Ted Tuesday: Without Self-Meaning, Money Means Nothing

"This is the battle cry of the millennial generation who is shaping the future of the workplace, here at FSO, and everywhere."

Good Morning Folks,

When I shared a Wharton Americus Reed, II's (the Whitney M. Young Jr., Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) take on today's TED Talk on LinkedIn, a colleague  stood up and took immediate notice.

Her takeaway was that money, in the abstract, is meaningless. Just chits on the digital page, dollars in the trading account.

It's a tool, like a hammer.

A hammer is meaningless until you lift it and build a house, or smash a skull. A hammer can be good, or bad.

Likewise, money.

It means nothing until you do something with it.

Bad, frivolous, or good.

Opined Professor Reed in a Huffington Post review of this Ted talk, "If I had a dime for every business student who entered my office; lamenting the self-described drudgery that is their work-life. They thought that a career on Wall Street or in heavy duty consulting would bring that pristine pot of gold. They were right. And wrong. Yes, those hundred plus hour weeks catapult you into that illusive 5% earner stratosphere. But if I had a dime for every student who would later confide in me: "it just was not fulfilling," ironically, I would be as wealthy as the financial institutions from which they feverishly depart.

"

Enter social psychologist Paul Piff and his provocative TEDx talk "Does money make you mean?" Sixteen and a half minutes of summarized laboratory and field data show an association between wealth, and lack of compassion, empathy and pro-social motivation.

It's amazing what a rigged game of Monopoly can reveal. In this entertaining but sobering talk, social psychologist Paul Piff shares his research into how people behave when they feel wealthy. (Hint: badly.) But while the problem of inequality is a complex and daunting challenge, there's good news too. (Filmed at TEDxMarin.)



Professor Reed, II observes, "This Isn't Your Father's Business Person Identity--therein lies the paradigm shift. There is a new model of business and business student afoot: The student who enters my office with a deep passion to do two things. Make money and do good. Business schools are "rebranding" themselves to welcome this new identity. It's being called "social impact." The identity of the student, who has realized that mindless self-investment into the false idol of material things for their sake, is an empty void--a fast track to an empty soul--is changing. Business students are becoming much more aware, and self-reflective."

This is the battle cry of the millennial generation who is shaping the future of the workplace, here at FSO, and everywhere.

Watch the short 16 minute presentation and see if you don't agree.

Whatever your takeaway is, it takes a brave person to take on the Corporate interests in today's world, because they are global and pernicious - just like they have always been. Bravo Paul for helping us (re)IMAGINE new and different possibilities.

Let’s have some fun.. ITS OUR TIME, together we can do it.

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE. 

TED Tuesday Rosie King: How Autism Freed Me To Be Myself

Rosie King challenges stereotypes of people with autism and contextualizes the issue by asking us, “Why be normal?”

Good Morning Folks,

In the past we've used our TED Tuesdays to create awareness, compassion and understanding around some subjects that are a little bit uncomfortable and not always talked about. But since no two people walk in the same shoes, I think it is helpful to shed light on challenges, that perhaps you, or someone you work with, or love, is going through in an optimistic way. To me, this is one of TED's greatest contributions to the world at large. With ten million views on TED and another quarter million on Youtube, today's featured talk is a case in point.

“People are so afraid of variety that they try to fit everything into a tiny little box with a specific label,” says 16-year-old Rosie King, who is bold, brash and autistic. She wants to know: Why is everyone so worried about being normal? She sounds a clarion call for every kid, parent, teacher and person to celebrate uniqueness. It’s a soaring testament to the potential of human diversity.

When she was nine years old, doctors confirmed Rosie King’s self-diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome. With two younger siblings severely affected by autism, Rosie had a burning desire to help make the world a more tolerant place for people with autism ever since she was a young girl. She found the opportunity to do so when her family was invited to do a local news segment on her mother’s children’s books, which featured Rosie’s illustrations. Her lack of inhibition made her a natural presenter, and she was asked to host BBC Newsround’s special program “My Autism and Me,” bringing her a much wider audience and an Emmy Kid’s Award. Rosie continues to raise awareness about autism, and is working towards her goal of becoming a professional actress and storyteller.


I'll end as Rosie does: "I'm going to leave you with one question: If we can't get inside the person's minds, no matter if they're autistic or not, instead of punishing anything that strays from normal, why not celebrate uniqueness and cheer every time someone unleashes their imagination?"

Thanks to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

TED Tuesday: How To Stand Out At Your New Office— Career Advice for Millennials

Mitch is in Seattle as we go live at our newest client. In his stead from TED Blogs we share...

Career advice for millennials (and really, anyone) from Margaret Heffernan

Posted by: Juliet Blake and Kate Torgovnick May July 3, 2015 at 3:00 pm EDT

In her career, Margaret Heffernan has been the CEO of five businesses. What advice does she have for people just starting their careers? First: Get to know your coworkers. Photo: Paul Clarke/TED

It’s a few months after graduation, which means the luckiest new college grads are knee-deep into internships and entry-level jobs. How to stand out? Business writer Margaret Heffernan suggests: Start by taking a coffee break with your coworkers. Companies grow best, she suggests, when workers are connected by social bonds.

Heffernan’s TED Book, Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes, rounds up the academic research that backs up her workplace-tested insights. She’s calling for managers to feed workers’ hunger for connection — and for workers to recognize that coffee breaks and hallway chats can actually make them more valuable, and valued, employees. (Learn more in her TED Talk, “Why it’s time to forget the pecking order at work.”)

Just before Heffernan hosted the TED@BCG conference, she sat down with curator Juliet Blake to offer advice for young people just starting their careers. Insights from their conversation:

The job requirement no one tells new hires about: Build your social capital.

“Social capital is a form of mutual reliance, dependency and trust. It hugely changes what people can do. This is more true now than ever. It’s impossible in modern organizations to know everything that you need to know. What you need are lots of people who know lots of different things. Collectively you’re smarter.

Social capital develops from people spending time together. I learned this when I was running my first software company. I hired lots of brilliant people, but felt that there was something wrong. I realized that everybody was so focused on their own work and tasks, that they didn’t know anything about the person sitting next to them. So I decided, “Okay — Friday afternoons at 4 o’clock everybody’s going to get together and three people are going to stand up and tell us who they are and what matters to them.” At the time I thought it was hokey. Even now, this doesn’t feel like elevated management thinking. But it completely changed the game. You need that level of trust to have the freedom to think and to have the really good kind of argument from which the best ideas emerge.”

Isn’t it different for this generation because of social media? Not really. 

“We talk about millennials in a language of exceptionalism. I’m a little skeptical about that. Digital intelligence and techno-savvy is an entry-level requirement. But without social capital, it won’t get you very far.

I remember when I worked at the BBC, I was given a trainee who was making his first film. He had a first in mathematics from Oxford, and thought he was the smartest kid on the block. He had no concept that what he needed to do was to connect to the very rich network of social capital that existed within the team. So he wrote the film alone. He went in and shot it using his own lights — he didn’t ask for help from the unbelievably seasoned, prize-winning technicians he was working with. Surprise, surprise — the film was a mess. All he needed to do was invest a bit of time and effort in getting to know the people around him, and it would have been a completely different story.”

Work sensible hours. Take breaks. Really. 

“In engineering, people talk about asset integrity, which means that you service the machinery before it breaks. In modern organizations, the work is thinking and the machinery is your brain. We know from cognitive science that there are hard limits to what the brain can deal with. And yet, there’s an awful lot in the way we work which flies in the face of that.

We think that if we work through the night, we’re being very clever. We’re not. We think we can work long hours — month after month, year after year — and that there won’t be any wear and tear. But there is.

I’m a big fan of mind wandering. I do my best thinking when I’m writing. Or when I stop thinking about a hard problem — how to deal with a client, how to fix a paragraph — and get up. You walk away from your desk, you do something mind-numbingly dull —hanging up the laundry or taking the dog out for a walk — and the idea will come to you.”

And yes, time management means taking time off email and chat. 

“The crucial thing around time management is Leslie A. Perlow’s observation that we have what we think of as “real work,” which requires thought and concentration. And then the other work of meetings, phone calls, video conferences and email. If you want to be profoundly more productive, separate those two. Do the thinking work uninterrupted, which will result in better work with less fatigue. And then do all the other stuff, comfortable in the knowledge that the real work is done. It will mean at the end of the day you’ll feel less fried.”

The advice I’d give my younger self…

“It’s the same advice I give my teenage kids. Grades aren’t everything. Learning is for the joy of learning; it’s not for the certificate. You have to set your own agenda. Question everything. I mean, this is a rod from my own back.

Think for yourself. Think for yourself. Think for yourself. I’m really concerned that many of major institutions don’t want people to think for themselves. My advice to any young person starting out is: don’t be a sheep. It’s your life and your decisions, and you can’t blame other people if you make the wrong choice. It’s your choice.”

Learn more about Margaret Heffernan’s TED Book, Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. And read up on the talks from the TED@BCG event she hosted.

Ted Tuesday: Kelly McGonigal: Making Stress Your Friend

"Kelly McGonigal is a leader driven by compassion and pragmatism.” – Forbes.com 20 Inspiring Women

Good Morning Folks,

Something very cool for you today that weaves nicely into this morning's FISH curriculum, for those who participated: the science of resilience and compassion. Things don't create meaning in life. You, your thoughts, your paradigms, create meaning. You are the active meaning maker of the show. It's all about our-self confidence!

This morning FISH taught us, "Each day we come to work we bring an attitude. We can bring a bad attitude and have a depressing day. We can bring a grouchy attitude and irritate our colleagues and clients. Or we can bring a happy, playful, cheerful attitude and have a great day. We can choose the kind of day we will have. Think about it. As long as we are going to be at work, we might as well have the best day we can have, but everyone must be on board!"

Those who believes that life is fun, that’s how life becomes. Those who believe life is difficult, that’s how life turns out. Those who believe that only honest way to be rich is to work hard, can never make a lot of money without working long hours, but those who believes that money comes to them effortlessly & easily tend to earn honestly but from comparatively less effort. Same is for health, relationship everything. Don’t you know some who eat fast food & doesn’t exercise much, but still maintain a healthy & fit physique?

Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.

Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal is a leader in the growing field of “science-help.” Through books, articles, courses and workshops, McGonigal works to help us understand and implement the latest scientific findings in psychology, neuroscience and medicine.She is now researching a new book about the "upside of stress," which will look at both why stress is good for us, and what makes us good at stress. In her words: "The old understanding of stress as a unhelpful relic of our animal instincts is being replaced by the understanding that stress actually makes us socially smart -- it's what allows us to be fully human."

I couldn't stop watching her talk:


So kids, now that you know how, rid the stress and rock it today!.

Have a GREAT day, be happy and…

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

*TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference on the West Coast each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.  More at TED.com

TED Tuesday: Pico Iyer: The Art of Stillness

"In this age of constant movement and connectedness, when so many of us are all over the place, perhaps staying in one place - and locating everything we need for peace and happiness there - is a more exciting prospect, and a greater necessity than ever before."

Good Morning Folks,

Here's a concept that everyone who knows me knows I am in lockstep with.

In both The Art of Stillness and this captivating TEDTALK, Pico Iyer reflects that this is perhaps the reason why more and more people - even those with no religious commitment - seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi. These aren't New Age fads so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of an earlier age. There is even a growing trend toward observing an "Internet sabbath" every week, turning off online connections from Friday night to Sunday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation.

The place that travel writer Pico Iyer would most like to go? Nowhere. In a counterintuitive and lyrical meditation, Iyer takes a look at the incredible insight that comes with taking time for stillness. In our world of constant movement and distraction, he teases out strategies we all can use to take back a few minutes out of every day, or a few days out of every season. It’s the talk for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the demands for our world. have a look.






The counter-intuitive truth: the more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug.

You can find The Art of Stillness at either Amazon or Google.

Thanks to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

Ted Tuesday: Kevin Breel— Confessions Of A Depressed Comic

"So we need to stop the ignorance, stop the intolerance, stop the stigma, and stop the silence, and we need to take away the taboos, take a look at the truth, and start talking, because the only way we're going to beat a problem that people are battling alone is by standing strong together, by standing strong together."

Good Morning Folks,

You have heard me refer to the Mitch Institute of Training (MIT) at FSO where we aim to be life coaches as much as business coaches. Because we believe employees with a healthy work life balance enable better customer experiences.

Today's TED Talker, with almost 3 million combined views on multiple platforms,  tackles a subject most of us are a little uncomfortable with. Yet its something very misunderstood that touches the lives of those we may know and perhaps even someone reading this right now. So in the TED spirit of sharing and enlightenment, where I have brought you difficult subjects (like addiction) in the past to generate awareness and compassion, I present  Kevin Breel— Confessions of a depressed comic.

Kevin Breel didn't look like a depressed kid: team captain, at every party, funny and confident. But he tells the story of the night he realized that -- to save his own life -- he needed to say four simple words.

In Breel’s talk, given at TEDxKids@Ambleside, the 19-year-old reveals that, while he seemed to be living a great life as a high school basketball player, he was actually contemplating suicide. He urges people to break the silence that surrounds depression because “as much as I hate some of the places that my depression has dragged me down to, in a lot of ways I’m grateful for it.” On the Today Show, interviewer Willie Geist asks Breel about this bold statement.

“Life is about duality,” Breel says. “There’s happiness; there’s sadness; there’s light; there’s dark; there’s hope; there’s hurt. And I think that, for me, nothing in my whole life has ever helped me understand more about myself, more about others, more about life than dealing with depression.”

According to Kevin, "The world I believe in is one where we're measured by our ability to overcome adversities, not avoid them."  In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why there’s no “easy” cure for depression.
• What to do when you’re struggling to get out of bed.
• The importance therapy and how it might help you.
• How looks can be deceiving.

He explains in the talk...

I hope you found this as informative and inspirational as I did.

Thanks to TED and to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

TED Tuesday: Johann Hari— Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong

"The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection."

Good Morning Folks,

Whether it's a drug, a hobby, fitness or Facebook, chances are you or someone you know is addicted to something. Perhaps today's TED conveys information you can use if you or someone you know struggles with any of these problems.

What really causes addiction — to everything from cocaine to smart-phones? And how can we overcome it? Johann Hari has seen our current methods fail firsthand, as he has watched loved ones struggle to manage their addictions. He started to wonder why we treat addicts the way we do — and if there might be a better way. As he shares in this deeply personal TEDtalk, his questions took him around the world, and unearthed some surprising and hopeful ways of thinking about an age-old problem.

Is everything we know about addiction wrong? For example, one fact Hari touches upon is the long held belief that certain drugs, like heroin, for example, have chemical hooks in them that make you addicted – meaning if you take them for a period of time your body would become chemically dependant on those hooks. They create a physical dependency which result in addiction.

Is it about our environment? Our bonds, our connections, and our access to fulfilling, enjoyable activities? Is it about how we think about and perceive the world around us? Is it because we are not being nourished (mentally and spiritually)?

In the TEDTalk he says, “I believe the core part of addiction is, and what I think the evidence suggests, is about not being able to bear to be present in your life. And I think the core of that message -- you're not alone, we love you -- has to be at every level of how we respond to addicts, socially, politically and individually. For 100 years now, we've been singing war songs about addicts. I think all along we should have been singing love songs to them, because the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.” 

From there, the talk gets even more interesting (I’ll let you listen to the rest), and will definitely give you something to think about when it comes to addiction. 



Says a commenter of the program, "I read Hari's book, Living the Scream, before hearing this TED talk. Believe me, he is spot-on. I have first-hand experience with loving addicts my entire life; it IS truly about the cage NOT the substance."

Thanks to Collective Evolution, TED and to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

TED Tuesday: Ruth Chang— A Better Way to Make Hard Choices

"Far from being sources of agony and dread, hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition, that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves to become the distinctive people that we are."

Good Morning Folks,

Here's a TED Talk that could literally change your life. Which career should I pursue? Should I break up — or get married?! Where should I live? Big decisions like these can be agonizingly difficult. But that's because we think about them the wrong way, says philosopher Ruth Chang. She offers a powerful new framework for shaping who we truly are.

Chances are, the hard choice you thought of was something big, something momentous, something that matters to you. Hard choices seem to be occasions for agonizing, hand-wringing, the gnashing of teeth. But I think we've misunderstood hard choices and the role they play in our lives. Understanding hard choices uncovers a hidden power each of us possesses.

When you face your next hard choice, don't beat your head against the wall trying to find the "right" answer. "There is no best alternative." Chang insists. Instead, see the choice as a fork in the road, an opportunity to choose who you really want to be. The alternative is to be a drifter, one of those people who don't declare themselves "for" anything, who allow "the world to write the story of their lives," as Chang puts it, who blindly follow affirmation or avoid the terror of the unknown.

"Far from being sources of agony and dread, hard choices are precious opportunities," concludes Chang. Want to hear more? Have a look: (be sure to skip the ad using the arrow in the bottom right of your screen then click in that same area when the program starts to enlarge)




As INC recently concluded, "you can spend $250,000 and three years of your life to get an MBA or spend a a few moments watching these TED videos. Your choice."

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

TED Tuesday: Steven Addis: A Father-Daughter Bond, One Photo At A Time

"So I want to encourage everyone today to get in the shot, and don't hesitate to go up to someone and ask,'Will you take our picture?'"

Good Morning Folks,

In this attention deficit age where kids are too busy on their cell phones to even look up at their parents at dinner, here is an activity you can do together with your phone and selfies, that will have lasting meaning and help build stronger parent/child bonds.

Todays TEDTalk tells a story that reminds me of last year's Academy-Award nominee and winner Boyhood.

It's of a father, who once took a picture with his daughter on a corner in NYC and decided to replicate it the next year. This goes on for fifteen years and he speaks about how meaningful this tradition became to both himself and his daughter. Steven Addis is a photographer, film buff and writer. He started an agency, Addis Creston, that creates “positive change by working with clients to market meaningful products and to improve their social benefit”. The main point the presenter is making about the topic is that a picture really can mean a thousand words. He literally showed fifteen images and spoke about each one as an individual story to support the point he was making. 

What made him choose this talk were the words “father-daughter bond” in the title?

"It made me thing about my father and our relationship, so I was interested in someone else’s. The presenter has impacted the way I view his topic by in a sense where I now wish my father had done the same thing with me. One idea I will take away from the talk is this idea of how much a series of reoccurring photos can mean and how I would like to continue this tradition when I have children."

So these photos are far more than proxies for a single moment, or even a specific trip. They're also ways for us to freeze time for one week in October and reflect on our times and how we change from year to year, and not just physically, but in every way. Because while we take the same photo, our perspectives change, and she reaches new milestones, and I get to see life through her eyes, and how she interacts with and sees everything. This very focused time we get to spend together is something we cherish and anticipate the entire year.

Concludes Addis,"So I want to share the idea of taking an active role in consciously creating memories. I don't know about you, but aside from these 15 shots, I'm not in many of the family photos. I'm always the one taking the picture. So I want to encourage everyone today to get in the shot, and don't hesitate to go up to someone and ask, 'Will you take our picture?''

Now... Steven Addis presents his TED Talk “A father-daughter bond, one photo at a time”. 


As INC recently concluded, 'you can spend $250,000 and three years of your life to get an MBA or spend a a few moments watching these videos. Your choice."

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

TED Tuesday: Can Watching TED Talks Be Worth More Than An MBA?

Why we do what we do

Tony Robbins discusses the invisible forces that make us do what we do and how to use them to your advantage.

Good Morning Folks,

Since the start of this blog, celebrating its second anniversary this month, every Tuesday I have hand-selected one from thousands of TED Talks to share with you in the interest of providing professional growth and development to make you more effective in your work in your life. I have encouraged you that listening to these speakers, who used to be available only to presidents club winners or to those who paid hundreds for self-help books and Tony Robbins events, would give you an education money can't buy.

Now an article in INC suggests that "If you're determined to get a job that requires an MBA, by all means spend the time and money to get one. However, if you want to know more about business than 99.9 percent of your colleagues, you can spend a day watching these TED Talks. Ironically the lion's share of what the consider the "best of the best" of TED are talks I have already shared with you over the past 24 months.

If you missed any of our features and/or want to quickly see the rest of them, including Tony Robbins, you can view all and catch the other recommended selection all for FREE HERE.

As INC concluded, 'you can spend $250,000 and three years of your life to get an MBA or spend a day watching these videos. Your choice."

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

Ted Tuesday: Rana el Kaliouby: This app knows how you feel -- from the look on your face

"By humanizing technology, we have this golden opportunity to (re) Imagine how we connect with machines, and therefore, how we, as human beings, connect with one another."

Good Morning Folks,

If you watch TV you've probably been seeing those public service ads encouraging everyone to put their phones away at dinner and on Sundays so we can all have some good old fashioned human interaction. One example is Dixie®, a Georgia-Pacific brand and the leader in disposable tableware and other conveniences for busy families, who announced the creation of a social movement called “Dark for Dinner.” The movement, which launches on June 14 and will take place every Sunday for six weeks, is designed to encourage families to focus on the present and to “Be More Here.

Maybe you've even experienced having to drop your phone in a basket so you can't be tempted to look at it during a dinner or meeting. A commercial making the point titled "A spoken word film for an online generation" goes like this:

Our emotions influence every aspect of our lives — how we learn, how we communicate, how we make decisions. Yet they’re absent from our digital lives; the devices and apps we interact with have no way of knowing how we feel. 

But in todays TEDTalk, Scientist Rana el Kaliouby aims to change that. She demos a powerful new technology that reads your facial expressions and matches them to corresponding emotions. This “emotion engine” has big implications, she says, and could change not just how we interact with machines — but with each other.

Our emotions influence every aspect of our lives, from our health and how we learn, to how we do business and make decisions, big ones and small. Our emotions also influence how we connect with one another. We've evolved to live in a world like this, but instead, we're living more and more of our lives like this -- this is the text message from my daughter last night -- in a world that's devoid of emotion. "So I'm on a mission to change that," says  Rana. "I want to bring emotions back into our digital experiences." Have a look.

So as more and more of our lives become digital, we are fighting a losing battle trying to curb our usage of devices in order to reclaim our emotions. So what Rana's trying to do instead is to bring emotions into our technology and make our technologies more responsive. She wants those devices that have separated us to bring us back together. And by humanizing technology, we have this golden opportunity to re imagine how we connect with machines, and therefore, how we, as human beings, connect with one another.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

ABOUT CHIP KIDD
Chip Kidd is a designer and writer living in New York City. His book cover designs for Alfred A. Knopf, where he has worked nonstop since 1986, have helped create a revolution in the art of American book packaging. He is the recipient of the National Design Award for Communication Design, as well as the Use of Photography in Design Award from the International Center of Photography. Kidd has published two novels, The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners. A distinguished and prolific lecturer, Kidd has spoken at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, RISD, and a zillion other places.

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.