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Tag: TED (Page 1 of 2)

A method to “prove” almost anything

10/11/2021 /

In 2011, a group of researchers conducted a scientific study to find an impossible result: that listening to certain songs can make you younger. So how did they do it?

According to this TED Talk, the answer lies in a statistical method scientists often use to try to figure out whether their results mean something or if they are random noise. Here is the method: you should calculate the possibility (p-value) to achieve randomly the expected result (null hypothesis). If that possibility is below 5%, normally it is considered significant, meaning that there is enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis (the fact you are examining).

Though p-values are commonly used by both researchers and journals to evaluate scientific results, they’re really confusing, even for many scientists. That is partly because all a p-value actually tells us is the probability of getting a certain result, assuming the null hypothesis is true. Even though a p-value does not directly state the probability that the results are due to random chance, it usually gives a reliable indication.

Image Source: Pixabay – Goumbik

Hot To Make Stress Your Friend

12/05/2021 /

Stress makes our heart pound, our breathing quicken and our forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for us if we believe that to be the case.

In this TED Talk, Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.

10/02/2021 /

Have you ever seen or experienced something and wished you spoke up?

In this TED Talk, the writer Sakinah Hofler makes the case for writing as a tool to help you process difficult memories and reclaim the power they may hold.

Pick up a pen or pull up a keyboard and follow along as she walks you through how to unburden your mind and inspire reflection!

The hidden power of smiling

11/11/2020 /

In this TED Talk, Ron Gutman reviews a raft of studies about smiling, and reveals some surprising results. Did you know your smile can be a predictor of how long you’ll live, and that a simple smile has a measurable effect on your overall well-being?

So whenever you want to look great and competent, reduce your stress or improve your marriage, or feel as if you just had a whole stack of high-quality chocolate without incurring the caloric cost, or whenever you want to tap into a superpower that will help you and everyone around you live a longer, healthier, happier life, smile.

Image: Smile – Kristo (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) 

Collaborative leadership

13/05/2020 /

In this TED Talk, Lorna Davis, explains the difference between traditional “heroic leaders” and “interdependent leaders”.

There are three big differences between the two ways of leading:

  1. A hero sets a goal that can be individually delivered and neatly measured. Interdependent leaders, on the other hand, start with a goal that’s really important, but is actually impossible to achieve by one company or one person alone.
  2. The second big difference is the leader’s willingness to declare the goals before having a plan. The heroes only reveals their carefully crafted goal when the path to achieve it is clear. In fact, the role of the hero announcement is to set the stage for the big win. Interdependent leaders, on the other hand, want other people to help them, so their announcements are often an invitation for co-creation, and sometimes, they’re a call for help.
  3. Heroes see everyone as a competitor or a follower. Heroes don’t want input, because they want to control everything because they want the credit. Interdependent leaders, on the other hand, understand that they need other people.

According to Davis, we don’t need heroes. We need radical interdependence, which is just another way of saying we need each other. Even though other people can be really difficult, sometimes. There’s no recipe here, but time together has to be carefully curated and created so that people know that their time is valuable and important, and they can bring their best selves to the table.

Why does hero culture persist, and why don’t we work together more? Interdependence is a lot harder than being a hero. It requires us to be open and transparent and vulnerable, and that’s not what traditional leaders have been trained to do. However, the joy and success that comes from interdependence and vulnerability is worth the effort and the risk.

Image: Pixabay – Geralt

12/02/2020 /

Some investors look for IQ , some other looks for EQ (Emotional Quotient).

In this TED talk, the investor Natalie Fratto explains that she doesn’t just look for intelligence or charisma: she looks for adaptability. She then measures it according to an “adapyability Quotient” (AQ) and shows why the ability to respond to change really matters.

It is also possible to improve adaptability. Each of us has indeed the capacity to become more adaptable.

13/11/2019 /

According to Chris Anderson, there’s no single formula for a great TED talk, but there is a secret ingredient that all the best ones have in common: they build an idea inside the minds of the audience.

In this TED talk Chris Anderson, TED curator, describes this concept and provides four tips to be effective in it.

Success, failure and how to manage them

08/05/2019 /

In this TED talk, Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on why success can be as disorienting as failure and offers a simple way to carry on, regardless of outcomes.

That is because there are strange and unlikely psychological connection between the way we experience great failure and the way we experience great success. Indeed failure catapults us abruptly way out into the blinding darkness of disappointment, while success catapults us just as abruptly into the equally blinding glare of fame and recognition and praise.

And while one of these fates is objectively seen by the world as bad, and the other one is objectively seen by the world as good, our subconscious is completely incapable of discerning the difference between bad and good. The only thing that it is capable of feeling is the absolute value of this emotional equation.

In both cases the remedy for self-restoration is the same: find our way back home again, as swiftly and smoothly as we can.

 But what is “home”? That might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure, faith, service. Home is that thing to which we can dedicate our energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.

Image: Pixabay  (CC0 Creative Commons)

The best hire

13/02/2019 /
In this TED Talk, Regina Hartley, human resources expert, explains that many successful business people had experienced early hardships, anywhere from poverty, abandonment, death of a parent while young, to learning disabilities, alcoholism and violence.

While the conventional thinking has been that trauma leads to distress, during studies of dysfunction, data revealed an unexpected insight: that even the worst circumstances can result in growth and transformation. Such a remarkable and counterintuitive phenomenon was called Post Traumatic Growth.

What is remarkable, among those  who experience post traumatic growth, is that they embraced their trauma and hardships as key elements of who they have become, and know that without those experiences, they might not have developed the muscle and grit required to become successful.

At the and, experts suggest us to always choose the underestimated contender, whose secret weapons are passion and purpose.

Here is the complete TED Talk.

Image: Flickr –Paul Miller (CC BY 2.0) 

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