The speaker, Kalina Silverman, shares her personal journey of navigating college life, feeling lost and alone, and eventually finding her identity. She recounts her struggle with the question "who am I?" and how she felt that she had lost her identity when she moved from California to Northwestern University. She also discusses her experience of feeling lonely and empty despite being surrounded by friends.
She shares a quote from Mad Men, Season 2, Episode 12, where Anna Draper tells Donald Draper, "The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone." This quote resonated with her and helped her realize that she was not alone in her feelings of loneliness and struggle.
Kalina also shares a picture of her first week at college, where she felt lost and alone. She mentions a diary entry from that time, where she expressed her feelings of being lost and questioning her identity.
She then shares her experience of joining a sorority and getting involved in various activities, which helped her feel more connected and less lonely. However, she still felt empty inside and realized that she was still struggling with her identity.
Kalina shares her experience of traveling abroad for her journalism program, where she felt more open to new people and experiences. She also shares her experience of visiting the Berlin Wall and coming across a question written on it: "What do you want to do before you die?" This question hit her hard and made her question her purpose and what she really wanted to do with her life.
Inspired by her experiences and the question she came across, Kalina created an experiment called "Big Talk," where she approached strangers and asked them deep meaningful questions instead of making small talk. She shared a video of her experiment, which went viral and sparked a global movement.
She shares her experiences of feeling alone and disconnected while trying to grow the Big Talk movement. She realized that she needed to take time to understand herself and reconnect with her own humanity. She shared her vision of using Big Talk to build global empathy through the power of connection and sharing stories about universal human experiences.
Finally, she leaves the audience with a Big Talk question: "How can I take what I learned today to make my life different tomorrow?"
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. The speaker is Kalina Silverman, a journalism student who created an experiment called "Big Talk".
2. Big Talk is about skipping the small talk and having deeper, meaningful conversations with strangers by asking them universal and open-ended questions.
3. The speaker was inspired by her own loneliness in freshman year of college, her travelling experiences abroad, and a question on the Berlin Wall: "What do you want to do before you die?"
4. The speaker made a YouTube video where she asked strangers this question and learned about their life stories. The video went viral and got featured on several media outlets.
5. The speaker received messages from people all over the world who resonated with her idea and wanted to join her movement. She also got invited to give talks and workshops on Big Talk.
6. The speaker took a leave of absence from university to work on Big Talk, but realized that she was losing her own humanity and connection in the process. She started using Big Talk as a tool to reconnect with herself.
7. The speaker's ultimate vision is to use Big Talk to build global empathy through sharing stories and understanding oneself. She ends her talk with another Big Talk question: "How can I take what I learned today to make my life different tomorrow?"