Population pyramids: Powerful predictors of the future - Kim Preshoff If your selected country was not represented by a population pyramid in the lesson, you may wonder what it looks like. The U.S. Census Bureau has an International Data Base that can help you create one. Is your country a fast, slow or no growth pyramid?The current world population can be seen ticking on the World Population Clock. What Children Can Teach Us About Risk, Failure, and Personal Growth By Maria Popova “If I limit myself to knowledge that I consider true beyond doubt,” E.F. Schumacher wrote in his timelessly wonderful A Guide for the Perplexed in 1977, “I minimize the risk of error but I maximize, at the same time, the risk of missing out on what may be the subtlest, most important and most rewarding things in life.” In the decades since, the notion of embracing risk and failure has become one of the most common tropes in motivational talks, self-help books and business articles alike. It’s been championed by everyone from Ray Bradbury, who considered failure essential to creativity, to Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull, who argued for the importance of cultivating a failure-fearless culture, but none more eloquently than social science writer John W. Gardner considers what children’s supple membrane for experience can teach us about the role of failure in learning and growth: The cost of our ever-shrinking comfort zone, Gardner argues, is tremendous:
How to Get Motivated When You’re Not In The Mood Source: PicJumbo We all know that in order to develop good habits, we need motivation to start. This is why, in the beginning, we “chunk” habits down so they’re super simple to do (think Mini Habits). Simple: The less activation energy a habit needs, the easier it is to do. And, most importantly, the less it relies on motivation. But what about goals with deadlines? So, what do you do? You plan for a lack of motivation…. The Problem with Motivation The fact is motivation is an emotion. The irony is when we do feel motivated; we never consider that we might feel demotivated tomorrow, next week, next month, etc. But we probably will. And worse, when we do feel demotivated, we seldom know how to reenergise ourselves. So we excuse ourselves from doing what we need to do and hope that our motivation will return when we need it. But what if instead we wrote ourselves a “walk-through”, a step-by-step for what we need to do to achieve our goal. In order to explain this, I need to tell you a story… Hi Sam.
Sean Carroll: The arrow of time (Part 1 of 2) Loading … Comment on this Talk 158 total comments In Part 1 of his lecture at the University of Sydney, cosmologist Sean Carroll gives an entertaining and thought-provoking talk about the nature of time, the origin of entropy, and how what happened before the Big Bang might be responsible for the arrow of time we observe today. A physicist, cosmologist and gifted science communicator, Sean Carroll is asking himself -- and asking us to consider -- questions that get at the fundamental nature of the universe. 13 Way, way out there Curated by TED Travel across the universe (or is it universes?) What to Watch Next Sean Carroll: The arrow of time (Part 2) 24:21 Posted: Jan 2010 Views 152,847 | Comments 94 What Your Friends are Watching Related Topics We want you to share our Talks! Just follow the guidelines outlined under our Creative Commons license.
7 talks on how we make choices | Playlist Now playing Over the years, research has shown a counterintuitive fact about human nature: That sometimes, having too much choice makes us less happy. This may even be true when it comes to medical treatment. Baba Shiv shares a fascinating study that measures why choice opens the door to doubt, and suggests that ceding control — especially on life-or-death decisions — may be the best thing for us. (Filmed at TEDxStanford.)
5 Failures You Need to Experience If You Want to Succeed In Life If you are too afraid of failure, you can’t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful. I fail far more than you might assume, especially given the fact that I’ve written hundreds of articles, coached thousands of people, and even written a book on forming productive habits, being mindful, and finding contentment despite our struggles. I fail at all of those things sometimes, and it feels just as dreadful for me as it does for anybody else. I come down hard on myself, feel guilty, try to avoid thinking about it, and would rather hide my failures from everyone I know. Yes, failing hurts! I still fail at getting to the gym sometimes, but I keep trying. I fail at being loving and compassionate to myself sometimes. I fail at being a patient and present dad and husband, especially when life gets busy. I’ve made three attempts at writing the article you’re reading now, and scrapped it entirely the first two times because it didn’t feel right. 1. Life is full of screw-ups. 2. 3. 4. 5.
How To Be Motivated: 4 New Insights From Research Sometimes there is not enough coffee in universe to get you going. How to be motivated is something we all struggle with at some time or another. Or, um, daily. Motivation is such a mystery. Dan Pink wrote the book on motivation. He’s the New York Times bestselling author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. His books have sold more than 2 million copies. Here’s what I love about Dan: He’s not the type to write a book and just move on. Here’s what you’ll get from this post: Why you don’t feel motivated.What the research says really produces motivation.The single most motivating thing there is and how to have it in your life.The biggest mistake you’re making when it comes to motivation. Let’s get to it… 1) This Is Why You Don’t Feel Motivated You’re probably thinking too much about the rewards involved. You might be enthusiastic about the “carrot” or afraid of the “stick”, but you’re just not excited about doing the task itself. Rewards like money are tricky. Here’s Dan:
Graduation…now what? | Playlist Now playing Clinical psychologist Meg Jay has a bold message for twentysomethings: Contrary to popular belief, your 20s are not a throwaway decade. In this provocative talk, Jay says that just because marriage, work and kids are happening later in life, doesn’t mean you can’t start planning now. “In your 20s, you may not get married or figure out exactly what career you want to pursue. Treat Failure Like a Scientist I recently had a wonderful conversation with my friend, Beck Tench. During our chat, Beck told me about an interesting shift in thinking that occurred while she worked at a science museum. During her time there, Beck said that she learned how to treat failure like a scientist. How does a scientist treat failure? And what can we learn from their approach? Here’s what Beck taught me… Treat Failure Like a Scientist When a scientist runs an experiment, there are all sorts of results that could happen. And that’s exactly how a scientist treats failure: as another data point. This is much different than how society often talks about failure. Failing a test means you’re not smart enough. But for the scientist, a negative result is not an indication that they are a bad scientist. Your failures are simply data points that can help lead you to the right answer. Failure is the Cost You Pay to be Right None of this is to say that you should seek to make mistakes or that failing is fun.
How To Motivate Yourself: 3 Steps Backed By Science You make goals… but then you procrastinate. You write a to-do list… but then you don’t follow through. And this happens again and again and again. Seriously, what’s the problem? Why are we so good at thinking of what to do but so terrible at actually doing those things? The problem is you’re skipping an essential step. The Mistake Every Productivity System Makes Productivity systems rarely take emotions into account. We can’t ignore our emotions. And we can’t fight our feelings. Via The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking: …when experimental subjects are told of an unhappy event, but then instructed to try not to feel sad about it, they end up feeling worse than people who are informed of the event, but given no instructions about how to feel. So what does the unavoidable power of feelings mean for motivation? In their book Switch, Chip and Dan Heath say that emotions are an essential part of executing any plan: Focus on emotions. 1) Get Positive It’s optimism.
25 TED Talks Perfect For Classrooms The 50 Best Sources of Free STEM Education Online 12.05K Views 0 Likes Colleges, universities, and other educational forums in your community can be excellent places to learn more about a variety of STEM topics, but there is also a wealth of educational material available on the web for those who prefer to learn at their own pace or take a more individual approach. How To Motivate People - 4 Steps Backed By Science Employees, spouses, kids — what does it take to get people motivated so you don’t have to nag them? Motivation is powerful. It predicts success better than intelligence, ability, or salary. Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People: When tested in national surveys against such seemingly crucial factors as intelligence, ability, and salary, level of motivation proves to be a more significant component in predicting career success. I’ve covered persuasion, leadership, improving habits and fighting procrastination but what’s it take to get others to really give their best? 1) Stop Bribing Them When actors would ask the great film director Alfred Hitchcock “What’s my motivation?” Rewards definitely work. Researchers find that perceived self-interest, the rewards one believes are at stake, is the most significant factor in predicting dedication and satisfaction toward work. But as Dan Pink explains in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us there’s a problem with this equation: