In this keynote, the speaker argues for reclaiming the word “crazy” as a positive, productive label, drawing parallels to how other marginalized groups have reclaimed terms. He critiques modern workplace culture that rewards busyness over effectiveness, highlighting the rise of presenteeism and its toll on mental health. Citing statistics, he shows that depression has become the leading cause of short‑term disability claims, costing more than cardiovascular disease. The talk then shifts to practical solutions: creating a culture where asking for help is rewarded through mentorship programs, job‑shadowing, and simple peer‑support mechanisms (e.g., “Avery stickers” with three go‑to contacts). He also stresses the importance of intuition and gut feeling in business decisions, noting that current decision‑making frameworks ignore this valuable input. The speaker concludes with actionable advice for managers and anyone with influence to foster supportive environments, trust intuition, and ultimately take “crazy” back as a catalyst for innovation and well‑being.
Chapters
I'm a big believer in the word crazy, and this is part of the reason why I wanted to talk about this concept of taking crazy back, because we see it in the rap world, you know. There's certain words there that they try and take back. We see it in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans community, the word queer. They've taken that word back, and I think it's time that we take the word crazy back, because crazy can be productive. And there's some really good examples of some crazy people in business that I want to walk you through as well. But first, let's give out some money. Oh, now everyone is paying attention. Now everyone is like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop tweeting. He's giving out money." This is $50. Wait a minute. I'm not feeling so cocky anymore. This is $20. I will give this to the first person who can tell me what this is on the screen. No, not speakers. Not baby monitors. Air freshener. Ooh, aren't we all proud. No. Hearing aid? No. Oh, who said telephone? Who said telephone? No, not telephone. Any of it's going away. It's flying. Speakers? No. You can't just keep guessing the same thing and expect it to hit one day. Computer? No. A radio? No. This is— It's an iPad. But see, I mean, this is what happens in business every single day. You know, you go to call your boss, not to talk to her, but to leave her a voicemail, which in itself is crazy when you think about it. And then, stupid boss, she picks up the phone. Now what are you supposed to do? And what we do, what we do, this is how crazy we've gotten, techno crazy life. This is the conversation every single one of you have had. Are you ready? Oh. Oh, hi. I was just, I was going to— Listen, let's hang up. I'm going to call you right back again, but don't pick up the phone. It's bizarre. You know why? It's because society— we always thought that society rewards business. Society, in fact, rewards busyness. We are financially incented to work more. Not work harder, not work smarter, not work more efficiently, but to simply work more. Or we ignore it and hope that it'll go away. In fact, what happens is it gets even worse. We even have a word for it now. Used to be absenteeism when you got sick. Now it's called presenteeism. You used to be, if you were sick, you used to take a day off. I know it's a shocker. That was absenteeism. Now, people go to work anyway even though they're not feeling it. There's something they can't put their finger on. It's not quite right, you know. But they struggle in. They go to work anyway. Presenteeism. 4 out of 5 workers in this country say that they've experienced some symptoms— that make it difficult for them to work. You will live longer in Canada with heart disease, diabetes, or asthma than you will with depression or workplace stress. And I combine the two because it's hard to find that sort of delineating line. For those of you who are business owners and you wanna talk money, 32 days is what depressed workers report, uh, 32 days in the previous year when their symptoms left them almost completely unable or partially unable to, uh, to work. Depression is now the leading cause the leading cause of short-term disability claims around the world. Mental health claims, especially depression, have overtaken cardiovascular disease as the fastest category of disability costs. There are some ways, if you're a manager, or not even a manager, even if you are just simply someone who has some influence over your employ— or over your workspace, there are some things that you can do that I would encourage. First of all, create a culture where asking for help is rewarded. We've got to make this work. We've got to be able to give more than lip service to this idea. And this means mentorship programs. This means job shadowing. God, print out those stupid Avery stickers and put 3 lines on it and tell every employee to find 3 people that they can call in case they need help. Simple things like this. I mentioned that I had a gut feel about one of the partners that we were with and I didn't follow it up. Something wasn't right. I could almost smell it. But deals like that, as some of you know, happen on this kind of moving sidewalk. Once you step on it, on that path toward funding a publicly traded company, it just kind of takes off. And once you step on, there aren't really places to jump off. And it's just— a friend of mine has a PhD, Master of Science. She went to see Avatar. And I said, did you like Avatar? And she said, based on what criteria? Like, your gut. That's what criteria, you know? I mean, look, given a budget, an RFP, and some rudimentary math skills, a chimpanzee could come up with some basic decisions, but we, the so-called evolved species, can do what chimps can't, and that is to follow our intuition. And yet it's not built into the business process, and it needs to be. Here's an example of a business model that you work with all the time. Does the company have the ability to do the work? Is the company respected for their work? Does it fit in our budget? If so, you've got a pretty decent decision. But intuition, gut feel, is not factored into this at all, and that's a mistake because here's what our decision tree really looks like. Ability plus reputation plus price plus, I don't know, I got a funny vibe from that sales guy. The product of this equation will always be a better decision. Trust your gut. If something doesn't feel right to you, what should you do? Ask for help. It's okay to do it in the culture. Run it by a colleague. We have this incredible supercomputer in our head, and it's a shame that we only seem to value the data that's tangible.
