10 Inspiring TED Talks

Want to feel more inspired today, or just see things differently? Make yourself a strong coffee, set aside two hours and let these 10 TED talks make your day a little more exciting.

It may sound strange, but great minds need words of encouragement too, and those words have a surprising power to open the mind. We should remind ourselves more often that words have limitless power and can change our lives.

We live in a world that never stops changing, and those changes affect us deeply, often below the surface. That’s why I’ve put together 10 of the most inspiring talks by well-known speakers whose words still move millions of people every day.

Get comfortable, relax and get ready to hear from some of the most inspiring, fascinating people in the world. I’m sure you’ll take something away from every video, and I promise the time will be well spent: beautiful, useful and inspiring.

 

1. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

    

   Besides writing the classic “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action,” Simon Sinek has uncovered some remarkable patterns in communication that are hugely useful for making good strategic decisions. In this talk, he offers a fresh perspective on human relationships and shares his research on “the Golden Circle,” a model rooted in biology that explains why successful leaders and companies inspire us.

2. Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do

   Tony Robbins has one of the most famous smiles in the world. He turned his self-help book into a bestseller, and he still fills 10,000-seat venues for his three-day seminars. Robbins has a wealth of experience. His clients range from CEOs of global companies to Olympic athletes, and he has helped them reach their full potential. He believes we all have the power to make a positive impact on the world, and that it’s up to each of us to overcome our fears in order to succeed.

3. Seth Godin: How to get your ideas to spread

   In the 1980s, Seth Godin worked as a manager at a software company. Just a few years later, he founded Yoyodyne, one of the first direct marketing companies online. What made his idea interesting enough to catch the eye of Yahoo!, which bought the company in 1998? Sharing ideas. According to Godin, companies need to rethink how they connect with their customers and their ideas. Linking people through shared ideas and interests is a powerful way to communicate. In 2005, he created Squidoo.com, a platform where users could share links and information about the ideas that brought them together.

4. Cameron Herold: Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs

    

   This talk comes from Cameron Herold, who has spent more than 20 years coaching entrepreneurs and businesses on 5 continents. He founded BackPocket COO, where he mentors young, “fun” companies and helps them make their dreams come true. As he puts it: “Start building a network of other entrepreneurs who understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty for always chasing it.” (Cameron Herold)

5. Susan Cain: The power of introverts

    

   Susan Cain is a former corporate lawyer and negotiation consultant from the cutthroat world of Wall Street. She carries a stack of books wherever she goes. She enjoys being out among people, but secretly she prefers a quiet dinner at home or hours with favorite books from her grandfather’s library. She has found her quiet place in a noisy world and describes herself as an introvert. I was born an introvert myself, even though many people who don’t know me well would call me an extrovert. I know how hard it is to push against your own nature, to step out of your comfort zone every day and to live in a world that rewards extroverted behavior while you set your own identity aside.

   Cain started studying her own nature as a child, noticing her own distinct interests. She is the author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” in which she notes that at least one in three people is an introvert. But how do we know whether we’re extroverts or introverts? And how does that shape our ideas, our actions and the world around us?
   Gandhi, the Buddha, Darwin, Moses, Lincoln, Steve Wozniak, Eleanor Roosevelt and many others who changed the world were all introverts to some degree, and Susan Cain has a captivating explanation for why.

6. Steve Keil: A manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond

   Steve Keil, the motivator who chose Bulgaria! He teaches at the American College of Sofia and at Sofia University, and he loves what he does. He adores Bulgaria and values our history, culture and heritage, but he also sees the problems here and beyond our borders. Keil believes business leaders are partly responsible for the social environment we live in today. In his view, to free ourselves and become more productive, we first need to reconnect with the child inside us. In 2017, I got to see Steve speak live, and he is every bit as charismatic and motivating in person as he is on video. Hear his manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond.

7. Derek Sivers: How to start a movement

   Derek Sivers’ story starts in 1987, when he was a working musician. After recording a full album, he started a company, CD Baby, to sell his own CDs. His friends and fans loved the idea and became customers. A few successful years later, CD Baby had become one of the largest independent music sites on the internet, with more than $100 million in sales and over 150,000 musicians using the platform. In this short talk, Derek Sivers explains how a movement grows out of one good idea.

8. Richard St. John: 8 secrets of success

   They say successful people know the key to real success, and the doors it opens for those who work hard. On a flight to the TED conference, a girl asked Richard St. John a simple question: “What really leads to success?” He was stunned to realize he couldn’t explain how he had gotten where he was. To find the right answer, Richard spent the next 10 years researching what success really is. He interviewed more than 500 successful people in different fields to find out what they have in common. After countless conversations and years of research, he identified “the 8 traits successful people have in common” and wrote his bestseller, “8 to Be Great.”

9. Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation

   Dan Pink is the author of three bestsellers that have shaped how companies think about the modern workplace. In today’s companies, how people are treated and the trust built with them are natural sources of motivation and loyalty. Pink talks about the benefits of intrinsic motivation, how stifling creativity hurts productivity, and the three pieces of the motivation puzzle: mastery, autonomy and purpose.

10. Simon Sinek: Why good leaders make you feel safe

    Our last pick, “Why good leaders make you feel safe,” brings back Simon Sinek, whose first talk on this list showed us how great leaders inspire action. Beyond new communication patterns in business, Sinek talks about caring for the people in an organization and how leaders can earn their trust and respect.

    I’ll wrap up this list with a quote that I hope will inspire everyone, today, tomorrow and every day.

    “Leadership is a choice. It is not a rank. I know many people at the seniormost levels of organizations who are absolutely not leaders. They are authorities, and we do what they say because they have authority over us, but we would not follow them. And I know many people who are at the bottoms of organizations who have no authority and they are absolutely leaders, and this is because they have chosen to look after the person to the left of them, and they have chosen to look after the person to the right of them. This is what a leader is.”

Simon Sinek

 

I hope these videos challenged you, excited you, moved you, made you think and, last but not least, inspired you.