TED Talks

TED talks and my notes from them

Work Life

The first 20 hours – how to learn anything by Josh Kaufman

Source: The first 20 hours – how to learn anything | Josh Kaufman | TEDxCSU

Source:

TLDR: Learning a skill to be useful to you takes 20 hours, but the you must be focus and practice in a way that increases your skill

How to practice intelligently, efficiently? 4 steps

• Deconstruct the skill
  • Determine what you will be able to do after you are done
  • The better the deconstruction, the more exact you know what to practice, the easier to improve your performance
• Learn how to self-correct
  • Practice and find your errors
  • Experiment, fail, improve
• Plan practice time
  • Remove barriers to practice
• Practice at least 20 hours
  • Commit to it, help overcome learning curve frustration

Stuck in the gig economy? Try platform co-ops instead

Source: Trebor Scholz: Stuck in the gig economy? Try platform co-ops instead

Democracy applied to workplaces

Platform co-op advantages:

• Example:

  • House cleaning organization of individual cleaners
    • 70% annual turnover in industry
  • Food co-ops
  • Consumer cooperatives

• Combines old co-op model with digital platform

• Increased pay, stability

• Democratic governance: Workers meet weekly to decide on co-op operations and get equal voting:

  • Wages (e.g. 5% commission to organization, 95% to workers)
    • Result is better pay and worker retention
  • Data collection
  • Scaling equality, can scale to large organization or franchised network of organizations
  • Shared intellectual property

• Governance is still like a normal company, they hire managers, technical staff, but democratic governance.

• Training in finance, management, conflict resolution

• Combats:

  • Unfair work and wages
  • Top-down profit and shareholders
  • Other platform commissions that can be 50% or above in standard gig economy
  • Lack of inclusion

• Platform Cooperativism Consortium

  • Supports digital coops globally
  • Examples:
    • Up & Go - cleaning
    • Coop Ride: Driver owned taxi platform - Passengers pay less, workers get higher wage
    • FairBNB Coop - Half of commissions go to community
    • Social media cooperative - data owned by users

Time Traps

Evaluate which of these 6 time traps is eating up all your time?

1. See Also

   • Finance: Value of Time - Finance: Value of Time

What Your Money Habits Reveal About You

Source: Robert Belle: What Your Money Habits Reveal About You

Track your expenses and type and look for these insights:

1. Check bank/credit card, check patterns and relationships with times/dates
2. Any line items you are surprised with by volume, amount?

Can reveal personality insights, emotional trusts, priorities

Mental Health

The Happy Secret to Better Work

Source: Shawn Anchor: The Happy Secret to Better Work

• Science may have bias to studying averages. Results in society normalizing to the average and determining your “problems” vs the average.
• 90% of happiness is shaped by how brain processes
• Work success is dependent on optimism, social support, some is dependent on IQ.
• Happiness advantage = higher productivity, intelligence based on job performance studies
• Exercises to do:
  • Gratitude: neuroplasticity link - you can rewire your brain to be happy by recalling 3 things you’re grateful for every day for 21 days. Positive self talk and practicing gratitude increases well-being.
  • Journaling
  • Exercise
  • Meditation - focus
  • Random acts of kindness

3 secrets of resilient people

Source: Lucy Hone: 3 secrets of resilient people

Everyone experiences loss, but how do you cope with the tough moments that follow? Resilience researcher Lucy Hone shares three hard-won strategies for developing the capacity to brave adversity, overcome struggle and face whatever may come head-on with fortitude and grace.

• If you’re alive, you have had to deal with tough times. After a disaster - you are at higher risk of bad things (mental, relationships)

1. 3 Strategies - Resilient people

   1. 1. Know suffering and “shit” happens

   2. 2. Tune into what is good

      1. Know what we can change and what is dangerous. Know what is not dangerous and is good
      2. Saber tooth tiger vs a rainbow. Appreciate the rainbow
      3. Example, every day think 3 good things very day
      4. Ask what is helping me and what is harming me when you are doing it?
         1. If harming, let it go
         2. If helping, do it
         3. Gives you control

How to make stress your friend

Source: Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

• Thinking that stress is harmful, is actually more harmful to you.

• Thinking that stress is helpful, is helpful and healthier

  • Stress makes you social - oxytocin

How not to take things personally?

Source: How not to take things personally? | Frederik Imbo | TEDxMechelen

• Aware bad things can happen and have a strategy for it.

  • Strategy 1: Shift focus from me, to we. It’s not about me. Look at the other person’s intention.
  • Strategy 2: It is about me (e.g. doubt, insecurity). There is some truth in it. Give yourself empathy and speak up.

• Why do we take things personally? because of our ego - we want to be “right”

• Understand you do not need to be right and let it go to be happy

• We have 50,000 thoughts of brain in a day, 10,000 are positive, 40,000 are negative

Power of Vulnerability - Brené aka Brene Brown

• Connection can lead to share, fear, and vulnerability
• People who are good a connections have - supported by research:
  • Courage to be imperfect and kind to others
    • Courage = tell story with a whole heart
  • Feel worth of connections
  • “Do something, with no guarantees”
• If we numb vulnerability (for example with addictions), we numb all emotions.

Principles to live by

• Love whole hearted
• Gratitude
• We’re enough

1. Listening to Shame

   • Vulnerability is:

     • Emotional risk
     • Measurement of courage
     • Uncertainty which leads to creativity, innovation, and change
     • Birth place of joy, faith, love, belonging
     • Embrace it with gratitude

   • Shame: “I’m sorry, I’m bad” - negative self talk

   • Empathy cures shame. Remove secrecy, silence, and judgement to cure shame

   • We are becoming intolerant to vulnerability due to perception of scarcity and using numbing like addictions and distractions

Self Care TED talks

• Why We All Need to Practice Emotional First Aid
• All it Takes is 10 Mindful Minutes
• Want to be Happy? Be Grateful
• How to Make Stress Your Friend
• In Praise of Slowness
• Got a Meeting? Take a Walk
• Own Your Body’s Data
• Why Dieting Doesn’t Usually Work

Source: Figure 4. Important of Self-Care TED Talk Playlist for Coaches (from Coaching Better Every Season, p. 363) from NCCP

Psychology and Philosophy

Why Change is so Scary and How to Unlock Its Potential

Source: Why Change Is So Scary — and How to Unlock Its Potential | Maya Shankar | TED - YouTube

Unexpected changes happen resulting in:

• Uncertainty
• Stress, thought of loss, leaving old ways
• Can inspire and improve you - ask yourself questions

Ask: How might this change,

1. Change what you are capable of?
2. Change what you value?
3. Change how you define yourself?

Minimalism: An alternative narrative about enough by Marlous van der Veen

Source: Minimalism: An alternative narrative about enough | Marlous van der Veen | TEDxFryslân

• Illusion of shortage: survival need, advertising, social pressures
• Asking a question what if you do less? think quality? what is enough?
  • Assess what is important to you
  • Remove other things

How technology changes our sense of right and wrong

Juan Enriquez: How technology changes our sense of right and wrong

Exponential advances in technology are leading to more ethical behavior. As times changes, what is “right” and “wrong” changes. In history, for example:

• Human sacrifice
• Human execution
• Slavery
• Gay marriage
• Meating eating and vegetarianism (in future)

Remember humility and forgiveness when looking back in the past. Don’t build psychological “trenches” (like World War 1 black or white) - build empathy instead.

Be humble and other lessons from the philosophy of water

• Raymond Tang: Be humble and other lessons from the philosophy of water

From Taoism water poem, 3 learnings from water’s nature:

• Humility - humbly nurture others
• Harmony - water always finds a solution, doesn’t get angry, flows around rocks, don’t focus on things you don’t control
  • Instead of growth, focus on harmony
• Open - Being
• “H2O”, “what would water do?”

Why having fun is the secret to a healthier life

Source: Catherine Price: Why having fun is the secret to a healthier life

Fun activities is the intersection of:

• Flow
• Playfulness
• Connection

How to achieve it?

• Remove distractions (e.g. phone)
• Interact with people in real life
  • Hello, what is something that fascinates you?
• Increase playfulness, rebel
• Prioritize fun

Why we ignore obvious problems and how to act on them

Source: Michele Wucker: Why we ignore obvious problems and how to act on them

“Black Swan”, “Grey Rhino”

Your personal Outlook - for example people that plan for their deaths vs Those that do not

Why do some people deal with things and some not?

• Support system: will govt, family, society support if I fail?
• Risk tolerance: will someone help me if I fall?

What I learned from 2,000 obituaries

Source: Lux Narayan: What I learned from 2,000 obituaries

• How am I using my talents to improve society?
• If more people lived their lives to be more famous in death, the world would be a better place.

What six years in captivity taught me about fear and faith

Source: Ingrid Betancourt: What six years in captivity taught me about fear and faith

1. Live by principles
2. Unity
3. Have faith - transforms you

Rise above fear and choose how you react to it

Your brain on video games

Source: Your brain on video games | Daphne Bavelier

Games can have positive effects, as tested in lab. Same with wine research - manageable amounts can be helpful (Binging is never good).

1. Lab findings

   1. Vision is better

      • Action gamers can determine small details in clutter better. > E.g. reading fine print, colour differentiation

      

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   2. Attention, awareness

      • Colour/meaning conflicts are resolved faster by action gamers
      • Ability to track objects and remember - e.g. environmental scan while driving

      

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      • Areas that affect attention are more efficient for action game players

   3. Multi-tasking

      • Action game players are better at changing focus
      • High multi../media taskers (listening to music, searching) are actually not effective at multitasking

      Lab research: pretest, have people play action games, have them tested again, test again after couple month. We discovered positive effects last.

Physical Health

Sleep is your superpower

Matt Walker: Sleep is your superpower

Sleep is required for life and key to learning, health, and feeling younger. Not enough sleep causes many health problems. Research shows negative outcomes for daylight saving time changes and less sleep results in negative body changes, learning performance, and disease.

1. Sleep regularly and enough
2. Keep a cooler bedroom temperature (around 65 F, 18 C)
3. Avoid stimulants and drugs (for example coffee, alcohol) at night
4. If staying awake in bed too long, go to other place for a while

Find your primal posture and sit without back pain

Source: Find your primal posture and sit without back pain: Esther Gokhale at TEDxStanford

• Have your pelvic “tail” behind you instead of “sitting on it”. Don’t slouch but keep pelvis/butt sticking out at the back

• “J”spin, behind sticks out

statue and straight spine

When sitting, sit back, stick butt out on back of chair, elongate spine and hook back on chair:

A person sitting in a chair

Your body language may shape who you are

Amy Cuddy: Your body language may shape who you are

Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how “power posing” — standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident — can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success. (Note: Some of the findings presented in this talk have been referenced in an ongoing debate among social scientists about robustness and reproducibility. Read Amy Cuddy’s response under “Learn more” below.)

Non-verbal cues

Pride

A person running on a track

High and low power

A person wearing a suit and tie Description automatically generated with low confidence

We know non-verbals govern our behaviour and perceptions.

Minds change our bodies, body can change minds.

Physiological differences in “confident people” - can be increased.

• Animal alpha males: high testosterone (assertive, aggressive) and > low cortisol (low stress reaction)

Factors?

• Women more likely to have low power body shapes

• Fake it until you make it

indoor

A collage of a person in a chair and a person sitting in a chair

A person sitting on a chair

Be small

High power affects these things

graph LR

        A[Presence] --> B[Passionate];
        A --> C[Confident];
        A --> D[Enthusiastic];
        A --> E[Captivating];
        A --> F[Authentic];
        A --> G[Comfortable];

Are we faking it if we use these poses to get to places?

“Fake it until you become it - internalize it”

Small things lead to big changes. Two minutes of power poses to push your physiology