[Music]
[Applause]
a few years ago I felt like I was stuck
in a rut so I decided to follow in the
footsteps of the Great American
philosopher Morgan Spurlock and try
something new for 30 days the idea is
actually pretty simple think about
something you've always wanted to add to
your life and try it for the next 30
days it turns out 30 days is just about
the right amount of time to add a new
habit or subtract a habit like watching
the news from your life there's a few
things that I learned while doing these
30-day
challenges the first was instead of the
months flying by forgotten the time was
much more memorable this was part of a
challenge I did to take a picture every
day for a month and I remember exactly
where I was and what I was doing that
day I also noticed that as I started to
do more and harder 30-day challenges my
self-confidence grew I went from desk
dwelling computer nerd to the kind of
guy who bikes to work for
fun even last year I ended up hiking up
Mount kilamanjaro the highest mountain
in Africa I would never have been that
adventurous before I started my 30-day
challenge
I also figured out that if you really
want something badly enough you can do
anything for 30
days have you ever wanted to write a
novel every November tens of thousands
of people try to write their own
50,000-word novel from scratch in 30
days it turns out all you have to do is
write 1667 words a day for a
month so I did by the way secret is not
to go to sleep until you've written your
words for the day you might be sleep
deprived but you'll finish your
novel now is my book The Next Great
American novel no I wrote it in a month
it's
awful but for the rest of my life if I
meet John Hodgman at a Ted party I don't
have to say I'm a computer scientist no
no if I want to I can say I'm a novelist
[Applause]
so here's one last thing I'd like to
mention I learned that when I made small
sustainable changes things I could keep
doing they were more likely to stick
there's nothing wrong with big crazy
challenges in fact they're a ton of fun
but they're less likely to stick when I
gave up sugar for 30 days day 31 looked
like
this so here's my question to you what
are you waiting for I guarantee you the
next 30 days are going to pass whether
you like it or not so why not think
about something you have always wanted
to try and give it a shot for the next
30 days thanks
[Music]
