Welcome to Sentivia

Alright, let me tell you a bit about myself. I'm someone who finds the world incredibly funny, often in the most unexpected places. I've always had a deep appreciation for the unfiltered creativity and the wonderfully bizarre logic of children. It's a perspective that's really shaped how I see things.

I used to teach elementary school, and honestly, it was the best. Every single day was completely unpredictable. You could walk in thinking you were just going to have a calm, basic review of shapes, but then you'd get a paper back with a kid writing down people's names rather than the geometric shape requested.. I remember thinking, "well, that's actually... correct!" It was moments like those, that little spark of unexpected creativity, that made the job so fun.

And then there was the time I was teaching my fifth-graders about human biology, and one kid just randomly dropped a question card that asked, "What are balls for?". It was funny, obviously, but what really got me was that despite all the time we spent on proper punctuation, he put a *period* at the end of that question. It was that mix of wild curiosity and the total lack of self-consciousness that I just loved.

While I was teaching those kids, I was also running improv comedy classes for adults on the weekends. Imagine that – a group of retirees, grad students, and business types, all in a dingy basement on a Saturday morning. My goal was to help them tap into that same uninhibited thinking the kids had so naturally. I wanted them to stop overthinking, to embrace the weird and wonderful thoughts that popped into their heads instead of trying to find the "right" answer.

The funny thing is, kids don't need any encouragement to share their bizarre thoughts. They just do it. They’ll throw out questions like "Is it possible to make myself live longer to see the Sun explode?", or “Are pigs actually prejudiced against women?”, or even “If your brother isn’t married why doesn’t he just marry your mom?”. It’s clear their brains are just firing on all cylinders. Now, not all of those thoughts are great, and I’m eternally grateful my mom and brother are not married, but those questions are evidence of the kind of unfiltered creativity I find so fascinating.

I believe that this kind of unrestrained thinking, and our willingness to embrace it, is what separates people with a great sense of humor from those without. So many people try to force their thoughts into some kind of socially acceptable box, whereas embracing the raw, unfiltered, and sometimes bizarre stuff is where the real gold is. I saw that shift happen with my improv students. At first, they’d struggle to come up with creative answers. I remember Rick, the tax lawyer, who when asked for “seven weird types of shoes” would answer with things like “brown shoes, black shoes, gray shoes.” But, slowly, with practice and encouragement, he started to tap into that more bizarre and honest side. Eventually, that same guy who had named only boring shoes was coming up with “shoes covered in mud”, “shoes covered in gold” and even “shoes covered in the blood of my enemies.” Now THAT is a level of creativity that I am interested in.

I really do think that the key is to turn off that internal critic and just notice what stands out to you, the things that make you laugh or that you find intriguing. If you start paying attention to those little odd thoughts, you'll find there's a treasure trove of material out there. And if you're brave enough to laugh at yourself and be laughed at, the kind of discoveries you can make are wild. That's why I believe that even in the most mundane situations, you can inject some of that mischievous, fifth-grade energy and find humor.

I've applied this whole idea to a lot of different spaces, especially places that I found intimidating. LinkedIn was one of them. I've never felt comfortable with professional networking, so I decided to have a little fun with it. I created a profile claiming I was the CEO of LinkedIn, which I didn't think they'd even allow. I was wrong. And as if that weren't funny enough, LinkedIn sent out an email to my whole contact list, "Congratulate Chris on the new job. Chris Duffy is now CEO of LinkedIn." That was a joke better than anything I could have ever written.

I got to be CEO of LinkedIn for a year. And at the one-year mark, they sent out another email to everyone congratulating me on my anniversary. That’s when things really got interesting. Eventually, someone from their Trust and Security team reached out, saying my account had to be locked. So I tried to prove that my name was, in fact, Chris Duffy. But the issue, as she so kindly pointed out, was not my name but my role. So I told her she was taking a pretty disrespectful tone with me, her CEO! Let's just say, that ended with my account being permanently deactivated. It was a short but glorious time running my own social network.

So, what am I up to now? Well, I’ve decided that I am now the founder and owner of TED, and I think you’ll all agree it's time to congratulate me, you know you want to.