5 TED Talks for Leaders

Ready to get inspired for your career? Take a listen to these 5 Ted Talks to learn more about topics ranging mindset and grit, to power poses and creativity. With advice from women leading in industries such as science, technology and entertainment, their insights can help you refine your leadership style and prepare your next career power move.

 

Original Photo of Angela via Character Lab

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

Angela Duckworth began gathering insights on the power of mindset during her time teaching 7th grade math. She noticed that the smartest students weren’t always the ones to succeed. Instead, it was those who chose to embrace the challenge and persevere with grit. Angela continued studying success as a PhD student and scientist and continues to teach us about grittiness. Her TED Talk offers an overview into the idea of grit and its relationship to growth mindset. 

“When I get knocked down, I’ll get back up. I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I’ll strive to be the grittiest.” 

Watch Angela's TED Talk here.

A S'well Story of Female Entrepreneurship

The beauty of florals on a sleek S'well bottle helps make the water bottle a fashion accessory. 

Sleek. Beautiful. Functional. It’s the unexpected fashion accessory that changed an industry while also helping the environment. 

Seeing only wasteful plastic bottles and the clunkier options available for sports, S’well founder Sarah Kauss saw an opportunity to offer a chic and functional alternative. With $30,000 from her savings account and a can-do attitude. Sarah embarked on a journey in 2010 that would result in a brand with global reach by the year 2015. 

Founder Sarah Kauss with an array of bottle prints, including the famous Liberty of London florals.

Sarah envisioned a bottle that would be beautiful to carry, while also keeping drinks hot or cold. Along the way she heard “no,” encountered disbelief and learned to brush off the misguided concerns of others. How could a woman with a stable corporate position as an accountant leave the safety of the corporate world in order to make water bottles? Who even needed another water bottle? 

As crazy as it may have sounded at the time, Sarah took the risk to give herself and her idea a chance. 

Going Forward

Original images of Rachel and books via The HollisCo

What’s good? The sight of a rainbow after the storm, the smell of cookies baking and the sound of a cat purring. The list of all that is good in life is endless, but would we be able to fully appreciate the good and beautiful if we didn’t already survive the bad and ugly?

 

Author Rachel Hollis invites us into the conversation in her latest book, “Didn’t See That Coming.” In it, she tackles this very question as she reveals lessons and routes to recovery for even the hardest of seasons. 

“What’s good will always be good, and one of the most awful, beautiful things about the hard seasons is that unless we experience hardship, we’ll never truly appreciate and remember the good that was always good.” 

A global pandemic, death, job loss, betrayal, disappointment...we have all had our share of hard experiences. But as Rachel points out, you either burn up as you go through the fires of horrible events, or you come out newer and stronger. 

Though it may not always feel possible, we each have the power to fight for the life we want and the recovery we envision. Rachel helps walk readers through steps to take today, tomorrow and forever in order to move forward into the next stage of life.