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TED TALKS

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Carol Dweck: The power of believing that you can improve. Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success. Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0. Brené Brown: Listening to shame. Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability. Esther Perel: The secret to desire in a long-term relationship. Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story. Chris Abani: Telling stories from Africa. Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen! | Talk Transcript. Everything I do, and everything I do professionally --my life -- has been shapedby seven years of work as a young man in Africa.From 1971 to 1977 --I look young, but I'm not — (Laughter) --I worked in Zambia, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Somalia,in projects of technical cooperation with African countries.

I worked for an Italian NGO,and every single project that we set up in Africafailed.And I was distraught.I thought, age 21, that we Italians were good peopleand we were doing good work in Africa.Instead, everything we touched we killed. And of course, everything in Africa grew beautifully.We had these magnificent tomatoes. In Italy, a tomatowould grow to this size. In Zambia, to this size.And we could not believe, and we were telling the Zambians,"Look how easy agriculture is.

"When the tomatoes were nice and ripe and red,overnight, some 200 hippos came out from the riverand they ate everything. (Laughter) And we said to the Zambians, "My God, the hippos! " "Why didn't you tell us? ""