Amy Cuddy‘s TED Talk is a couple of years old but it is still completely relevant. Her research indicates that your posture and body language do more than send signals to others—they influence how we feel about ourselves. So stand up tall, shoulders back, head held high, put a smile on your face and do your thing!
I also listened to Julian Treasure‘s TED Talk titled “How to speak so that people want listen“. The two talks play well together.
How often have you heard that change is good? I have heard it often, and I believe that change really is good. However, no matter how good change may be, it can also be hard because it requires that we do something new.
Doing something new is not as comfortable as doing what you always do and I’m as bad as everyone else in that I like to be comfortable. (It makes you wonder how the phrase “change is good” came to be so widely embraced, doesn’t it?)
It’s probably more accurate to say that “Change is.” Every day presents us with new choices; things do not remain the same and we do have to make choices. The TED talk below by Ruth Chang is about making hard choices. It’s about 15 minutes long and interesting.
I posted another TED talk about choices on June 10. These two talks complement each other: one is about how we handle (or are overwhelmed by) too many choices and the other is about how we decide between tough options.
In my own life, what I have found helpful is the recognition that too many choices are often overwhelming and that limiting options can work for me. I am also happy to be reminded that hard choices are hard specifically because they are not black and white. Deep down, we all know that this is true, but it is easy to get sucked into the notion that we ought to be able to always choose the best option. Sometimes it’s a coin-toss and you are either lucky in your choice, or not.
There is a Harry Nilsson song that I have always loved, The Lottery Song. (You can hear it here.) The refrain is:
“If life is just gamble
Gamble if you want to win
Life can be so easy
Let the wheel of fortune spin”
As I thought about Ruth Chang’s talk, that was the soundtrack playing in my head…
I spent much of Sunday piecing and listening to TED talks. This one, given by Barry Schwartz, was particularly interesting to me. I hope you enjoy it, too.
We believe that more choices are always better when, in fact, that is not always the case. To bring that idea home to quilters, here’s a thought: Have you ever felt over-whelmed when you are trying to choose fabric for a quilt? If your stash is over-flowing and you have visited every quilt shop in your area, it’s probably not that you just haven’t found the perfect fabric—it’s that you can’t decide which of the hundreds of great choices is best for you. In this case, it is helpful to limit your choices so that you can begin to make decisions.
It’s amazing what you can learn by clicking around the internet! I didn’t even click much to learn this stuff. Today’s tidbits came to my email inbox via NextDraft and a TED newsletter.
Here is a link to a short article that explains why one nostril can get stuffed up while the other one does not. If nothing else, I now know that it’s not exactly my fault.
Next is a TED talk titled “How I beat stage fright.” by Joe Kowan. I remember when I first had to speak in front of a guild. I was president and I was scared stiff. No, I was scared ‘nauseous’, which was worse than being stiff. I wish I had been able to watch this then. As it is, even though I am not usually nervous in front of a crowd now, I did pick up some useful tips.
Piece O Cake Blog 