as being this quite soft, fluffy, wishy-washy thing,

but actually, it's really fundamental to how we connect with each other.

I think being kind is part of the purpose of being alive.

Acts of kindness are needed in the world, right now more than ever.

Back in 2011, I was sitting in a café, just enjoying a breakfast,

when I looked up at a screen

and there was a double-decker bus on fire in London.

It was terrifying. It looked like civil war.

And there was a very negative response to the riots

that really upset me as well.

I'd felt increasingly despairing

about what felt like the enormity of the problems of the world.

I didn't know what I could do.

And he was overwhelmed with gratitude,

it was disproportionate to my tiny amount of time and money.

But I thought, I did kind of put a smile on his face,

that sort of did make a difference.

So as I was going home, I concocted this foolhardy notion

that I was going to try and do an act of kindness every single day

for a stranger for a year.

It was completely life-transforming.

It's one of the big paradoxes of kindness,

that an act of kindness that is intended to benefit others

actually had some positive consequences for yourself.

There are patterns of activation in the brain

which correspond to a boost to wellbeing.

The reward pathways in the brain are activated

when people are performing kind acts.

Those relationships that are required for working cooperatively

are founded upon basic social connections.

So it's pretty fundamental

to how human beings interact with each other.

Thank you so much, that's really kind of you.

Oh, yes. So over the course of the year,

it proved itself to be utterly heart-warming,

completely terrifying, occasionally expensive,

sometimes physically hazardous,

like when I carried some really heavy shopping

over four miles to a lady's flat.

So it was a really, sort of, creative journey,

that was also tiring and incredibly inspiring.

Kindness changes the world!

I was like high every day.

Mostly it was kind of a warm glow

round your heart and also your tummy.

It just felt really good.

Human beings have a predisposition

to exhibit kindness to other people.

But they also have the possibility

of demonstrating quite significant unkindness to other people.

The environment makes a huge difference.

All of those stories about kindness being weak,

we have to challenge those now.

When you think of a really successful person

do you think of someone who's kind?

Or do you think of someone who's out there in the limelight,

really dominant figure, a celebrity, who's very wealthy?

What can we do to turn the narrative of success around,

so we say that actually being successful

does involve positive relationships with other people.

This is one of my favourites.

Some old people dancing.

I just thought about how elderly people

had no contact beyond the walls of their care homes.

What started off as quite a small localised idea

just became something way bigger than I could ever have imagined.

It's reached over 250 schools and over 250 care homes

and positively impacted thousands of people.

What we witnessed during that time

was how much we yearn to help each other.

What we have to do now is remember

the immense kindness that we were capable of during this time.

This can't simply be a matter of instructing people

in a given setting to be kind.

Hey, you. You need to be kind.

We need to change our environment so that it feels normative

to be kind.

I would really like to see businesses, schools, hospitals

all public services, have a kindness manifesto.

So that they all ask themselves, "Is this kind?"

So that it becomes an ordinary part of our conversation

at every level in every organisation, everywhere.

The biggest lesson for me was to embrace the fact

that every single day I can do something.

That thing might be just saying good morning to someone.

That thing might be just smiling.

That's how we change the world.

If you carry out a good deed to someone else

that will increase the chance of them

carrying out kind deeds to other people.

So it kind of goes in a circle, kindness.

The small stuff may actually be the big stuff.

All those small things that you figure, "Well, they're not important,

just people being nice to each other."

Maybe that's the most important thing for creating an environment

which actually enables people to feel good

and to be able to work together

and to be able to take on some really big challenges.

In the same way that a beach is filled with a billion grains of sand,

there's this sort of beautiful humility

in saying, "I can, at every single moment, at any point of any day,

contribute to making the world a better place."