TED talk

Celeste Headlee: 10 ways to have a better conversation

Mush Business, Productivity, Relationships, Work , , , , , ,

I just heard one of the best TED talks about conversations. Celeste Headlee covers everything I try to include in my 1-3 hours of training on communication skills, and even more, in just 12 minutes!

The ten tips are:

  1. Don’t multi-task. Be fully present.
  2. Don’t pontificate. Set aside your personal opinions.
  3. Use open-ended questions.
  4. Go with the flow. Let your own thoughts come and go.
  5. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.
  6. Don’t equate your experience with theirs. It’s not about you.
  7. Don’t repeat yourself.
  8. Stay out of the details.
  9. Listen! Be interested.
  10. Be brief.

I also loved these quotes from the talk:

  • “If your mouth is open, you are not learning.” -Buddha
  • “No man ever listened his way out of a job.” -Calvin Coolidge
  • “Most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand; we listen with the intent to reply.” -Stephen Covey

Maysoon Zayid: One of the most dinchack (wow!) TED talks ever!

Mush Happiness, Inspiration, Life, Motivation , , , , , ,

Wow! Maysoon is extremely inspiring, super funny and very beautiful. One of the most dinchack (wow!) TED talks I’ve ever heard…

You may watch in HD on TED through this link.

“When I grow up I want to be happy, just like I am now.”

Mush Dinchack, Happiness , , ,

Wow, one of the best TED videos I’ve ever watched!

In this inspiring 11-minute video, mature-beyond-his-years teenager, Logan LaPlante, explains why he thinks youth should be taught to be happy and healthy, and how “hacking” his education to follow his dream is helping him do just that.

And with over 270,000 views on YouTube since his talk was published in February, I think he’s on the right path to inspiring other people to do the same.

Tali Sharot: We are born optimists!

Mush Happiness, Motivation , , ,

An excellent TED talk by Tali Sharot, neuroscientist and author of The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain. She highlights the following with interesting case studies:

  1. Interpretation matters
  2. Anticipation makes us happy
  3. Optimism changes reality
  4. Optimism makes you try harder

“Whatever happens, whether you succeed or you fail, people with high expectations always feel better, because how we feel, depends on how we interpret that event.” Tali Sharot

My take: Optimism is the only way for a ‘dhinchak‘ life!

Michael Norton: Money can buy happiness

Mush Happiness , , , ,

Another excellent TED talk in which Michael shares a simple way to buy happiness – by giving…

Michael I. Norton is an Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit and Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and English from Williams and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton. Prior to joining HBS, Professor Norton was a Fellow at the MIT Media Lab and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. His work has been published in a number of leading academic journals, including Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, and the Annual Review of Psychology, and has been covered in media outlets such as the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.