Sometimes we forget that all the great achievers, the most successful people in history, failed many times before succeeding. But they did not give up.
Failure is part of life: “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.”
Here’s an inspiring video on persevering no matter how many times you have failed in life.
“An idea without any action behind it merely stays as an idea.”
After downloading the podcasts and being shown the talks in various courses at school, for the first time, I was able to attend a TED event in-person.
My application was selected to attend TEDxToronto in September. The theme was A Call to Action, which felt like a great fit as we just personally hosted a conference named “Called to Action” for students last year.
Thousands watched online from across Canada and beyond, and it was exciting to be there. But what was the event all about? Inspiring talks and ideas; “In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, it brings together the city’s foremost thought leaders, change makers and everyday people from each discipline and challenges them to deliver powerful, unforgettable and unique TEDxTalks”.
It was incredible to be involved in the online discussion with Twitter; using hash tags and quotes and links to photos it was just amazing to see the online enthusiasm of everyone in the room. It was the #1 Trending Topic on Twitter for the day and 20,000+ people in 100+ countries viewed the live webcast.
Instead of re-summarizing the event, I found a great post that sums-it-up nicely by Elisa Birnbaum (a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant who’s also the president of Elle Communications and co-founder of SEE Change Magazine):
Here’s the thing about ideas. They’re powerful. Not only in their ability to inspire, confound and configure, but in their capacity to motivate, and promote discourse and debate. They push us to reach outside our self-contained box of understanding and pursue our potential, our call to action, which was the underlying theme of this year’s TEDxToronto.
The ideas that came out of our agora—some brash and brazen, others pure and simple—gave us all reason to pause, think, and act. From Drew Dudley’s hope that we embrace our inner leader, to Dr. Catherine Zahn’s insistence that we open our eyes to discover, discuss and demand a better life for those facing mental challenges, and Neil Hetherington’s inclusive community-building model, one that instills eventual homeowners with a sense of pride and ownership (and his directive to stop watching Extreme Home Makeover, where that sensibility is lacking).
Amanda Sussman reminded us that politicians can make good partners if relationships are pursued effectively, stating, “Incremental reform is the triumph and frustration of our democracy. But change happens in small steps.” And Tonya Surman introduced us to the notion of community bonds as powerful tools of potential. Social change cannot succeed by the efforts of one person alone, she added, though social networks are only as effective as what we do with them.
Trey Anthony’s call to action was to remain true to oneself and be fearless. Break out of your restrictive self-generated box, she added, and by gosh, leave the job you hate (a standing ovation followed). “Dive into your fear; one cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to swim away from the shore…even at risk of drowning,” opined Anthony. Along those same lines, George Kourounis left the audience with this thought: embrace your fears for the worst thing you can be is comfortable.
The French writer Victor Hugo wrote that nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come. How right he was. Ideas are at the very heart of social change and the speakers who promote them embody Aristotle’s notion of leaders – inspirational GPS’ on the road to human potential. As such, our city’s new agora, TEDxToronto, established its place in the world of thought, provocation and action.
Powerful Quotes from the Talks
More recap is available at www.tedxtoronto.com/blog/highlights.
I look forward to the next chance to experience TED, to inspire and motivate further – and to highlight the potential and opportunities available to us all.
Thanks for contributing!
I’m personally not a fan of waiting in lines and totally avoided the matter. What I found surprising was the amount of business people, busy Torontonians and commuters that lined up at various Subway restaurant locations (even out the door, as the photo I took on Dundas St. near Bay shows). Really, is waiting 10, 20 even more minutes for a free breakfast sandwich worth it?
I mean, if it’s a iPhone 4 you’re waiting for, that’s a different story…
Rarely sitting on a muskoka chair by a lake in Ontario away from the chaos of the city, I found myself reading the print version of Adbusters magazine (something I pay to receive in the mail regularly but rarely get to read through). But why not?
The article in Adbusters Whole Brain Catalogue that really jumped out talks about the Ecology of the Mind, and this new movement being born: where we can’t just sit and focus on one thing for very long at all.
“Drowning in an endless stream of connectivity”
Noise: there used to be a lot less of it (like just rain and people talking); but now it’s rush-hour roar, cell phones buzzing, loud tv commercials. There’s always noise! I was impressed how accurately the writer captured my simulation-addicted lifestyle:
“Can’t work without background music. Can’t jog without earphones. Can’t sleep without an iPhone tucked under the pillow.”
I completely agree that quiet feels foreign now. But it might be what we really need, to have a healthy mind.
Are you ever tired of receiving 3,000 + marketing messages per day? “From the moment your radio alarm sounds on the morning to the wee hours of late-night TV, micro-jolts of commercial pollution flow into your brain.”
One effect that’s really accurate is the fragmentation of our psyches: Jumpy Brain Syndrome! I definitely experience this, where constantly texting, posting links, browsing blogs, bookmarking sites, and emailing files result in “digital daze”, where Lason and White say it’s what leads to being “unable to concentrate, feeling foggy, anxious and fatigued”.
And I’m constantly online. Waiting for an elevator? in Texting friends. On the bus? Replying to emails. At an event even? Reading Twitter updates. And it’ll only get worse for future generations, if the average American teen sends 50+ texts per day and spend around 8 hours using electronic devices.
I’ll stay connected. There’s too much out there to miss. But it’s not terrible being away for a bit. In Haiti, though I did reach for where my iPhone would’ve been if I were in Canada, not having it there didn’t kill me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.