What if all the motivational speakers are wrong? Writer and humorist Harrison Scott Key uses his own unremarkable journey from country boy to -- if you ask his mom -- literary star to illustrate the mildly outrageous truth about what it really takes to achieve the American Dream.

Joachim de Posada was a speaker and motivational coach. He was the author of "How to Survive Among the Piranhas" and "Don't Eat the Marshmallow ... Yet."

Lee Mokobe is a 20-year-old South African slam poet and co-founder of Vocal Revolutionaries.

Sophie Andrews is the CEO of The Silver Line, a 24-hour phone line that provides social connectivity for isolated senior citizens in the UK and receives approximately 1,500 calls per day.

Tom Teves urges the leadership of news organizations to find better ways to inform the public about mass shootings that puts safety before profits.

Roberto D'Angelo and Francesca Fedeli created the social enterprise FightTheStroke.org to open up a dialogue about the devastating effects of strokes at a young age. This issue is important to them for a simple reason: because they've been through it themselves with their son Mario.

Community member Rachael Williams left this thoughtful comment on Andrew Solomon's recent TED Talk, How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are: "Forgive my honesty here but a lot of the time when watching motivational speeches I think, 'Yeah, that's all good and fine, but this is what you do for a living.' The 'hell yeah-ness' (I s...

Mark Pollock was the first blind person to race to the South Pole. Now he's exploring the intersection where humans and technology collide on a new expedition to cure paralysis in our lifetime.

About this event: Diverse new ideas, motivational and encouraging life experiences. Women pioneers and leadership skills in the Saudi community.

About this event: A motivational and activating event to bring together new ideas about education

Aspiring Olympic skier Janine Shepherd was nearly killed when she was hit by a truck during a training bike ride. Paralysed and immobile for six months, she was given a grim picture for recovery. But not only did she teach herself to walk again— she learned to fly.

Darieth Chisolm is an Emmy-winning television personality, former NBC News Anchor, entrepreneur, author, international speaker and life and business coach.

Robby Novak seems like a regular ol’ 10-year-old boy with a big laugh and a tendency to fidget, if you ignore the fact that he’s also a YouTube superstar. The dynamo elementary student started making a series of motivational videos with his older brother-in-law when he was just 9. The videos went viral, and since then, he’s appeared on Today , i...

About this event: 11 "speakers" will address the theme of Youth as a strength for change which inspires revolutions and makes our societies evolve. Motivational Stories from people of different backgrounds will encourage everyone to find their own potential to realize their dreams.

About this event: This event is part of Bayer’s Re-Think Behaviour campaign. As part of Bayer's commitment to the United Nation’s Race To Zero, having made the 1.5 degrees Climate Pledge, Bayer is also leading in engaging their employees in this journey with continued climate action programs. Bayer brings together bright minds and motivational advocates with the ...

At TED2013 this spring, 34 passionate speakers made it onto the program via a worldwide, 14-city, six-continent Talent Search. The theme of the conference was “The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered,” and the speakers discovered through the Talent Search Tour gave talks that sent the conference crowd flying to their feet. See: Rose George, Ph...

Before TEDGlobal 2013, director Bruno Giussani reached out to the giant community of TEDx organizers around the world to ask for some comic relief. He asked them, “What are the funniest videos from your event?” And, as usual, TEDx’ers came through -- with wild enthusiasm. Below, the 5 hilarious TEDx Talks Giussani selected to show at TEDG...

About this event: The idea behind TEDxFairyMeadows was to take ideas to a new whole new height in Pakistan and introduce the world to the beauty of the north as well as use the TEDx platform to share inspirational and motivational ideas and stories.

About this event: Our primary motivation is to build and organize an active and vigorous community. We believe that, thanks to TEDxLucianBlagaHS and its inspiring, motivational and encouraging discussions and debates, we can achieve change in the community – with the members of this community.

About this event: The Unfolding Good Together TEDx conference will feature live entertainment, including inspiring and motivational speeches, music, goody-bags and food & drinks in between breaks for you to converse amongst yourselves and with speakers, giving you a chance to gain more information about shared ideas and TEDx.

How to Be a Better Human How to get motivated - by losing? (w/ Monica Wadhwa) (Transcript) September 12, 2022 [00:00:00] Chris Duffy: You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Okay. Here's a wild story for you. Several years ago, I was a contestant on the game show “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire”. And this was at...

About this event: The biggest challenge facing women internationally is the fundamental inequality of political and economic opportunity that the majority of women in the world face. 21st-century feminism should work to extend the human rights, political freedoms, and economic opportunities enjoyed by women in the West to our sisters globally. This TED event is a...

The key to harnessing self-doubt starts with self-efficacy, or our confidence in our ability to set ourselves up for success. And we can improve self-efficacy through something that we all already do: talk to ourselves, says writer Rich Karlgaard. We live in a society where people are obsessed with early achievement, but most of us don’t expl...

About this event: TEDxAveiro decided to organize a small TEDx event in the regional prison in Aveiro, because we think that TEDx is for everyone and everyone has right to hear and share about ideas worth spreading. It is for a population from prison only, and we will try to send some motivational messages to the prisoners and stimulate them to create, think, shar...

Here at the office, we end up screening a fair number of "inspirational" talks, often from people who've overcome tough challenges in their lives. The point being: If I can overcome my problems [modest pause], what can you do? [applause] Stella Young -- comedian, activist, awesome person -- was simply having none of that. She was not planning...

Diana Nyad swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, a journey that took her just under 53 hours last September. In today’s talk, Nyad gives a vivid account of what it was like to be out in the water, making her fifth attempt at this swim -- one she first tried in 1978 when she was 28 years old. So how did she make it through...

About this event: On March 27th, TEDx comes to above the Arctic Circle, bringing an inspiring day full of energy and ideas worth spreading. TEDxKiruna is a cross-disciplinary event for people and minds to meet, listen to fascinating speakers inspiring new thoughts and stimulating discussions on the TEDxKiruna theme: future living. Speakers at TEDxKiruna includ...

About this event: On October 17, 2015 Dacula High School will be hosting its first-ever TEDx event to cultivate, revolutionize, and spread incredible ideas from the city of Dacula, Georgia. Despite the fact that Dacula was once a small rural city just 30 years ago, Dacula has grown with tremendous speed to become an extremely well known city not only in Gwinnett ...

About this event: TEDxCaleaVictoriei ED Following the concept of ideas worth spreading, we embark on a journey for a TED ED event that envisages to empower ideas that change mentalities, attitudes and action and mobilizes towards activism. Thus we propose a TED ED event which will include a selection of motivational speeches given by inspirational activist...

About this event: TEDxHoboken is proud to bring a live simulcast of TEDxHobokenWomen to Room 84 on Saturday, December 1st for an all day inspirational event. We will begin the morning at 8am with coffee, breakfast, a live performance, and an introduction to the day’s happenings. We will enthrall you with non-stop action and motivational networking opportunities w...