Think all the best talks are from TED’s main stage? Think again! 

Below are 10 of my Favorite TEDx Talks. Watch, and be inspired!

Note that this list does not include any TEDx Talks that I produced or coached myself – God forbid I have to choose between my own children! The talks below are organized alphabetically by speaker name. Enjoy!

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Depression, the secret we share – Andrew Solomon

“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality. And it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment. Everything there was to do seemed like too much work.”

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3 ways to plan for the (very) long term – Ari Wallach

“It wasn’t always like this. We did the Panama Canal. We pretty much have eradicated global polio. We did the transcontinental railroad, the Marshall Plan. And it’s not just big, physical infrastructure problems and issues. Women’s suffrage, the right to vote. But in our short-termist time, where everything seems to happen right now and we can only think out past the next tweet or timeline post, we get hyper-reactionary.”

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The power of vulnerability – Brené Brown

“It’s universal; we all have it. The only people who don’t experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection. No one wants to talk about it, and the less you talk about it, the more you have it.”

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10 ways to have a better conversation – Celeste Headlee

“Why do we not listen to each other? Number one, we’d rather talk. When I’m talking, I’m in control. I don’t have to hear anything I’m not interested in. I’m the center of attention. I can bolster my own identity. But there’s another reason: We get distracted.”

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Why work doesn’t happen at work – Jason Fried

“You don’t have a work day anymore. You have work moments. It’s like the front door of the office is like a Cuisinart, and you walk in and your day is shredded to bits, because you have 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there, and something else happens, you’re pulled off your work, then you have 20 minutes, then it’s lunch, then you have something else to do…”

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What I learned from 100 days of rejection – Jia Jiang

“When you get rejected in life, when you are facing the next obstacle or next failure, consider the possibilities. Don’t run. If you just embrace them, they might become your gifts as well.”

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What it’s like to be a woman in Hollywood – Naomi McDougall Jones

“If you have watched mostly American movies in your lifetime, 95% of all the films you have ever seen were directed by men. Somewhere between 80-90% of all of the leading characters that you’ve ever seen were men. And […] 55% of the time that you’ve seen a woman in a movie, she was naked or scantily clad. That affects you. That affects all of us.”

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The happy secret to better work – Shawn Achor

“If I know everything about your external world, I can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness. 90 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world.”

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How great leaders inspire action – Simon Sinek

“We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it’s those who start with “why” that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.”

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The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen – Takaharu Tezuka

“Don’t control them. Don’t protect them too much. They need to tumble sometimes. They need to get some injury. And that makes them learn how to live in this world.”

Hungry for more? Check out 10 Must-Watch TED Talks (link).