So in this video, we're going to look at arrows theorem and prove it formally. So to begin, let's establish the notation that we'll use throughout this video. I'll let n be the set of agents. I'll let o be a finite set of outcomes. So these are the candidates that the agents are going to have preferences over. And the really important thing about o is going to be that there are at least three candidates. So arrows theorem is going to require that we have at least three candidates that we're voting over. I'm going to use l to denote the set of all possible strict preference orderings over o. So I'm going to be speaking here only about strict orderings. That means that agents don't have any ties in their preferences. In the end, arrows theorem is going to end up telling us that any desirable social welfare function can't exist, even if preferences are restricted to be strict. So this restriction to strictness is not going to be a limiting thing. It's actually going to be a strengthening thing. We're going to end up seeing that we can't have good social welfare functions even if preferences are strict. I'm going to use this notation here to denote an element of the set l to the n. So in other words, this is going to be a preference profile, a preference ordering one for every agent. And this is, of course, the input that our social welfare function takes. So recall that a social welfare function is a mapping from a preference profile, a set of preferences one for every agent, to a single preference ordering, which is the social welfare ordering. Going on, I'll denote with this symbol a preference and ordering relation here subscripted by a w, the preference ordering that is actually output by the social welfare function. So as I just said, the social welfare function itself outputs an ordering, and this is going to be the ordering that gets output. Now, when the input to w is ambiguous, I might actually have even more complicated notation here saying precisely which ordering it is. So in particular, this notation here is going to mean the preference ordering output by w when given the preference profile here as input. And I'm going to care about this in particular when I change around which preference ordering it is that I talk about. OK, so now let me formally state the conditions that Aero's theorem speaks about. The first is Pareto efficiency. So recall the idea of Pareto efficiency is that when everybody agrees on how two outcomes should be ranked, if it's the case that every agent thinks that A is better than B, then the social welfare function is required also to output that A is better than B. And this is only the case when everybody is unanimous. If even one person feels differently, this doesn't restrict us at all. So formally, I'll say that a social welfare function w is Pareto efficient if for any pair of outcomes O1 and O2 from the set of outcomes, if it's the case that for all agents I, outcome one is preferred to outcome two, then it must be that the social welfare function also chooses O1 preferred to O2. So the next definition we need to set up Aero's impossibility theorem is the idea of independence of irrelevant alternatives. Intuitively, the idea here is that we want to say that the social welfare function should decide the ordering between two outcomes A and B based only on the relative rankings that all of the agents give to these two outcomes. So it should only be allowed to look at whether or not each individual agent puts A above or below B in order to decide whether A should go above or below B in the final ranking. And this should be true for every pair of outcomes. So let's look at how we say this formally. We'll say that a social welfare function w is independent of irrelevant alternatives if for any pair of outcomes O1 and O2 and any pair of preference profiles, I'll call them preff prime and preff double prime, the following condition is true. So let's look at what this condition here says. This says O1 is preferred by agent i in preff prime to O2 if and only if O1 is preferred by agent i in preff double prime to O2. So in other words, this is saying, when I extend it out to the for all i here, this is saying that all of the agents relatively rank O1 and O2 in the same way in both preff prime and preff double prime. In other words, if agent i likes O2 better than O1 in preff prime, it must also be that agent i likes O2 better than O1 in preff double prime. So the condition says that if this is true, then it must be that the social welfare function, when given preff prime as an input, makes the same relative ranking between O1 and O2 as it does when given preff double prime as an input. So again, in words, what we're saying here is that the social welfare function's decision between O1 and O2 in these two different preference profiles has to be the same if the relative ranking that all the agents make between these two things is also the same in both of these two orderings. Finally, I'll define non-dictatorship as follows. I'll say that a social welfare function does not have a dictator. If there does not exist some agent i for whom the following property is true, for all outcomes O1 and O2, it's the case that if agent i likes O1 better than O2, then it must be that the social welfare function also likes O1 better than O2. So in other words, a dictator is somebody who simply determines the social welfare function. It's the social welfare function if it has a dictator is a function that just listens only to one of its inputs, ignores the preferences of everybody else, and simply spits out the one preference ordering that comes from the one dictatorial agent. Having said all of these definitions, we're now ready to formally define Aero's theorem. So what we can say is any social welfare function W that is Pareto efficient and independent of irrelevant alternatives is dictatorial. The way the proof works is as follows. So for the rest of this video, I'm going to give you the proof of this theorem, which I think is a really beautiful proof. Because we're able here to say something about a space of functions, a space of very complicated functions from sets of orderings into orderings without knowing really what function we're talking about. We want to assume simply that our function is P, E, and I, I, A. It's pre-deficient and independent of irrelevant alternatives. And we'll see that that assumption is enough to show that it must be dictatorial. Now, to avoid sweeping this under the rug, let me again remind you that we've made the assumption that the number of outcomes is at least three. That's important for this proof. In a sense, really, it's important because independence of irrelevant alternatives doesn't really mean anything in the case of only two agents. There can't be an irrelevant alternative if there are only two things to be compared. So we're going to need to make use of the fact that there are at least three outcomes, as you'll see in the proof. So let's get started. So we're going to proceed in four steps. We're going to end up proving four intermediate claims, which will eventually get us to the proof that this social welfare function, which we assume is both pre-deficient and independent of irrelevant alternatives, must also be dictatorial. So first of all, here's what I want to claim. It sounds like a strange thing to claim, but it'll get us where we want to go. If every voter ranks some outcome B, either at the very top of his preferences or at the very bottom of his preferences, then it must be that the social welfare function also puts B either at the very top or the very bottom. So let me draw kind of a picture of this. So think of these as being a bunch of preferences from all the different agents. And what I'm saying here is that each agent has to put B either at the top or the bottom. It doesn't matter which, but they have to put it either at the top or at the bottom. And what I want to claim is that the social welfare function then has to do the same thing. It either has to go here at the top or it has to go here at the bottom. So let's see why that would be true. So the way we're going to do this is we'll consider some arbitrary preference profile that satisfies this condition. Every voter rank puts B either at the very top or the very bottom of their preferences. And let's assume for contradiction that the claim that we've just made is not true. Instead, that we don't have B here, but we've got it somewhere in the middle. Well, in that case, there must be some A and some C where A is higher up in the ordering for the social welfare function and C is lower down in the ordering. That's what it means to be in the middle. There has to be something above it and there has to be something below it. So let's call those things A and C. Well, now let's modify our ordering so that every voter moves C just above A in his preference ranking. So all of these rankings, we haven't drawn it, but we have C's and A's in here somewhere because everybody is ranking all of the different order, all of the different outcomes in their orderings. So let's modify whatever this ranking is by constraining where C and A go. So let's imagine that A was in all of these different places and so on. Let's just move it to wherever C was before. Let's just stick it right above A in the ordering and leave everything else unchanged. And let's call that new preference, whoops, it's called a new ranking pref prime. So now we're gonna start using these definitions that we've assumed about the preference ordering. So we know from independence of irrelevant alternatives that in order for this to change or for this to change, these two facts, which we've assumed are true here, the pairwise relationship between A and B and or the pairwise relationship between B and C would have to change for some of the agents here. However, notice that B occupies an extremal position for all of the voters. And that means that C can be moved above A moving from pref to pref prime without changing any of the pairwise relationships between C and B and between A and B. And thus, we can conclude that in the preference profile pref prime, it's also the case that these two things are true, right? We assume that those two things are true in pref for contradiction. And because nothing has changed, we can use the IIA to say that they must also be true in pref prime. And from transitivity, we can, just the fact that we were getting a strict ordering here, we can also conclude, therefore, that A must be ranked above C in the social welfare function. However, look at the ordering that we've actually made here. Recall that we put C above A in every agent's preference order. Wherever A was, we stuck C just above, right? Well, recall that Pareto efficiency says that any time all of the agents feel exactly the same way about something, the social welfare function has to also feel that way. Here, all of the agents think that C is better than A. And so, Pareto efficiency requires that we would have C above A here. But in fact, we have the opposite than A is above C. So that gives us a contradiction. So what does this all tell us? What we've established is what we have up here, that if every voter has some outcome B at an extremal point in his preference list, it must be that it goes into an extremal point of the social welfare function as well. Well, so far, that sounds fine. It doesn't seem like that gets us into big trouble. Let's keep going and see what happens. This is the crucial step now. So now I want to claim that there exists some special voter, and I'm gonna give that voter a name. I'm gonna call him N-Star, who is extremely pivotal in the following sense. I wanna say that he's able to change his vote at some preference profile. So there exists a preference profile where if he changes his vote, he can move a given outcome B from being at the very bottom of the social ranking to the very top. So there exists at least some circumstance in which some person is able to make a really big difference to the social choice. He can move B from being the very least preferred thing to the very most preferred thing. Let's see why that would be true. Well, let's consider a preference profile, Pref, in which every voter ranks B last, and in which the voter's preferences are otherwise completely unconstrained. By Pareto efficiency, it must be the W also rates B last, because every pairwise relationship between B and something else has that something else being preferred to be, and so B has to be at the very bottom of the social ranking. So now I want to basically let voters, so I have some ordering of the voters from one to N, and I'm going to let them successively modify, so let me draw this. So I've got all of these different rankings here from different voters, and I've got some social welfare ranking here. So we start out with everything at the bottom, and we conclude from PE that B must be at the bottom here too. So then I say, let me one at a time take a voter and take B off being at the bottom and put it up at the top, and let me see what happens. When I do this, there has to eventually be a change. It can't be that I do this for everybody and B never changes, because once I've done it absolutely for everybody and I've got B at the top all the way, then Pareto efficiency again is going to constrain me and it's going to say B has to be at the top. So I know there has to be somebody who in making these movements causes something to change at some point. So I'm going to give the name and star to the first voter in this apparently arbitrary ordering on the voters that I've got here, whose change causes something to become different. So I'm going to get the first guy to move B from the bottom to the top and I'm going to look at what happens here. If nothing changes, I'm going to have the second guy do it. I'm going to keep working my way through until at some point B moves, maybe moves somewhere, something different happens. And then I'm going to say, all right, I found my end star. That guy who made a difference is end star. So now let me give some names to preference orderings because I need them for the rest of the proof. So I'm going to denote by pref one, the profile just before end star moves B and I'm going to denote by pref two, the profile just after end star has moved B to the top. And let's note that in pref one, we have B at the bottom in the social welfare ordering. So our social welfare ordering here has B at the bottom. And in pref two, B is in some different place than it was before. And every voter ranks B at either the top or at the bottom, right? So notice here we have Bs at the top for everybody. Here we have Bs at the bottom for everybody. And here again, we have Bs at the top and Bs at the bottom. But what's changed is end star. So here's the one guy who's actually moved something. And by our argument in step one, both of these profiles have B in extremal positions. And so it must be that the social welfare function also puts B in an extremal position. And because we've defined end star as the person who causes B to change, it must therefore be in this profile pref two that B is at the top. And notice that that means now that we've proven the thing we set out to prove that there exists some voter who is able to change his vote at some profile at this profile in order to move some outcome B from the bottom to the top. Okay, let's get to step three. So now I want to reason about this same guy, end star. So recall, end star has special power over outcome B in this very narrow way that there exists this one special profile that we constructed, pref one, where he can move B from the bottom to the top. Well, now I want to reason about this same guy and I want to claim something that all of a sudden seems very strong, that he's a dictator over any pair AC that doesn't involve B. What does that mean? It means that the social welfare function must make every decision between any pair AC where I'm using those variable names just to denote anything that isn't B simply by listening to what end star thinks. So if end star likes C better than A, the social welfare function will as well and it just doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. So that's what we want to claim here. So how does this argument work? Well, so we're going to begin by choosing one of the two elements from the pair and let's call the one that we choose A. So now I'm going to construct a new preference profile, pref three, which differs from pref two in two ways. First of all, I'm going to move A to the very top of end star's preference ordering, leaving everything else unchanged. So I'm going to take A wherever it was here and I'm going to move it up to the top. You'll notice, by the way, in these pictures, if you can read it, some of the variable names are bold and some of the variable names are not bold. The ones that are bold are things we've made explicit assumptions about and the things that are not bold are given for illustrations but we haven't actually assumed. So if you can make it out, you'll see here A is not bold because we haven't assumed anything about where it goes and over here A becomes bold because now we've assumed that it goes to the top of end star's ordering. All right. So anyway, we're making two changes. So our first change is to move A to the top of end star's ordering. And that means that for end star, A is most preferred, or A is preferred to B, which is preferred to C because A and B are both at the top. So wherever C is, it must be further down. And second, we're just going to arbitrarily scramble the relative rankings of A and C for all voters other than end star without changing the position of B, which is always extremal. So we're just going to kind of move around A and C in some kind of arbitrary way, but we're going to make sure that we still leave B in the same place for everybody else that it always was. All right, so that's our preference profile, Prf3. Now notice that in preference profile Prf1, we had that A was preferred socially to B and the reason we can conclude that is that we know that B was actually at the very bottom of the social ordering. So everything was preferred to B. And so A in particular must have been preferred to B. Now, when we compare Prf1 to Prf3, the relative rankings between A and B are the same for everybody because B is in the same extremal position for everybody except for end star who moves B, but we've then changed it to put A above B. And so it's the case that these guys over here have B above A in both cases. These guys have A above B in both cases and end star also has A above B in both cases because here we actually moved A to B above B. So from this fact, we can conclude that in Prf3, it must be that A gets socially preferred to B because by independence of irrelevant alternatives, the social choice between A and B can only depend on their relative rankings by the different agents. And we've just seen those relative rankings are the same in Prf1 and in Prf3. Now we're gonna say something similar comparing Prf2 and Prf3. So in Prf2, we had that B was socially preferred to C because we know that in Prf2, B was at the very top of the social ordering. And so wherever C was, it was somewhere further down. And in a similar way to what we argued before, the relative rankings between B and C are the same in Prf2 and Prf3. Let's see why that is. So we have, for all the agents other than end star, B is in the same extremal position in both cases. So wherever C is, its ordering must be the same. And for end star, things are a little bit different. End star used to have B in the very top position here and here he has B in the second position, but the thing above it is A. So in both cases, wherever C is, it's somewhere downstream. And so again, we see that the, because the relative rankings are the same in both places, it must be that the social ordering again is the same. So here we had that the social ordering says B is higher up than C and so here it must also be that B is higher up than C in the social welfare ranking. So using these two facts that we've just established and transitivity, we can draw the conclusion that the social welfare ordering must give us that A is preferred to C in Prf3. Okay, why do we care about that? Well, let's construct one more preference profile. I promise this is the last one, Prf4, by changing Prf3 in two ways. First of all, let's arbitrarily change the position of B in every voter's ordering while keeping all of the other relative preferences the same. So we're going from Prf3 to Prf4 by taking B and just kind of sticking it somewhere else. And, but we're not going to move around any of the other relative preference orderings. Secondly, we're going to move A to an arbitrary position in N stars ordering with a constraint that A is kept higher than C. So let's look at that. So here we have A in a really special place. Here, we're just going to stick it further down to here. But we're going to make sure that it's still higher than where C is. And what I want you to observe now is that all voters other than N star at this point have completely arbitrary preferences because the only things that we had assumed about those voters ever before was the position of the Bs. Those are the only things that we had bold in those figures because that's all we assumed. All this other stuff here is just completely arbitrary. Furthermore, N star also has arbitrary preferences except for the fact that A is preferred by N star to C. Now, what do we do with prep four? Well, in prep three and prep four, all of the agents have the same relative preferences between A and C, right? So we've moved things all around, but we've done it in a way that still has all of the agents in three and four having the same preferences between A and C. And we know that in prep three, the social welfare function has to rank A higher than C. So by independence of relevant alternatives, it must be that the welfare function also ranks A above C in prep four. But that's pretty interesting because the only thing we've assumed about prep four is that A goes above C for N star. And that means that we've established the thing we wanted to establish, which is that N star is all by himself able to determine the relative ranking between A and C regardless of what everybody else says. So that makes him a dictator over the pair AC. Well, clearly I'm gonna want eventually to say N star is a dictator over everything, not just over AC, but also over pairs AB, pairs that do involve B. So this turns out actually to be very easy to show. So let's consider some third outcome C.  So let me think about some third outcome C. Well, by the argument that I already made in step two, there's some voter, let's call him N double star, who's extremely pivotal for C, right? So I can make that same argument that I made before where C starts out at the bottom for everyone and the social ordering has it at the bottom. And then I started moving things to the top until something changes and then eventually I can see that it changes there and whoever the guy is who made a change, let's call that N double star. And in principle, maybe this is a different guy, there's nothing in step two that says it has to be the same person. It just says there was nothing special about B that made it the thing that had to move around. It would have worked for anything. So it would work, for example, for C. Well, now I can use the argument in step three to say that this guy that we've just identified N double star is a dictator over any pair alpha beta, which doesn't involve C, right? I'm just basically running through the arguments I had before, but renaming the variables. So of course, AB is an example of such a pair alpha beta, right?  So what I want to show is that that person is N star. You know, I might worry that there are different dictators for different things. But notice that I've already observed that N star is able to affect the way that W relatively ranks A and B. For example, we saw this in the movement from the profile pref one to pref two, right? When we had this profile where B was at the bottom, whoops, I'm doing that wrong. Let me do that again. We had this ranking where B was at the top for a couple of people who was at the bottom for N star. It was at the bottom for other people. And then we move it up to the top. We saw that that caused the social welfare ordering to take B and move it from the bottom to the top. And that means that N star is able to affect the relative ranking between A and B because wherever A is, it's somewhere in the middle here in the social ordering. And so the relative ranking between A and B got affected by what N star declared here, by this change that only N star made. And what I've now just argued is that there has to be some dictator over AB pairs. And so if N star was able to make any difference to AB pairs, he has to be that dictator because it's not possible to have both a dictator for AB pairs and a different person who ever makes a difference to the AB ranking. And so that means that this N double star and N star must be the same agent. And that means N star is a dictator over everything. N star is just a full dictator. And that means no matter what social welfare function I have if it's pre-do efficient and if it's independent of irrelevant alternatives it has to be some dictatorial social welfare function which means the only freedom you have in such a social welfare function is the freedom to decide which person is the dictator. And if you have any other social welfare function which isn't dictatorial then it must be that it's either not pre-do efficient or it's not independent of irrelevant alternatives. And that explains why we have voting systems that cause things like the number of votes that Ralph Nader gets to affect who wins the election in Florida. That's a case of not being independent of irrelevant alternatives. And that's usually the axiom that we relax because not being pre-do efficient would be really terrible. That means if everybody all agrees about something sometimes the social welfare function would do something different anyway. That's something that we're usually not willing to tolerate. And so the practical consequence of Ero's theorem is that we end up having social welfare functions that are not independent of irrelevant alternatives.


Hi, welcome to Think Tech. We are raising public awareness about technology, energy, diversity, and globalism. This show is center stage. I am your host, Donna Blanchard, proud managing director of Kumukuhua Theater. And we're coming to you live from Pioneer Plaza in the heart of downtown Honolulu, very near Kumukuhua Theater. I had a surprise guest for you today. I am interviewing Chantelle Saville, who is a host of another show here on Think Tech, Savvy Chicks. And this is a fortuitous event that, unfortunately, if you tuned in to see Tali, we had to move her show back in week. She's a little bit under the weather, but it just so happened that Chantelle is right here. So we're probably going to have the best conversation ever. Welcome to the show. Thanks. I'm not under the weather, but I might go into having a baby now. You might go into labor in a moment. Is it your first one? First, yeah. It'll take hours, don't worry. Not the hard stuff, but the initial stuff. So we're safe. So we're safe, guys. So we're fine. We're going to talk about expression. And it's really cool. On my show, I talk with artists about what they do and how they do it, but most important to me is why they do it. So I think there are a lot of intersections within our shows, because we're both geeked out on how we express ourselves and why, what we're doing. And bottom line, I don't know if you've found this in your show when you're talking with different people. The bottom line for me that I always find with artists is people feel like they just have to. It's like, you know, climb the mountain because it's there. I don't get that. There's mountains around here. I haven't climbed them. I'm okay with that. But when it comes to expression, it will leak out of me somehow when I've had, you know. It's like I believe for myself and for my guests, it's deep. And once you sort of get a taste for that expression, you just keep wanting to express it, and it's almost like you can't turn back. I feel that's what creatives find within themselves.  We're crazy.  It's not going to work, but yet there's something just deep within you that fire burns and you just keep going no matter what, and resilience and whatnot. Have you had, I want to get into what you do and your guests and actual forms of creation, but first let me ask this question. Have you had a time in your life when you didn't have access to a direct line of expression and had to deal with that? Well, it's actually interesting right now just about to transition in my life to be a mother, to having a baby. And I think my whole life I've always been like with a big imagination and big dreams and wanting to do things and wanting to inspire others to be healthy and to live their dreams. And I'm at a point in the moment it's like, is that still what I do? Or am I just going to, not just going to be a mother, is it like motherhood? But what I find that brings me most happiness is to keep that fueled within me and knowing even though I'm going to have a little girl soon, that I still continue to follow what's deep and inspires because that keeps me happy and lit up and going. So to answer your question, in the middle there, it kind of, that's just one example of a time that you almost feel flat.  You might find, a couple years ago I interviewed the poet, Jamie Gusman, and she writes very beautiful poetry but it was always dark. I mean some amazing dark stuff that would touch sort of the underbelly in everyone, you know. But she has, her baby is I believe nine months old, or seven months old now. And I asked her if it's changed her poetry at all because she's going, she's editing some stuff that she wrote before the baby was born. And she said yes, it is definitely changing the way she's expressing herself. She's finding more light in her work and I think that gives me goosebumps to think about how, you know... Then it's exciting, it becomes very exciting and I think, yeah, every time I've pursued something that seemed really true to me, it's like the universe sort of, everything meets you and goes on your way. So for instance, those times I'd pursue something that I thought was a good idea or I should do and then it doesn't really happen. It's like you're knocking on doors and they don't open but yet something you really want to do, you knock on the door and like, come on in. And I just find, and when I speak to other artists and creatives, they say the same thing. When they actually go for what they really want or give themselves permission to be their true authentic self, it's like you just attract those people that are like you and they might have seemed out of reach but they understand you. So they're welcoming and I find that really interesting and it seems like a synergy throughout all of those different, whether they be designers or musicians or actresses or actors or whatever they are. As soon as you're really true to yourself then you can collaborate with those who are. As soon as you're clear. Clear. Yes, clear.  What is that, New Zealand in your accent? So I grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.  And then I always knew I wanted to go to Australia so I moved to Australia when I was 18. I lived there for most of 15 years and now here in Hawaii. So my accent is sort of Canadian, Australian, Hawaii. Which sounded strangely like New Zealand to me. I've never been called New Zealand. I've got Irish before but never New Zealand. So did you move to Hawaii and what was your pursuit that brought you here? Well I came here with my other half who's come for his work here but I ended up finding my big purpose as well. I continued here right at the ThinkTech Hawaii studio. So I just had that vision to interview really inspirational people with neat careers. And I remember a long time ago when I took a leap of faith to create Savvy Chicks. I was like if there's people out there being mermaids, as a profession, surely I can create a business that I love that is from my own inspiration within. And sure enough I met Mermaid Carriel here on the island and I've interviewed her. And it's just neat how coming here, I mean we're going back in January so not far now, cut short a year. But to be able to have had a great experience here and got some creative inspiration and met these mermaids who make a living from being a professional mermaid, it's been quite neat. So let's talk about your show. What can we expect to see on Savvy Chicks on any given week? So the main intention of Savvy Chicks is to inspire and empower women and girls to be themselves, believe in themselves and follow their dreams. So most of the shows are dedicated to young women and girls that I'm very passionate about but we get a lot of women and even men that watch. And I interview people who have really cool careers and who have really put themselves out there and given themselves permission to be themselves at all costs and whatnot. That's the main prog of the show but I also am passionate about wellness. So sometimes you'll see some guests who are personal trainers or nutrition advocates as well as confidence. So a lot of times again you'll find some of the guests that help empower women and girls with confidence. So it's just health and wellness, the confidence and that's what you need to get basically the confidence to your creative expression. Because I mean this is a personal opinion is that when your creative expression is not unleashed and you are doing something that's not true to you, I often see people who are in careers and they become quite depressed or insular or which leads to alcohol abuse or different things like that that can be prevented should you have more creative expression and that's a personal opinion but I believe pretty strongly in that. Do you feel like that sort of repression is more of a female issue? You know, I don't think so to be honest. I think I love to speak to women because I am one and I can understand but from being surrounded by a lot of men I think that they put a tougher face on but when you really get to talk to them they're just dying to express and especially you know you see it in the Hollywood actors and comedians and these types of people that if their creativity isn't fueled through something positive they're using these types of things as a crutch to keep them going. Yeah, agreed. I feel like yes there are men experienced that sort of repression as well but I think that there are more things blocking women from following their dreams and you know I'm 52 the longer the more I see the more I recognize that I didn't even realize that I really was always trying to be a you know a gracious host in any situation I'm not talking about the show but you know Smile and where I don't think my brother was raised the same way it's not that my parents were trying to harm me and not him but I think as girls very often we are raised to you know smile and be pretty and be graceful and gracious and all of those things and not so assertive and resilient and get a good job and you know they're told to exercise what's going on inside of them rather than to shield it so that goes along with expression too and I think a lot of times with women girls we can tend to laugh self-confidence which in turn holds us back from doing those things whereas men can kind of be like oh I can do that and they'll just go whereas women might tend to from my experience in seeing doubt themselves a bit more whether or not the men are actually more confident they just have that you know oomph about them that says I am so it's something that as women and girls we really need to instill that within ourselves and surround ourselves with people who believe in us as well because I think that's huge oh yeah I think we just saw all this played out in the election in the presidential election we just saw a man with so much bombast and arrogance you know swinging it around out there and then we saw a woman who with all of the answers literally they both have their issues but you know with a lot of answers and a lot of important people in the know saying this is the woman that you should choose and if she had done an eighth of what he did she wouldn't have been on the ticket let alone you know and if he had her credentials we all would have voted for him oh yes I mean when it comes to that that's a whole another ball game but it does really you know sit on a table how society perceives things and people and whatnot so yeah it's a framework to look at it because I do think I'm extra glad that you're here today because I'm dressed in black because I'm in morning I like to bring the light to any situation so I try to wear pinks and yellows because I mean at the end of the day what's sort of meant to happen happens and you know there's what do you do now there's not much you can do so all you can do is just hope that perhaps the people he's surrounded with will you know bring some good things to the table well and maybe it'll be an inspiring story for all women to know that we're not gonna stop here oh yes we're gonna keep going oh just having her in that position just gives other people I mean even Barbie I don't know if you've seen Barbie lately but Barbie has brought out you can be President Barbie Entrepreneur Barbie and these are really neat I'm so passionate about these neat different types of Barbies because I mean what is that doing to women in the next generation just saying that you can really be what you want to be and when we talk about creative expression I mean there's creative expression as I said in designers and you know architecture and all these types of things but it's also in business like there's so much creative creative expression in business and if that's allowed to be you know let out it really brings a lot of solutions to different challenges and it also brings light to you know sometimes a corporate world that can be quite yeah well and it's yeah yes and hopefully it will be welcome welcomed and recognized as we go on I think more and more companies are welcoming and recognizing the need for expression and creativity and it started with oh there's a design an advertising firm in Chicago that started they're the ones who started having apples they gave away apples at their reception desk and it was kind of a new thing but they had a play room for their employees and Microsoft you know knows that you got to give people time to play and exercise their creative sense as well yes play everyone needs to play more no matter what industry you're in you got to play and when I did my marketing degree that's what I also learned that they had all these cool companies that had games rooms and nap rooms and all this sort of thing when you go and put someone in a desk and just go nine to five do this clock out you're not going to get half the productivity than you would because everyone is creative inside I believe everyone has creative expression and as soon as you give them permission to use that they're not only more loyal to you and the company but what they come up with is incredible I'm sure you might fail a bit but at least you've been better okay we're going to take our first break we're going to come back and talk some more about how we're unleashing our creativity and how we can better ourselves through it you are watching Center Stage I didn't think of the name of my show Center Stage I'm on the Think Tech Hawaii digital network and we'll be right back Hello I'm Marianne Sasaki welcome to Think Tech Hawaii where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law where we discuss legal issues politics, governmental topics and a whole host of issues I hope you'll join me music Hi we'll back this is Center Stage on the Think Tech Hawaii digital network if you would ever like to join us in the studio downtown here in Pioneer Plaza you may do so just email J that's J-A-Y at thinktechawaii.net and he will.com. I don't know why I said net. Thanks, Zuri. Email Jay and he will hook you up. If you or someone you know really should be on my show talking with me about your artistic expression and why you do it and how you do it, then please contact me. You can do it via Facebook, dana.blanchard or at it's all about Donna on Twitter. Okay, we're back with Chantal Saville. I wanna say Saville. I wanna make you French. Yeah, that's where the name came from, Saville. Saville Chicks. Nice. SAVI. So here's what I think. I think a lot of people would agree with the statement, yes, creativity and having fun is important. Yes, we all need that in our lives. I think the difficult thing is that it's the same way often with exercise.  I have to get this grant proposal out. Speaking from my personal experience. We know what you're doing today. You're thinking about those things. So the low hanging fruit to kick aside may be what it is that you need most. Engaging in some sort of creative outlet or maybe figuring out how to make that creative outlet do your job for you. That is so, so true because as I said I'm quite a health and fitness advocate and when you push those things aside long enough that's whether it be health and fitness and creativity. They're two main pillars in actual success because to me success isn't measured by I've got this big empire. Success is measured by how you feel and when you keep pushing those aside and keep pushing that forward and making sure all those things get done you're actually sacrificing your health and your mental health when if you just slip those in a bit each day consistently because it's all about consistency you'll find that whatever you do achieve is so much more rewarding. And I think that's why pushing them aside is I've told people many times don't book it in your schedule then. If you think you need to push it aside book it in your schedule because you'll always find time. If your friend calls and she's in dire need of help what will you do? You'll go help her. What if you have that proposal do? You will go for coffee with her wouldn't you? You know, so... Yeah, well not that nice. No, yes I would. No, but you know something else came up if your child was sick or something like that there is a bit of time but we just don't give ourselves permission because as you said we just think that it's the low hanging fruit it's no big deal but actually it'll give so much more oomph to your work if you do that. And in fact I find I work faster if I do the things that I love more because I'm just enjoying it more. You know what I discovered that there's actually work that I do that I have been doing for years that is part of my daily work and I took one of these personality profile tests and it came out that I should, I excel at and I should look for jobs that involve research because I realized when I saw it I really do love research. So sometimes at work here's an example of way to put creativity and fun into your work easily all I have to do is name it and say this is, oh now I have to research this and then I feel differently about it and then when I do it it's like a little break. Yes, this is exactly it that's what I'm saying about business if you feel like you're not being creative in business but then you tell yourself oh I'm actually doing creative research all of a sudden it doesn't seem so hard. Yeah. Yeah. Okay so what other examples what other people have you run into have found interesting ways of bringing creativity into their work? Well I mean I have to, I'll have to name a few because they're just genuinely creative people I'll start with and then I can find some examples of people who found creativity within there and maybe not so exciting jobs.  If anyone looks about he's quite controversial but the man has got pieces in the White House and the Vatican everywhere. He's 82 I believe paints every day. That's all he does he paints. Krista runs the gallery. So this is something I find interesting as well about creatives. A real artist's creative if they pair themselves not doesn't have to be a husband and wife sort of thing but with someone who's more business minded it can really help extend their art. So he just literally paints all day long. 82 he's been doing it for years and these paintings are worth I don't know $300, $500,000 so he's making a great income per se from painting but what he says is he just he creates his reality on a canvas and he'll sit there and it's kind of a meditative thing for him. He doesn't really stress and he just paints all day long and it's just about him not caring. He's not painting for anyone he's painting from within onto the canvas. So I think that's someone who's taught me about real creative expression. Doesn't matter what people are saying or judging and it's just from if you take what's in and really true instead of trying to you know the market wants this or this wants this then just to keep going from within. So he's done that. Another neat thing is Jason Gretch, a friend of mine who's a fashion designer in Australia. He was doing amazing work. He's doing bridal and all kinds of different things but when he again gave himself permission to just go with those crazy sort of ideas he had in his head sketch them out and start creating them he just got more notice and more notice and more celebrities are coming to him and then recently IBM even approached him and they've done a collaboration. So IBM has created, they have this program that helps designers enhance their design by helping predict the fashions and the colors and things like that. So Spring Racing Carnival, huge in Australia. He pretty much, I don't know how many that and also the, all the football they have these red carpet events dressed majority of the celebrities front page of every paper, literally from using his creative expression and then being recognized for that creative expression because when you're really true to yourself IBM before you know it so those are another couple. IBM kind of, well I gotta stop for just a minute. IBM contacted him and said we'd like to work with you and they're predicting what the trends will be. I guess so. It's like, you know, there was pastels so it wasn't something he was usually using so they had like this, almost a pastel color this color and a purplish and so, yeah. I mean, I need to research it more myself but I just was like IBM so like technology and fashion, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool. You know, but what's interesting and as we're saying so there's people there in that technology world just technology like, oh yeah, technology but technology is sexy. I mean, technology paired up with this technology I mean, they can, they're the ones behind all of the cool creations that come to the front. I mean, without technology we wouldn't have things like Facebook, like the show. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? So people can really go, hey, why don't we try this or do this, those back end people have a lot of creativity. Oh yeah, sure. What did you say, Zuri? Did you say the name of the company? Oh, sorry. We're just chatting, sorry. Yeah, she's not even talking to me. She's talking to Zuri. I mean, everyone's talking to Zuri. You don't know what it's like. That's nice to be able to talk to you. I know what it's like having someone in my ear. I have someone in my ear. I wish I could have my therapist in my ear. I think the most though, I think, you know, the most powerful thing I'm feeling at the moment is so many different entrepreneurs coming out. Especially female entrepreneurs. I mean, female entrepreneurs are huge all around the world and they're actually taking over, taking over the world. Really, I mean, with the incomes and things like that, that female entrepreneurs are earning and what they're being able to create is just phenomenal. And that's the creative expression again. Oh yeah. So it's...  We have... I ask the question and then I think like, you see so many male chefs and that is a male dominated world. Yeah, and I don't really understand why that happens. That's a creative... Oh yeah, totally creative. Yeah, definitely is a creative profession, but yeah, that's an interesting one. There's not as many female chefs. Yeah. When you look at clothing designers, I think the big houses we have, they're probably pretty closely matched. You do have Diane Van Frustenberg and Chanel and there's a lot of females in that. Talking about Chanel, that is creative expression and that is an amazing story. She was just an orphan girl. Yeah.  I mean, to be honest, it's not really my style and that's again, creative expression. You have to know who you are to know it suits you. I appreciate it. I love it, love seeing people in it, but it's just not my... This is my style. So, but her story coming from an orphan girl and where she got her inspiration from and it was sort of from going to the churches and she had herself her own little nickname and just had this fairy tale world and look what she created. And she went for it. I think sometimes, and we just have a few more minutes left here, when we talk about people who just go for it, that's a scary moment. Oh yes. You know, to say, I'm gonna give up what I know work, what I know will get me a paycheck but it's killing you on the inside. Oh yeah. You know, to say, I'm gonna take the sleep. I did it when I started managing a theater. I was making a good living. I went from making a good living to getting by but doing something that I'm much more passionate about. And that's what, I mean, going back to, for instance, say creatives or especially young people, if they start when they're young and they pursue what it is that they are interested in, slowly, slowly, slowly, they'll get there. And they might not make a bazillion dollars but they'll make a happy life. I see a lot of times in women say, you know, our ages is that they end up being kind of almost miserable for so long only to take a leap of faith or switch or want to switch and never get to switch. So best that you maybe don't have a pair of $2,000 shoes, you buy $80 shoes but you're happy because really, I don't care what shoes you're wearing. As long as you're happy wearing them and I do find that fashion though, don't get me wrong, fashion is totally a way of expression. If you ever wanna feel different about yourself or good about yourself, I'm not saying I spend a million dollars but I'm saying get a different lipstick out or put something on that's vibrant or really just channel that internal expression if it's as simple as that, if you don't have a way to, you're too busy at work, just think about your outfit in the morning. I think that's a good way. It doesn't have to mean it's great. I mean, it could be black but as long as it's black and I'm expressing myself. Exactly. Well, that's exactly, but everyone's expression is different and I think the more people can recognize and understand that, the more that they'll connect with it. So yeah, that's...  You were talking about ways that people express themselves that they find ways to build it in. Oh, build it into their daily lives. Like, I know people who are, for example, lawyers but they find ways of, you know, researching different things that don't have to do with their particular case just because it's interesting in their field. So they just, they keep different ways of finding inspiration within what they do but to them it's exciting but also then they'll have a hobby perhaps. So just because you love something doesn't mean you have to do it as a job. They can be a lawyer but then play horse polo on the weekend and that's their unleash, their creative because people say, no, I actually really like my job but how do I be more creative? And it's like, well, you can go do those things. You don't have to quit your job to do that if you love your job too. You just need to make sure that you take time to do it. Exactly. Thank you very much for being here. I was glad, really glad to get to know you in front of all of our friends here. Yes, welcome friends. Thanks for coming to visit us. Thank you very much for being here. I would also like to thank our floor manager, Robert, who's right over there. Thank you very much. And Zuri Bender, as always, our studio overlord who is in my ear. Thank you. And Jay Fidel, who somehow manages to put all of this together here at Think Tech. Thank you for being here. We'll see you next week. We will have Tali Ariyav, who is a playwriting instructor as well as an acting teacher from Israel. And she's very cool. We'll see you then. Bye.