I WATCHED TED TALKS FOR 5 DAYS AND THIS IS WHAT I LEARNED

​DAY 1: MOVING BACKWARD IS NOT AN OPTION, AND STANDING STILL IS NOT ENOUGH

​The first day of TED Talks featured Stacey Abrams, the first black woman in the history of the U.S. to be nominated for governor by a major party. Although Abrams lost the race, her TED Talk showed me that her loss didn’t kill her drive or spirit.
 
Her reasoning for wanting to become governor of Georgia was delivered through an anecdote, which I don’t want to spoil in case you decide to watch! She revealed that she lost the race for governor and was sad for a while, but she decided to keep pushing forward.
 
When she said “moving backward is not an option and standing still is not enough, I knew that was going to be what I took away from her talk. But how do you move forward after a loss? Abrams explained it was to ask yourself “what do I want, why do I want it, and how do I get it?”
 
They are simple questions. Going back to the why will fuel you to push for your how.

DAY 2: THE WORLD NEEDS TO EXPAND ITS RADIUS, BUT THAT IS MUCH EASIER SAID THAN DONE

Today's speaker was meteorologist J. Marshall Shepherd. He talks about the different biases that can effect the way we see the world.

Not unsurprisingly, Shepherd decided to focus most of his talk on the bias many people have on issues such as climate change. He explained that there are three types of biases that you may engage in when you come across dealing with an issue you have an inherent bias toward: confirmation bias (only finding evidence to support your existing belief), Dunning Kruger (believing you know more than you do about a topic), and cognitive dissonance (new info that contradicts our beliefs).

I for one believe that our climate is changing for the worse. However, there are plenty who believe differently. While I agree with Shepherd's premise, I found his speech wanting because he identified a serious problem without presenting a solution. In actuality, overcoming our biases, at least in America, will be next to impossible because we let it get so far before addressing the real problem.

Shepherd did say we should expand our radius, or knowledge, about science and other things. I also found this hard to digest because several things we used to observe as fact (like the age of the universe, medicines, and carbon dating) have since changed. We all need to think critically. That was my main take-away.

DAY 3: PROCRASTINATION EXISTS BEYOND DUE DATES

The speaker for this day is Tim Urban, a writer and illustrator for the website WaitButWhy.com.

Urban spent a lot of his time on the TED stage talking about his personal experience as a master procrastinator, reminiscing anecdotally on completing his 90-page thesis in 72 hours. He explained how the mind of the procrastinator works, saying that both the procrastinator and the non-procrastinator have decision makers, but the procrastinator has an "instant gratification monkey" who is all about fun and joy.

But Urban eventually got to a point where he talked about the dangers of procrastinating on things without deadlines. Things like relationships, pursing education, health, and others. We may seem like we have all the time in the world to meet these deadlines, but we don't, and they can catch up with us and ruin our lives.

​I loved how Urban took a rather serious topic and put a funny spin on it!

DAY 4: LYING IS A COOPERATIVE ACT

Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, was today's speaker. Her book details a few was to spot a liar and teaches you how to protect yourself from that liar.

What I learned in this TED Talk was that lying is much more common than I thought, but we are much more to blame than I thought, as well. The signs of a liar are so telling that we are complicient in the lie. The fact that we can let someone get away with a lie is crazy! 

I really did learn a lot about spotting lies and hope to change my position in the lie from a cooperative of it to a spotter of it. I think I might actually add Meyer's book to my Audible Wish List!

DAY 5: DON'T LET PAST REJECTION DICTATE FUTURE ASPIRATIONS

The speaker for today was Jia Jiang. He was a marketing executive for a Fortune 500 company and he started his own business when he was 30. He explains that he was long controlled by rejection he experienced as a child when no one in his class complemented him during a confidence-building exercise.  He said that his childhood experience kept him from pursuing his dreams for fear of rejection.

Jiang decided to do a 100 days of rejection challenge where he decided to ask strangers for things that they would likely reject him for. His talk really taught me that the past is in the past and being rejected once doesn't mean I will always be rejected!