Is Ambition Killing Us? | Tom Savage | TEDxBristol

Why are we more ‘connected’ than ever before, yet so disconnected from the world and the people around us?
Entrepreneur Tom Savage’s talk questions our restless human advancement, examining the tightrope we walk between our drive for industry and achievement, and where it clashes with our instinctual need for peace and contentment.
His quest for simplicity led him to live in a tent in a field for a month prior to giving his TEDxBristol talk. He hoped it would clear his thoughts and help him find out if simplicity could be achieved while running a big data company from a field in Somerset.
This talk is from TEDxBristol 2015 Great Expectations: looking towards a future we can dare to expect more from.
Explore more Great Expectations at tedxbristol.com
Our talks were edited by a brilliant team of talented volunteers:
Richard da Costa
Ben Scrase
Gabriella Zagni
Ellie Markwick
Mark Phippen
Ash Farkas
Helen Stenner
Composer: Matthew Pearson
At 21 Tom Savage set up one of the world's leading non-profit conservation organisations, Blue Ventures, 24 hours from the nearest telephone in southwestern Madagascar.
Since then, he has founded a recruitment business with offices in London and San Francisco, won the Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the European Innovator of the Year award, featured in the Prime Minister's book Everyday Heroes and helped start Tenner, now supported by Sir Richard Branson.
Inspired by Swiss Family Robinson, he also spent a year designing and building an eco-house in a remote part of Kenya and has travelled to over 60 countries, living in half a dozen. Closer to home, Tom now runs an award-winning big data business in Bristol, which he started whilst living in a van in Silicon Valley.
For TEDxBristol he explores some of the head-scratching questions that he thinks many of us secretly ask ourselves every day about why we work so hard, and at what cost?
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@DerpyEndz]

Shout-out to all of the online students that have been sent here for some sort of English work

[@Pikelet12]

As a teacher of ESL currently editing material I set, I totally laughed at this haha good luck everyone! I cannot find the transcript anywhere

[@callmeej8399]

To me it was so relieving and satisfying to rip apart the bucket list. A bucket list makes life so unnecessarily more stressful.

[@RonaldinhoNZ.]

Nothing wrong with wanting to look forward to something other than our mundane lives

[@callmeej8399]

@@RonaldinhoNZ. I get what you mean, and I partially agree. But for me it feels like a list that I hold myself to and worry over rather than actively try to achieve idk

[@hanhanz4965]

This video deserves millions views!

[@TiagoReeves]

Every month I come here to take a break on my life, and remember that being successful in life in means to be happy, whatever that is for each person. This video is gold. God bless Ted X, and God bless Tom Savage. Burn your bucket lists. Just fuckin be happy and live life as it is. Stop chasing somebody else's dreams, stop trying to race against each other. Remember, at the end we're all going to the same place. :)

[@tomsavage1039]

Haha, excellent Tiago - thanks for this, I couldn't agree with you more!

[@aymane3259]

Thanks!

[@rbaugh3526]

Great talk. As a founder myself, this all rings too true!

[@chrispainter3602]

I feel like he wrote that just so he could give a TED talk in board shorts. Brilliant Words Tom Savage!

[@elidel3299]

we work rigorously getting one thing to another but real satisfying moments are those when you are in with yourself

[@orpheusperera]

Happiness = Means of Satisfying / Wants. Reduce the wants, share the resources-happiness will be increased.

[@tinyajun3958]

Thank you to bring this topic. It's really helpful, this day I really afraid with my ambition, I don't want to fall to the same mistake, last time my ambition really hurt me a lot

[@dhiyaneshsivakumaran9201]

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 this guy has a precious heart!

[@lizmccaughey7828]

What an inspiring talk - a must watch for young an old.

[@blaster915]

So what if your ambitions are not to change the world, but to simply live laugh and put on a spectacle only in front of those you love. Is that not a worthy focus of life? or must one devote one's abilities to share it with as many people as possible? The world isn't exactly kind, so why would I give it out to everyone? I choose to have those I wish in my life. I feel forced to make an impact on others outside of that. Is that a lack of ambition?

[@adryf.9639]

incredible and very inspiring! Thank You

[@sherij9847]

BRILLIANT 🌟

[@raindropsofsky]

My ambition is neither lowest nor highest. My ambition is neither highest nor lowest.

[@sarthaksharma3663]

Really inspiring :) well done,sir... Love your thoughts.

[@tonyvillani4614]

this guy is on the right direction, - maybe he will get there some day .

[@officialhoughtmin]

Shut up.. either explain your superior view point or just stay quiet..

[@Anurag_Saxena]

This man is talking about extremities...And finding a balance between them...This guy delivered this notion very well... But in the end, by tearing up the bucket list, he stayed with the other extreme point... which I don't agree... I also made a list in my 11th or 12th...i never did some of the things... But most of them I tried... And whatever I'm today, I'm because of the list... Our destination are the same... But our journeys are different... And it's the journey that makes u what u will be in next 5-10 years... And remember we all can't be the PM or captain of our team... It's decided by the factors (u call them luck or circumstances) prevailing around us during that time... By deciding the destination, we walk on the path... This way I don't get the whole picture of that future... But get our dots... At 30's or 40's we must try to connect the dots backwards... That's what Steve taught us... It's not about being rich... It's about how nature is continuously writing our destiny... And remember it's not already written... It's being written every moment and highly dependable on what deeds u and ur interrelated people are doing... And it doesn't mean every soothing word is psychologically right... I recommend this guy to study psychology and spirituality interlinking

[@kr4d100]

Love the formal outfit 😂 👍

[@Cursed_asylum]

Hello for that one's who have been watching it because of English homework

[@Octavio12341000]

Why is this your homework?

[@matttfrancoeur5819]

Here for English school work????

[@tomsavage1039]

Yes, me

[@BerylWalubengoAnyitiNanyama]

No more bucket listing 🤣🤣

[@steftriant1463]

anyone else here for english

[@ДаниилЮсуповский]

Hiii~

[@ithom8048]

One question what is a letter and what is a newspaper lol