I love TED talks and this year I have been developing some online course work focussing on managing your career like a business. Part of the course work covers our limiting beliefs and unspoken assumptions around ourselves and our careers. In researching this topic these are 7 of my favourite TED talks that I have watched! Save this blog and watch them as and when you get time - they are well worth it!
My absolute favourite is a talk by Reshma Saujani. Reshma is the founder of Girls Who Code. She talks about how girls are socialised for perfection and as a result tend to hold back in areas where they are are unsure that they will get it 100% right. Her message is a resounding vote for trying, failing, getting back up, trying again and all the while growing and learning in the process.
Casey Brown talks about knowing and communicating your worth. It's a valuable illustration of your mindset. If you don’t believe you are worth it, it will reflect in how you are paid, in how you are treated, in how you treat yourself. So the message here is develop a mindset that is clear on your worth and then communicate it in words and in your actions. The language you use, the mindset you have all controls the way you think about yourself and that controls how others think of you.
Aside from being possibly the funniest TEDTalk I have ever watched, Shawn Achor shares an important message. Simply put, his message is that:
Our brains don’t work better when we work harder, they work better when we are positive.
He goes on to talk more about positive psychology and the research that has been done around the link between your mindset and success. productivity, creativity and learning. In all instances the research says that if you have a positive mindset you are more likely to be successful.
Drew Dudley talks with humour and wisdom about the fact that leadership is not a position, but rather a behaviour and gives some lovely anecdotes about everyday leadership. In a world where we talk so much about servant leadership and the coach leader, but still see so many examples of bureaucratic leadership, this is a gentle reminder of the principle of being the leader you want to see.
This is a very straight forward talk from Susan Colantuono, emphasising the missing link that stops women moving from middle management positions into top management and leadership positions: business, strategic and financial acumen.
One of the key issues I see holding people back in life is their fear of speaking up for themselves. This talk by Adam Galinsky is a powerful insight into how to speak up and be heard, how to advocate for yourself. He provides a set of tools that lower the risk of speaking up and increase your power as a speaker.
Our brains filter, distort and delete information in a bid to make sense of the world and protect us from danger. How I experience the world is different to how you experience the world. This creates exponential opportunities to perceive and understand the world, as well as endless opportunities for misunderstanding each other and what we see around us.
According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we're all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it "reality." But there is immense power in knowing that we can so easily misperceive the world and ourselves - but only when we are curious and awake to what we see and experience.
This final TED talk on my list, is well worth watching even if all it does is leave you questioning the very nature of your existence.