The Power of Persuasion: Pulling in the reluctant collaborators
Caroline Casey, Founder & CEO of Kanchi, shares her disability that surprises the audience, and how it’s helped her become persuasive in her lifetime. Her talk, “The Power of Persuasion: Pulling in the Reluctant Collaborators,” at the Skoll World Forum 2010 closing plenary, is uplifting and an example of how to be positive whether you have a disability or not.
With: Caroline Casey
Honesty is a great policy. I'm petrified. I am nervous, and I think anybody who speaks will say we're nervous. And I am nervous, because I'm talking to a room of people, people who I hugely admire. Social entrepreneurs who do things greater, better, more fabulous. And who am I to suppress them coming up to tell a story?
But I've been asked to talk to you today about the power of persuasion, and by God, do I know how to persuade. Freddy Mercury has this great song, when he would sing it, "Oh yes, I'm the Great Pretender." Well, I'd like to change it and say, "Oh yes, I'm the great persuader." And before I begin that, I'm Irish as well, okay?
So, Irish people's way of persuading, we do an awful lot of it, is a bit of a crack in the story way would have been done i am a pretty better task so i generally i was personal put in a bit of humor with a part language I will refrain from using, I hope. And a bit of humor, definitely. The core to any persuasion, for the most reluctant of people, is belief, absolute belief.
Whether I'm trying to persuade you to believe, to open up and believe, whether I have to believe in myself, the critical thing, to move us from A to B, is belief. And before I go any further, I have to say one thing, because and another huge thing in the power of persuasion is saying thank you, and often reflecting on what we do, not on all the things that we don't.
And I just want to say a huge thank you to somebody who has no idea how much they have believed in me by even asking me to be here today after six particularly rough months and that belief has given a bit of fuel to a tank that was running empty. I'm Pamela. Thank you.
So, my job, what do I do? CEO of "Kunchi", and everyone goes "What's Kunchi?
How do you pronounce it? What does it do?" Kunchi is the name of an elephant, to which I will get onto a little bit later. But my job, or the job what we do in "Kunchi"? we try to get the greatest business influence and leadership in the world to take on one of the most visible issues and to re-frame disability.
Because you know something? Disability the one thing that were still kind of scared about. We don't know how to fit it in because it's so broad, whether it's a wheel chair or somebody who's visually impaired, hearing impaired, mental health, cognitive, it's one of the really scary ones. Do you know how little CEOs even say the word "disability"?
Yet the consumer the spending power of disability in the US alone is $3.3 trillion. Now, in a recession, guys, you want that market, right? Seriously! and people with disabilities are not only your consumers, but they're your suppliers, they're your talent, they're your community. They decide whether you're gonna win or lose.
And so what we do is, not talking about people with disabilities as feeling sorry for me, or charity, or "Oh my God!" Because traditionally disability is so negative. It's "how can I help you?" And we kind of fall into two categories: "Ah, God, the poor creature" model, an Irish expression, or "Oh my god, superperson." "I've got no legs and I'm running up Mount Everest." But somewhere in the middle is a person.
And there are one billion people in the world touched and affected by disability, but nobody seems to talk about them. At all these great leadership forum, I never hear it. Why? Not because anybody's bad, because I just don't think we've got it. That we have a value. People with disabilities are valuable.
And we believe the greatest power is the business leadership, and that business leadership, in the way that you have helped to make every other social issue, bring it up there visibly. You can do this with disability. Because guess what? We're all getting older. That's the other thing and 85% of people with disability, acquire it in a working lifetime.
Think about it? What kind of world do you want to live in? You still want to go down to the restaurant, right? You still want to run your world? And you want your kids to have the best chance? But what we've done is we've framed or created a model called the Ability Awards which is like the ISO 9000 together with the best companies to work for model, put a huge campaign around it and franchised this model to create business leaders around the world, looking at pieces within the business where we can truly engage it.
Our idea? World domination. We've been in Ireland, we're just about to launch in Spain in five days' time, so exciting, and then hopefully - put your fingers crossed - to Kenya and maybe Finland. So what does this disability thing got to do with me? So we're going to try this. I'm going to stand here, I know a freak everybody eyes in technology.
I am blind, I am legally blind. A term that I have to tell you, I didn't want to have for a very long time. I can see to my hands. Every man in this room - and I have no idea how many men you are - you are all George Clooney. All of you. The women, you are Grace Kelly or Angelina Jolie, I don't really care.
For the great thing, as I say, I don't feel competitive. If I want to look good, I step three feet away from the mirror, and I am beautiful. It's all about [xx] The odd thing about me is, however... I'm going to step on the stage to not freak people off, without falling. The great thing is: I was born with this condition.
Johnny Cash. Who loves Johnny Cash? You know that song, "A Boy Named Sue"? Do you know, the idea behind it is: if I call my son Sue, a girl's name, he's going to get bullied, and he'll be tough and he'll survive. So my mum and my dad, at three and a half years old, just before I go to school, they look at each other and say, she's a coper.
Let's not tell her she can't see. Think about that one. I'm their eldest So I go to school, thinking I saw exactly the same as you. So I learned, from the age of three and a half The world's great persuader and all the way to my teams no idea the only time that it was a bit difficult when you know You get picked for the hockey team and I was never picked, cause I couldn't see the ball.
Frankly dreadful. You know that expression: keep your eye on the ball working hard at it and flicking air, that's all you did. The boys at the discos, I'd ask the girls: "Is he really good-looking?". And they'd be like: "He's so good-looking." And you know, when you're 15, you don't do chatting before you do kissing?
Yeah.
And that's when you realize it's kind of ugly. So, it's all too but what I wanted to do at 15, because you start thinking at 15 what do I really really want to be? And do you know what I wanted? I didn't' want to be a doctor or a teacher. I wanted to race cars. And motorbikes. And get this one for a weird one, be Mowgli from the Jungle now I could be Mowgli at 17, so on my 17th birthday my father gave me one driving lesson.
I can't see to the bonnet of a car. As the universe only conspires to make life incredibly interesting, on my 17th birthday - I have a sister by the way, she's three and a half years younger than me. Her name was Hilary - we called her Billy. Billy has exactly the same eyesight as I had, but they told Hilary she couldn't see.
So I used to think "Poor Billy". Hilary wants to be a pilot and I'd be like throwing my my eyes to heaven. "Hilary wants to be pilot." I used to go to every eye consultant thinking I was being a big sister supporting my baby sister. On her 17th birthday we were seeing an eye specialist who'd just came back from Russia.
And it only happened, he noticed on my chart, it was my 17th birthday. And he said, "So what are you gonna do for your birthday?" And with that glee and excitement of a seventeen year old, "I'm off to drive my car!" Do you know those silences in your life? Do you know those flat-line silences. And he looked at my mom and he said, "You haven't told her yet, have you?" Now, of course, I'm thinking about poor Billy, you know, not about me.
Anyway, that's the day I found out I would never be driving a car. That actually, the one thing I probably should be doing is registering as blind. If I had a lot more time, I'd tell you the big long story, but I'm not going to bore you, but I actually spent 28 years. And I was talking to somebody earlier on today going: "Was that positivity or was that denial?" But I literally got the information and went: "He's insane!
I so am going to drive a car!" And I'd like to tell you I eventually did, but not in the way I'd like to. I spent 28 years hiding that vision. Problem: because I didn't want you to see my failing. And I didn't want you to have to help me. And because when I went into university I had to do some things and I got this thing...label called "disabled." I'm like, "What is that?" And I used to think that disabled people would look at me and laugh and go, " Who's the fake?" Because what do I look like?
Well, what does disability look like?
So I spent a lot of time not really having a clue what I was doing . I'd like to say I jumped out of planes and I hang glided. A lot of it is tandem because you wouldn't want to do that on your own when you can't see. I went to be an archaeologist, brilliant through the exams. You know, couldn't see what I was doing.
And somebody all the way along, "No, you can't dive. No, you can't drive. No, you can't be an archaeologist. No, you can't do this." And every time you pick yourself back up and go, "It's fine." And then you go to business school. Great.
There's an awful a lot of education for disabled people, keep going to schools. Because we're one of the most educated population. I tell you! And I start a job with Accenture, completely not telling them, of course, I can't see either. Great! Two and a half years with Accenture, I lose all my vision - very badly.
Got knocked down several times at crossings and that's grand. They sent me off to an eye specialist. this is this month's - or actually march, ten years ago. I found myself sitting in another eye specialist's office, and when he walked in towards me he said, "I'm not even going to examine you, because i don't need to examine you." And he asked that bizarre question, "What did you want to be when you were little?" Do you love what you do?
Now, in Accenture, they put a chip in your brain when you start; it's almost like the android chip: "i love Accenture, i love Accenture, i love Accenture", right? Oh my God it is nobody has[ xx] i lost [xx] like this. Actually i had a great time, but anyway he was saying do you love it?
And i'm like, "Yeah, off course i do!".
And he said, "if you continue to work like this, you're going to have nothing left". you'll have nothing. And as i walked out his office, he said, "Come here. You've got to do something different." But it was total failure. But i couldn't do it anymore. It's so hard when you have to say, "i can't!".
Did you say, "i give up!". and I was tired, I'd been 11 years pretending, I was banjaxed, I was tired, and I remember leaving his office and running out and going home and going for a run on the beach and in typical cinematic fashion, there was a big rock, and I'd generally run around it, but I was too busy cursing, and I fell on the rock.
And I just had one of those moments, and it is exactly how it happened: What did you want to be when you were little? Well, I can't race cars and I can't race motorbikes, but I can be Mobley. I swapped a management consultant's job to go across India on the back of an elephant named Kanchi and I decided I wanted to raise money for charity, and I haven't a clue about that, The National Council of Blind and Sight Savers International.
But more importantly, what I did start to worry about was why am I scared of being disabled? Where are disabled people in the business world? Where have they gone? Or are they ever there? And suddenly I thought, "My God, there's a huge problem that I didn't even know about!". And so this little An elephant, called [xx], has started a business movement around changing our perception of disability.
I would never have thought ten years ago stand in front of anybody and speak, and to tell you, number one, "Hi, I'm a blindo." And it's the best thing and if only i copped onto ten years ago Imagine what we could have done. I wasted ten years trying to be somebody else, looking like i can, and i can't.
Can i just tell you, being a a blind person who doesn't really look blind, or a visually impaired person doesn't really look visually impaired. I'm always in the gent's toilet! And there is nothing wrong with my sense of smell. But there's a lot of things i done that way. You got to have a sense of humor and this is my key thing.
These are my four things i got to say to you about the whole power of persuasion [xx] and number one is the framing piece. Do you know what, disability - forget the word, i don't even care what you call it, but it's about difference, right? And the only thing thing that makes us the same is that we're different.
All of us are different. And we all have things that are tough in our life. The difficulty with disability is we've just got it's society that's disabling, It's not Otherwise, we should gone make exercise opens everybody in everything of that you, so that we can all reach of tenders we can all contribute, for why you please waiting for somebody.
You can't make them feel guilty. I can't say to you, "You should be doing this." I need to say to you, "You know that thing you did? It was brilliant. Let's have some more." The word so back to front, bring it on. Seriously it's about xx. It's about making you believe that you can. what I have to leave in a company is making you believe you can definitely make that difference; I can definitely frame for you in a way that you can understand.
And when we're working with business It doesn't matter that it's worthy, it doesn't matter that it's necessary, it doesn't matter that it's essential for our world to include everybody, I've got to make business believe The bottom line, it's good for your innovation, it's good for your work force.
It's good for money. They're going to listen. And then they're doing the leading. In fact the most important thing is the thing I feel very strongly about, is about the passion and the confidence, which a lot determine being a Ducks are really cute you know and they when you see them on the water look how beautiful they look like swans calm duck calm on the outside, but they're paddling like shit underneath.
Our speakers today: calm on the outside, paddling like shit underneath. when you're trying to persuade the collaborators, you must project a confidence and belief. Listen, cry in the shower, because so I do it many a time. And you come out of the shower, it's like: "Ta-da!"- no, not naked, but like: "Hooray!
I'm here!" The minute all of us step outside our doors, we wear masks. Now you have to try and make sure that our inner bits and our outer bits are kind of aligned. But the confidence that you project, saying, "I've got a fantastic idea, I've got to completely make you believe in [xx] so that you can't walk away, because the investors in us are really investing in our vision.
And if we [xx] the passion and the confidence to say, "I know we can change this." That's what will make the difference. It's that vision. It's that [xx]. And thirdly, this is a really weird one, but it's about criticism. It's about criticism, risk and failure. said a great thing a few weeks ago I heard him speaking, and he said, "Listen, criticism: you can take it seriously, but don't take it personally." And you know when we're trying to convince somebody to believe so much in what we're doing, or I'm trying to convince you to open your heart and think?
I think it's really important for us to hear the criticism. Let it come in. Let it build up. Because if you don't hear it, you can't fix it, you shouldn't be frightened of it. We shouldn't be frightened of failing. The failure part is just adding on, it's just finding way to pick up. And we had a project: literally, six years, I keep getting knocked down - bang and bang - and you keep going back up, going, "Am I mad?" we just found out we won an award to make that happen, six years later.
We've opened ourselves up for that it's incredibly important and one of the fourth things is: I'm so more important than anybody. That's - when i was talking about that confidence part and taking the risk; it's the risk to really hang yourself out there. When we started this thing called the Ability Awards, right, and this is the confidence piece in taking a risk: I had this idea that i was going to get it televised and i was going to get a massive publication in the Irish Times times and whatever else, but i really needed a sponsor.
I had this beautiful Branding Ability Award, we'd got the Prime Minister, and it was fantastic. We were two weeks till launch and i didn't have a title sponsor. Two weeks with the Prime Minister and I had this beautiful branding and all saw the brochure and I knew exactly who I wanted. I wanted O2, big telecommunications company in Ireland.
And I heard the [XX ] to coffee shop. Thinks it was extraordinary so that to the great channel coffee shop. down. Initially, ran into the coffee shop, fell over a chair because only that's what i can do. Found her, sat in front of her and i said, OK I want you to take a risk on this. Blah, blah, blah.
Do the pitch. And that's the other thing about persuasion, make it short. Get in there. Do it. Two days later. It was the O2 Ability Awards.
One of the most important things, I think, in persuasion, is who we surround ourselves with. Before I came up here today, as we were shaking, you had people going, "You'll be good; you'll be OK." Most of the time we need to be around people like us, and this is why Skoll is so amazing. It's my first Skoll.
And you know there's something in Skoll that's incredible? It's your atmosphere. You make it possible. To believe and still dream, and that's what you do, and it doesn't matter if you can be Richard Branson, Bill Drayton, or the small person doing something in Ireland, because, as Paul said last night, if we all can be part of that, that's the persuasion in itself, the action speaks louder than any words, and that's the point.
The action speaks louder than any words. And so lastly, because I hope I just got on to my 20 minutes I want to say one thing which I always talk about, which is about being dangerous, really and truly dangerous. Women have a great way of making men believe it's their idea in the first place, And I remember, when I had no money, when we were doing the elephant trip and I had promised a quarter of a million, and I was so scared of letting people down.
Great guilt, great Catholic guilt in Ireland. So frightened of it. And I was on this big show, the Late Late Show, huge show in Ireland. And the Late Late Show happened, and two days later I got this call from a man, who is "I believe you". And he said, "I saw you and I'm sending you a cheque for 100,000 Euro." I burst out crying.
But this is the risk. He said "Elephant girl, if there is anything else I can do just let me know". So two weeks later I sat in front of him and said; and the cheek of it, the risk of it, "wouldn't it be a great idea And he finished sentence to make my friends and day before we went India. I saw [xx] those powerful people in Ireland, who framed the work that we do today.
And i learned that talking the risk to ask for help he made 480 thousand in an hour, we have telephone numbers and email address. These most powerful business people in our net. Few mates Aisling, who made Kanchi, who are starting a business movement. It's important to ask for help. And so the very last thing to say to all of you is in the power of [xxx] what ever you are doing, whether it is big or small don't you ever give up, don't you dare ever give up.
Now i want you to get just harsh, because just then it is worth it.I i drove that car in Malaysia on the Malaysian Grand Prix Track in 2002 a hundred and ninety kilometers an hour.[ xx ]and i hate to tell you it gets better, i was racing against another blind man and my co-pilot was a man called Mike Mackenzie, who was paralysed from the chest down, with no legs, he felt he'd nothing else to lose.
Miles one. So don't you ever give up. and the difference is: believe. Just keep believing. And thank you Skoll for helping us believe and thank you for for helping us believe. Keep believing, and remember: you don't need to see to believe. You don't need that. you just need to believe to see, because you don't need eyes all you need is a heart, and a vision, and a passion.
Thank you.
But I've been asked to talk to you today about the power of persuasion, and by God, do I know how to persuade. Freddy Mercury has this great song, when he would sing it, "Oh yes, I'm the Great Pretender." Well, I'd like to change it and say, "Oh yes, I'm the great persuader." And before I begin that, I'm Irish as well, okay?
So, Irish people's way of persuading, we do an awful lot of it, is a bit of a crack in the story way would have been done i am a pretty better task so i generally i was personal put in a bit of humor with a part language I will refrain from using, I hope. And a bit of humor, definitely. The core to any persuasion, for the most reluctant of people, is belief, absolute belief.
Whether I'm trying to persuade you to believe, to open up and believe, whether I have to believe in myself, the critical thing, to move us from A to B, is belief. And before I go any further, I have to say one thing, because and another huge thing in the power of persuasion is saying thank you, and often reflecting on what we do, not on all the things that we don't.
And I just want to say a huge thank you to somebody who has no idea how much they have believed in me by even asking me to be here today after six particularly rough months and that belief has given a bit of fuel to a tank that was running empty. I'm Pamela. Thank you.
So, my job, what do I do? CEO of "Kunchi", and everyone goes "What's Kunchi?
How do you pronounce it? What does it do?" Kunchi is the name of an elephant, to which I will get onto a little bit later. But my job, or the job what we do in "Kunchi"? we try to get the greatest business influence and leadership in the world to take on one of the most visible issues and to re-frame disability.
Because you know something? Disability the one thing that were still kind of scared about. We don't know how to fit it in because it's so broad, whether it's a wheel chair or somebody who's visually impaired, hearing impaired, mental health, cognitive, it's one of the really scary ones. Do you know how little CEOs even say the word "disability"?
Yet the consumer the spending power of disability in the US alone is $3.3 trillion. Now, in a recession, guys, you want that market, right? Seriously! and people with disabilities are not only your consumers, but they're your suppliers, they're your talent, they're your community. They decide whether you're gonna win or lose.
And so what we do is, not talking about people with disabilities as feeling sorry for me, or charity, or "Oh my God!" Because traditionally disability is so negative. It's "how can I help you?" And we kind of fall into two categories: "Ah, God, the poor creature" model, an Irish expression, or "Oh my god, superperson." "I've got no legs and I'm running up Mount Everest." But somewhere in the middle is a person.
And there are one billion people in the world touched and affected by disability, but nobody seems to talk about them. At all these great leadership forum, I never hear it. Why? Not because anybody's bad, because I just don't think we've got it. That we have a value. People with disabilities are valuable.
And we believe the greatest power is the business leadership, and that business leadership, in the way that you have helped to make every other social issue, bring it up there visibly. You can do this with disability. Because guess what? We're all getting older. That's the other thing and 85% of people with disability, acquire it in a working lifetime.
Think about it? What kind of world do you want to live in? You still want to go down to the restaurant, right? You still want to run your world? And you want your kids to have the best chance? But what we've done is we've framed or created a model called the Ability Awards which is like the ISO 9000 together with the best companies to work for model, put a huge campaign around it and franchised this model to create business leaders around the world, looking at pieces within the business where we can truly engage it.
Our idea? World domination. We've been in Ireland, we're just about to launch in Spain in five days' time, so exciting, and then hopefully - put your fingers crossed - to Kenya and maybe Finland. So what does this disability thing got to do with me? So we're going to try this. I'm going to stand here, I know a freak everybody eyes in technology.
I am blind, I am legally blind. A term that I have to tell you, I didn't want to have for a very long time. I can see to my hands. Every man in this room - and I have no idea how many men you are - you are all George Clooney. All of you. The women, you are Grace Kelly or Angelina Jolie, I don't really care.
For the great thing, as I say, I don't feel competitive. If I want to look good, I step three feet away from the mirror, and I am beautiful. It's all about [xx] The odd thing about me is, however... I'm going to step on the stage to not freak people off, without falling. The great thing is: I was born with this condition.
Johnny Cash. Who loves Johnny Cash? You know that song, "A Boy Named Sue"? Do you know, the idea behind it is: if I call my son Sue, a girl's name, he's going to get bullied, and he'll be tough and he'll survive. So my mum and my dad, at three and a half years old, just before I go to school, they look at each other and say, she's a coper.
Let's not tell her she can't see. Think about that one. I'm their eldest So I go to school, thinking I saw exactly the same as you. So I learned, from the age of three and a half The world's great persuader and all the way to my teams no idea the only time that it was a bit difficult when you know You get picked for the hockey team and I was never picked, cause I couldn't see the ball.
Frankly dreadful. You know that expression: keep your eye on the ball working hard at it and flicking air, that's all you did. The boys at the discos, I'd ask the girls: "Is he really good-looking?". And they'd be like: "He's so good-looking." And you know, when you're 15, you don't do chatting before you do kissing?
Yeah.
And that's when you realize it's kind of ugly. So, it's all too but what I wanted to do at 15, because you start thinking at 15 what do I really really want to be? And do you know what I wanted? I didn't' want to be a doctor or a teacher. I wanted to race cars. And motorbikes. And get this one for a weird one, be Mowgli from the Jungle now I could be Mowgli at 17, so on my 17th birthday my father gave me one driving lesson.
I can't see to the bonnet of a car. As the universe only conspires to make life incredibly interesting, on my 17th birthday - I have a sister by the way, she's three and a half years younger than me. Her name was Hilary - we called her Billy. Billy has exactly the same eyesight as I had, but they told Hilary she couldn't see.
So I used to think "Poor Billy". Hilary wants to be a pilot and I'd be like throwing my my eyes to heaven. "Hilary wants to be pilot." I used to go to every eye consultant thinking I was being a big sister supporting my baby sister. On her 17th birthday we were seeing an eye specialist who'd just came back from Russia.
And it only happened, he noticed on my chart, it was my 17th birthday. And he said, "So what are you gonna do for your birthday?" And with that glee and excitement of a seventeen year old, "I'm off to drive my car!" Do you know those silences in your life? Do you know those flat-line silences. And he looked at my mom and he said, "You haven't told her yet, have you?" Now, of course, I'm thinking about poor Billy, you know, not about me.
Anyway, that's the day I found out I would never be driving a car. That actually, the one thing I probably should be doing is registering as blind. If I had a lot more time, I'd tell you the big long story, but I'm not going to bore you, but I actually spent 28 years. And I was talking to somebody earlier on today going: "Was that positivity or was that denial?" But I literally got the information and went: "He's insane!
I so am going to drive a car!" And I'd like to tell you I eventually did, but not in the way I'd like to. I spent 28 years hiding that vision. Problem: because I didn't want you to see my failing. And I didn't want you to have to help me. And because when I went into university I had to do some things and I got this thing...label called "disabled." I'm like, "What is that?" And I used to think that disabled people would look at me and laugh and go, " Who's the fake?" Because what do I look like?
Well, what does disability look like?
So I spent a lot of time not really having a clue what I was doing . I'd like to say I jumped out of planes and I hang glided. A lot of it is tandem because you wouldn't want to do that on your own when you can't see. I went to be an archaeologist, brilliant through the exams. You know, couldn't see what I was doing.
And somebody all the way along, "No, you can't dive. No, you can't drive. No, you can't be an archaeologist. No, you can't do this." And every time you pick yourself back up and go, "It's fine." And then you go to business school. Great.
There's an awful a lot of education for disabled people, keep going to schools. Because we're one of the most educated population. I tell you! And I start a job with Accenture, completely not telling them, of course, I can't see either. Great! Two and a half years with Accenture, I lose all my vision - very badly.
Got knocked down several times at crossings and that's grand. They sent me off to an eye specialist. this is this month's - or actually march, ten years ago. I found myself sitting in another eye specialist's office, and when he walked in towards me he said, "I'm not even going to examine you, because i don't need to examine you." And he asked that bizarre question, "What did you want to be when you were little?" Do you love what you do?
Now, in Accenture, they put a chip in your brain when you start; it's almost like the android chip: "i love Accenture, i love Accenture, i love Accenture", right? Oh my God it is nobody has[ xx] i lost [xx] like this. Actually i had a great time, but anyway he was saying do you love it?
And i'm like, "Yeah, off course i do!".
And he said, "if you continue to work like this, you're going to have nothing left". you'll have nothing. And as i walked out his office, he said, "Come here. You've got to do something different." But it was total failure. But i couldn't do it anymore. It's so hard when you have to say, "i can't!".
Did you say, "i give up!". and I was tired, I'd been 11 years pretending, I was banjaxed, I was tired, and I remember leaving his office and running out and going home and going for a run on the beach and in typical cinematic fashion, there was a big rock, and I'd generally run around it, but I was too busy cursing, and I fell on the rock.
And I just had one of those moments, and it is exactly how it happened: What did you want to be when you were little? Well, I can't race cars and I can't race motorbikes, but I can be Mobley. I swapped a management consultant's job to go across India on the back of an elephant named Kanchi and I decided I wanted to raise money for charity, and I haven't a clue about that, The National Council of Blind and Sight Savers International.
But more importantly, what I did start to worry about was why am I scared of being disabled? Where are disabled people in the business world? Where have they gone? Or are they ever there? And suddenly I thought, "My God, there's a huge problem that I didn't even know about!". And so this little An elephant, called [xx], has started a business movement around changing our perception of disability.
I would never have thought ten years ago stand in front of anybody and speak, and to tell you, number one, "Hi, I'm a blindo." And it's the best thing and if only i copped onto ten years ago Imagine what we could have done. I wasted ten years trying to be somebody else, looking like i can, and i can't.
Can i just tell you, being a a blind person who doesn't really look blind, or a visually impaired person doesn't really look visually impaired. I'm always in the gent's toilet! And there is nothing wrong with my sense of smell. But there's a lot of things i done that way. You got to have a sense of humor and this is my key thing.
These are my four things i got to say to you about the whole power of persuasion [xx] and number one is the framing piece. Do you know what, disability - forget the word, i don't even care what you call it, but it's about difference, right? And the only thing thing that makes us the same is that we're different.
All of us are different. And we all have things that are tough in our life. The difficulty with disability is we've just got it's society that's disabling, It's not Otherwise, we should gone make exercise opens everybody in everything of that you, so that we can all reach of tenders we can all contribute, for why you please waiting for somebody.
You can't make them feel guilty. I can't say to you, "You should be doing this." I need to say to you, "You know that thing you did? It was brilliant. Let's have some more." The word so back to front, bring it on. Seriously it's about xx. It's about making you believe that you can. what I have to leave in a company is making you believe you can definitely make that difference; I can definitely frame for you in a way that you can understand.
And when we're working with business It doesn't matter that it's worthy, it doesn't matter that it's necessary, it doesn't matter that it's essential for our world to include everybody, I've got to make business believe The bottom line, it's good for your innovation, it's good for your work force.
It's good for money. They're going to listen. And then they're doing the leading. In fact the most important thing is the thing I feel very strongly about, is about the passion and the confidence, which a lot determine being a Ducks are really cute you know and they when you see them on the water look how beautiful they look like swans calm duck calm on the outside, but they're paddling like shit underneath.
Our speakers today: calm on the outside, paddling like shit underneath. when you're trying to persuade the collaborators, you must project a confidence and belief. Listen, cry in the shower, because so I do it many a time. And you come out of the shower, it's like: "Ta-da!"- no, not naked, but like: "Hooray!
I'm here!" The minute all of us step outside our doors, we wear masks. Now you have to try and make sure that our inner bits and our outer bits are kind of aligned. But the confidence that you project, saying, "I've got a fantastic idea, I've got to completely make you believe in [xx] so that you can't walk away, because the investors in us are really investing in our vision.
And if we [xx] the passion and the confidence to say, "I know we can change this." That's what will make the difference. It's that vision. It's that [xx]. And thirdly, this is a really weird one, but it's about criticism. It's about criticism, risk and failure. said a great thing a few weeks ago I heard him speaking, and he said, "Listen, criticism: you can take it seriously, but don't take it personally." And you know when we're trying to convince somebody to believe so much in what we're doing, or I'm trying to convince you to open your heart and think?
I think it's really important for us to hear the criticism. Let it come in. Let it build up. Because if you don't hear it, you can't fix it, you shouldn't be frightened of it. We shouldn't be frightened of failing. The failure part is just adding on, it's just finding way to pick up. And we had a project: literally, six years, I keep getting knocked down - bang and bang - and you keep going back up, going, "Am I mad?" we just found out we won an award to make that happen, six years later.
We've opened ourselves up for that it's incredibly important and one of the fourth things is: I'm so more important than anybody. That's - when i was talking about that confidence part and taking the risk; it's the risk to really hang yourself out there. When we started this thing called the Ability Awards, right, and this is the confidence piece in taking a risk: I had this idea that i was going to get it televised and i was going to get a massive publication in the Irish Times times and whatever else, but i really needed a sponsor.
I had this beautiful Branding Ability Award, we'd got the Prime Minister, and it was fantastic. We were two weeks till launch and i didn't have a title sponsor. Two weeks with the Prime Minister and I had this beautiful branding and all saw the brochure and I knew exactly who I wanted. I wanted O2, big telecommunications company in Ireland.
And I heard the [XX ] to coffee shop. Thinks it was extraordinary so that to the great channel coffee shop. down. Initially, ran into the coffee shop, fell over a chair because only that's what i can do. Found her, sat in front of her and i said, OK I want you to take a risk on this. Blah, blah, blah.
Do the pitch. And that's the other thing about persuasion, make it short. Get in there. Do it. Two days later. It was the O2 Ability Awards.
One of the most important things, I think, in persuasion, is who we surround ourselves with. Before I came up here today, as we were shaking, you had people going, "You'll be good; you'll be OK." Most of the time we need to be around people like us, and this is why Skoll is so amazing. It's my first Skoll.
And you know there's something in Skoll that's incredible? It's your atmosphere. You make it possible. To believe and still dream, and that's what you do, and it doesn't matter if you can be Richard Branson, Bill Drayton, or the small person doing something in Ireland, because, as Paul said last night, if we all can be part of that, that's the persuasion in itself, the action speaks louder than any words, and that's the point.
The action speaks louder than any words. And so lastly, because I hope I just got on to my 20 minutes I want to say one thing which I always talk about, which is about being dangerous, really and truly dangerous. Women have a great way of making men believe it's their idea in the first place, And I remember, when I had no money, when we were doing the elephant trip and I had promised a quarter of a million, and I was so scared of letting people down.
Great guilt, great Catholic guilt in Ireland. So frightened of it. And I was on this big show, the Late Late Show, huge show in Ireland. And the Late Late Show happened, and two days later I got this call from a man, who is "I believe you". And he said, "I saw you and I'm sending you a cheque for 100,000 Euro." I burst out crying.
But this is the risk. He said "Elephant girl, if there is anything else I can do just let me know". So two weeks later I sat in front of him and said; and the cheek of it, the risk of it, "wouldn't it be a great idea And he finished sentence to make my friends and day before we went India. I saw [xx] those powerful people in Ireland, who framed the work that we do today.
And i learned that talking the risk to ask for help he made 480 thousand in an hour, we have telephone numbers and email address. These most powerful business people in our net. Few mates Aisling, who made Kanchi, who are starting a business movement. It's important to ask for help. And so the very last thing to say to all of you is in the power of [xxx] what ever you are doing, whether it is big or small don't you ever give up, don't you dare ever give up.
Now i want you to get just harsh, because just then it is worth it.I i drove that car in Malaysia on the Malaysian Grand Prix Track in 2002 a hundred and ninety kilometers an hour.[ xx ]and i hate to tell you it gets better, i was racing against another blind man and my co-pilot was a man called Mike Mackenzie, who was paralysed from the chest down, with no legs, he felt he'd nothing else to lose.
Miles one. So don't you ever give up. and the difference is: believe. Just keep believing. And thank you Skoll for helping us believe and thank you for for helping us believe. Keep believing, and remember: you don't need to see to believe. You don't need that. you just need to believe to see, because you don't need eyes all you need is a heart, and a vision, and a passion.
Thank you.
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Opening remarks – 2010 Skoll World Forum -
Anatomy of a Movement -
Realising A Vision -
Closing Remarks – 2010 Skoll World Forum
