Ted Tuesday— "The Cleverest Kid In The World," Adora Svitak, on What Adults Can Learn From Kids

"The world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach."

Good Morning Folks,

15-year old Adora Svitak will blow you away. She says the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach.

Dubbed the “cleverest kid in the world”, the 15-year-old is already an internationally acclaimed speaker and published author, known for her essays, stories, poems, blogs, and full-length books since the age of seven. Her TED Talk in 2010, What Adults Can Learn From Kids, has garnered almost 3 million views across the web.

A passionate activist, Adora has a moving message to share with the world. She can often be found on stages around the world delivering talks on youth impact, Internet culture and its integration into education, and the impact of technology on the creative process. Her most recent endeavour was to participate in the XPRIZE Foundation’s Visioneering 2013, an annual event where groundbreaking entrepreneurs, thinkers, inventors and innovators gather to create innovations that will push humanity forward.

When you talk about what we look for in employees for FSO, the eye of the tiger, fire in the belly and skip in the step, this young lady knocks all three out of the park. Adora, we have a place reserved for you on our team!

Enjoy the brief video. After hearing Adora's talk, how could one ever say the world "can't" again?

Enjoy!

Have a GREAT day. Love LIFE!

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

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"It's not what you've got. It's what you use that makes a difference."
~~ Zig Ziglar
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TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Ted Tuesday: The Science of Stage Fright (and how to overcome it)

Interviewing for a job? First day in a management position addressing your team? In the military and standing up in front of dozens of soldiers and trying to maintain your composer while trying to keep trying to keep their attention and respect? How scared do you get before speaking in public?

Good Morning Folks,

One thing can strike fear into the heart of the fiercest warrior, the most powerful CEO and the smartest person in any given room: having to speak in public. The thought of it makes the palms sweat, the heart beat faster and the limbs start to shake. An estimated 75% of people have a fear of speaking in public, and it’s something that nearly everyone who takes the TED stage must work hard to overcome.

 Mikael Cho

Heart racing, palms sweating, labored breathing? No, you're not having a heart attack -- it's stage fright! If speaking in public makes you feel like you're fighting for your life, you're not alone. But the better you understand your body's reaction, the more likely you are to overcome it. Mikael Cho advises how to trick your brain and steal the show.



This TED-Ed lesson, the science of stage fright, just might help. In the lesson — which is taught by educator Mikael Cho and directed by animator Robertino Zambrano of KAPWA Studioworks — looks at stage fright not as an emotion, but as a physiological response. In other words, it’s not so much something to be overcome as to be adapted to.

“Humans are wired to worry about reputation. Public speaking can threaten it,” says Cho in the lesson. “It’s the fight-or-flight response, a self-protective process seen in a range of species.”

The lesson explains exactly what happens in the body before speaking in public and, of course, gives suggestions on how to calm stage fright. The obvious: practice, practice, practice. The not-so-obvious: stretch your arms above your head before you go on to trigger a relaxation response in the hypothalamus. (Yeah, it kind of reminded us of Amy Cuddy’s idea of power posing too.)

The best way to not get stage fright is to not care what people think about you to begin with. The easiest way to do that is to simply run through the worst possible scenario that's outside of your control, then ask yourself "So what if this happens? Is it THAT bad?".

Now, of course, you may end up in a loop by imagining worse and worse scenarios as consequence, but remember that we're talking about stuff you can't control. The moment you reach something that you DO control, imagine you make it!

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

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“Truth alone will endure. All the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.” ~~Ghandi.

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Ted Tuesday— Malcolm Gladwell: The Unheard Story of David and Goliath

Moral of the story: The Goliath might not be strong and David might not be weak. Things are not always the way they seem to be. So "don't bring a knife to a gun fight." (FSO competitors take notice)

Good Morning Folks,

Today's TED Talk is a religious story but also is a metaphor for our mission here at FSO. It's about innovation. (re)IMAGING. Change and finding the power within oneself to believe that you can be all that you can be.

Moral of the story: The Goliath might not be strong and David might not be weak. Things are not always the way they seem to be. So "don't bring a knife to a gun fight." (FSO competitors take notice).

In this video, a young shepherd, a mighty warrior, an impossible victory. But, asks Malcolm Gladwell, is that really what the David and Goliath story is about?

It's a classic underdog tale: David, a young shepherd armed only with a sling, beats Goliath, the mighty warrior. The story has transcended its biblical origins to become a common shorthand for unlikely victory. But, asks Malcolm Gladwell, is that really what the David and Goliath story is about?

Detective of fads and emerging subcultures, chronicler of jobs-you-never-knew-existed, Malcolm Gladwell's work is toppling the popular understanding of bias, crime, food, marketing, race, consumers and intelligence.

I think that one way to read the story of David and Goliath is as a parable about advances in technology and the loss of an old way of war. For a long time, in Ancient Greece, the archers and cavalry were an afterthought to the infantry. But then, advances in technology (better saddles, stirrups, and bows) started to make cavalry and archers valuable. They started to turn the tide in battles (Alexander conquered the world with cavalry). And this took away a lot of the face-to-face, "honorable" engagement of war. So Homer, wanting to commemorate the great old heroes of yesteryear, made them all infantryman. And he made the cowardly villain an archer (Odysseus also uses a bow, and tellingly, he wins Achilles' armor from Ajax--a giant infantryman-- further symbolizing the death of the old way of war).

For the Israelites, perhaps, technological advances (better slings, etc.) were what allowed them to hold off against neighboring tribes. So the slinger (David) becomes a hero, instead of a villain, for killing off the great fighter of yesteryear (Goliath).

This same parable still gets told about more modern warfare. In Kurosawa's masterpiece, Seven Samurai, most of the samurai (who each represent a samurai of legend) are killed by modern guns.

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

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 “Customers are hard to build and easy to loose”

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