Ideas worth spreading

The surprising habits of original thinkers

21,417,429 views |

Adam Grant |

TED2016

• February 2016

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals -- including embracing failure. "The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they're the ones who try the most," Grant says. "You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones."

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals -- including embracing failure. "The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they're the ones who try the most," Grant says. "You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones."

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Subscribe to Adam Grant's monthly newsletter, where he shares his favorite new ideas on work and psychology. We’d invite you to join lots of other subscribers, but are you really the kind of person who conforms to what other people are doing?

About the speaker

Adam Grant

Organizational psychologist

See speaker profile

One of Adam Grant’s guiding principles is to argue like he's right and listen like he's wrong.

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Learn more

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Subscribe to Adam Grant's monthly newsletter, where he shares his favorite new ideas on work and psychology. We’d invite you to join lots of other subscribers, but are you really the kind of person who conforms to what other people are doing?