Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose.

Sometimes, everything just comes together. The trainer of a course in Capacity Building I took last week, Simon Koolwijk, advised reading 'A whole new world' by Dan Pink. I had never heard of the book nor the writer. Then, on one of my 'let's watch a TED video night' I clicked on the clip below. Why? It had motivation in the title. And as I find motivation a very hard thing to crasp, I watched. Well, coincidentally, it was Dan Pink speaking, And convincingly too. He says intrinsic motivation is all about
autonomy, mastery and purpose. You need to be free to explore, to keep on improving and you need to do something for reaching a higher goal. No more from me now. Please watch! And by the way, I'm reading his book. Will review it later!

Happiness: giving away what you want the most

As this still secretively a TED relay channel, it's time for another inspirational story from my favorite source. I stumbled upon this talk by Eve Ensler, the author of the Vagina Monologues. The play never really appealed to me; I guess I thought it would be about trashy women discussing their sex life. Well, after watching this, I would like to see the play. Eve has managed to use the monologues as an outlet for stories of abuse and as a start for happy tales. Through her V-day movement, a global movement to stop violence against women, she has saved many women's lives. My favorite quote: "Happiness exist in action, it exists in telling the truth and saying what your truth is and it exists in giving away what you want the most".

Scaling caring

As I realize that not all inspirational stories have to come from TED, I feature a short lecture by Gary Vaynerchuk - of whom I first heard here. He was still young when he took over his dad's wine business. After making huge profits, he became restless and decided to start an online wine channel - Wine Library TV. It's a major success. 

Here, he talks about how he "hustles" to do what he wants to do and succeed in life. He spends most of his time responding people that comment on his Wine Library TV episodes and ask him questions about wine and entrepreneurship. His drive is the fact that he cares about other people. Not surprisingly, he states that caring IS scaleable and that good can beat bad. Just now I realize that this is something I too have always believed. If you do good, you cannot loose. No way.

 

Well, he also made me realize how cool it is that I have followers (here, on my other blogs, twitter) - so THANK YOU, dear followers of this blog. You are very much appreciated!

Where does creativity come from?

Why is it that we assume that true genius is always accompanied by torment and anguish? Through Gilbert's talk I realized that I've always thought that creativity and suffering are inherently linked. That is why I believe Amy Winehouse, Billy Holiday and Mary J. Blige are such a great singers; their suffering can be heard through their voices. 

Well, in this speech Elizabeth Gilbert pleas for us to believe that creative people are just used by 'genius' since they can give a shape to creativity - in the form of a story, a poem or a song. She explains how the Greeks and Romans believed in the existence of deamons or geniuses that lived around the artists and fed them with inspiration. Naturally, Gilbert tries to ease her own mind, which is now haunted by fear of her failing to write another book as successful as 'Eat, Pray, Love'. It's an interesting topic though.

And, just for the record, I really enjoyed reading that book - but I do wonder: Would it have been as good if Elizabeth Gilbert had not been miserable and tormented?

How to feel like the incredible hulk?

Emotion is the force of life

This TED video is truly amazing! Tony Robbins is a coach, or - better said - an expert in leadership psychology. In twenty minutes time, he introduces his views on how people can optimize their performance. He asks: What makes the difference in the quality of people's lives? He says it's all about the Science of Achievement and the Art of Fullfillment- and the latter is based on appreciation and contribution.

What is it that shapes us? According to Robbins, decision is the ultimate power. Al Gore sits in the audience and gets told that he could've become president of the United States, basically if he would've tried harder. Tony argues that its not lack of resources that makes us fail, but lack of resourcefulness. If you work from your human emotion, that's when you win. The last part about 911 gave me the creeps (especially since I was also in Hawai'i at that time). Very very powerful talk - do watch it!

This is what I mean; anything you'll tell us during your fifteen minutes of fame will be great, as long as you tell us with emotion. Say 'AI'!

Jazz - Why Ella is so great?

Ella Fitzgerald is by far the most appraised Jazz singer ever. She was a great improvisational artist, as evinced by this video :) Wanna hear more about Ella and the (at least) other two great ladies of Jazz Billy Holiday and Sarah Vaughan? Let me know through our FB group!

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

It is seldom that we talk about the things that we really love or we know a lot about to people that do not share that exact same passion or are not in our field of work. What a pity!

After discovering TED, I realised once again that it is possible to explain something difficult in just fifteen minutes and that (with the right tools) you can get someone else to be enthusiastic about it too.
Here are some ways to do it:


Dave Eggers about a great homework project he does with public schools in the US


Majora Carter fights environmental racism in the Bronx


CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, tells you to always stay hungry