TED Playlist

How to love work again

Maybe a huge project just landed on your desk. Or you're feeling like your co-workers don't appreciate you. Whatever has you down, these talks offer the deep breath you need.

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Talks in this playlist

Angela Lee Duckworth

Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.

Scott Dinsmore

How to find work you love

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.

Sarah Ellis, Helen Tupper

The best career path isn't always a straight line

Conventional wisdom frames the ideal career path as a linear one -- a ladder to be climbed with a single-minded focus to get to the top. Career development consultants Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper invite you to replace this outdated and limiting model with "squiggly" careers: dynamic, open-ended growth paths tailor-made for your individual needs, talents and ambitions. A radical rethink for anyone who feels restricted and defined by the limits of the corporate ladder.

Tarveen Forrester

Let your ambition light you up, not burn you out

Burnout shouldn’t be the price of success, but setting boundaries at work is easier said than done. Tarveen Forrester, who oversees workplace culture at Kickstarter, shares practical strategies for protecting your time and cultivating “sustainable ambition,” so you can crush your goals — without letting them crush you.

Noeline Kirabo

2 questions to uncover your passion -- and turn it into a career

What's your passion? Social entrepreneur Noeline Kirabo reflects on her work helping out-of-school young people in Uganda turn their passions into profitable businesses -- and shares the two questions you can ask yourself to begin doing the same.

Simon Sinek

How great leaders inspire action

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers ...

Gitte Frederiksen

Great leadership is a network, not a hierarchy

What if leadership at work wasn't for a select few, but rather shared among many? Management consultant Gitte Frederiksen gives us the recipe for "distributed leadership" -- dynamic, multidimensional networks of leaders that tap into everyone's knowledge and creativity -- and shows how it allows teams to do more and do it better.

Simone Stolzoff

How to reclaim your life from work

Where do you draw the line between work and life? Writer Simone Stolzoff explores the problem with defining yourself by your job — and shows what it takes to reclaim your time and sense of meaning beyond the office.

Alyssa Birnbaum

3 simple ways to build stronger relationships at work

Doing the best at your job isn't just about working harder — it’s also about connecting better, says psychologist Alyssa Birnbaum. She shares practical, research-backed tips for strengthening relationships with your coworkers (whether you’re together in person or working remotely) in order to boost engagement, fight burnout and make work better for everyone.

Gloria Chan Packer

Work is not your family

You may need to hear this (if you haven't already): your job is not your family. While you can develop meaningful relationships with your colleagues, calling work your family can actually breed burnout and be detrimental to your mental and emotional health. Mental wellness educator Gloria Chan Packer walks through the exercises you need to shift your perspective and redraw the boundaries between your work and personal life, so you can feel freer and more empowered.

Michael C. Bush

This is what makes employees happy at work

There are three billion working people on this planet, and only 40 percent of them report being happy at work. Michael C. Bush shares his insights into what makes workers unhappy -- and how companies can benefit their bottom lines by fostering satisfaction.

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