3 Ted Talks That Changed My Mindset
Author: Kaitlyn Hughes
Ted Talks have always been a point of interest for me. I have been known to watch Ted Talk after Ted Talk in my free time. Although they are not the most conventional form of entertainment, I have found that there is something special about the fact that we have the ability to listen to 20-minute snippets of research or experiences directly from those who spent years studying or living it. And there’s Talks on almost every topic you can imagine, giving you the opportunity to acquire knowledge and understanding of various life dilemmas, world views, and even inspiring stories of hardship and success. Whatever the topic, the Ted speakers get up on that stage to teach the audience a lesson that took them years to figure out; making Ted Talks an incredible tool for discovery.
Similar to reading nonfiction, or attending a discussion with an author, journalist, or researcher, Ted Talks offer us with insight that keeps us engaged and furthers our desire to learn. I had a professor during my undergraduate education who required us to attend two talks or Q&A discussions with some of the authors whose works we were reading and discussing in class. His reasoning was that not only would it get us better acquainted with what we were reading, but it would also open the door to a new experience; an experience that not many young people participate in, and that would further our education as lifelong learners. And although some students did not appreciate mandatory attendance of a discussion outside of class time, I resonated with this professor’s reasoning and intention, and I would say it even became a common practice in my life.
That being said, I believe that some of these presentations and discussions I have not only attended, but also streamed via Youtube have impacted me in ways that I believe has been both encouraging and eye opening for me. Therefore, I thought I would share a few of my favorite Ted Talks so that other young people may feel influenced and inspired as well.
1. The Power of Vulnerability |Brené Brown https://youtu.be/iCvmsMzlF7o
This was probably the first Ted Talk I ever watched when I was in high school. At the time, I was participating in an acting class, which is quite obviously a place where vulnerability is essential to the performance. However, I knew this was something that many people, myself included, struggle with. So, naturally, I watched. And although I was expecting an interesting perspective on vulnerability, I was unaware of how common it was to fear being completely open with people out in the world and how essential vulnerability is to our sense of connection and social fulfillment. Specifically, Brené Brown tells us that as a whole, we define words such as “love”, “connection”, and “belonging” by describing instances in which their human need for these feelings were not fulfilled. Now that fact was completely terrifying to me, but I also felt compelled to make a personal change. That’s the power of “The Power of Vulnerability”; throughout this talk, Brené Brown inspires listeners to live truthfully without the fear of unworthiness and rejection. So, watch for yourself, embrace your vulnerability, and watch all of your relationships grow.
2. The Danger of a Single Story | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
I know this is a big statement, but this Ted Talk may have shaped how I think of stories and media and inspired a new path in my life. This Ted Talk was introduced to me during one of my undergraduate classes. We were discussing the idea of stories and particularly who decides what stories are told and how that affects all who have access. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks of the same idea, told through her personal experiences of reading British and American stories as a young girl living in Nigeria.
Now, I’m not going to spoil her story, because I honestly believe that it is best told from Chimamanda herself, however, this brought up similar situations that I experienced in my life. Like Chimamanda, the only stories I was exposed to as a child were stories of little girls with blond hair and blue eyes raised by two white parents. But being a biracial child with brown curly hair and two parents who looked very different, I felt sort of lost in translation. Here I was, in a completely white environment, not quite fitting in, but having nowhere else to go and no examples of people like me in the media. I could go on, telling stories throughout my life as Chimamanda did during her Talk, and you can and should go back and listen to her stories, but I’ll spare you my own personal experiences. The point is that listening to this Ted Talk made me realize what I have been missing for most of my life…Representation. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie inspired me to both pursue a path in which I hope to make change regarding which stories the public can access as well as searching for and providing my family with stories that better depict them and also the world. And I hope she inspires you as well.
3. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
“What if doing well in school and in life depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily?” This is the question that Angela Lee Duckworth addresses in her Ted Talk “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance”. That first question may seem slightly shocking right? We have been told our whole lives that if you don’t learn something quickly, then you will fall behind. As a country, we have come to thrive on a fast-paced environment that is driven by productivity. A place where if you don’t understand it, we don’t have time to teach it to you. But what do we do with people who don’t understand it quickly? Do we throw them aside? Personally, I think we do. And this Ted Talk works to invalidate that practice.
Angela Lee Duckworth found that it is not the ability to learn quickly that makes us successful, but one’s motivation to work hard over long periods of time. Although she provides us with one snippet of research on how to develop motivation in children, she leaves us with a lot of questions. Here are some of the questions that I am left with: How do we produce an environment where we make space for learning and failure? How do we reconfigure our teaching and culture to better incorporate growth mindset? It’s clear we are not there yet. We are not currently embracing our failures and continuing our work, but we’re definitely on our way there. But it’s clear to me that this problem is in need a cultural reset.