And a very warm welcome to Lenny Ravich, who came all the

way from Israel and is the author of a great book,

actually, which I read a few years ago, which is called "A

Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Enlightenment."

Obviously, he is, in addition to being a psychologist and a

very impactful speaker, he's also a humorist.

And we were guaranteed by Avi that we're going to laugh, and

that we're going to enjoy ourself, and that we are all

going to leave smiling.

And hopefully, by leaving this room smiling, we will then

have a positive influence on everyone else in the office.

And we will all go home and smile.

And then, we will have a positive

impact on our families.

LEONARD RAVICH: Play it forward.

MALE SPEAKER: And, yeah, we will pay it forward.

So I look forward to laughing and smiling and feeling a

little bit better.

So Lenny, over to you.

And thank you very much for coming to Google.

We're very happy to have you.

LEONARD RAVICH: My pleasure.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

LEONARD RAVICH: Yes, thank you very much for coming.

Before I begin, I would like to ask a question.

How many of you would like to have a more flourishing life,

a more joyful life, open mind, feeling good, looking good,

live longer, live stronger?

If there's anybody here like that, would

you raise your hand?

OK, you almost forgot.

How many people would not like to have a more flourishing

life, live longer, live stronger,

look good, feel good?

How many people would not?

OK, I just want to check if I was in the right place.

Because I'm going to talk to you about all of those things

and how to achieve them.

I will be giving you some things, which we call

attitudes, that I've discovered along my journey.

But first, I'd like to tell you a little story about how

this all began.

I was working in Tel Aviv, in Israel, at

the Ministry of Education.

I was an inspector, a supervisor of teachers.

If anybody doesn't know what an inspector is, it's a person

that used to be a teacher and then

decided not to work anymore.

In 1996, I went out on pension.

And since I've been out on pension, I've been having

nightmares.

I keep dreaming I go back to the Ministry of Education.

And I start out on a journey of my own to find out what is

the one thing that all people in the world want.

What is the most valuable thing in our lives, which we

probably don't think about too much.

So I started sending out mails, Facebook, I met

strangers on planes and asked this question.

What's most important thing for you in your life?

What is the most valuable thing to you?

And what do you think the most common answers were?

Let me hear what you think.

What were the most common answers?

AUDIENCE: Being happy.

LEONARD RAVICH: I'm sorry?

AUDIENCE: Being happy.

LEONARD RAVICH: Being happy.

What is your name?

AUDIENCE: Tulsi.

LEONARD RAVICH: Susie?

AUDIENCE: Tulsi.

LEONARD RAVICH: Sucie.

AUDIENCE: Tulsi.

Tulsi.

Tulsi.

LEONARD RAVICH: Tulsi.

Tulsi.

Thank you, Tulsi.

OK, anybody else?

AUDIENCE: Health.

LEONARD RAVICH: Again?

AUDIENCE: Health.

AUDIENCE: Health.

LEONARD RAVICH: Health.

Who said that?

What is your name?

AUDIENCE: [? Clea. ?]

LEONARD RAVICH: [? Pia? ?]

AUDIENCE: [? Clea. ?]

AUDIENCE: [? Clea. ?]

LEONARD RAVICH: [? Clea. ?]

AUDIENCE: [? Clea. ?]

LEONARD RAVICH: It's very clear, [? Clea. ?]

Being healthy.

OK.

Anybody else?

AUDIENCE: My family.

LEONARD RAVICH: Again?

AUDIENCE: My family.

LEONARD RAVICH: Family.

Family.

Your name?

AUDIENCE: No.

LEONARD RAVICH: OK.

[LAUGHTER]

LEONARD RAVICH: I was going to get you a family.

OK, so we have happy.

We have healthy.

We have family.

Anybody else?

AUDIENCE: Meaningful relationships.

LEONARD RAVICH: Meaningful relationship.

And you are?

AUDIENCE: Loren.

LEONARD RAVICH: Loren.

And that's Alex.

OK, I almost got you confused.

OK.

AUDIENCE: That's all right.

LEONARD RAVICH: OK, may I ask you a question?

Let's say the most important thing in life to me is family,

and I get to have a wonderful, strong,

functional, healthy family.

I'd like you to fill in this one word in a sentence.

If I have all of that, I will be a [MM]

person?

Happy.

Somebody said health, yes?

If I have health, perfect health, wake up in the morning

perfect health every day of my life, I will be a [MM] person.

AUDIENCE: Happy.

LEONARD RAVICH: Happy.

OK, who said happy?

Happy, OK.

What else did we have?

We had meaningful relationship.

If I have a real meaningful relationship, a long lasting,

meaningful relationship, I will be a--

AUDIENCE: It's a trick question.

LEONARD RAVICH: Trick question, isn't it?

AUDIENCE: Fulfilled.

LEONARD RAVICH: Fulfilled.

And if I am fulfilled, I will be--

AUDIENCE: --happy.

LEONARD RAVICH: Happy.

[LAUGHTER]

LEONARD RAVICH: OK, so the one thing we all want is this

thing called happiness, or joy, or positive feelings.

Now, of course we want it.

How many people here are parents?

OK.

How many people here are children of parents?

If I asked you as a parent, or any parent in the world, what

do you want most for your children?

I want them to be--

AUDIENCE: --happy.

LEONARD RAVICH: Happy.

OK, we keep going back to the same subject.

We all want that.

And I'll tell you why and how to achieve it in some ways,

the awareness at least.

They asked John Lennon--

anybody remember John Lennon--

AUDIENCE: Yep.

LEONARD RAVICH: When he was in grammar school, John what do

you want to be when you grow up?

And his answer was, I want to be happy.

So the school officials decided that John Lennon

didn't understand the question.

Later on, John Lennon said that the school officials

didn't understand life.

So we all want this thing called happiness.

And what is it?

It's something we don't talk about much.

They don't teach you much in school or at home about what