“You can know how satisfied somebody is with their life and that really doesn’t teach you much about how happily they are living their life.” David Kahneman
David Kahneman‘s TED talk on the differences between the remembering self and the experiencing self is fascinating. Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate, is a founder of the school of behavioral economics.Tag: TED Talks
Widen Your Circle of Compassion
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Albert Einstein This holiday season, consider these two TED Talks and add your name today to the Charter for Compassion.Co
Hans Rosling Predicts the Date China and India Will Outstrip the United States
Hans Rosling amazes once again as he uses Gapminder to predict when China and India will surpass the United States. This is a must see. Click here.
Scott Simon at TEDx MidAtlantic on the Meaning of Stories
Scott Simon, NPR Weekend Edition Saturday host, spoke at TEDx MidAtlanic this week on the importance and meaning of stories. There does not appear to be a version of his presentation that I can embed in this post, but you can find by clicking here. You should do so.
Bill Strickland at TED
I had an opportunity to hear Bill Strickland a couple of weeks ago when he spoke to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids. He is a passionate person who is committed to making a difference in the lives of others.
Strickland founded a vocational school in one of Pittsburgh’s toughest neighborhoods, the neighborhood in which he grew up and still lives. Convinced that change can be made in people’s lives by giving them a beautiful environment in which to learn, Strickland’s school has had incredible success. He is now trying to duplicate that success in 200 cities around the country. In Grand Rapids, he has helped found the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology.
Here is his talk.A Demonstration of Wireless Electricity
Eric Giller, CEO of MIT-inspired WiTricity, demonstrates wireless electricity at TED Global 2009.
Rethinking What Motivates Us
Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, argues at TED Global that traditional rewards are not effective motivators in solving the conceptual challenges facing businesses in the 21st Century.
Pink’s new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, will come out at the end of the year.
Gordon Brown at TEDGlobal
TEDGlobal began this morning in Oxford with an extraordinary (which is quite common for TED) line up of speakers. The surprise speaker at today’s session was Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown says this is a unique age in history where our modern means of communication has created “a truly global society.” Brown argues that “the power of our moral sense” combined with the modern communication “gives us the first opportunity as a community to fundamentally change the world.”
Ben Dunlap on a Passionate Life
I recently posted a commencement address by Benjamin Dunlap, the President of Wofford College in South Carolina. I was drawn to listen to that address because of this incredible talk Dunlap gave at TED in 2007.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_dunlap_talks_about_a_passionate_life.html
Savage’s Obsession and Rowe’s Dirty Jobs at TED
The Discovery Channel’s Adam Savage and Mike Rowe each were recent guests at TED. They gave the great presentations below.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/488
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/477
Mike Rowe discusses our relationship to work in the April 2009 issue of Fast Company Magazine. [Click here] In the article he says, “The seismic shift from manufacturing to services has not only changed the composition of our gross domestic product, but also changed our national mind-set toward work. We no longer celebrate the way things get made. We are more interested in the way things get bought.”