Go Where You Are Treated Best | Andrew Henderson | TEDxVake

I was 12 years old. My father gave me one of the greatest gifts. A lot of my friends were starting to have conversations with their parents and telling them that one day you're going to have to stay here and take care of us. My father said. We don't think it's your obligation to take care of us, you don't owe it to us, we owe it to you, to give you the power to do whatever you want, my father said the world is changing, it's always like that, he said no You don't have to stay in the same city in the same US state or in the same country.

You should go

where

they treat you better. This was a permission I received. In a sense, going

where

you are

treated

better is the natural human reaction. We seek pleasure, we avoid pain, but many of us don't always go where we are

treated

best

and many of those friends of mine felt restricted by not being able to live the life they wanted because they had obligations based on what society told them to be. they were supposed to do it writer Megan Drahim says we should support the local team go to your local stadium go to your arena rub shoulders with 40,000 people who live nearby build the camaraderie of being next to people on the street who were born in the same place always I wonder why we don't go to stadiums and rub up against people who share our values ​​not based on where we're from not based on being told we share values ​​but based on We want to start a business together or we share a common cause or whatever reason and we do it, but the only thing they tell us not to question is not to question the home team going where they are treated.

The

best

says it's okay to question support for the home team. It says that to achieve everything you want, to be the most productive and give the most to the world, you must be in a place and be surrounded by people. that share your values, those people may not be where you are, I think it is a mathematical improbability that the place where each of us is from is the best in almost anything, much less in everything, it is almost an uncertainty where we come from. the best at absolutely everything and yet it's the one thing you're not supposed to challenge, you're not supposed to have competition from where you're from.

They tell us, you know, don't go out and look for something better. treatment people tell us where you are from that is your identity and it is not human nature at all if you go to a restaurant you expect good service if you go to a store you expect good treatment or you don't buy there and even in human relationships you unite Because of shared interests you come together because of shared values ​​You come together because of common respect But there are limits to those relationships and if at some point those interests and those values ​​and those limits change the relationship can change, you should not stay in an abusive relationship that does not meet your needs. just because that's what you're supposed to do and yet how many people do that and how many people do that in their relationships with where they come from?

Even though they know there are other places they can go, the interesting thing about where I'm from in the United States is that for years you've seen stories of people moving from California to Florida, from California to Texas. I think a lot of those people find more than they're looking to move to California somewhere in another country, but they tell us, okay, you'll move, stay in your own country, okay, we can live with that, but it's They move from California to Texas because the taxes are too high because the government is not competitive enough, there is too much crime, there is too much regulation, they can't run their businesses and that's why they go to Texas, but more recently I see that people from Texas He's leaving for California now because Texas now has much higher taxes and has much higher crime.

No, they are different people who have different needs, they do not feel that their values ​​are respected in Texas and for them California is the Panacea and so they go where they are treated better, but in each of these circles people have the idea that well , you shouldn't know, challenge that this is the right way. California is bad, but obviously California is a good place for some people and this idea. of individuality it's somehow frowned upon that we're not supposed to go somewhere different we're not supposed to do something different this is good this is bad I want to talk to you about three concepts uh how can you go where you're treated The best way to Realize that everyone has their own unique interests and that only when you are truly aligned with them can you achieve your highest purpose for me.

I identified for the first 30 3 years of my life as an American as a matter of Chance Geographic Randomness And yet, when I decided to renounce that citizenship several years ago, there were people where I'm from who got angry and said that's not something well what to do and I said, if we all go where they treat us. The best thing is that we will feel perfectly comfortable with people who want to do what I did, they want to go to California, they want to go to Texas, everyone has their own set of options and we can all respect, respect that each of us does not because "We are supporting the home team in the same stadium, but because we have shared values ​​and that is the field we need to be on, we will make our own decisions and we want to be with people who will inspire us to be the best we can be. that we are going to talk about identity, we are going to talk about mobility and we are going to talk about optionality, where I was born, in the United States, the randomness was that I was born and I identified as an American by being born on one side of the lake in the grand scheme of the entire world, a small number of kilometers separated my identity of being American from the fact that I could have been Canadian just across the lake, two countries that are not completely different again in the scheme of things, but imagine. what could have been different: a different reputation when you travel, different business conditions at home and when you travel, a different upbringing, different people you would meet, your life could be completely different being Canadian versus being American, even though again the countries are relatively similar and so I looked at that, the randomness, I looked at the mathematical probability, the idea that where I'm from is better and I looked at this city of Cleveland, there is a certain humility, there is humility in the Cleveland part.

That's maybe the identity of that part of the country, that part of the world, but part of it is in Cleveland in particular. If you ask some Americans or if they ask you where you're from, you say I'm from Cleveland, you might say "I'm sorry to hear that" and there are so many people in Cleveland who almost adopt that as their ethos. Yeah, we feel it too I grew up all my childhood listening to people in the neighborhood see people on the radio and television saying "we" I would love to leave the jobs they are not good the weather is terrible Why are we not here But we are planted here as a species? from Def ISM.

We can't go anywhere else. We can't go where they treat us better. It wasn't our choice here, we have no choice in the matter, this is a city where one year the professional soccer team won zero games. , people continued to support the local team, that's what you do and yet I saw people almost absorbing that approach of what can we do, we are just people who don't win, the local team here doesn't win, we are stagnant and how many. people never achieved what they could achieve because they accepted that spirit, they can defend it by saying Well, our identity is that we are from this country and you better not have anything to back that up, but it is the only thing you have while defending the fact that this identity own cannot be changed, so I have been in countries around the world where they almost go to the opposite.

You say Hey, you're doing this great. What if we fix this here and people get angry because they have a sense of pride about where? They're about that covers up the fact that maybe there are some things they would like to have but they're missing but that's not how we do things here they say that's not how people operate blank if you don't like it why are you here? So they go in the opposite direction and I see that people want to achieve more, they think, oh, maybe we will elect certain politicians, maybe they will solve the problem without realizing that geographical identity defines the culture of the country.

The people there dictate in many cases what they achieve, whatever you define as success, and yet in many of these countries you will find people who are so-called Black Sheep, we hire people all over the world and they will say: it's not normal Fill in the blank I'm not your standard fill in the blank country because they want you to know that they don't necessarily subscribe to that's how we do things here and yet, although some of them have moved on, many of them Have they not felt in a certain sense abandoned because the geographical identity they were given was too strong for them to overcome?

They didn't want to go where they were treated better. They wanted to stay somewhere. They were not able to effect changes. they wanted to achieve and I wondered how many black sheep there are in the whole world. A friend from Germany said our goal here is to go to school get a good degree get a job at a big corporation BMW Seamans if that's what you want to do that's great but how many people were the black sheep who didn't want that ? because they bought the geographical identity I can't move I can't change this is who we are this is how we do things they never achieved what they Meanwhile I wanted the book Geography of Bliss, you read that Iceland is one of the happiest countries in the world, a Although the Nordic countries have some of the lowest levels of patriotism, there is a lack of that geographical identity where, instead, it is okay to fail, parents teach their children, even adult children, try poetry for a year, if that doesn't work you'll open a coffee shop, if that doesn't work you'll do something else, keep trying and that brings me to Mobility. many people who do not get everything they need from their place of origin because we are taught that you have to get everything from one place and what best says to go where your tree is to be mobile, not only yourself, you can move and many The People should repeat that there is a randomness in the place where we were born, but maybe you go and make friends, employees, business contacts or whatever in some other country and you have a sense of mobility in which you learn what happens in other places, What mobility is there?

In my opinion, what it does is create a friction that creates self-awareness because you are exploring other places, you are separating yourself more and more from an identity that may not serve you, and you are seeing what you may not see in your own country. different cultures and they do things in different ways and you see it right in front of you and it creates a self awareness that this person is not the black sheep, they don't know how we do it, this is someone in another country and maybe we can take the best of what works here and there are places that take the best of what works and those are the places that are thriving, not places that say this is how we do it and we don't want to change I met a gentleman from Nicaragua a couple of ago years.

Nicaraguan approved a fairly strong passport. You can travel all over the world, except to a place your culture tells you is the place you should go if you want to have a chance, that country you need a visa for, and that one. The country does not easily grant visas to people like him. Is United States. He told me that's the only place we all want to go. I have seen that I spoke with so many Mexicans that now, after Donald Trump, they all want to go to Canada. Successful people, even when they are trying to escape geographic identity and go where they are treated best, want to go to the same place and I told him that today there is an incredible reduction in mobility options, as it used to be there.

There were a couple of different places, but as my father told me, the world changes, places that were not available 25 years ago are available now, so a place like Dubai, where one of the richest men in Dubai told me He once said that there is only one feeling. of people who want to work here want to build their identity, now you have countries that do not judge and want to welcome the niik businessman who would come. They don't care where you're from. You have guts? Hurry? you want to start something, you have income, come and build this thing that didn't exist 25 or 50 years ago, but we are seeing an incredible reduction in opportunities, places you can go if you want to be in AI, there will be a place that will be the place to that's what they want innovators they don't want to just tolerate you they will welcome you if you're in crypto there are places for that if you want good weather if you want low taxes whatever it is and what you can do is choose different options, I want this and I want that, and instead From trying to turn your place of origin into a place where the people there don't share those values, you can go to the place where that already exists and you can create an identity of choice, not one that was simply given to you, you can find the place that you wish already exists somewhere else, you can go there and you can create incredible self-awareness by improving everything you have.

What are you doing in your life where what I want already exists? It may not be in a place you've heard much about, but the world changes. Optionality is important. It's not just about moving to a country. Maybe you want to meet the love of your life. Where are you? You'llfind that person. Is the love of your life likely to live down the block and across the world with all the different interests people have? Is it really that likely the way we've always done it? you have incredible options and imagine that everything in your life is a piece of the puzzle, it doesn't have to be just starting a business, it doesn't have to be where you live, everything in your life is a piece of the puzzle, where is the piece corresponding puzzle?

They don't have to be in different places, you can have different matching puzzle pieces all over the world, so the places where those puzzle pieces might match my ancestors 100 years ago, some of them moved to the US . 150 years ago, the Nicaraguan businessman is no longer welcome there, but he is welcome in Dubai he is welcome in Singapore he is welcome in Georgia he is welcome in many other countries around the world he has more options than ever because there are more places than ever. there are more opportunities to take the pieces of the puzzle to different places around the world and they say you may not be the best at everything, but I know you are the best at this and if we can learn from each other we can build something better, that's why places who are open and who do I want to welcome you and not just tolerate you, they are the ones who are learning who is better at this, who is better at that, how we bring together the best of everything, we will never be perfect, but we want to strive to be top. more options than ever you can increase more and more uh choose from the buffet and you can again you can go to a country if you spend 5 to 10 years there you can adopt an identity of your choice you can become a citizen of many countries but I don't identify myself just because here It's where they planted me more than ever the world is no longer I was born here I went to school here my friends are here I got married here I live here I work here I do business here I invest here I save here all my money is in the back everything I do it's here I don't know about these other places it wasn't that long ago in a country like the United States I mean, no one you know wouldn't be American, no one in Georgia wouldn't be I know George and he's incredibly open, now we have to accept that and take advantage of all the good things that each different place has to offer us to build our optionality, and if the movie Midnight in Paris attacked the idea that maybe there is nostalgia and thought.

We were born at the wrong time. I would pause that it is much more likely that we were born or that we are doing things in the wrong place because we cannot control when we were born and we cannot control the year we live in but we can control living intentionally making decisions is based on what It is better to separate ourselves from dogma and by doing everything we can improve our lives improve the lives of those around us improve the contribution we make to the world and we can Really intentionally go where you are treated better, thank you.