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The created of the Google art selfie match tells the idea behind the project

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The created of the Google art selfie match tells the idea behind the project

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Every piece of art you’ve ever wanted to see -- up close and searchable

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What does a cultural Big Bang look like? For Amit Sood, director of Google’s Cultural Institute and Art Project, it’s an online platform where anyone can explore the world’s greatest collections of art and artifacts in vivid, lifelike detail. Join Sood and Google artist in residence Cyril Diagne in a mind-bending demo of experiments from the Cultural Institute and glimpse the exciting future of accessibility to arts and culture.

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Why our screens are making us less happy

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Why our screens are making us less happy

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What are our screens and devices doing to us? Psychologist Adam Alter studies how much time screens steal from us and how they’re getting away with it. He shares why all those hours you spend staring at your smartphone, tablet or computer might be making you miserable -- and what you can do about it.

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The complicated history of surfing - Scott Laderman

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Today, surfing is a multi-billion-dollar global industry, with tens of millions of enthusiasts worldwide. For some it's a serious sport; for others, just a way to let loose. But despite its casual association with fun and sun, surfing has a richer and deeper history than many realize.

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Hans and Ola Rosling: How not to be ignorant about the world

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How much do you know about the world? Hans Rosling, with his famous charts of global population, health and income data (and an extra-extra-long pointer), demonstrates that you have a high statistical chance of being quite wrong about what you think you know.

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Want to be a better communicator? Break these 4 bad habits. 

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Want to be a better communicator? Break these 4 bad habits. 

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Yes, we all do these things, but they can suck the life from your conversations, says sound consultant Julian Treasure. Read this and strengthen your gift of gab.

Over the years, I've identified a set of common emotional drivers that suck the power out of communication. I call them the four leeches. Most people - me included! - have most, or all, of them in some form. I'm not suggesting they're bad, wrong or to be condemned outright; the trick is to be conscious of them and not let them run the show.

Leech #1: Looking good

We all like to look good. However, this basic human desire can often get in the way of our listening and our speaking. This tendency often evinces itself in two simple words: "I know." But if I know everything, what can I learn? Absolutely nothing. A Zen proverb sums up this proposition nicely: "Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day."

It's deflating to be around someone who is impossible to impress. Communication expert Trisha Bauman told me a story that illustrates this very well. She moved to Paris and thought she'd become inept at conveying her excitement at the sights she was encountering. Every time she extolled the beauty of a landmark, her new friends responded with a shrug. It took time for her to realize the issue was not with her; in that circle of people, if not in Paris, it was considered a loss of face to be seen to be impressed by anything. That's all very well, but this behavior is a joy-kill. Joy is such a rare commodity in this world that it seems tragic to go around killing it.

A more subtle way of looking good that tarnishes communication is what I call "speechwriting." As that irrelevant noise - you speaking - is going on in front of me, I am concentrating on composing my next brilliant monologue. This practice often produces the "anyway..." non-sequitur that ignores what was just said and moves the topic to a completely different place. It's a trait that often afflicts people in power, even though it's not a good style of leadership.

One step up from speechwriting is competitive speaking. This potent form of joy-killing is all about looking good. For example, let's say I enthuse, "We're so excited to be going to Greece on holiday this year." The competitive speaker will jump in with, "Oh yes, I've been to Greece six times and I love it!" My feeling: deflation. My joy has been made to look second-rate.

Leech #2: Being right

If there is one thing we like more than looking good, it's being right. When I am right and you are wrong, it makes me feel I am better than you. The desire to be right can be very destructive in relationships. As the therapist and educator Harville Hendrix has said, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be in a relationship? Because you can't always have both. You can't cuddle up and relax with 'being right' after a long day."

The need to be right can arise from a fear of being disrespected. Or it may come out of the fear of being seen as we really are, as flawed human beings who are perfectly imperfect and full of contradictions and confusions. We yearn to feel justified and respected, and being right - or making others wrong - is the route we choose to achieve these desires because it sets us above other people.

Interrupting springs from the desire to be right. This might be result from speechwriting, but it often arises with no planning at all - simply from the desire to disagree, demand an answer, or make a point now, without waiting for the other person to finish. Interrupting is becoming more common in our impatient world, even in matters of life and death. One survey of physicians in the US and Canada found that patients were interrupted an average of 18 seconds into their opening statements; less than one-quarter were allowed to complete what they wanted to say.

Interrupting has two unfortunate consequences. We don't hear what the other person says, which might be useful, enlightening or not what we expected. And it most likely damages the rest of the conversation by changing the dynamics - the interrupter is exercising their dominance - as well as the emotional context. The interrupted person may feel belittled and offended, giving rise to anger, resentment and the unwillingness to be open. While interrupting is not always wrong, it should never become a habit.

Leech #3: People pleasing

If someone is - or is perceived to be - driven by people-pleasing, it robs their speech of power. Honesty and authenticity are absent, and these are key foundations for strong communication. People pleasersmight say yes when they mean no, or agree to going out when they'd much rather stay in. They may concur with opinions that they fundamentally disagree with in order to be liked. While we all have this desire to have other people like us, it's a question of degree.

If you find yourself people-pleasing overmuch, take some time to think about your own values. Ask yourself: What do I stand for? What is important to me in life? What is not negotiable? Write down everything that comes to you. When you have your core values clear, it becomes much easier to stand in them and not be blown around by other people's opinions or needs.

Leech #4: Fixing

Fixing is about trying to make it all right. "Don't cry" or "Don't be upset" is the fixer's primary response to pain. Why is this a leech? Because sometimes people need to be upset and to express their grief, sadness, anger or other strong negative emotions.

Fixers think it's not acceptable for others to be upset. It may derive from people-pleasing, or it may be that strong negative emotion is seen as something to be feared - either because they had too much of it in their family of origin or because of complete lack of experience of it, thanks to a family where emotional expression was unacceptable.

My aunt told me a story that illustrated how even well-intentioned fixing causes damage. When she was a little girl, her parents told her she was going to have a baby brother or sister. She was so excited, and the spare room was decorated as a nursery. Eventually, the day came and her parents went off to the hospital. She waited at home with a neighbor, but when her parents returned, they were alone. Nothing was ever said. She did eventually get two little brothers, and much, much later she learned her first brother had been stillborn - but she never forgot the confusion and loneliness she felt that day. Doubtless, my grandparents decided not to discuss it so as not to upset her. Still, the effect on her was that a bond was broken and she found it harder to trust people.

Fixing, whether by withholding like that or by distracting or obscuring with extravagant affection, denies people the feelings they need to feel. Not only that, but many fixers habitually deny themselves strong feelings. When communication is driven by the need to fix, it usually means there's a hidden agenda at work - one that is all about the fixer's needs, even though it may be disguised as love.

Some of these leeches may be minor or even non-existent for you. However, I'm willing to bet you can identify at least one that has affected - or is currently affecting - your opportunities in life. As you consider them and become more and more conscious of their existence in your speech, their power will be lessened. Simply shining the light of mindfulness on them should cause them to wither and shrink.

Excerpted with permission from the new book How to Be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening by Julian Treasure. Published by Mango Books. © 2017 Julian Treasure.

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Which of these habits are keeping you from being a great communicator?

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Over the years, I've identified a set of common emotional drivers that suck the power out of communication. I call them the four leeches. Most people - me included! - have most, or all, of them in some form.

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How to get better at the things you care about. 

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How to get better at the things you care about. 

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

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Eduardo Briceño: How to get better at the things you care about

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Working hard but not improving? You're not alone. Eduardo Briceño reveals a simple way to think about getting better at the things you do, whether that's work, parenting or creative hobbies. And he shares some useful techniques so you can keep learning and always feel like you're moving forward.

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How we’ll earn money in a world without 

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How we’ll earn money in a world without 

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How we’ll earn money in a future without jobs

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Machines that can think, learn and adapt are coming -- and that could mean that we humans will end up with significant unemployment. What should we do about it? In a straightforward talk about a controversial idea, futurist Martin Ford makes the case for separating income from traditional work and instituting a universal basic income.

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Why you think you’re right, even when you’re wrong

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Why you think you’re right, even when you’re wrong

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Are you a soldier or a scout? Your answer to this question, says decision-making expert Julia Galef, could determine how clearly you see the world.

Imagine for a moment you're a soldier in the heat of battle - perhaps a Roman foot soldier, medieval archer or Zulu warrior. Regardless of your time and place, some things are probably constant. Your adrenaline is elevated, and your actions stem from your deeply ingrained reflexes, reflexes that are rooted in a need to protect yourself and your side and to defeat the enemy.

Now, try to imagine playing a very different role: the scout. The scout's job is not to attack or defend; it's to understand. The scout is the one going out, mapping the terrain, identifying potential obstacles. Above all, the scout wants to know what's really out there as accurately as possible. In an actual army, both the soldier and the scout are essential.

You can also think of the soldier and scout roles as mindsets - metaphors for how all of us process information and ideas in our daily lives. Having good judgment and making good decisions, it turns out, depends largely about which mindset you're in. To illustrate the two mindsets in action, let's look at a case from 19th-century France, where an innocuous-looking piece of torn-up paper launched one of the biggest political scandals in history in 1894. Officers in the French general's staff found it in a wastepaper basket, and when they pieced it back together, they discovered that someone in their ranks had been selling military secrets to Germany. They launched a big investigation, and their suspicions quickly converged on one man: Alfred Dreyfus. He had a sterling record, no past history of wrongdoing, no motive as far as they could tell.

However, Dreyfus was the only Jewish officer at that rank in the army, and unfortunately, at the time the French Army was highly anti-Semitic. The other officers compared Dreyfus's handwriting to that on the paper and concluded it was a match, even though outside professional handwriting experts were much less confident about the similarity. They searched Dreyfus' apartment and went through his files, looking for signs of espionage. They didn't find anything. This just convinced them that not only was Dreyfus was guilty, but he was also sneaky because clearly he had hidden all of the evidence. They looked through his personal history for incriminating details. They talked to his former teachers and learned he had studied foreign languages in school, which demonstrated to them a desire to conspire with foreign governments later in life. His teachers also said that Dreyfus had had a good memory, which was highly suspicious since a spy must remember a lot of things.

The case went to trial, and Dreyfus was found guilty. Afterwards, officials took him out into the public square; they ritualistically tore his insignia from his uniform and broke his sword in two. This was called the Degradation of Dreyfus. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on the aptly named Devil's Island, this barren rock off the coast of South America. He spent his days there alone, writing letter after letter to the French government begging them to reopen his case so they could discover his innocence. While you might guess that Dreyfus had been set up or intentionally framed by his fellow officers, historians today don't think that was what happened. As far as they can tell, the officers genuinely believed that the case against Dreyfus was strong.

Other pieces of information are the enemy, and we want to shoot them down.

So the question arises: What does it say about the human mind that we can find such paltry evidence to be compelling enough to convict a man? This is a case of what scientists refer to as "motivated reasoning," a phenomenon in which our unconscious motivations, desires and fears shape the way we interpret information. Some pieces of information feel like our allies - we want them to win; we want to defend them. And other pieces of information are the enemy, and we want to shoot them down. That's why I call motivated reasoning "soldier mindset."

While you've never persecuted a French-Jewish officer for high treason, you might follow sports or know someone who does. When the referee judges your team has committed a foul, for example, you're probably highly motivated to find reasons why he's wrong. But if he judges that the other team committed a foul - that's a good call. Or, maybe you've read an article or a study that examined a controversial policy, like capital punishment. As researchers have demonstrated, if you support capital punishment and the study shows it's not effective, then you're highly motivated to point out all the reasons why the study was poorly designed. But if it shows that capital punishment works, it's a good study. And vice versa: if you don't support capital punishment, same thing.

Our judgment is strongly influenced, unconsciously, by which side we want to win - and this is ubiquitous. This shapes how we think about our health, our relationships, how we decide how to vote, and what we consider fair or ethical. What's most scary to me about motivated reasoning or soldier mindset is just how unconscious it is. We can think we're being objective and fair-minded and still wind up ruining the life of an innocent person like Dreyfus.

Fortunately, for Dreyfus, there was also a man named Colonel Picquart. He was another high-ranking officer in the French Army, and like most people, he assumed Dreyfus was guilty. Also like most of his peers, he was somewhat anti-Semitic. But at a certain point, Picquart began to suspect, "What if we're all wrong about Dreyfus?" Picquart discovered evidence that the spying for Germany had continued, even after Dreyfus was in prison. He also discovered that another officer in the army had handwriting that perfectly matched the torn-up memo.

It took Picquart ten years to clear Dreyfus's name, and for part of that time, he himself was put in prison for the crime of disloyalty to the army. Some people feel that Picquart shouldn't be regarded as a hero, because he was an anti-Semite. I agree that kind of bias is bad. But I believe the fact that Picquart was anti-Semitic makes his actions more admirable, because he had the same reasons to be biased as his fellow officers but his motivation to find and uphold the truth trumped all of that.

To me, Picquart is a poster child for what I call "scout mindset," the drive not to make one idea win or another lose, but to see what's there as honestly and accurately as you can even if it's not pretty, convenient or pleasant. I've spent the last few years examining scout mindset and figuring out why some people, at least sometimes, seem able to cut through their own prejudices, biases and motivations and attempt to see the facts and the evidence as objectively as they can. The answer, I've found, is emotional.

Scout mindset means seeing what's there as accurately as you can, even if it's not pleasant.

Just as soldier mindset is rooted in emotional responses, scout mindset is, too - but it's simply rooted in different emotions.For example, scouts are curious. They're more likely to say they feel pleasure when they learn new information or solve a puzzle. They're more likely to feel intrigued when they encounter something that contradicts their expectations.

Scouts also have different values. They're more likely to say they think it's virtuous to test their own beliefs, and they're less likely to say that someone who changes her mind seems weak. And, above all, scouts are grounded, which means their self-worth as a person isn't tied to how right or wrong they are about any particular topic. For example, they can believe that capital punishment works and if studies come out that show it doesn't, they can say, "Looks like I might be wrong. Doesn't mean I'm bad or stupid." This cluster of traits is what researchers have found - and I've found anecdotally - predicts good judgment.

The key takeaway about the traits associated with scout mindset is they have little to do with how smart you are or how much you know. They don't correlate very closely to IQ at all; they're about how you feel. I keep coming back to a particular quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince. "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up your men to collect wood and give orders and distribute the work," he said. "Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

In other words, if we really want to improve our judgment as individuals and as societies, what we need most is not more instruction in logic, rhetoric, probability or economics, even though those things are all valuable. What we most need to use those principles well is scout mindset. We need to change the way we feel - to learn how to feel proud instead of ashamed when we notice we might have been wrong about something, or to learn how to feel intrigued instead of defensive when we encounter some information that contradicts our beliefs. So the question you need to consider is: What do you most yearn for - to defend your own beliefs or to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?

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Why you think you're right, even when you're wrong

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Imagine for a moment you're a soldier in the heat of battle - perhaps a Roman foot soldier, medieval archer or Zulu warrior. Regardless of your time and place, some things are probably constant. Your adrenaline is elevated, and your actions stem from your deeply ingrained reflexes, reflexes that are rooted in a need to protect yourself and your side and to defeat the enemy.

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Mike Kinney: A pro wrestler's guide to confidence

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You are more than you think you are, says former pro wrestler Mike Kinney -- you just have to find what makes you unique and use it to your advantage. For years Kinney "turned up" the parts of himself that made him special as he invented and perfected his wrestling persona, Cowboy Gator Magraw.

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How to build the world's greatest workplace

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How to build the world's greatest workplace

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Let's be honest, flying cars are still a ways into the future. Until then, learn about the extraordinary lengths we've come with cars that drive themselves.

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12 TED Talks to watch when you want to change the world - NOW! 

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12 TED Talks to watch when you want to change the world - NOW! 

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TED Talks for when you want to get up and act -- now.

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What I learned collecting 1/2 million secrets- the author of Postsecret!

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What I learned collecting 1/2 million secrets- the author of Postsecret!

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"Secrets can take many forms -- they can be shocking, or silly, or soulful." Frank Warren, the founder of PostSecret.com, shares some of the half-million secrets that strangers have mailed him on postcards.

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Want to live longer? Invest in your social life! 

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Want to live longer? Invest in your social life! 

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Susan Pinker: The secret to living longer may be your social life

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The Italian island of Sardinia has more than six times as many centenarians as the mainland and ten times as many as North America. Why? According to psychologist Susan Pinker, it's not a sunny disposition or a low-fat, gluten-free diet that keeps the islanders healthy -- it's their emphasis on close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions.

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This one element brings Pixar movies to life. 

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This one element brings Pixar movies to life. 

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Danielle Feinberg: The magic ingredient that brings Pixar movies to life

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Danielle Feinberg, Pixar's director of photography, creates stories with soul and wonder using math, science and code. Go behind the scenes of Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Brave, WALL-E and more, and discover how Pixar interweaves art and science to create fantastic worlds where the things you imagine can become real.

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9 talks about taking care of your mental health. The first one is awesome! 

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9 talks about taking care of your mental health. The first one is awesome! 

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Too busy to take care of yourself? These talks offer simple ways to stay healthy -- both emotionally and physically.

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I was a prisoner in North Korea. This is my story

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I was a prisoner in North Korea. This is my story

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Euna Lee: What I learned as a prisoner in North Korea

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In March 2009, North Korean soldiers captured journalist Euna Lee and her colleague Laura Ling while they were shooting a documentary on the border with China. The courts sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor, but American diplomats eventually negotiated their release.

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TED curator Chris Anderson discusses the transformative power of speaking to an audience from the heart.

You're nervous, right?

Stepping out onto a public stage and having hundreds of pairs of eyes turned your way is terrifying. You dread having to stand up in a company meeting and present your project. What if you get nervous and stumble over your words? What if you completely forget what you were going to say? Maybe you'll be humiliated! Maybe your career will crater! Maybe the idea you believe in will stay buried forever!

But guess what? Almost everyone has experienced the fear of public speaking. Indeed, surveys that ask people to list their top fears often report public speaking as the most widely selected, ahead of snakes, heights - and even death.

How can this be? There is no tarantula hidden behind the microphone. You have zero risk of plunging off the stage to your death. The audience will not attack you with pitchforks. Then why the anxiety?

It's because there's a lot at stake - not just the experience in the moment, but in our longer-term reputation. How others think of us matters hugely. We are profoundly social animals. We crave each other's affection, respect and support. Our future happiness depends on these realities to a shocking degree. And we sense that what happens on a public stage is going to affect these social currencies, for better or worse. But with the right mindset, you can use your fear as an incredible asset. It can be the driver that will persuade you to prepare for a talk properly.

That's what happened when Monica Lewinsky (TED Talk: The price of shame) came to the TED stage. For her, the stakes couldn't have been higher. Seventeen years earlier, she had been through the most humiliating public exposure imaginable, an experience so intense it almost broke her. Now she was attempting a return to a more visible public life, to reclaim her narrative. But she was not an experienced public speaker, and she knew that it would be disastrous if she messed up. She told me:

"Nervous is too mild a word to describe how I felt. More like . . . Gutted with trepidation. Bolts of fear. Electric anxiety. If we could have harnessed the power of my nerves that morning, I think the energy crisis would have been solved. Not only was I stepping out onto a stage in front of an esteemed and brilliant crowd, but it was also videotaped, with the high likelihood of being made public on a widely viewed platform. I was visited by the echoes of lingering trauma from years of having been publicly ridiculed. Plagued by a deep insecurity I didn't belong on the TED stage. That was the inner experience against which I battled."

And yet Monica found a way to turn that fear around. Her talk won a standing ovation at the event, rocketed to a million views within a few days and earned rave reviews online. It even prompted a public apology to her from a longtime critic, feminist author Erica Jong.

The brilliant woman I am married to, Jacqueline Novogratz (TED Talk: Inspiring a life of immersion), was also haunted by fear of public speaking. In school, at college and into her twenties, the prospect of a microphone and watching eyes was so scary it was debilitating. But she knew that to advance her work fighting poverty, she'd have to persuade others, and so she just began forcing herself to do it. Today she gives scores of speeches every year, often earning standing ovations.

Indeed, everywhere you look, there are stories of people who were terrified of public speaking but found a way to become really good at it, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Warren Buffett to Princess Diana, who was known to all as "shy Di," but found a way to speak informally in her own voice, and the world fell in love with her.

If you can get a talk right, the upside can be amazing. Take the talk that entrepreneur Elon Musk (TED Talk: The mind behind Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity ...) gave to SpaceX employees on August 2, 2008. Musk was not known as a great public speaker. But that day, his words marked an important turning point for his company. SpaceX had already suffered two failed launches. This was the day of the third launch, and everyone knew failure could force the company's closure. The Falcon rocket soared off the launch pad, but right after the first stage fell away, disaster struck. The spacecraft exploded. The video feed went dead. Some 350 employees had gathered and, as described by Dolly Singh, the company's head of talent acquisition, the mood was thick with despair. Musk emerged to speak to them. He told them they'd always known it would be hard, but that despite what had happened, they had already accomplished something that day that few nations, let alone companies, had achieved. They had successfully completed the first stage of a launch and taken a spacecraft to outer space. They simply had to pick themselves up and get back to work. Here's how Singh described the talk's climax:

Then Elon said, with as much fortitude and ferocity as he could muster after having been awake for like 20+ hours by this point, "For my part, I will never give up and I mean never." I think most of us would have followed him into the gates of hell carrying suntan oil after that. It was the most impressive display of leadership that I have ever witnessed. Within moments the energy of the building went from despair and defeat to a massive buzz of determination as people began to focus on moving forward instead of looking back.

That's the power of a single talk. You might not be leading an organization, but a talk can still open new doors or transform a career.

TED speakers have told us delightful stories of the impact of their talks. Yes, there are sometimes book and movie offers, higher speaking fees and unexpected offers of financial support. But the most appealing stories are of ideas advanced, and lives changed. Young Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba's inspiring talk about building a windmill in his village as a 14-year-old (TED Talk: How I harnessed the wind) sparked a series of events that led to him being accepted into an engineering program at Dartmouth College.

Here's a story from my own life: When I first took over leadership of TED in late 2001, I was reeling from the near collapse of the company I had spent 15 years building, and I was terrified of another huge public failure. I had been struggling to persuade the TED community to back my vision for TED, and I feared that it might just fizzle out. Back then, TED was an annual conference in California, owned and hosted by a charismatic architect named Richard Saul Wurman, whose larger-than-life presence infused every aspect of the conference. About 800 people attended every year, and most of them seemed resigned to the fact that TED probably couldn't survive once Wurman departed. The TED conference of February 2002 was the last to be held under his leadership, and I had one chance and one chance only to persuade TED attendees that the conference would continue just fine. I had never run a conference before, however, and despite my best efforts at marketing the following year's event, only 70 people had signed up for it.

Early on the last morning of that conference, I had 15 minutes to make my case. And here's what you need to know about me: I am not naturally a great speaker. I say "um" and "you know" far too often. I will stop halfway through a sentence, trying to find the right word to continue. I can sound overly earnest, soft spoken, conceptual. My quirky British sense of humor is not always shared by others.

I was so nervous about this moment, and so worried that I would look awkward on the stage, that I couldn't even bring myself to stand. Instead I rolled forward a chair from the back of the stage, sat on it and began.

I look back at that talk now and cringe - a lot. If I were critiquing it today, there are a hundred things I would change, starting with the wrinkly white T-shirt I was wearing. And yet ... I had prepared carefully what I wanted to say, and I knew there were at least some in the audience desperate for TED to survive. If I could just give those supporters a reason to get excited, perhaps they would turn things around. Because of the recent dotcom bust, many in the audience had suffered business losses as bad as my own. Maybe I could connect with them that way?

I spoke from the heart, with as much openness and conviction as I could summon. I told people I had just gone through a massive business failure. That I'd come to think of myself as a complete loser. That the only way I'd survived mentally was by immersing myself in the world of ideas. That TED had come to mean the world to me - that it was a unique place where ideas from every discipline could be shared. That I would do all in my power to preserve its best values. That, in any case, the conference had brought such intense inspiration and learning to us that we couldn't possibly let it die ... could we?

Oh, and I broke the tension with an apocryphal anecdote about France's Madame de Gaulle and how she shocked guests at a diplomatic dinner by expressing her desire for "a penis." In England, I said, we also had that desire, although there we pronounced it happiness and TED had brought genuine happiness my way.

To my utter amazement, at the end of the talk, Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon, who was seated in the center of the audience, rose to his feet and began clapping. And the whole room stood with him. It was as if the TED community had collectively decided, in just a few seconds, that it would support this new chapter of TED after all. And in the 60-minute break that followed, some 200 people committed to buying passes for the following year's conference, guaranteeing its success.

If that 15-minute talk had fizzled, TED would have died, four years before ever putting a talk on the Internet.

No matter how little confidence you might have today in your ability to speak in public, there are things you can do to turn that around. Facility with public speaking is not a gift granted at birth to a lucky few. It's a broad-ranging set of skills. There are hundreds of ways to give a talk, and everyone can find an approach that's right for them and learn the skills necessary to do it well.

Several years ago, TED's content director, Kelly Stoetzel, and I went on a global tour in search of speaking talent. In Nairobi, Kenya, we met Richard Turere, a 12-year-old Maasai boy who had come up with a surprising invention. His family raised cattle, and one of the biggest challenges was protecting them at night from lion attacks. Richard had noticed that a stationary campfire didn't deter the lions, but walking around waving a torch did seem to work. The lions were apparently afraid of moving lights! Richard had somehow taught himself electronics by messing around with parts taken from his parents' radio. He used that knowledge to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence, creating a sense of movement. It was built from scrapyard parts - solar panels, a car battery and a motorcycle indicator box. He installed the lights and - presto! - the lion attacks stopped. News of his invention spread and other villages wanted in. Instead of seeking to kill the lions as they had done before, they installed Richard's "lion lights." Both villagers and pro-lion environmentalists were happy.

It was an impressive achievement but, at first glance, Richard certainly seemed an unlikely TED speaker. He stood hunched over in a corner of the room, painfully shy. His English was halting, and he struggled to describe his invention coherently. It was hard to imagine him on a stage in California in front of 1,400 people, slotted alongside Sergey Brin and Bill Gates.

But Richard's story was so compelling that we went ahead anyway and invited him to come speak at TED (TED Talk: My invention that made peace with lions). In the months before the conference, we worked with him to frame his story - to find the right place to begin, and to develop a natural narrative sequence. Because of his invention, Richard had won a scholarship to one of Kenya's best schools, where he had the chance to practice his TED Talk several times in front of a live audience. This helped build his confidence to the point where his personality could shine through.

He got on an airplane for the first time in his life and flew to Long Beach, California. As he walked onto the TED stage, you could tell he was nervous, but that only made him more engaging. As Richard spoke, people were hanging on his every word, and every time he smiled, the audience melted. When he finished, people just stood and cheered.

Richard's tale can encourage us all to believe we might be able to give a decent talk. Your goal is not to be Winston Churchill or Nelson Mandela. It's to be you. If you're a scientist, be a scientist; don't try to be an activist. If you're an artist, be an artist; don't try to be an academic. If you're just an ordinary person, don't try to fake some big intellectual style; just be you. You don't have to raise a crowd to its feet with a thunderous oration. Conversational sharing can work just as well. In fact, for most audiences, it's a lot better. If you know how to talk to a group of friends over dinner, then you know enough to speak publicly.

And technology is opening up new options. We live in an age where you don't have to be able to speak to thousands of people at a time to have an outsized impact. It could just be you talking intimately to a video camera, and letting the Internet do the rest.

Presentation literacy isn't an optional extra for the few. It's a core skill for the twenty-first century. It's the most impactful way to share who you are and what you care about. If you can learn to do it, your self-confidence will flourish, and you may be amazed at the beneficial impact it can have on your success in life, however you might choose to define that.

If you commit to being the authentic you, I am certain that you will be capable of tapping into the ancient art that is wired inside us. You simply have to pluck up the courage to try.
Excerpted from the book TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson. © 2016 by Chris Anderson. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

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The skill you need now: presentation literacy

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You're nervous, right? Stepping out onto a public stage and having hundreds of pairs of eyes turned your way is terrifying. You dread having to stand up in a company meeting and present your project. What if you get nervous and stumble over your words?

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Hurricanes, monsoons and the human rights of climate change

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Hurricanes, monsoons and the human rights of climate change

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Two years ago, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson graced the TEDWomen stage with a moving talk about why climate change is not only a threat to our environment, but also a threat to the human rights of many poor and marginalized people around the world.

Mary is an incredible person who inspires me greatly. Besides being the first woman president of Ireland, she also served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. She now leads a foundation devoted to climate justice. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, is a member of the Elders, a former Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders and a member of the Club of Madrid.

"I came to [be concerned about] climate change not as a scientist or an environmental lawyer," she told the TEDWomen crowd in California. "It was because of the impact on people, and the impact on their rights - their rights to food and safe water, health, education and shelter."

She told stories of the people she met in her work with the United Nations and later on in her foundation work. When explaining the challenges they faced, she said they kept repeating the same pervasive sentence: "Oh, but things are so much worse now, things are so much worse." She came to realize that they were talking about the same phenomenon - climate shocks and changes in the weather that were threatening their crops, their livelihood and their survival.

In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in the United States, and extreme monsoons in South Asia, I reached out to Mary to get an update on her work and where things stand now in terms of climate justice and the global fight to curb climate change. Despite a busy week attending this week's United Nations General Assembly and other events, she took the time to answer my questions via email.
Horrific hurricanes like Harvey, Irma and now Maria are bringing the issue of climate change to the doorsteps of a country that recently dropped out of the Paris Climate agreement. What would you say to Americans about climate change and the actions of their government in 2017?
Mary Robinson: In the past few weeks alone, we have seen the physical, social and economic devastation wrought on some American cities and vulnerable communities across the Caribbean by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and the death and destruction caused by monsoons across South Asia. The American people know from previous experience, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, that some people affected will be displaced from their homes forever. Many of these displaced people are drawn to cities, but the capacity to integrate these new arrivals in a manner consistent with their human rights and dignity is often woefully inadequate - reflecting an equally inadequate response from political leaders.

The profound injustice of climate change is that those who are most vulnerable in society, no matter the level of development of the country in question, will suffer most. People who are marginalised or poor, women, and indigenous communities are being disproportionately affected by climate impacts.

And yet, in the US the debate as to whether climate change is real or not continues in mainstream discourse. Throughout the world, baseless climate denial has largely disappeared into the fringes of public debate as the focus has shifted to how countries should act to avoid the potentially disastrous consequences of unchecked climate change. For many years, the US has positioned itself as a global leader in science and technology and yet in seeking to leave or renegotiate the Paris Agreement, the current administration is taking a giant leap backwards, both in terms of science-based policy making and in terms of international solidarity and cooperation.

However, while the national government is going backwards, we are seeing citizens and leaders across the country picking up the slack. I see many American people who remain determined to ensure the US plays its role in the fight against climate change. For Americans who are rightly concerned about the administration's direction on climate change, I would say that there are still many reasons to be optimistic. The "We're Still In" initiative offers a tangible demonstration of that desire on the part of concerned citizens to ensure that the US emerges as a leader on climate action, regardless of the approach of the current administration. States, cities, universities and businesses are committing to ambitious action to tackle climate change, to ensure clean and efficient energy services and uphold US commitments under the Paris Agreement.
As you pointed out in your TED Talk, the people who are suffering the most from climate change are those who don't have the means to escape catastrophic events or rebuild after they have occurred. Can you talk a bit about efforts your organization and others are involved in to help those who are the most affected by climate change, but often are the least responsible for the human actions that have caused it?
As with many of the most severe storms to impact communities in recent years - including in the US with Katrina, Sandy and Ike - it is the poorest people who have suffered the worst impacts from Harvey and Irma. The people who the climate justice movement is for are the people who have the least capacity to protect themselves, their families, their homes and their incomes from the impacts of climate change, and indeed climate action policies that are not grounded in human rights. These are also the people who have the hardest time rebuilding their lives in the wake of these more frequent and intense disasters as they do not have adequate access to insurance, savings or other livelihood options necessary to provide resilience. In many cases, families lose everything.

If we then consider the devastation wrought by Irma in the Caribbean, where poverty rates are much higher than the US, we begin to understand the great injustice of climate change. People living around the world, in communities which have never seen the benefits of industrialization or even electrification, face the harshest impacts of climate change and have the most limited capacity to recover.

In seeking to advance climate justice, my foundation and other organizations which share our concerns, seek to ensure that the voices of these communities are heard and understood by those crafting the global and national response to the climate crisis to ensure that decisions are participatory, transparent and respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people in our communities. We must enable all people to realize their right to development and to benefit from the global transition to a sustainable, cleaner and more equitable future. Solutions to the climate crisis that are good for the planet but cause further suffering for people living in poverty must not be implemented.
What is the number one issue involving climate change that we should all be focused on right now as regards human rights and climate justice in the world?
There are many pressing issues which must be addressed to advance climate justice. For instance, over one billion people today live in energy poverty. The global community must ensure that appropriate financing and renewable technologies are available to allow all people to enjoy the benefits of electrification sustainably. Similarly, a compendium of evidence-based climate solutions published this summer highlighted that the most effective approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is through educating girls and providing for family planning*. Climate change impacts women differently to men and exacerbates existing inequalities. Empowering women and girls in the global response to climate change will result in a fairer world and better climate outcomes. This must begin by ensuring women are enabled to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes related to climate action throughout the world.

Given the recent storms and resulting devastation, one of the most pressing issues to be addressed regarding the rights of those most vulnerable to climate change is the need to ensure the necessary protections are in place for people displaced by worsening climate impacts. There can be no doubt that climate change is a driver of migration and migration owing to climate impacts will increase in the coming years. Increasingly severe and frequent catastrophic storms or slow onset events like recurrent drought, sea level rise or ocean acidification, will result in people's livelihoods collapsing, forcing them to seek better futures elsewhere. The scale of potential future migration as a result of climate change must not be underestimated. In order to ensure that the global community is prepared to protect the wellbeing and dignity of people displaced by climate change, concrete steps must be taken now. It would be very important that the Global Compact on Migration and Refugees, currently being negotiated at the UN, recognizes the challenge of addressing displacement resulting from climate change.
In a speech earlier this month, you talked about some of the innovative ideas that are being broached around the world to address climate change and you said, "The existential threat of climate change confronts us with our global interdependence. It cannot be seen as anything other than a global problem, and each nation must play an appropriate part to tackle it." What do you think is the most important thing the US must do to address the problem?
The US must continue to support international action on climate change. No country alone can protect its citizens from the impacts of climate change - it will only be through unprecedented international solidarity, backed up by financial and technological support, that some of the most vulnerable countries will be able to chart a sustainable development pathway for their country. It is in the interests of the US provide this support.

Without it, developing countries are faced with a choice between prohibitively expensive sustainable development and readily accessible fossil fuel based development. They will choose the latter and who would blame them - they need to lift large numbers of their people out of poverty and provide essential services like health care, education and fresh water - without international support, they will have no choice but to use fossil fuels. This would result in even more intense Atlantic hurricanes, longer and more severe drought across the western US and the inundation of coastal cities from sea level rise. In order to protect American citizens, the US must play their role as a global citizen. Solidarity and interdependence are not new ideas, but in the current climate of rising nationalism, they are innovative and potentially transformative.
What are some of the innovative solutions that you are seeing around the world that we should know about?
When we think about innovation, we usually focus on technology. However, most of the technologies we need to avert the climate crisis are already available to us. What is lacking is the political will to enact the necessary global transition to a safer and fairer future for all. Perhaps we should be more focused on innovation in terms of global governance.

For instance, in some countries like Wales and Hungary there is an office that represents the interests of future generations in national decision making. When viewed through an intergenerational lens, the urgent need to ensure sustainable development for all people and stabilize the climate becomes clear. Decisions taken today that undermine the wellbeing of future generations become inexcusable. Intergenerational equity can help to inform decision making at the international level as well, and provide a unifying focus for international negotiations. It is a universal principle that informs constitutions, international treaties, economies, religious beliefs, traditions and customs. Putting this principle into action and allowing it to inform how we negotiate and govern would be a very innovative change.
What can regular people do to fight climate change and work for environmental justice?
I believe the most important thing a person can do is to appreciate their role as a global citizen. Ultimately, the fight against climate change will not be won by a technological silver bullet or a mass recycling campaign, but rather by an appreciation among all people that we have to live sustainably with the Earth and with each other. We need empathy for those communities on the front lines of climate change, and for those seeking to realise their right to development in the midst of a changing climate, and this empathy must help to guide how we act, how we consume and how we vote.

Watch Mary's TED Talk and visit her website to find out more about her work and how you can get involved.

I also want to mention that registration for TEDWomen 2017 is open, so if you haven't registered yet, please click this link and apply today - space is limited and I don't want you to miss out. This year, TEDWomen will be held November 1-3 in New Orleans. The theme is Bridges: We build them, we cross them, and sometimes we even burn them. We'll explore the many aspects of this year's theme through curated TED Talks, community dinners and activities.

Join us!

* Hawking, P. (2017) Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming

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un framework convention on climate change

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Hurricanes, monsoons and the human rights of climate change: TEDWomen chats with Mary Robinson

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Two years ago, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson graced the TEDWomen stage with a moving talk about why climate change is not only a threat to our environment, but also a threat to the human rights of many poor and marginalized people around the world.

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Want kids to learn? Feed them well. (The link between nutrition and academic achievement)

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Want kids to learn? Feed them well. (The link between nutrition and academic achievement)

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Sam Kass: Want kids to learn well? Feed them well

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What can we expect our kids to learn if they're hungry or eating diets full of sugar and empty of nutrients? Former White House Chef and food policymaker Sam Kass discusses the role schools can play in nourishing students' bodies in addition to their minds.

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Fear lives in the mind. So, how do we get it out of our heads? Follow in the footsteps of these speakers who have faced some of their deepest fears with strength and grace.

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How I learned to read and invest in stocks while in prison. 

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How I learned to read and invest in stocks while in prison. 

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Curtis "Wall Street" Carroll: How I learned to read -- and trade stocks -- in prison

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Financial literacy isn't a skill -- it's a lifestyle. Take it from Curtis "Wall Street" Carroll. As an incarcerated individual, Carroll knows the power of a dollar. While in prison, he taught himself how to read and trade stocks, and now he shares a simple, powerful message: we all need to be more savvy with our money.

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Talks to watch when you need a new hobby

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Talks to watch when you need a new hobby

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9 TED Talks for when you want to start a new hobby

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Always wanted to do something more with your free time? Let these talks inspire you to take up anything from a classic hobby, to something a little less conventional.

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I lept from the stratosphere and lived. Here's how I did it. 

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I lept from the stratosphere and lived. Here's how I did it. 

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Alan Eustace: I leapt from the stratosphere. Here's how I did it

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On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace donned a custom-built, 235-pound spacesuit, attached himself to a weather balloon, and rose above 135,000 feet, from which point he dove to Earth, breaking both the sound barrier and previous records for high-altitude jumps. Hear his story of how -- and why.

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How Argentina's blind soccer team became champions! 

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How Argentina's blind soccer team became champions! 

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Gonzalo Vilariño: How Argentina's blind soccer team became champions

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With warmth and respect, Gonzalo Vilariño tells the captivating story of Argentina's blind soccer team -- and how a sincere belief in themselves and their capabilities transformed the players from humble beginnings into two-time World Champions. "You have to get out there and play every game in this beautiful tournament that we call life," Vilariño says.

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Anika Paulson: How I found myself through music

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"Music is everywhere, and it is in everything," says musician, student and TED-Ed Clubs star Anika Paulson. Guitar in hand, she plays through the beats of her life in an exploration of how music connects us and makes us what we are.

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How your "working memory" makes sense of the world

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How your "working memory" makes sense of the world

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How your “working memory” makes sense of the world

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“Life comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do is take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it.” In this funny, enlightening talk, educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance -- and limitations -- of your “working memory,” that part of the brain that allows us to make sense of what’s happening right now.

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7 TED Talks about the line between success and failure

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What defines success -- and what is a failure, exactly? Readjust your expectations with these novel, refreshing perspectives on what it means to "win" and "lose".

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Sometimes life can feel like a bit of a mess, but these talks are here to help you de-stress.

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Juan Enriquez: Your online life, permanent as a tattoo

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What if Andy Warhol had it wrong, and instead of being famous for 15 minutes, we're only anonymous for that long? In this short talk, Juan Enriquez looks at the surprisingly permanent effects of digital sharing on our personal privacy. He shares insight from the ancient Greeks to help us deal with our new "digital tattoos."

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Wendy Troxel: Why school should start later for teens

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Teens don't get enough sleep, and it's not because of Snapchat, social lives or hormones -- it's because of public policy, says Wendy Troxel. Drawing from her experience as a sleep researcher, clinician and mother of a teenager, Troxel discusses how early school start times deprive adolescents of sleep during the time of their lives when they need it most.

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9 TED Talks recommended by students, for students

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9 TED Talks recommended by students, for students

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Which TED Talks do students love? We asked TED-Ed Club Members around the world to share their favorites. Below, check out 9 great talks recommended by and for young people:

7. Casey Neistat: High school stories
Californian high school student Nathan Cao says that Casey Neistat's TEDx talk influenced his outlook on life: "Casey Neistat's talk taught me that as I am fortunate to live in the United States and go to a great school, I must seize this opportunity to help someone else who does not receive the same luxuries that I do. This has fueled my love for community service and helping others. I often volunteer at the senior home and the homeless shelter. At the moment, I am starting a club at my school that will help the refugees who are in dire need of our support. There is so much that I can do to improve the lives of people who need it most."

To celebrate and amplify youth voices in your community, start a TED-Ed Club.
Author bio: Annie Brodsky is a university student and occasional intern at TED-Ed. We at TED-Ed Blog think she's fabulous. Art credit: iStock. To learn something new every week, sign up for the TED-Ed Newsletter here >>

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9 TED Talks recommended by students, for students

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Which TED Talks do students love? We asked TED-Ed Club Members around the world to share their favorites. Below, check out 9 great talks recommended by and for young people: 7 .

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How did some of our quirkiest talks pull in millions of views? Watch these fun, fascinating hits and see for yourself.

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Fear is boring - and other tips to live a creative life

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Fear is boring - and other tips to live a creative life

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Elizabeth Gilbert shares 11 ways to think smartly about creativity.

Creativity is a tricky word. Consultants peddle it, brands promise it, we all strive for it, often without really knowing quite what "it" really is. Put simply, there's a lot of snake oil around creativity. But now here's author Elizabeth Gilbert (TED Talk, Your elusive creative genius) to cut through the guff with her distinctly refreshing take on the topic. For her, we're all creative souls already, we just need to figure out how to harness inspiration and unleash the creative spirit within. Here, she shares her best pieces of advice for living a meaningfully creative life.

1. If you're alive, you're a creative person.

How many times have you heard someone say, "I don't have a creative bone in my body." It's like somebody handed that person that placard to wear when they were nine, and they've been wearing it around their neck ever since. But rather than challenging them on that, because then they'll dig in their heels, I ask them to take the word "creative" out of the sentence and replace it with the word "curious," just to see how ridiculous it sounds. If you can just release yourself from the anxiety and burden that might be associated with the word "creativity," because you've fallen for the myth that it only belongs to the special, the tormented and the professional, and you insert the word "curious," you'll see, in fact, that you are an enormously creative person, because all creativity begins with curiosity. And once you tap into your curiosity and allow yourself permission to follow it wherever it takes you, you will find very quickly that you are living a much more creative life than you were last year.

2. You're not a genius, you have a genius.

The magical thinking that I use to engage with creativity is this idea that inspiration does not come from me, it comes to me. And the reason I choose to believe that is because one, that's what it feels like, and two, that's how pretty much every human being before the Age of Enlightenment described inspiration. Even really rational, scientific people will say, "And then this idea came to me." They'll use that language, even though if you were to push them on it they would then deny it and would tell you what part of their cerebral cortex it actually came from. In other words, they would disenchant it, and they would make it really boring rather than kind of Hogwarts-y, and I prefer to keep it Hogwarts-y because I feel like the only realm in our lives where it's safe and actually beneficial to have magical thinking is in the realm of creativity.

3. Make something, do something, do anything.

If you have a creative mind, it's a little bit like owning a border collie. You have to give it something to do or it will find something to do, and you will not like the thing it finds to do. So if you go to work and you leave your border collie unattended and unexercised in your apartment, you're going to come home and find out that that border collie gave itself a job, and the job that it gave itself was probably to empty all of the stuffing out of your couch or to take every single piece of toilet paper off the roll, because it needs a job. A creative mind is exactly the same. My experience with having a creative mind is that if I don't give it a task, a ball to chase, a stick to run after, some ducks to herd, I don't know, something, it will turn on itself. It's really important for my mental health that I keep this dog running. So give your dog a job, and don't worry about whether the outcome is magnificent or eternal, whether it changes people's lives, whether it changes the world, whether it changes you, whether it's original, whether it's groundbreaking, whether it's marketable. Just give the dog a job, and you'll have a much happier life, regardless of how it turns out.

4. Stop complaining and get to work.

You will never hear more complaints than from people who live in creative fields. They are the most whingy, bitchy children that you're ever going to meet. And the sense of entitlement and anguish that comes out of those people's mouths makes me insane. You get to try to spend your life engaging with the absolute highest use of the human mind, and all you want to do is bitch about it? Shut up! No one made you do this. To act as though you're burdened by your gifts, and burdened by your talent and exhausted by your creative endeavors, as though you were committed to it by an evil dictator rather than having chosen it with your free will is also ridiculous. And finally, and worst of all, you're scaring inspiration away. Inspiration, like all of us, wants to be loved and appreciated, and if it hears you talking about how much it's ruining your life, it will take its business elsewhere. So whenever I hear creative people complaining about how it's a battlefield, and how they're bleeding over their work, and how awful it is, I always want to whisper to inspiration and be like, "Hey, if you're sick of her, just come over to me."

5. Frustration is not an interruption of the process, frustration is the process.

I have watched so many talented, creative, and inventive people rage against their work, or even worse, stop doing their work because of the frustration that they encountered along the path of whatever it was they were trying to create. And they speak of this frustration as though it is this obstacle from outer space that is ruining everything. All they wanted to do is be creative, and here comes frustration again, just taking all the fun out of it, making it impossible to do this work, and destroying the entire game. And my feeling is, "You guys, you're mistaking the whole process, because the thing that you're in love with, and that you've gotten infatuated with, is that moment in your creative process when everything is working - all the cylinders are firing at full speed, and the inspiration is flowing, and it feels really easy, and it's fun, and it's delightful." And that's the aberration. That moment of smooth, easy grace where everything is going great - that is not the normal. That is the miracle that happens every once in a while if you're very lucky. The frustration, the hard part, the obstacle, the insecurities, the difficulty, the "I don't know what to do with this thing now," that's the creative process. And if you want to do it without encountering frustration and difficulty, then you're not made for that line of work.

6. Let go of your fantasy of perfection.

Perfection is the death of all good things, perfection is the death of pleasure, it's the death of productivity, it's the death of efficiency, it's the death of joy. Perfection is just a bludgeon that goes around murdering everything good. Somebody once said I was disingenuous for saying this, because surely I try to make my work as good as it can be. And that's absolutely true - but there's a really big difference between "as good as it can be" and perfection.

7. You can't get rid of fear, but do remember that fear is boring.

This is my fundamental opposition to the mythological dream of fearlessness, and the frustration I feel whenever fearlessness is held up as a virtue. I just feel like that it's the wrong battle. Because for one thing, you don't want to get rid of your fear; you need it to keep you alive. We're all here because we had fear that preserved us. So there's a little bit of a lack of appreciation for fear when we say that we want to be fearless. But then, fear is the oldest, deepest and least subtle part of our emotional life, and so therefore it's boring. It's dull. It doesn't have any nuance. So have a little conversation with your fear when it starts to get riled up when you're trying to do something creative. Let it know, "I'm just trying to write a poem, no one's going to die." But don't try to go to war against it, that's such a waste of energy. Just converse with it and then move on.

8. If something is authentic enough, it will feel original.

I am no fan of the aspiration to do original work. First of all, that creates an enormous amount of anxiety, and secondly, it is an impossible aspiration, because there's no such thing as original work. If you show me a piece of artwork that everybody heralds as being totally original, I will bring in ten academics and critics who will look at that work and tell you from where that person drew their inspiration, who they had been reading, what painter they had seen ... I'm much more interested in the chain of influence than I am in the narcissism of originality. The only way that you can create authentic work is to, with great humility and great faith and great curiosity, follow your own inquisitiveness, wherever it takes you, and trust that whatever comes out of you will feel original. That while other people may have done the same thing, you didn't do it yet, and as soon as you do it and put your mark on it, it will, by its own right, start to feel original, as long as it has that authentic heart.

9. If you're in the arts, you don't need graduate school.

Actually, let me rephrase that: If you're in the arts, you don't need debt. In fact, it's the last goddamn thing you need. So I don't care how prestigious the academy is, I don't care how magnificent the professors are, I don't care what they're promising they are going to give you; if they're giving you debt, they are not helping you. If you have an extra $100,000 sitting around that you have nothing to do with, and you want to go to that school, I guarantee you you'll get wonderful things out of the experience, because there are fantastic experiences to be had there. If they gave you a full ride, and the school allows you to go there for free, again, go. Enjoy it, consider yourself lucky. But if they said to you, "We are going to bestow upon you this tremendous gift of the treasure of what our premier faculty here has to offer, but first you're going to have to go to a bank and take out $150,000 in loans to become a poet," then I'm going to lay my body down in front of that bank door before I let you do that. I cannot strongly enough beg you not to do that. So it's not that I am against graduate school, it's that I am against crippling debt for people who want to live creative lives.

10. Creative fields make for crap careers.

People often say they want to go into a creative career, and then they try to do that, and they end up in a place where the work that they are doing is not quite creative enough to really stimulate their soul, and it's not quite career enough to keep them financially stable. In other words, they kind of sacrifice both. My feeling is, stop trying to marry these two things, and separate them out. Choose your creative vocation, try to find the thing that brings your soul to animated life when you do it and do that thing on your own. Do that thing by any means necessary, turn yourself into it completely, and then find another way to pay the gas bill. When I was an up-and-coming writer, I decided very early on that I would be my own patron, my own studio wife, my own sugar daddy and that I would never demand that my writing provide for me in any way other than the only way that I know it always will, which is to please me and delight me and make me feel like I'm more than just a bystander and a consumer in the world.

11. Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living.

Whenever you're told to "follow your passion," it can be very intimidating, and it can be very confusing, because sometimes passion isn't very clear, sometimes passions burn hot and then burn out, sometimes your passion changes, sometimes on a very sad Tuesday morning when you didn't sleep well, the idea of passion just feels so out of reach that you can't even imagine ever accessing it. And yet curiosity is this faithful, steadfast, friendly and accessible energy that is never far out of reach. There's never a day where you couldn't dredge up some tiny little fragment of interest in something in the world, no matter how modest it may seem, no matter how humble, no matter how much it might seem to be unconnected to anything else that you're doing, no matter how random. Passion demands full commitment out of you. You've got to get divorced, and shave your head, and change your name, and move to Nepal and start an orphanage. And maybe you don't need to do that this week. But curiosity doesn't take anything from you. Curiosity just gives, and all it gives you are clues, just a beautiful thread, a tiny little clue from the scavenger hunt that you're unique here in life.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear Featured photo by Alex Brewer. by Elizabeth Gilbert is out now.

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Fear is boring, and other tips for living a creative life

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Creativity is a tricky word. Consultants peddle it, brands promise it, we all strive for it, often without really knowing quite what "it" really is. Put simply, there's a lot of snake oil around creativity. But now here's author Elizabeth Gilbert (TED Talk, Your elusive creative genius) to cut through the guff with her distinctly refreshing take on the topic.

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The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

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The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

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Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

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Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.

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Richard Browning: How I built a jet suit

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We've all dreamed of flying -- but for Richard Browning, flight is an obsession. He's built an Iron Man-like suit that leans on an elegant collaboration of mind, body and technology, bringing science fiction dreams a little closer to reality. Learn more about the trial and error process behind his invention and take flight with Browning in an unforgettable demo.

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Why we need to imagine different futures

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Why we need to imagine different futures

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Anab Jain: Why we need to imagine different futures

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Anab Jain brings the future to life, creating experiences where people can touch, see and feel the potential of the world we're creating. Do we want a world where intelligent machines patrol our streets, for instance, or where our genetic heritage determines our health care?

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9 TED Talks guaranteed to give you wanderlust

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9 TED Talks guaranteed to give you wanderlust

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Ah, wanderlust. Mild symptoms include obsessive airfare tracking and uncontrollable daydreaming about tropical beaches during conference calls. Severe cases can cause reasonable people to cash out their 401(k) to buy a camper van and hit the open road.

These 9 TED Talks are guaranteed to ignite your need for travel. As a precautionary measure, we've included detailed warnings about the possible side effects of each video, but have your passport handy before you press play. Just in case.
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Chris Burkard: The joy of surfing in ice cold water
This video may lead to: Packing a wetsuit and surfboard for a beach weekend in ... Iceland.
How to prepare for your trip: Take a really cold bath. Outside. During a snowstorm.
Postcard quote: "In life, there are no shortcuts to joy."
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Karen Bass, Unseen footage, untamed nature
This video may lead to: Stargazing from the highest peak in the Altiplano.
How to prepare for your trip: Take daily walks up the steepest hill in your neighborhood.
Postcard quote: "People often ask me, 'Where's your favorite place on the planet?' and the truth is, I just don't have one. There are so many wonderful places."
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Kitra Cahana, A glimpse of life on the road
This video may lead to: Renouncing traditional society, selling everything you own that won't fit in a knapsack, and hopping a freight train bound for anywhere.
How to prepare for your trip: Attempt to barter for your next vanilla latte.
Postcard quote: "This is a different kind of American dream."

TED.com is about to go quiet for two weeks. No new TED Talks will be posted on the web until Monday, July 10, 2017, while most of the TED staff takes our annual two-week vacation. Yes, we all (or almost all) go on vacation at the same time. No, we don't all go to the same place. We've been doing it this

Summer: the season for cracking open a good book under the shade of a tree. Below, we've compiled about 70 stellar book recommendations from members of the TED community. Warning: not all of these books can be classified as beach reads. And we think that is a good thing. Picks from Elizabeth Gilbert, author

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9 TED Talks guaranteed to give you wanderlust

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Ah, wanderlust. Mild symptoms include obsessive airfare tracking and uncontrollable daydreaming about tropical beaches during conference calls. Severe cases can cause reasonable people to cash out their 401(k) to buy a camper van and hit the open road. These 9 TED Talks are guaranteed to ignite your need for travel.

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Renny Gleeson: Our antisocial phone tricks

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In this funny (and actually poignant) 3-minute talk, social strategist Renny Gleeson breaks down our always-on social world -- where the experience we're having right now is less interesting than what we'll tweet about it later.

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Talks for when you're in the mood for adventure

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Talks for when you're in the mood for adventure

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9 TED Talks for when you're in the mood for adventure

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Quench your thirst for adventure with these breathtakingly bold talks that explore the Earth's most spectacular corners, depths and peaks.

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These TED Talks offer beautiful, sweeping, simple life advice - the kind to tuck in the back of your mind and let inspire you onward.

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Great talks to watch when you should probably be doing something else.

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12 pieces of advice for giving talks that have impact

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12 pieces of advice for giving talks that have impact

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Live from TEDWomen

Sharing an idea isn't like snapping your fingers - things don't just instantly change. But as more people hear an idea over time, it can trickle into people's thinking - and shifts, both subtle and extreme, can happen as a result. In a TEDWomen session called "The 19th Minute," host Courtney E. Martin invited several guests to talk about what happened after they gave their 18-minute TED Talk - what changed, as well as what didn't.

Deborah Rhodes spoke about the momentum her TEDWomen talk has built for using Molecular Breast Imaging rather than traditional mammography to screen for breast cancer under certain conditions. She still has a long way to go, she says, because, "mammography is very entrenched-culturally and medically." Krista Donaldson talked about how her TEDWomen 2013 talk about a low-cost prosthetic knee led to more than 200 requests from 48 countries - and how the translation of her talk into more than 20 languages helped create that global impact.

After this, Martin shared some tips that she's used as both a speaker and a coach. We thought they were too good not to pass on to you.

1. Don't do it all. Do one kickass thing. Martin looks at having a time limit as "a huge gift." When she spoke at the first TEDWomen, she was given nine minutes to share her take on feminism. "It was the most important writing exercise I have ever done," she says. "Knowing I had nine minutes to say what mattered most to me, it made me get absolutely clear on what I actually wanted to say."
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2. Be the (vulnerable) hero. "People don't want to hear about the perfect person," says Martin. "They love the person who has discovered something on a journey." A few examples: Jill Bolte Taylor sharing her experience of having a stroke. Aimee Mullins revealing her feelings on the word 'disabled.' Martin urges speakers to reveal their flaws, wounds and even failures.
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3. Be okay with being scared. In the Q&A, another audience member asked Martin how she encourages speakers to deal with their fear of public speaking. "It's people who are the most freaked out that bring that great, raw energy," says Martin. "The biggest fear people have about public speaking is being exposed as imperfect - they're afraid of showing their wounds, of stumbling on lines. But those are the things that an audience relates to. As a coach, my job is to steer people toward a talk that feels bravely genuine."

The speakers and performers who'll be a part of TEDWomen 2015 know a bit about "Momentum." Each of them has pushed forward fascinating research, created something out of a bold idea or moved the needle on a cause that's central to them. The 34 speakers on our lineup - soon to be joined by a

Before there can be momentum, you need a spark to set it off. In the first session of TEDWomen, we hear from speakers with crackling ideas - from re-imagining an irksome weed as something useful, to helping technology sense and react to our emotions. Short recaps of these talks... A weed, transformed. The water hyacinth looks like a beautiful flower.

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12 pieces of advice for giving talks that have impact

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Live from TEDWomen Sharing an idea isn't like snapping your fingers - things don't just instantly change. But as more people hear an idea over time, it can trickle into people's thinking - and shifts, both subtle and extreme, can happen as a result. In a TEDWomen session called "The 19th Minute," host Courtney E.

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8 Intelligences - are you a  jack of all trades, or a master of one?  

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8 Intelligences - are you a  jack of all trades, or a master of one?  

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8 Intelligences: Are You a Jack of All Trades or a Master of One?

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What does it mean when someone calls you smart or intelligent? According to developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, it could mean one of eight things.

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Stefan Sagmeister: 7 rules for making more happiness

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Using simple, delightful illustrations, designer Stefan Sagmeister shares his latest thinking on happiness -- both the conscious and unconscious kind. His seven rules for life and design happiness can (with some customizations) apply to everyone seeking more joy.

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5 TED Talks to watch when you're frustrated

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Get the better of frustration with these talks about how to positively channel that angry energy.

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How to overcome our biases - walk boldly toward them

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How to overcome our biases - walk boldly toward them

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Vernā Myers: How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them

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Our biases can be dangerous, even deadly - as we've seen in the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New York. Diversity advocate Vernā Myers looks closely at some of the subconscious attitudes we hold toward out-groups. She makes a plea to all people: Acknowledge your biases.

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Why do we crave love so much, even to the point that we would die for it? To learn more about our very real, very physical need for romantic love, Helen Fisher and her research team took MRIs of people in love -- and people who had just been dumped.

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Check out some of these talks on classic games and the benefits of being behind the controller.

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10 Must Watch TED Talks for language learners

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10 Must Watch TED Talks for language learners

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TED Talks are short, influential lectures from experts in science, technology, design, education, and beyond. If you haven't visited the TED website, you should. There's something on there for everyone, and many lectures come with subtitles in other languages, so it's a great language learning tool to boot! Below is a collection of 10 of our favorite TED Talks for language learners, including advice on becoming a better learner, discussions on how our languages affect us, and stories of language advocacy.

Learning advice:
Learning how to learn:
Before getting into any specifics for language learning, you may want to improve your general learning technique. According to Barbara Oakley, who is co-teaching one of world's largest online classes, "learning how to learn is the most powerful tool you can grasp." In her TEDx talk, she outlines a few keys to learning effectively that will save you time and effort.
How to speak so that people want to listen:
This is another talk that isn't explicitly about language learning, but is useful nonetheless. Communication expert Julian Treasure reveals how to keep people engaged in conversation which may improve your speaking skills (and help you overcome your fear of speaking in another language!)
Rapid language hacking
Benny Lewis is your everyday Irishman turned polyglot. How did he do it? He shares his story in this TEDx talk and it's a lot simpler than you may think. If nothing else, this talk will convince you that you too can learn languages.
One simple method to learn any language
Scott Young and Vat Jaiswal spent one year living in 4 different countries learning 4 different languages with only one rule: no English. Their method won't be feasible for everyone, but they provide great tips for forcing yourself to learn.

Language acquisition and cognitive benefits:
Could you language affect your ability to save money?
Watch behavioral economist Keith Chen explain how speaking a language without a concept for the future correlates strongly with saving more money.
The linguistic genius of babies:
Turns out it's not all goo goo gaga. Patricia Kuhl, Co-Director of the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, shares how babies learn one language over another through listening.
How language transformed humanity:
Biologist Mark Pagel shared how communication evolved in the first place and explains how it has transformed into a "social technology" that allows us to cooperate.

Language advocacy:
Don't insist on English!
Listen to a longtime English teacher argue against relying on English and in favor of translating and sharing great ideas. After all, would Einstein have passed the TOEFL?
How can we keep Earth's 7000 languages?
Shameless plug for our CEO's TEDx Talk from 2015. Hear from Michael and see what happens when we put our technology in the hands of experts and advocates for less common languages.
Breaking the language barrier:
You may recognize Tim Doner from the viral video of him speaking 20+ languages at the age of 17. But in this TEDx talk, Tim fights back against the sensationalism around that video and answers the question: what's the point of learning languages?

Feeling inspired and ready to start learning a new language? Choose from 100+ languages in Transparent Language Online and get started!

By the way... want more free language learning resources, advice, and news from Transparent Language? Sign up for our newsletter!

Transparent Language is a leading provider of best-practice language learning software for consumers, government agencies, educational institutions, and businesses. We want everyone to love learning language as much as we do, so we provide a large offering of free resources and social media communities to help you do just that!

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10 Must-Watch TED Talks for Language Learners

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TED Talks are short, influential lectures from experts in science, technology, design, education, and beyond. If you haven't visited the TED website, you should. There's something on there for everyone, and many lectures come with subtitles in other languages, so it's a great language learning tool to boot!

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A glimpse of teenage life in ancient Rome

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A glimpse of teenage life in ancient Rome

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A glimpse of teenage life in ancient Rome - Ray Laurence

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Welcome to the world of Lucius Popidius Secundus, a 17-year old living in Rome in 73 AD. His life is a typical one of arranged marriages, coming-of-age festivals, and communal baths. Take a look at this exquisitely detailed lesson on life of a typical Roman teenager two thousand years ago.

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Nancy Duarte: The secret structure of great talks

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From the "I have a dream" speech to Steve Jobs' iPhone launch, many great talks have a common structure that helps their message resonate with listeners. In this talk, presentation expert Nancy Duarte shares practical lessons on how to make a powerful call-to-action.

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Scott Dinsmore: How to find work you love

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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.

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9 TED Talks on Improving through practice

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9 TED Talks on Improving through practice

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9 TED Talks about improving through practice

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These talks drive home the many different ways to get better at what you care about.

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Yes, it's possible to ask for what you want without coming across as a jerk, says social psychologist Adam Galinsky.

Speaking up is hard to do. I understood the true meaning of this phrase last year, when my wife and I became new parents. After we took our child home from the hospital, we were unsure whether our baby was getting enough nutrients from breastfeeding. We wanted to call our pediatrician, but we also didn't want to make a bad first impression or come across as crazy, neurotic parents. So we worried and waited. When we took him for a checkup the next day, the doctor said our son was pretty dehydrated and she immediately gave him formula. She also assured us that we could always contact her. But when my wife and I were worrying at home, I should've spoken up but I didn't.

Of course, there are times we speak up when we shouldn't. I learned that over 10 years ago when I let my twin brother down. He is a documentary filmmaker, and he received an offer for one of his films from a distribution company. He was excited and inclined to accept it. But as a negotiations researcher, I insisted he make a counteroffer, and I helped him craft the perfect one. And it was perfect - perfectly insulting. The company was so offended, they withdrew the offer, and my brother was left with nothing.

In my work, I've asked people all over the world how they handle the dilemma of speaking up: when do they feel they can assert themselves, when can they push their interests, when can they express an opinion, when can they make an ambitious ask. Through their anecdotes, I've seen that each of us has what's called a range of acceptable behavior. Sometimes we may come across too strong; we push ourselves too much. That's what happened with my brother - making a counteroffer was outside his range of acceptable behavior. When we step outside our range, we usually get punished in a variety of ways. We get dismissed, demeaned, even ostracized. Or we lose that raise, promotion or deal we were asking for.

You can start by asking yourself: "What is my range?" The key thing is, our range isn't fixed. It's dynamic, expanding or narrowing based on the context you're in. However, one thing determines your range more than anything else: your power. Power comes in many forms. In negotiations, it comes in the form of alternatives. My brother had no alternatives, so he lacked power. At the same time, the distribution company had lots of alternatives, so they had power. When we have lots of power, our range is very wide and we have a lot of leeway in how to behave. But when we lack power, our range narrows and we have little leeway. The problem is, when our range narrows, it produces something called the low-power double bind: if we don't speak up, we go unnoticed, but if we do speak up, we get punished.

In order to feel comfortable speaking up and to get what we want, we need ways to expand our range of power. In our work, my colleagues and I have found two things that really matter: 1) You feel powerful in your own eyes; 2) You feel powerful in the eyes of others. When you feel powerful, you feel confident and not fearful, and you can expand your own range. When other people see you as powerful, they grant you a wider range. So we should find and use tools that help expand our range of acceptable behavior.

The first tool - which is sometimes called "the mama bear effect" - was discovered in negotiations through an important finding. On average, at the bargaining table women make less ambitious offers and get worse outcomes than men. However, negotiation researchers Hannah Riley Bowles and Emily Amanatullah both discovered there is one situation where women receive the same outcomes as men and are just as ambitious - when they advocate for others. When they do, they expand their range in their own minds and become more assertive. Like a mama bear defending her cubs, when we advocate for others, we can discover our own voice.

Often, though, we need to be able to advocate for ourselves. In that case, one of the most important tools we have is called perspective-taking. It's really simple - just look at the world through the eyes of another person - and it's one of the most important tools we have to expand our range. When I take your perspective and think about what you really want, you are more likely to give me what I want.

Here's a true story that exemplifies this approach. A man walked into a bank in Watsonville, California. He said, "Give me $2,000, or I'm blowing the whole bank up with a bomb." The bank manager didn't just hand him the money. Instead, she took his perspective and noticed something really important - he'd asked for a specific amount of money. She said, "Why did you ask for $2,000?" He answered, "My friend is going to be evicted unless I get him $2,000." She replied, "Oh! You don't want to rob the bank. You want to take out a loan. Why don't you come back to my office, and we can have you fill out the paperwork?" Her quick perspective-taking defused a volatile situation. Taking someone's perspective allows us to be ambitious and assertive, but still be likable.

There's another way to be assertive and still be likable: signal your flexibility. Imagine that you work at a car dealership, and you want to sell someone a car. You're more likely to make the sale if you give your customer two options; let's say option A is a price of $24,000 and a five-year warranty, and option B is a $23,000 price and a three-year warranty. My research shows when you give people a choice of options, it lowers their defenses, and they're more likely to accept your offer.

This doesn't only work for salespeople - it can work for parents. When my niece was four, she resisted getting dressed and rejected the outfits her mother pulled out for her. But then my sister-in-law had a brilliant idea: What if she gave her daughter a choice of shirts, pants or dresses? It worked brilliantly - my niece made her choice and then got dressed quickly and without resistance.

I've asked people around the world "When do you feel comfortable speaking up?" The number one answer has been "when I have social support." So it helps us to get allies on our side. One way to do that is to be a mama bear. Another way to earn strong allies, especially in high places, is to ask for advice. When we ask for input, people like us because we're flattering them and expressing humility. What's more, it solves another double bind. Known as the self-promotion double bind, it's where if we don't advertise our accomplishments, no one notices; and if we do, we're not likable.

But when we ask for advice in reference to one of our accomplishments, we're seen as competent in other people's eyes - and also likable. This strategy is so powerful it works even when you see it coming. Multiple times in my life, I've been forewarned that a low-power person has been instructed to ask me for advice. Each time, I took their perspective, I became more invested in their cause, and I became more committed to them because they asked me for advice.

Another time we feel more confident speaking up is when we have expertise. Expertise gives us credibility. When we have high power, we already have credibility - we only need good evidence. But when we lack power, we don't have credibility - and we need excellent evidence. We can come across as an expert by tapping into a passion. When we tap into our passion, we give ourselves the courage in our own eyes to speak up, and we get permission from others to speak up, too. Tapping into our passion works when we come across as too weak. Both men and women are frequently punished in the workplace when they shed tears. But researcher Elizabeth Baily Wolf has shown that when we're able to frame our strong emotions as passion, the condemnation of crying disappears for both men and women.

While all of us have been assigned ranges and roles in this world, these roles and ranges are constantly expanding and evolving. So depending on the scenario, be a ferocious mama bear or a humble advice seeker. Have excellent evidence and strong allies. Be a passionate perspective taker. When you use these tools - and anyone can use them - you'll expand your range of acceptable behavior, and you'll always be able to speak up.

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Speaking up is hard to do. I understood the true meaning of this phrase last year, when my wife and I became new parents. After we took our child home from the hospital, we were unsure whether our baby was getting enough nutrients from breastfeeding.

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Why are these 32 symbols found in caves all over ancient Europe? 

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Why are these 32 symbols found in caves all over ancient Europe? 

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Genevieve von Petzinger: Why are these 32 symbols found in ancient caves all over Europe?

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Written language, the hallmark of human civilization, didn't just suddenly appear one day. Thousands of years before the first fully developed writing systems, our ancestors scrawled geometric signs across the walls of the caves they sheltered in. Paleoanthropologist, rock art researcher and TED Senior Fellow Genevieve von Petzinger has studied and codified these ancient markings in caves across Europe.

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10 TED Talks You Won't Stop Thinking About

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10 TED Talks You Won't Stop Thinking About

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10 TED Talks you won't be able to stop thinking about

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Once you watch these talks, you may not be able to get them out of your head. These talks have staying power and, as you go about everyday life, we bet you'll find yourself thinking of them often.