Tania Luna has an unusual title: she calls herself a “surprisologist.” The co-CEO of LifeLabs Learning and co-host of the podcast Talk Psych to Me, Luna thinks deeply about how to delight -- and how to help individuals and teams thrive in uncertain circumstances and develop the bonds needed to get through them.

When Luna was invited to take part in TED’s Worldwide Talent Search in 2012, she expected to give a talk about surprise and the importance of not being attached to outcomes. However, she was inspired to tell a more personal story -- one many of her closest friends didn’t know -- about her Ukrainian family getting asylum in the United States when she was six years old and arriving in New York with virtually nothing. She sees her work as connected to her upbringing -- in which a piece of Bazooka bubble gum, a thrown-out toy or a mis-delivered pizza was magical -- because it gave her an appreciation for the joy of little surprises.

Luna is the author of Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected.