Rain makes me contemplative. Where I live in Colorado we are in the middle of autumn rain that is putting snow on the mountains. I started watching TED Talks and thought I’d share them with you.
The playlist is called, Talks to help you find your purpose. Click here to watch the whole playlist or use the individual links below to pick and choose.
7 TED Talks to help you find your purpose
1. Why you will fail to have a great career
In this funny and blunt talk, Larry Smith pulls no punches when he calls out the absurd excuses people invent when they fail to pursue their passions.
2. Why some of us don’t have one true calling
What do you want to be when you grow up? Well, if you’re not sure you want to do just one thing for the rest of your life, you ‘re not alone. In this illuminating talk, writer and artist Emilie Wapnick describes the kind of people she calls “multipotentialites” — who have a range of interests and jobs over one lifetime. Are you one?
Photographer Boniface Mwangi wanted to protest against corruption in his home country of Kenya. So he made a plan: He and some friends would stand up and heckle during a public mass meeting. But when the moment came … he stood alone. What happened next, he says, showed him who he truly was. As he says, “There are two most powerful days in your life. The day you are born, and the day you discover why.”
Scott Dinsmore quit a job that made him miserable, and spent the next four years wondering how to find work that was joyful and meaningful. He shares what he learned in this deceptively simple talk about finding out what matters to you — and then getting started doing it.
When she was 19, Amy Purdy lost both her legs below the knee. And now … she’s a pro snowboarder (and a killer competitor on “Dancing with the Stars”!). In this powerful talk, she shows us how to draw inspiration from life’s obstacles.
In her New Orleans neighborhood, artist and TED Fellow Candy Chang turned an abandoned house into a giant chalkboard asking a fill-in-the-blank question: “Before I die I want to ___.” Her neighbors’ answers — surprising, poignant, funny — became an unexpected mirror for the community. (What’s your answer?)
7. Should you live for your résumé … or your eulogy?
Within each of us are two selves, suggests David Brooks in this meditative short talk: the self who craves success, who builds a résumé, and the self who seeks connection, community, love — the values that make for a great eulogy. (Joseph Soloveitchik has called these selves “Adam I” and “Adam II.”) Brooks asks: Can we balance these two selves?
Live a Bold and Authentic Life
Matt
