I want to be myself.
I want to feel loose.
So happy, passionate, loose, HPL.
Now I have three things.
And whenever I have any sort of doubt or anything
that takes me out of the moment, I
have these three desired states of being
that I can tap into right now.
I am here as Andrew, the way that I want to be.
I promise you that if you just ground yourself
in the metamorphic two-step before any important meeting,
it will transform your ability to connect
in that conversation.
Does that make sense?
How do I want to feel?
Awesome.
So we're about to close.
And before we do that, I want to invite
you guys into a quick 60-second gratitude meditation.
So if you guys will just sit back
in your chairs, literally 60 seconds.
And you can close your eyes, you can open your eyes.
Whatever you're most comfortable with.
So what I'd like you to do is close your eyes,
if you'd like to.
And on the count of three, we're going
to take one big breath in.
One, two, three.
[INHALE]
[EXHALE]
And now with your eyes closed, just
feel the sensation of your breath as it goes in,
as it goes out.
And now I'd like you to think about one person
that you're grateful for.
Who is one person that's had an impact on your life?
Whether it's a mom, a dad, a best friend,
a significant other.
And just imagine that person sitting right in front of you.
They're just looking right back at you.
And now I want you guys to remember, I love you, because.
And I want you to articulate why you're grateful for them.
Why do you love them?
And sit with that for a moment.
And on the count of three, we're going to open our eyes.
Three, two, one.
And I want you to take a look at what's on the screen right now.
If you have anything nice to say, say it all.
There is no reason to keep that kindness, that
gratitude that you feel for that person who's impacted
your life, in your head.
It's that life is an incredible gift,
and to experience it with the people we love
is an even greater gift.
So my last challenge and invitation to you
guys today as we close out is if you'd like to at some point
today, right after this talk, is text
that gratitude to this person.
See how it makes you feel.
See how it makes them feel.
And hopefully, you take this into your life moving forward.
Thank you so much, guys.
[APPLAUSE]
Oh, and we actually have one final thing.
So this is John, Tribute's community manager in the back.
And so in the vein of Google and free stuff--
[LAUGHTER]
--we're going to give you guys a gift
card to create your first Tribute on the house.
So there's probably about 70 of you guys that are here.
So I want to make sure that you guys get to do this,
whether it's for a birthday, a wedding, a bar mitzvah,
anything special coming up.
And for those of you that are online watching this,
if you tweet out we tribute and this talk,
we'll also reach out to you with a free $19 gift
card to create your first DIY tribute.
Awesome.
And if there's any questions, I think
I'll look at Katya to see how we do that.
But I'd love to field any questions about kind
of our research in the field or how we got Tribute started.
Whatever's on your mind.
KATYA: So here.
There's a microphone right here.
ANDREW HORN: Hi.
AUDIENCE: Great talk.
Thank Thank you.
AUDIENCE: I love that.
So before I came to Google, I was a school counselor
at a high school in the Bronx, working with teenage girls.
And a lot of what you said kind of
makes me a little nervous for the younger generations,
just because this style of communication
now is all they know.
And I think for a lot of us in this room kind of
got the best of both worlds.
So we have the ability to tap into a lot of what you said.
So I'm just curious if you've thought at all about how
to reach a younger audience, or how
to kind of tackle those things.
Because I found it really hard for the girls to,
A, be vulnerable, and that whole, like, self-doubt thing.
They had no confidence in themselves.
So I was just curious, like your--
I don't know-- ideas on targeting a younger audience.
ANDREW HORN: Yeah, you know, so Tribute's target demographics
and where we focus on is on the 18 and above.
So where people kind of have a little more emotional
intelligence and are capable of articulating these things.
So it's not where I've spent most of my time at Tribute,
but it was where I spent a great deal of my time with Dreams
For Kids.
And I think that what we always lead
with when it comes to kids, again, are some of these values
that we talked about of leading with kindness before we get
to the communication aspect.
It's establishing that as the foundation of interaction
between people of just being able to ask yourself,
is this a kind thing?
And so I mean, when we were at Dreams For Kids, we
had this thing that we embraced at any one of our events,
because we were dealing with a lot of kids with disabilities,
is if you're ever unsure, the general consensus
was that you just go over and you ask.
And everyone just seeks to understand.
And it was basically setting this baseline
of understanding between people rather than making judgments,
and all these other things.
So I think, again, you know, I don't do a lot of work
directly with kids.
But I think that establishing that understanding
of seeking to understand your counterpart
and asking questions will still be a virtuous path, right?
I mean, when you think about your time as a counselor,
what were the biggest challenges that young girls were
finding with being vulnerable?
Just that they were being attacked,
or they weren't receiving that back to them, or--
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
A little bit of everything.
I think part of it was too, like, they couldn't
find an authentic voice, because everything
was done for a like on Instagram or for a retweet,
or whatever it was.
And they would give each other compliments on Instagram
just to get it back so that they could look at it
and say, I have 500 comments of how great I look, you know?
ANDREW HORN: So I'm so happy you said that,
because it really did just trigger something in me.
And you know, my reality is that I wasn't a great student
throughout high school and even college.
It's kind of like, I went through and I got grades,
but I was never fully present there or valued it.
And no kind of guidance, no speakers,
no counselors ever connected with me
and gave me insight or advice about how to evaluate the world
or how I wanted to live my life that really connected.
And so when we talk about starting
with the art of meaningful conversation and questions,
I think that, again, is the best place to start.
Because if you empower young people
at a young age with a foundational sense of self--
who they are, what's important to them--
I think that that's the most important thing.
And again, you can give that to a younger person
and say, here are some of the questions
that you can explore for yourself.
And when you can relay that directly back
to social anxiety and shyness and some of those things
that are much more prevalent in high school and college,
then what happens is that you give people a foundation
to say, before you can feel confident in these situations,
like, the most important thing is truly understanding,
trusting, and loving yourself.
And so we can give that to young people.
I think that that's always where I would start,
is not telling one to do anything,
but providing them with the construct to actually perform
that kind of introspection that leads
to virtuous interactions, connection,
connecting with the type of people that we need to.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
It's like almost trying to get it
proactive rather than reactive, because that was like--
we were trying to put out fires almost, you know?
And it was hard to do at that point.
ANDREW HORN: Yeah, my mom always says
that the wisest teachers are the greatest question askers.
And so that's what I would emphasize.
AUDIENCE: Cool.
Thank you.
ANDREW HORN: Yeah, absolutely.
AUDIENCE: This is a really welcome interruption
in the day.
[LAUGH]
I imagine the people in this room
are a fairly self-selecting group, as far
as being concerned about these kinds of issues.
Can you talk about times where, especially somebody who's
used to being called intense in the first meetings
now for a lot of the reasons you've discussed, how do you
navigate this when you're meeting somebody who
is unwilling to meet you at that level,
and who is uncomfortable with these kinds of questions,
or thinks that this is extremely unnatural?
ANDREW HORN: Yeah.
Absolutely.
Do you want to-- are you speaking in a business context
or social?
AUDIENCE: I think it applies to both.
So I'd be curious--
ANDREW HORN: Yeah, absolutely.
So let's start with social.
And this is something that I've had
to come to grips with as well, is again,
dealing with my own anxieties and shyness
with social interaction, and how I
wanted to show up in the world.
One thing that I've become very clear on later in life
is that it is not our responsibility
to make people feel comfortable.
It is our responsibility to be honest to ourselves.
And this is within the construct of, again,
leading with kindness, is that we cannot harm people,
so we need to lead with kindness.
But that ultimately, it is not our responsibility
to make people comfortable.
It is our responsibility to be honest with ourselves.
And if we're accepting of some of these principles
about asking questions and knowing who we are
and being fully present, I think that sometimes you
are going to interact with people
who don't connect with you, who are not on your frequency.
And I think that knowing that you've showed up in integrity
in those moments as yourself allows you to not get
hung up on them, allows you to move forward.
And the reality is that you only have limited time
on this Earth, and so those people who
aren't able to meet you where you're at
are oftentimes not those people that you're
going to connect with.
You know, I'd say that, again, in the professional context,
seeking to understand people is this virtuous path where
if people aren't going to meet you all the way at what's
your dream, and you're meeting them at--
whether it's like Penn Station or whatever it is--
I think that there's a way that you can
start earlier on to get there.
And so again, I think that just because someone can't meet you
there, like, if you were to break down again--
and you talked about, when we were chatting right here, like,
your perception of people right off the bat.
And I love the idea that your first question is not
your real question.
It's that for a lot of people, like, they
won't be able to go there right off the bat.
So what is another question right
after that that you can go into?
And again, just allowing yourself to lead with curiosity
and what you want to know about that person.
So if they're not willing to talk about their dreams
or what they care about, what do you want to know about them,
and why they're not willing to go there?
It's, again, just giving yourself to that process
and seeing where that takes you I think
is always going to be a virtuous path.
Does that make sense?
AUDIENCE: Yeah Thank you.
ANDREW HORN: Cool.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: So just touching again on the subject of, you know,
younger people, children, you know,
as a relatively new father--
ANDREW HORN: Congrats.
AUDIENCE: --and, you know, speaking from my own experience
on Facebook, it's been my feeling
pretty early on that a lot of people I know
have exchanged a few meaningful relationships
with a lot of meaningless ones, and a lot of really
shallow ones.
They've really kind of replaced depth with breadth,
and we're not talking to each other anymore.
We're broadcasting.
Right?
And we're advertising, so to speak.
At least some of us do.
And it's certainly the experience on Facebook,
you know, browsing Facebook, it's
an inescapable experience of comparison.
And since you quoted Brene Brown,
I'm sure you know her works.
And you know, comparison is the pathway to feeling less,
to feeling ashamed.
And I feel that I myself, you know, I'm fairly immune to it.
Not completely.
At least, I'm smart enough to avoid exposing myself
to too much of that.
Are there tangible things that we
can do to help children develop that immunity
to the inescapable world around us
where there'll be a lot of people that are shallow,
there'll be a lot of people that will
judge them using meaningless tools like likes, et cetera?
And you know, obviously, developing self-worth,
developing integrity, these are principles
I can easily agree with.
But are there good tricks to do that I guess is my question.
ANDREW HORN: Absolutely.
Well, I'll expand on the comparison theme,
and then get right back into how we can apply this
to young people and their browsing and social media
habits.
One of my favorite concepts with comparison
is the idea that comparison is the thief of joy.
And I just notice this in any given moment where
I find myself comparing to a competitor,
to someone else who's finding success.
And in those moments where you feel
jealousy or angst, whatever it might be when you're comparing,
my first thought there, and what I've trained myself to do
is to realize that that comparison and that malice,
or whatever it might be, is nothing--
it has nothing to do with that person.
It's purely internal, and it says something about myself.
And so I think about the transformation
of comparing to celebrating, which is what we want to do.
Is that if we cannot celebrate the successes of other people,
it only says something about us and our own insecurities.
So it's that shift from comparing to celebrating.
And if we cannot celebrate, we can acknowledge that
it's because of our own insecurities,
and something to be worked on, because no one is perfect.
And as it relates to young people,
I think, again, rather than telling
them what to do, the best thing that we
can do with young people is to ask them
why they are doing things, and to help them
come to their own realizations.
And again, how we do that is with good questions.
And I'll revert back to one that we
talked about earlier, which is, if you
have a young person who's posting on Instagram
or is typing these types of comments, to simply ask them,
like, why are you doing that?
And to see what kind of answer that they actually have,
to actually help them identify those motivations
for themselves, to see if it's something that they like.
And again, we all remember our younger years,
and it's like, we are hardwired to rebel.
And so when someone is telling us
that this is the way to do something,
we're going to be very resistant for anyone to tell us
what to do when we're still formulating our own identity.
But when we can give people a construct
to do that meaningful introspection for themself,
I think that is probably the most effective path
to help them evaluate those things.
So again, it's just understanding
why they're doing these things, and hopefully
encouraging designers and people at Google
to be thoughtful about how we are designing products
and what we're defining as success.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
ANDREW HORN: Yeah.
Absolutely.
Anyone else?
One more.
Or a few more.
AUDIENCE: This is actually not a question.
He may have a question.
These are great.
Is there any way you can share these?
ANDREW HORN: Yeah, man.
If you email john@tribute.co, he'll
be sure to send these out.
Thanks, man.
Hi.
AUDIENCE: I'm a huge fan of Dr. Brene Brown,
so you had me at Brene Brown.
[LAUGH]
So I wanted to just ask if you had any statistics on--
because she talks a little bit about this
in several of her books, but on how the expression of gratitude
is what actually gives you joy.
So do you have any--
is your company doing any type of, like, studies on people
that actually participate in this and their levels of joy
going up as a result of the expression of gratitude?
I would just be interested to see that data.
ANDREW HORN: Yeah.
You know, so we partnered with a nonprofit called the Grateful
Network.
And so again, they're doing a lot of leading-edge research,
along with the Greater Good Science Center, which is
a unit outside of UC Berkeley.
And they're doing some of the leading-edge research
about the practice of gratitude, and what
it's doing on the mind.
And so we have our internal metrics
that we talked about in terms of actually quantifying
expressions of love within these videos,
of actually quantifying this act of sharing gratitude,
how that improves your connectivity
with your community.
And so right now, again, of these 50,000 people
who've done it, right now you're looking
at 99% of people who say that the act of sharing
this gratitude for someone they cared about
made them feel more connected to their community,
and tears of joy are now called wonder joy.
So I can provide that.
But I'd say that those are probably two of the networks
that I'd check out with more of that kind
of leading-edge research.
So something that we're kind of piggybacking off
of them to apply that into our kind of like--
in our design and our development.
AUDIENCE: Awesome.
Thank you.
ANDREW HORN: Thanks so much.
So if you have anything nice to say, say it all.
One of my favorite things as well
is when I'm giving a talk and someone's just, like, nodding.
Because, like, yeah.
She gets it.
You were nodding the whole time, and it's such a great thing
to see that.
So thank you for that.
Yeah.
That was awesome.
So who are you guys going to give your tribute to?
Yes?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
ANDREW HORN: There you go.
[LAUGHTER]
So that's my fiance Miki, by the way,
in the back of the room, who gave me the first tribute
and inspired it all.
And now she's six months pregnant.
We just got back from the doctor today.
[APPLAUSE]
[LAUGH]
She's got a few now too.
[LAUGH]
And obviously, I made her my wife, so it works.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: Has anyone ever proposed in their tribute?
ANDREW HORN: We actually just had a beautiful one.
We had a woman who proposed to her girlfriend.
How long was the video, John?
JOHN: About an hour long.
[LAUGHTER]
ANDREW HORN: Yeah.
An hour long.
And you know, just like some of the stories, again,
it's like, I get goosebumps thinking about it.
So like this past week alone, we had
this woman who had an hour-long video
to propose to her girlfriend.
We had another woman who just submitted a testimonial,
and she was crying in her testimonial video.
And she said, you know, I gave this
to my best friend of 55 years.
She was diagnosed with lung cancer five years ago,
and she didn't make it.
And I did this video so that her granddaughters
would know who she was.
And the tribute ended up being an hour and a half.
And it's, again, it's giving this gift of legacy
and gratitude, and reminding people who someone was.
So if there's anyone in your lives
who's really had an impact, we'd love
to see you guys on the site.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
ANDREW HORN: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Thank you very much.
ANDREW HORN: Thanks, guys.
[APPLAUSE]