Matt Cutts explains how a simple trick can get you to stop procrastinating
Google engineer Matt Cutts was inspired a few years ago by the filmmaker and "human guinea pig" Morgan Spurlock to try something new for 30 days.
Cutts made it a monthly ritual. He soon learned to realize early on whether or not a new habit was right for him, but even if it wasn't — like novel writing — he at least got to try it out.
"I also noticed that as I started to do more and harder 30-day challenges, my self-confidence grew," he says. "I went from desk-dwelling computer nerd to the kind of guy who bikes to work. For fun!"
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Arianna Huffington dispels a long-held productivity myth
Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post editor in chief, is one of the most vocal proponents of the benefits of sleep.
She explored them at length in her latest book, "The Sleep Revolution."
In this talk, she explains that the workaholic tendency to flaunt how little sleep one needs to be productive is not based in reality.
"I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he had only gotten four hours sleep the night before. And I felt like saying to him ... 'You know what? If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting," she says, only half joking.
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David Brooks says you should live for your eulogy, not your résumé
David Brooks, the New York Times columnist and author, is enamored with the writings of the late rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik.
Soloveitchik argued that there are two sides to every person: the external side that wants to conquer the world, and the internal side that wants to hear a calling and obey the world. Someone's personality is the result of how the struggle between these two sides play out.
Brooks says we live in a world that neglects the internal side, and "that turns you into a shrewd animal who treats life as a game, and you become a cold, calculating creature who slips into a sort of mediocrity where you realize there's a difference between your desired self and your actual self. You're not earning the sort of eulogy you want, you hope someone will give to you."
His talk is a brief meditation on how to achieve a better balance.
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Eman Mohammed explains how sometimes you must be brave to be true to yourself
When Saudi photojournalist Eman Mohammed began her career in the Gaza Strip at age 19, she put a shameful spotlight on herself. In Palestinian culture, she said, women who dared venture into the field were seen as going outside of their role.
But despite mistreatment at the hands of male photographers, Mohammed pushed on, because only she was able to get up close to the lives of Palestinian women, whose stories were going undocumented.
"I became a witness with a choice: to run away or stand still," she says.
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Mark Bezos tells his audience that there's never a 'right time' to give back
Mark Bezos is a senior vice president at the Robin Hood charity in New York, and a volunteer firefighter.
Donning his firefighter gear for dramatic effect, Bezos explains how his experiences have taught him that well-intentioned people often make the mistake of thinking they'll give back only after they become very successful.
"I am witness to acts of generosity and kindness on a monumental scale," he says. "But I'm also witness to acts of grace and courage on an individual basis." Bezos explains that no matter your situation, you can improve someone else's life.
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Clint Smith explains that sometimes silence is the worst option
Even though there are situations when it's best to keep your thoughts to yourself to avoid confrontation, Clint Smith — a writer, educator, and award-winning slam poet — says that sometimes you can't just bite your tongue.
"We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don't," he says. "Silence is the residue of fear."
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Derek Sivers explains how movements get started
Derek Sivers is an entrepreneur who uses his brief presentation to talk about how, when it comes to making a difference, sometimes it takes more courage to follow than to lead.
He says that "leadership is over-glorified," and that successful people are willing to set aside their egos when they recognize greatness.
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Lee Mokobe shares a powerful insight into identity
Lee Mokobe is a South African poet and activist who is a transgender man.
The poem Mokobe performs in his TED Talk is a stark, honest expression of his struggle to understand his own self, and why it is both necessary and rewarding to feel compassion and empathy for people unlike ourselves.
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Richard St. John shows how success is not a destination
Richard St. John uses the story of his own path to becoming a millionaire entrepreneur to illustrate how thinking of success as a destination, as achieving a set of goals, is setting yourself up for failure.
Rather, he says, true success is a lifestyle that you must dedicate yourself to indefinitely.
"Why do so many people reach success and then fail? One of the big reasons is, we think success is a one-way street. So we do everything that leads up to success, but then we get there. We figure we've made it, we sit back in our comfort zone, and we actually stop doing everything that made us successful," he says.