For the next week, force yourself to set aside 18 minutes every day to watch one TED Talk. If you’re going to be procrastinating regardless – and everyone knows they spend at LEAST 18 minutes procrastinating something every day – instead of scrolling through your second cousin’s boyfriend’s sister’s dog’s Instagram or searching YouTube for fail videos from 2006, at least do something useful while you’re online and go to TED.com.
TED conferences offer free ideas to anyone who can get an internet connection for 18 minutes. Speakers on TED stages talk about anything and everything – the value of a “normal” education, why procrastination exists, what happens during a stroke, the importance of body language, etc. The TED website has over 2,100 videos meant to spark curiosity, original thinking and, perhaps, positive change.
My sister works at a speakers bureau and has drilled into my brain the value of these FREE speeches. She’s forced me to watch a few of her favorite TED talks, and here are seven worth watching this week.
By Sir Ken Robinson
This is the most viewed TED Talk of all time, with over 38 million views (that fail compilation from 2006 you are looking for on YouTube has maybe 1,000…so please stop wasting your time). Ken Robinson, an expert on creativity and innovation, challenges the conventional education system by asking us why creativity – music classes, art classes, independent thinking – is eliminated from schools year by year so that, by college, maybe one class in your four undergraduate years has to directly pertain to creativity. If 38 million have watched this video, don’t you want to know what the hype is all about?
By Jill Bolte Taylor
Let’s say you are an expert on the warning signs, formation, and destruction of tornadoes and you find yourself in the Midwest smackdab in the middle of a tornado. Dangerous and life-threatening, sure – but also exhilarating, because this is what you’ve spent your life studying. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist, dedicating her life to studying and analyzing the anatomy of the human nervous system. And in 1996 she had a stroke! She recognizes every stage of the stroke and can predict what and why certain things are happening to her. Like most TED Talks, hers is utterly unique. Unlike other TED Talks, she gives insight on a topic that many have studied, but that almost no one has both studied AND experienced.
My year of saying yes to everything
By Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes is a self-described titan. She owns Thursday night primetime television with her shows "Grey’s Anatomy", "Scandal," and "How to Get Away with Murder." But she’s not a huge fan of the limelight. She challenged herself to, for 365 days, say “yes” to everything. She wrote a book about it, but for those of you who’d prefer (and realistically, can rationalize time spent on an 18 minute video over several days/weeks reading a book) to watch the condensed version, Shonda’s TED Talk – something she’d never have said yes to, had the offer been presented outside of the context of her “yes” year – describes what a year of doing things outside your comfort zone can do for a person. Shonda is a name worth knowing, and an inspiring figure for women, filmmakers, producers, visionaries, and everyone in between.
By Neil Pasricha
Neil started a blog called “1000 Awesome Things,” and I am obsessed with it. Every day, he posts a sometimes brief, sometimes lengthy, blog post on one thing that you wouldn’t immediately think of when you say, “That’s awesome!” A few of the most recent posts include: The last day of school; Crossing off the last item on your list; The first time a new friend uses your nickname; Becoming a regular. He’s turned the blog into a book and a TED Talk. He talks about why finding the small awesome things in life make each day, and then each week, and then each year a bigger awesome.
The invention that unlocked a locked-in artist
By Mick Ebeling
Mick Ebeling founded Not Impossible Labs on the premise that, at one point, everything that now exists was deemed “impossible.” And so, in line with that thinking, nothing is impossible. Mick helped graffiti artist TEMPT, who was diagnosed with ALS and is completely paralyzed with the exception of eye movement, create graffiti again. The Eye-Writer stemmed from the crowd-sourcing of ideas from all over the country. Mick thinks great ideas should not and cannot be kept secret within companies. If we openly share our ideas and brainpower and hope and hard work, anything is possible.
The surprising habits of original thinkers
By Adam Grant
In a data-driven and smart-person way, Adam Grant makes the average viewer feel like, “You, too, can come up with an original, successful idea!” Adam’s talk stems from his #1 New York Times bestseller, "Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World Forward" and discusses what habits, thought processes, and personality traits lead to the most original thinking. He reminds us that – among other things – to succeed, you must fail – a lot. He gives hope to people like you, who are currently procrastinating by watching the talk.
Inside of the mind of a procrastinator
By Tim Urban
Tim and Adam both gave their TED Talks in Vancouver this February, and Adam actually piggy-backed off of Tim’s presentation when the former touched on procrastination. (Watch Tim’s talk first.) Tim Urban has a blog called “Wait But Why,” where he picks a random topic (I read a post the other day about why cryonics – “the low temperature preservation of people who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that resuscitation and restoration to full health may be possible in the far future” – makes sense) and, essentially, becomes obsessed with it long enough to write a long-form article before he moves onto the next thing. He is a unique person, to say the least. In his hilarious TED Talk, he gives an easy-to-understand presentation on procrastination – who does it, why we do it, how it can benefit us, and what we can learn from doing it. His interests include almost anything you can think of, and he shares his obsessions in average person language in his TED Talk and on his blog.
Watch those seven and let me know what you think. There’s not enough time to watch every single one, but it is important to open your mind and schedule to the possibilities of what you can learn at TED.com. If you find fail videos or dog Instagrams to be more fulfilling and worth your time, perhaps you should see someone.
