Ted Talks: Five Life Changing Lessons

This is an article I wrote a few years ago and I am still feeling the impact of the research and concerned with its findings and conclusions. This article focuses on important and practical life lessons spoken through the mouths of experts and leaders in very diverse areas of life.

Learning is a powerful tool in living a better life. Although the process of learning takes time, sites like Ted Talks have experts on almost every topic you could ever want to learn about. So will you put in the hard work and effort to learn? If so continue to read and watch the experts talk about helpful life changing lessons.

The Experts and Their Lessons:

Rick Warren:

Rick Warren is one of the most influential speakers and pastors around the world. In his Ted Talk, he speaks about your purpose and identity as human beings.

He believes that you are given influence and affluence to become servants in helping of your world. Your purpose is to learn all that you can in your specific discipline and share that with others.

Not only does servant hood help other people but it brings true joy to your life. Your knowledge and your passions were not purposed for your life alone but you’re everyone you come in contact with.

So the next time that you are extremely stressed out because of a hard day at work or you don’t feel that your life means anything to anyone think about the people whom you have served and helped along the way and be encouraged.

Adam Leipzig:

Adam Leipzig is the CEO of Entertainment Media Partners and was a long-standing executive at Disney. His message echoes that of Rich Warren, he focuses on finding your propose in the world.

He begins his talk with a story of how at his twenty-fifth reunion of college all his friends were complaining about how they had wasted their lives because the only purpose they went to school was to get a job. The interesting fact about this story was that he went to Yale. The best and the brightest struggled to find purpose in their lives.

Mr. Leipzig points out five different questions you need to answer in discovering your life purpose:

1. Who you were: You’re past experiences and background?
2. What you do: What is your passion; what is your job and profession?
3. Who do you do if for: Who are you serving?
4. What do they want or need: What does your world need more than anything?
5. What they got out of it: How are people changed because of what you are doing?

There is a similar connection with what Rick Warren and Mr. Leipzig are saying brings true purpose: servant hood. Being a servant brings purpose to your life; you were made to learn in order that you may serve others. Servant hood is humbling but isn’t easy.

Cameron Russell:

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Cameron Russell is one of the most successful young women in modeling profession. She has been on shoots such as Calvin Klein and Victoria Secret. Her Ted Talk focuses on the idea what our society sees as beauty.

She believes that physical beauty and her opportunity as a model came as a “genetic lottery.” She makes the point that the manners in which people see her as is the work of “make-up artist, designers, fashion professionals and that’s not her true self.”

She wants you to understand that physical beauty is not everything and that the true scale of success or failure needs to be based on performance and not physical looks. Remember that looks aren’t everything; be yourself and shine.

Colin Stokes:

Colin Stokes was a Broadway actor and now is the Director at the non-profit called Citizen School. He focuses on how media especially films are transforming your young boy’s minds of what it means to understand manhood.

He takes two famous films Star Wars: A New Hope and The Wizard of Oz and contrast the themes to explain the differences in how men react to women.

In Star Wars, there are only two women and one is killed within the first fifteen minutes and the other is a beautiful damsel in distress type. Most of the men are seen as those who have this individualistic mindset; there sole purpose is to beat out evil and rescue the princess.

In Wizard of Oz, the major protagonists and antagonist are women. In this film’s worldview, men are those who join together with women in teamwork to defeat the evil’s power.

Mr. Stokes’ point is that men and women need to be those who will work together in love and teamwork to accomplish the task of life. You need to encourage your young men and women the importance of the great values of love and teamwork.

Chimamanda Adichie:

Chimamanda Adichie is one of the most successful international writers; she has received some of the most prestigious awards for her writings. She talks the danger of having, reading and writing stories that are only about one kind of people.

There are racial biases within literature—within stories; people even in stories are not seen as equals. The stories that you may have read containing different kinds of racial people, most of time have been written by authors who know nothing of the culture in which they write.

The most important lesson she provides is the rejection of the one sided story. Her statement clarifies what is meant by the one sided story, “if you want to live in the world of the one sided story all you must do is create and watch the same images in which the people are seen in one light.” You must not desire this kind of story.

For when you believe the lies of a one sided story you miss out on the beauty and truth of other peoples and cultures. You must not allow yourself to believe that your culture is superior to everyone else, but to see each other as all wonderfully created as equals.

Conclusion:

Avenues like Ted Talks gives you the easy opportunity to learn about practical lessons of some important issues pertaining to life. These lessons are given to you by a myriad of different experts and who knows if you really strive after your passion people like Ted Talks might hire you to come speak about whatever life lessons you are willing to share with others.

Work Cited: Pictures

1. http://www.deepershopping.com/item/warren-rick/purpose-driven-life-10th-anniversary/4887413.html
2. http://gatecommunity.org/adam-leipzig/
3. http://zap2it.com/blogs/model_cameron_russell_i_won_the_genetic_lottery-2013-02
4. http://www.tedxbeaconstreet.com/speakers/colin-stokes/
5. http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/20-Questions-with-Author-Chimamanda-Ngozi-Adichie

Work Cited: Videos

1. All the videos can be found through Youtube or http://www.ted.com