Sometimes life gets you down, and you need some inspiration and motivation. TED Talks are a great resource! There are so many good ones out there that it’s hard to choose what to watch, so we’ve compiled a list of the best to help brighten your day.
1. Lessons from Space: A Higher Perspective
While soaring 17 miles above the earth’s surface on a U2 reconnaissance aircraft, author and speaker Dan Clark gained a higher perspective on life, love, and leadership. From one extraordinary example after another, Dan demonstrates how perspective controls everything we believe and do, and how we can raise our personal bar to achieve significance.
2. A Simple Trick to Improve Positive Thinking
Social psychologist Alison Ledgerwood explains why failure stays in our heads longer than success and shares how we can overcome that and become more positive thinkers!
3. How Great Leaders Inspire Action
Leadership expert Simon Sinek delves into the successes of innovative leaders such as Martin Luther King and the Wright brothers. He shares why these leaders were so effective and how we can become more like them.
4. Love Letters to Strangers
Hannah’s mother only communicated to her through letters, so when Hannah became depressed in college, she started writing letters. However, she took a new route and started writing them to strangers. After she posted that she would write a letter to anyone who requested, she started receiving all sorts of requests for letters. People who were struggling with being bullied, being a single mother, and all kinds of heartbreaking circumstances emailed her to ask for a handwritten letter. In this TED Talk, she discusses the beautiful experiences that she has had and how it has shaped her as a person.
5. Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.
Louie Shwartzberg captures nature through time-lapse photography. In this TED Talk, he combines his stunning images with inspiring words from Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast.
6. Why We All Need to Practice Emotional First Aid
Psychologist Guy Winch shares how we often worry about our physical health more than we worry about our emotional and mental health. Here, he shares why it is just as important to care for our emotions with the same diligence that we care for our physical bodies.
7. The Puzzle of Motivation
Feeling unmotivated? Career analyst Dan Pink explains how motivation is created and how incentives can actually block your productivity. He then shares the best ways to motivate yourself and be productive.
8. The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage
Psychologist Susan David talks about how you can use authenticity to gain emotional agility. She also explains how emotions are incorrectly seen as wrong or right and how we, as a society, can work on being more at peace with our emotional well-being.
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