Published on Renegade Collective | Bridget de Maine

For the sake of your productivity, but also your sanity, you should be stepping away from your desk regularly to get the blood moving. But what can you do other than grab a coffee or publicly downward dog for a few minutes? Much more. Try dipping into these inspiring TED Talks, for starters.

5-MINUTE WATCH: David Brooks’ “Should you live for your résumé… or your eulogy?”


“We live in perpetual self-confrontation between the external success and the internal value. And the tricky thing, I’d say, about these two sides of our nature is they work by different logics,” he tells the crowd. “The external logic is an economic logic: input leads to output, risk leads to reward. The internal side of our nature is a moral logic and often an inverse logic. You have to give to receive. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself. You have to conquer the desire to get what you want.”

How should you reconcile the two? Here’s a good place to start.

 

6-MINUTE WATCH: Angela Lee Duckworth’s “Grit: The power of passion and perseverance”

Sure, this talk is about kids. But replace kids with adults and you’ve got yourself a challenge.

“What struck me was that IQ was not the only difference between my best and my worst students,” teacher Angela tells the audience of her teaching experience. “Some of my strongest performers did not have stratospheric IQ scores. Some of my smartest kids weren’t doing so well. And that got me thinking.”

Ready to get some grit? Press play.

 

11-MINUTE WATCH: Curtis “Wall Street” Carroll’s “How I learned to read – and trade stocks – in prison”

Smart, passionate and very, very insightful: you won’t complain about having the right tools or a certain amount of support after listening to this young upstart.

 

5-MINUTE WATCH: Tania Luna’s “How a penny made me feel like a millionaire”

If you’re after some perspective with your latte, take a leaf out of Tania’s book. Her swift story of childhood might even make you glad to get back to your mountain of to-dos.

 

6-MINUTE WATCH: Candy Chang’s “Before I die I want to…”

“It’s about knowing you’re not alone; it’s about understanding our neighbours in new and enlightening ways; it’s about making space for reflection and contemplation, and remembering what really matters most to us as we grow and change.”

 

15-MINUTE WATCH: Sheryl Sandberg’s “Why we have too few women leaders” 

Whenever Sheryl talks, we listen, even if it means a slightly longer coffee pit stop than usual. By the end, you’ll be well and truly ready to dive back into work.