TED Tuesday: Nilofer Merchant — Got a meeting? Take a walk

"Sitting has become the smoking of our generation."

Good Morning Folks,

In her VERY short TED talk, Nilofer Merchant suggests a small idea that just might have a big impact on your life and health: Next time you have a one-on-one meeting, make it into a "walking meeting" — and let ideas flow while you walk and talk.

You'll be surprised at how fresh air drives fresh thinking, and in the way that you do, you'll bring into your life an entirely new set of ideas.  Gave a look:


TED offers you more ways to Work Smarter.  Here is a playlist of 11 other talks about working smarter that you might enjoy. This isn't traditional business advice. These talks offer unconventional, and uncommonly useful, advice on leading, working and making the most of each day.

Have a GREAT day!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time."

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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: Why So Serious?

As the old saying goes, "you can either soar like an eagle or flock like a duck." In this disarmingly simple presentation, we learn to differentiate clearly between the avians of the business world.

Good Morning,

Today something different. Something funny. A satire of TED talks from The Onion.

A friend recently posted 21 short videos worth more than an MBA, the 13 most inspirational videos of all time, and the 7 most motivational feature films of all time.  Presenting Onion Talks: the most important ideas from greatest thinkers on the planet. No mind will be left unchanged

However, to quote another great motivational speaker in a famous movie: "Why so serious?"

Enough of the serious. The videos in this post are not worth an MBA and are neither inspirational nor motivational. But they're funny as all get out, IMHO.

More than that, they illustrate some fairly important truths about human behavior and the realities of the business world.

Enjoy any or all of my favorite three.

1. Ducks and chickens.
Amazing talk on cultural barriers. This minimalistic approach was very insightful and had an important message on how we should all get past our differences and communicate as the one true race that we are - the human race. Great job.

As the old saying goes, "you can either soar like an eagle or flock like a duck." In this disarmingly simple presentation, we learn to differentiate clearly between the avians of the business world. The duck says quack, while some animals on the farm take quite a different approach. Award-winning animal behaviorist Peter Garcia discusses these contrasting philosophies, and how we can reconcile them for a brighter future. 

VIEW HERE


2. The power of social media.
The world's most successful companies know that social media is a powerful marketing tool, and Cameron Hughes knows how to make social marketing even more effective: by never injecting an ounce of effort into it. No technology has ever had a bigger effect on our business culture than social media. In this groundbreaking presentation, we learn of the true power of social media to increase a company's value proposition.

VIEW HERE

3. The value of patience.
In our fast paced world, we expect everything at once. But Peter Redd says there is merit to waiting for desirable outcomes-- like savoring a delicious homemade pie. A perfect metaphor for a perfect talk.

In a world where everything moves so quickly, it's essential to cultivate the value of patience. Science shows that attentions spans are growing shorter each year and the ability to delay gratification is a strong indicator of life success.

VIEW HERE

Were it not for the conspicuous green logo propped up behind him, one might be excused for failing to realize that this is not, as it seems, a ted Talk, but rather, one of the first in a series that premières today called, “Onion Talks.” A year ago, YouTube announced a list of winning proposals for “YouTube Original Channels,” to expand the platform’s content; among them were ones submitted both by the Onion and ted. Sam West, the head writer of the Onion Talks series, imagined it would be just like ted, “only instead of a good idea, it will be a ludicrous one.” At first, he said, “We actually reached out to ted to see if they were interested in collaborating with us. But when they saw what we were up to, they didn’t really think it was an idea worth spreading.”

“Ideas worth spreading” is the tagline of ted Talks; for Onion Talks, it’s “No mind will be left unchanged.” During a popular ted Talk from last March, the author Susan Cain discussed the merits of being quiet, saying, “Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi—all these people described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy;” in an Onion Talk, a lecturer offers, “Did you know that this generation will be ten times louder than their grandparents? If George Washington were alive today, we would not be able to see or hear him.” From Cain’s ted Talk: “At the risk of sounding grandiose, it is the world’s loss, because when it comes to creativity and to leadership we need introverts doing what they do best.” As West and I discussed the irksome self-importance of these lectures, he stopped himself, and said, “I’m sounding all grandiose here.”

Ted has inspired an idea worth spreading, after all, which is that comedy emerges from people taking themselves too seriously. Nathan Heller, in his profile of the program for the magazine this summer, characterized the ted Talk personality like this:

People frequently say that ted has a low irony quotient. Actually there is plenty of irony at TED; what’s missing is a particular kind of irony, the underdog kind… . It is the mood of professionals who wear Converse to work, own multimillion-dollar homes at thirty-two, eat local, donate profits to charity, learn Mandarin, and rock-climb in the Pinnacles on Sundays. It is the friendly, self-effacing irony of winners. There is a joke around the ted offices which distills this West Coast irony for me. It goes, “Oh, so you’ve lost your legs and climbed Everest? So did everyone else.” Continued on The New Yorker...

And you can view the whole series HERE.

Have a GREAT day,

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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“Nothing will work unless you do."
 ~~ Maya Angelou

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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: Why Rejection Hurts So Much And What To Do About It

"We need to remind ourselves that we’re appreciated and loved so we can feel more connected and grounded."

Good Morning Folks,

We'll go to the doctor when we feel flu-ish or a nagging pain. So why don’t we see a health professional when we feel emotional pain: guilt, loss, loneliness? Too many of us deal with common psychological-health issues on our own, says Guy Winch. But we don’t have to. He makes a compelling case to practice emotional hygiene — taking care of our emotions, our minds, with the same diligence we take care of our bodies.

Psychologist Guy Winch shares some practical tips for soothing the sting of rejection in his TED Talk: "Why we all need to practice emotional first aid."

Rejections are the most common emotional wound we sustain in daily life. Our risk of rejection used to be limited by the size of our immediate social circle or dating pools. Today, thanks to electronic communications, social media platforms and dating apps, each of us is connected to thousands of people, any of whom might ignore our posts, chats, texts, or dating profiles, and leave us feeling rejected as a result.

In addition to these kinds of minor rejections, we are still vulnerable to serious and more devastating rejections as well. When our spouse leaves us, when we get fired from our jobs, snubbed by our friends, or ostracized by our families and communities for our lifestyle choices, the pain we feel can be absolutely paralyzing.

Whether the rejection we experience is large or small, one thing remains constant — it always hurts, and it usually hurts more than we expect it to.

The question is, why? Why are we so bothered by a good friend failing to “like” the family holiday picture we posted on Facebook? Why does it ruin our mood? Why would something so seemingly insignificant make us feel angry at our friend, moody, and bad about ourselves?

Another common mistake we make is to assume a rejection is personal when it’s not. Most rejections, whether romantic, professional, and even social, are due to “fit” and circumstance. Going through an exhaustive search of your own deficiencies in an effort to understand why it didn’t “work out” is not only unnecessarily but misleading.

Unfortunately, the greatest damage rejection causes is usually self-inflicted. Indeed, our natural response to being dumped by a dating partner or getting picked last for a team is not just to lick our wounds but to become intensely self-critical. We call ourselves names, lament our shortcomings, and feel disgusted with ourselves. In other words, just when our self-esteem is hurting most, we go and damage it even further. Doing so is emotionally unhealthy and psychologically self-destructive yet every single one of us has done it at one time or another.

The good news is there are better and healthier ways to respond to rejection, things we can do to curb the unhealthy responses, soothe our emotional pain and rebuild our self-esteem.  Check the talk out:


Rejection is never easy but knowing how to limit the psychological damage it inflicts, and how to rebuild your self-esteem when it happens, will help you recover sooner and move on with confidence when it is time for your next date or social event.

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. 

Ted Tuesday: Dr. Dan Gilbert— The Surprising Science of Happiness

"Gilbert's elbow-in-the-ribs social-science humor is actually funny. ... But underneath the goofball brilliance, he has a serious argument to make about why human beings are forever wrongly predicting what will make them happy." 

~~ New York Times Book Review

Good Morning Folks,

I woke up this beautiful morning I wanted to share an inspirational Ted Talk with all of you. When you watch it you may wonder why you hadn't heard of this before, or better yet be surprised that over a million people have already watched it (between YouTube and Ted postings alone). That's the power of Ted.

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don't go as planned.

Gilbert believes that, in our ardent, lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map. In the same way that optical illusions fool our eyes -- and fool everyone's eyes in the same way -- Gilbert argues that our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. And these quirks in our cognition make humans very poor predictors of our own bliss.

The premise of his current research -- that our assumptions about what will make us happy are often wrong -- is supported with clinical research drawn from psychology and neuroscience. But his delivery is what sets him apart. His engaging -- and often hilarious -- style pokes fun at typical human behavior and invokes pop-culture references everyone can relate to. This winning style translates also to Gilbert's writing, which is lucid, approachable and laugh-out-loud funny. The immensely readable Stumbling on Happiness, published in 2006, became a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages.

Dr. Gilbert asks us to imagine two different futures ... One, winning the lottery (yes, I like this ... I will buy a plane, and maybe an island suitable for the construction of a landing strip ... and definitely a sail boat, a small one ... I will recreate the Corona ad and learn to enjoy beer or at least ice cold limeade ... ). The other is become paraplegic.  (No thanks.)

He informs us that "Happiness" data has been collected on these two different groups.

"Because the fact is that a year after losing the use of their legs, and a year after winning the lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives."



The lesson I want to leave you with from these talk is that our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown, because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we seek.

What an inspiration Gilbert is to the very core and spirit of FSO's brand. 

We are pumped, super excited and ready to rock.

Love Life,

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: Tim Urban— Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator

"This just might be the funniest TED talk I have ever seen—Wait  Tim Urban goes inside the mind of a master procrastinator." ~~Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

Good Morning Folks,

The term paper looms. Your computer sits open before you, the cursor blinking on your pristine white screen like a tiny black devil come to taunt you. On the corner of your screen, a notification pops up. Now you have a choice. You can either start writing the paper that’s due next week, or you can watch the latest YouTube video on Poodle-haircuts gone wrong.

If you choose the Poodle, you’re not alone. Tim Urban’s hilariously entertaining TED Talk entitled “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator” has gotten over 10 million views and counting. I agree with Tim - in the modern age, we're all procrastinators. The key to getting rid of it, in my humble opinion, is different for anyone. 

Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn't make sense, but he's never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window — and encourages us to think harder about what we're really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.

Tim Urban is a brilliant presenter!!! That is the best ever explanation of importance of setting deadlines! Urban doesn’t believe non-procrastinators exist.  He believes we’re all procrastinating about something. We all have-- excuse the cliche-- a monkey on our backs. And we all need to be aware of it when he (or she) takes the wheel. Have a look:

His ending argument? Life is short. He puts up a visual filled with tiny boxes, one for each week in a 90 year life. It’s not that long. For online high school students, your future begins with what you do today. So, in the words, of Master Procrastinator Tim Urban, be aware of your instant gratification monkey. Be aware of why you’re procrastinating. And embrace your life while you can.

Thinking long and well about that last slide might help out the efforts. Good luck out there, fellow sufferers. Thanks to CMASAS, the top 5 of the 50 Best Online High School Diploma programs, for pointing me to this great presentation. And thanks to all of you for watching.

Have a GREAT day. Love LIFE!

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

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"You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have."
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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: Julian Treasure— ‘How to Speak So That People Want to Listen’

"Every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live fully."

Good Morning Folks

At FSO, listening to our clients needs is paramount to (re)IMAGINING their future. Ironically we win because our competitors fail in listening.

With that in mind and 3,591,725 combined Ted and YouTube views that have come before your own…. Julian Treasure's talk, "5 ways to listen better" is sure to enlighten you.

There are seven deadly sins of speaking, according to sound consultant Julian:

• Gossiping
• Judging
• Negativity
• Complaining
• Excuses
• Exaggeration
• Dogmatism

It can be difficult to stay away from these conversation killers, but Treasure says there are plenty of ways to make sure you don’t lose your listener. In this TED Talk, he shares tips to speak powerfully—and with a purpose.

The first step is to hail, an exercise in using honesty, authenticity, integrity and love to give your words meaning. Treasure says these things allow you to be clear in what you’re saying—to be straightforward in a way that establishes trust.

After you’ve nailed down what to say, you have to think about how to say it. That’s where the human voice comes into play. Treasure says using different vocal inflections and rates of speech can add an extra layer of meaning to your words—and really drive a point home.

“You have an amazing toolbox. This instrument is incredible, and yet this is a toolbox that very few people have ever opened,” Treasure says.

Is your voice giving you the presence you need? Here are some of the best tools in the box:

1. Register
“If you want weight, you need to go down here to the chest…. We vote for politicians with lower voices, it's true, because we associate depth with power and with authority. That's register.”

2. Timbre
“It's the way your voice feels. Again, the research shows that we prefer voices which are rich, smooth, warm, like hot chocolate.”

3. Prosody
“People who speak all on one note are really quite hard to listen to if they don't have any prosody at all. That's where the word monotonic comes from, or monotonous, monotone.”

4. Pace and Pitch
“I can get very excited by saying something really quickly, or I can slow right down to emphasize…. Of course, pitch often goes along with pace to indicate arousal."

5. Volume
“I can get really excited by using volume…. Or, I can have you really pay attention by getting very quiet. Some people broadcast the whole time. Try not to do that.”

By teaching the next generation to listen and to be empathetic, they will have a better chance at creating an understanding world, and ultimately a more peaceful world.

“Conscious listening creates a world of connection, of understanding and of peace.”

Watch Julian’s talk here:

Thanks to Success magazine for their insights that contributed to this post, to TED and most of all to you for listening. 

Let's all go make things happen today. I look forward to seeing you soon.


Love Life!

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: Alan Iny— Reigniting Creativity In Business

"True creativity requires you and your company to constantly doubt your current boxes and eventually replace them with new ones. In an ever-changing environment, no idea is good forever."

Good Morning Folks,

The face of business is changing and whether an individual or corporation, the pressure is on to innovate. Employment in America is increasingly operating in a new reality. The constancy of change requires today's career employee to think and act differently, because the path to the American Dream is no longer a guaranteed right of passage.

Creative disruption is shaking every industry. Global competition for jobs is fierce. The employer-employee pact is over and traditional job security is a thing of the past.

CREATIVITY is key to surviving and thriving against all odds. Alan Iny's Ted talk is very much aligned to our way of thinking.

That's why FSO's core strength is to (re)IMAGINE new and better ways of doing business. To give our clients the people, solutions, technology, and cost efficiencies to ensure a fundamental transformation from the back office as we know it today

It’s a paradox. Creativity has never been more essential to competitiveness in the business world, but the critical approach to practical creativity in organizations is often lacking. Alan Iny offers a key to the well-meaning exhortation to “think outside the box:” Apply doubt to the very models and philosophies that make up the box itself.

Even the greatest minds know the frustration of trying to come up with a brilliant idea but constantly ending up with boring thoughts and a trash can filled with wasted paper. Alan Iny suggests a new perspective for reviving creativity in your business. Believe it or not, says Iny, the key to creativity is doubt. Watch this fascinating talk that encourages viewers to adopt a new approach to thinking “outside the box.”

As the senior specialist for creativity and scenarios, Alan Iny has trained thousands of executives and BCG consultants on how to think creatively. A member of the firm’s strategy leadership team, he has vast experience in advising companies worldwide in innovation, scenarios, transformation, organization design and change management across industries. In 2013, Alan launched “Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity,” written with Luc de Brabandere, and published by Random House.

Here is an excerpt that was originally published in The Economist Group’s Lean back marketing blog.

Seeking new insights into who your markets and customers are, what they really want, and how best to reach and engage them requires thinking in new boxes. A “box,” in our definition, is a belief, concept, working hypothesis, or other mental model you use to interpret the world in front of you. 

True creativity requires you and your company to constantly doubt your current boxes and eventually replace them with new ones. In an ever-changing environment, no idea is good forever. 

The brain’s hardwiring will tend to lead you and your organization to hold on to tired assumptions and constraints. You’re likely to be seduced by a natural bias toward ideas that confirm, rather than contradict, your current way of seeing things.

Henry Ford famously failed to heed even obvious market signals (and insistent colleagues) suggesting that customers were evolving to want different styles and colors after the phenomenal success of his simple all-black Model T. In the 1970s and 1980s, executives at Hindustan Lever Limited assumed that customers for laundry detergent in India were primarily affluent individuals willing to pay for Surf; they didn’t notice that Nirma, a low-cost competitor, appealed to a growing segment of lower-income customers who hadn’t used any detergent before. 

As you seek to understand your organization’s customers and market, stay open to multiple interpretations of the data you collect. There are different plausible segmentations of any customer group, many legitimate ways to break down the market, and multiple ways of perceiving the underlying desires of your customers. 

Consider listing and then challenging your most fundamental beliefs about your customers and markets. Who do you currently think of as your most loyal customers? Ask bold questions that take you and your colleagues outside of your comfort zone. If you are one of the world’s largest designers and retailers of lingerie, what if 10 years from now, 95 percent of your customers were men? If you lead the world’s most popular online search engine—think Google—what if, just 10 years from now, most of your customers were looking to you instead for driverless cars? 

The first step to practical creativity is challenging some of your existing boxes. If you manage this, then you can arrive at a very successful new box simply by changing the way you think about your customers, your competitors, or your own company.

Watch Video: Have a look at Alan's short 8-minute talk, which is accessible by this link which will take you directly to the Ted site.

TED@BCG was an event produced by TED in conjunction with their partner, the Boston Consulting Group.

At FSO all of us strive to be remarkable, not average. FSO provides an environment that rewards innovation, is rich in resources, and respects the incredibly talented team we’ve built over the last six years. Personal, Passionate and Productive, we get the job done to perfection every moment and every day.

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

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: Success, Failure and The Drive to Keep Creating with Elizabeth Gilbert

"Know your purpose and it becomes your rock in the good and bad times"

Good Morning Folks,

Elizabeth Gilbert was once an "unpublished diner waitress," devastated by rejection letters. And yet, in the wake of the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love,' she found herself identifying strongly with her former self. With beautiful insight, Gilbert reflects on why success can be as disorienting as failure and offers a simple — though hard — way to carry on, regardless of outcomes.

Her message: "Stay true to yourself. Possess your passion, indulge your passion. Do it for yourself and live with the results whatever they may be."

Please enjoy her TED Talk about finding your way back home again when you feel like you run out of your creative juice.  

She’s funny. She’s passionate. She talks about rediscovering “whatever in this world you love more than yourself”. And with over 15 million YouTube and Ted views between her talks, she's proven to be well worth a listen.


With assistance and graphics from Chris Donner and great thanks to Ted and to you for watching.

Have a fabulous, productive day filled with love and inspiration.  

Cheers!

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: Why you think you're right -- even if you're wrong | Julia Galef

"We need to learn how to feel intrigued instead of defensive when we encounter some information that contradicts our beliefs"

Good Morning Folks,

Whether debating politics on Facebook or trying to get approval on an expense from your boss, perspective is everything— especially when it comes to examining your beliefs. Are you a soldier, prone to defending your viewpoint at all costs — or a scout, spurred by curiosity? Julia Galef examines the motivations behind these two mindsets and how they shape the way we interpret information, interweaved with a compelling history lesson from 19th-century France. When your steadfast opinions are tested, Galef asks: "What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?"

Julia Galef co-founded the Center for Applied Rationality, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping people improve their reasoning and decision-making, particularly with the aim of addressing global problems. Julia’s background is originally in statistics, and she did social science research at Columbia and Harvard Business Schools for several years before becoming a writer for venues such as Slate, Science, Scientific American and more. Enjoy!


We strive to have the most inspired, motivated, and best trained employees in the industry! I hope these TED Tuesday presentations keep you well informed and enrich your life both personally and professionally.

Have a GREAT Day!

Mitch

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"Blazing into 2017 with Energy, Vision, Innovation"

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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: Diana Nyad- "Never Give Up"

"Everyday of our lives is epic....Never ever give up...You can chase your dreams at any age...It looks like the most solitary endeavor in the world and in many ways it is, and in other ways and the most important ways it's a team...When you achieve your dreams, it is not so much what you get, but who you have become..."

Good Morning Folks.

A record-setting long-distance swimmer, Diana Nyad writes and thinks deeply about motivation. If you have a dream, and you have obstacles in front of you, believe in perseverance and find a way!

In the pitch-black night, stung by jellyfish, choking on salt water, singing to herself, hallucinating … Diana Nyad just kept on swimming. And that's how she finally achieved her lifetime goal as an athlete: an extreme 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida — at age 64. Hear her story.

For ten years (1969-1979), Diana Nyad was known as the greatest long-distance swimmer in the world. In 1979, she stroked the then-longest swim in history, making the 102.5-mile journey from the island of Bimini (Bahamas) to Florida. She also broke numerous world records, including what had been a 50-year mark for circling Manhattan Island, setting the new time of 7 hrs 57 min. She is a member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

At age 60, having not swum a stroke in decades, she began planning for her white whale of distance swims: the 110-mile ocean crossing between Cuba and Florida. She'd tried it once, in her 20s, and severe jellyfish attacks had defeated her then. But now, with a strong team and a new commitment to her vision, she stepped back into the salt. She spoke about this second attempt at TEDMED 2011. And at TEDWomen 2013, in December, she talks about how it feels to have finally done it.

“It's the fifth time I stand on this shore, the Cuban shore, looking out at that distant horizon, believing, again, that I'm going to make it all the way across that vast, dangerous wilderness of an ocean. Not only have I tried four times, but the greatest swimmers in the world have been trying since 1950, and it's still never been done.”

Within the first few seconds, and with these few words, Diana Nyad has painted a picture and set a mood about her challenge; to swim from Cuba to Florida. She has also established herself as someone you want to listen to, to trust that she is telling the truth, and to find out what happened. What a powerful start.
Motivation aside, so what can you learn and apply about presentations from Diana Nyad’s TED talk?

==> Show passion.
You can instantly hear the passion in Diane’s voice. As you listen, look away from the screen and just listen for a few moments. You can clearly hear the passion in her cadence, and in her vocal inflections. Notice that she is telling you a story, not reciting a stream of facts or numbers. You hear how meaningful and emotional this journey was. Now think of your own presentations; are you focused on the story, the meaning, or the facts and figures? What would happen if you let a little more passion into these talks?

==> Make it real.
Did you see the sharks? Did you feel the frigid water and experience the solitude of the pitch dark? Did you hear her singing John Lennon's "Imagine" – 200 times? These are not mere details. This is the concrete description that makes her story so tangible. You can't fake this, at least most of us can't. What you can do is go to that place where what you are talking about is real and immediate, and then describe what you are seeing and feeling. (If this is difficult for you, contact me about learning the skills of being in the moment and completely focused.)

==> It's not about your slides.
Did you miss seeing bullet points, charts and graphs, or photos? I don't think you did. In fact, I didn't notice until the end that there nothing but Diana and the world she created verbally. Slides would have been so distracting and even irritating as you wanted to hear this story from her lips. Now, if you don’t want to go completely without slides, at least try to cut back and see what happens. Then cut back some more. Use fewer slides, and put less and less on each one. Or start and end you next talk without slides, using them only as needed.

==> Keep it short.
This talk is about fifteen minutes. She could surely have talked for an hour, or many hours, but she told her story in a compelling way in a fairly short timeframe. Your audience is probably too polite to tell you, but they wish you would be a little more concise. Take out unnecessary "padding." Strip the story down to its basics. Tell enough to make your point. Then end it well.

Make it into a story. Note that Diana takes you from standing on the shore ready to set forth at the beginning, and ends with the crowd cheering and her speaking with reporters at the end. This is classic story style. As a bonus, she added three big takeaways as the final thoughts. Use storytelling structure to make your talks more memorable. And make sure you don't blow off your beginning and endings; these are key targets you must hit.

Take a few pointers from Diana Nyad. Never ever give up. Keep working to make your presentations, speeches and informal talks more concise, compelling and genuine. And, once you get to TED.com, look around. There are many speeches you can learn from, and I will be continuing to write about the ones I think have lessons for us all.

Thanks to Applause Inc for leading me to this which delivered it to you.

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.