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: Nigel Marsh— How to make work-life balance work

"Feel like your work-life balance is off? 

This talk is for you."

Good Morning Folks,

Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. At TEDxSydney, Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.

This TED talk works for me on a number of levels:

• The content really spoke to me. As someone who had previously made the idle boast that “work life balance is for people who don’t like their jobs”, this talk made me realize that there was something to be gained from cultivating interests, activities and relationships that did not revolve around work. And that it would take work to do that. Not just that, that society is such that making work life balance work is an individual responsibility.

• Nigel has got a great presentational style. It’s very conversational, pretty funny and candid. You get a real sense that this is the “real” Nigel. He embodies something that our presentation skill training aims to do, namely “Be yourself. More. With skill.” His timing is superb and he absolutely nails the “Strong start” with the smart use of quotes. Yes, he’s funny but the humour is from the absolute conviction of his delivery and the hard hitting truth of what he’s saying. There isn’t a “joke” in sight…

• There is a very strong call to action:  This talk entirely pivots in the last paragraph which I set out below in full. From the very specific details of one man’s quest to find work life balance he actually calls for a revolution in the work place.  It’s very profound and yet it’s delivered with economy and precision. It’s a strong ending for the talk and just as strong an ending for this blog post.  

• “Now my point is the small things matter. Being more balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. Moreover, I think, it can transform society. Because if enough people do it, we can change society’s definition of success away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well lived looks like. And that, I think, is an idea worth spreading.”

Have a look:

Nigel Marsh is the author of “Fat, Forty and Fired” and “Overworked and Underlaid.” He’s the Regional Group CEO of Young and Rubicam Brands for Australia & New Zealand. In 2005 he came second last in the Bondi to Bronte ocean race.

Thanks to Creative Shift UK for inspiring me today with this recommendation 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: 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: Simon Sinek's ‘Start With Why.’

"Why do some companies achieve things that completely exceed our expectations, defying all our assumptions for what's possible?'

Good Morning Folks,

I’m a big fan on Simon Sinek and it seems like you agree. When we presented his talk "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" on an earlier TED Tuesday, your reaction was overwhelming.  "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" is an amazing, inspiring and thought provoking talk from TEDxPugetSound.

Today's TEDTalk is a shorter variation on that theme.

You may have also seen my presentations based on Simon's ‘golden circle of human emotion,’ which explains the greatest motivation behind why people buy.

Simply put, he proves that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

Why do some companies achieve things that completely exceed our expectations, defying all our assumptions for what's possible?  Apple starts with "why" when defining their company, they are able to attract customers who share their fundamental beliefs. As Sinek puts it, "People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it." Starting with "why" makes Apple, for example, more than just a computer company selling features, and that's why their products have flourished while their competitors' products with similar technology and capabilities have often flopped.

As a consultant and author, his books and presentations have provided inspiration to major organizations, corporations, non-profits, and businesses like ours to reshape our thinking, and by doing so, make us more responsive to the needs of our teams and our customers, and grow ourselves by the very process.

So now, here’s a treat for you: Sinek’s TED talk, ‘Start With Why.’

It occurred to me, that while many of you may be familiar with his TED Talks, you my be less familiar with his books: “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action”, and “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t.” Find them at Amazon.com.

I think the concept of starting with why hits the nail on the head regarding the trust economy. Most businesses have very comparable competitors, and it's trust and loyalty that will differentiate them in the markets through customer retention, word-of-mouth and the ZMOT. Starting with why allows businesses to go beyond what they're selling and connect on an emotional level that's much more moving that a few key features. Don't tell the world how you're going to change it, show the world.

At FSO, our strategy team also starts with the why and never loses its childlike curiosity to keep asking questions all with the goal on enabling our customers to find better ways, more options, more efficient resources and talent to enable what was not possible before.

Perhaps that's why we are the fastest growing company in outsourcing and have been so distinguished with inclusion on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America for the past three consecutive years. Only a tiny fraction of the nation's companies have demonstrated such remarkably consistent high growth, particularly in the difficult economic environment of the past few years. This achievement truly puts you in rarefied company.

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.