Ric Elias Speaks for Ted.com

The speech that I watched on Ted.com was Ric Elias: Three Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed. Although Ric Elias is a very successful businessman, he did not mention his career once in this speech. He talked about three things he learned about his life, when it was almost taken from him.

On January 15th 2009, Ric Elias was on board US Airways flight 1549, which was successfully ditched into the Hudson River, after the engine was affected by birds. In his speech, Elias talks about his experience and how it has affected his life. He states while enduring that terrible ordeal, three things came to mind that greatly altered how he would live the rest of his life. The lessons he learned were very powerful because they are principles that can be applied to both life and business. Here were the lessons Elias learned:

1. It all changes in an instant. As the plane was crashing, Elias thought about all the things that he had meant to do and experiences that he had meant to have, but had postponed. He stated that he never wants to postpone anything again. He lives his life with a sense of urgency. He feels extremely lucky that his life didn’t end when it could have, and has realized how short it is. When his time does come, he wants to make sure he took advantage of everything that he wanted to do in his life.

2. He had let his ego get in the way. He realized how many times he really had wasted time on things that don’t matter with people that do matter, because of his ego. He now doesn’t sweat the less important things in life. He also mentioned that he hadn’t gotten in a fight with his wife in two years. He stated, “I no longer choose to be right. I choose to be happy”.

3. He learned what was important to him. He said the one thing that he really thought about right before he hit the water was that he wished he would be able to see his kids grow up. That moment really taught him that the one thing in life that he wanted was to be the best dad possible. Every day he reminds himself of this and lives to be a great dad, above all.

The main thing that I thought was so amazing about this speech was that the speaker said so much in such little time. He learned those lessons in just over five minutes while on that plane, and inspired the audience with his words in roughly the same amount of time. As, I mentioned before, I believe these lessons can be applied to both life and business. I have truly taken his words to heart and want to be able to think of those three lessons in every aspect in life.