10 Most Popular TED Talks for Entrepreneurs (Under 20 Minutes)
TED Talks are awesome, they can be motivational, inspirational and educational. They can be just what you need to break up your day or they can help you come up with new groundbreaking ideas.
What you don’t want is to waste a ton of time going down a rabbit hold of TED Talks that have nothing to offer. And we all know that’s an easy rabbit hole to go down.
So here I’ve collected for you the 10 most popular Ted Talks for entrepreneurs all under 20 minutes!
1. How Great Leaders Inspire Action – Simon Sinek
This is one of the most popular TED Talks and at the top of every list for best business/entrepreneur videos to watch. In it Simon Sinek teaches how great leaders inspire action through their core values and not through the how or what that drives the operations of the company.
2. How to Find Work You Love – Scott Dinsmore
“Scott Dinsmore quit a job that made him miserable, and spent the next four years wondering how to find work that was joyful and meaningful. He shares what he learned in this deceptively simple talk about finding out what matters to you — and then getting started doing it.”
3. 5 Ways to Kill Your Dreams – Bel Pesce
Everybody has dreams but usually we only daydream about achieving these dreams. There are always obstacles and excuses from actually grasping that brass ring of our imagination. In this talk Bel Pesce reveals that 5 myths that are keeping us from actually pursuing and achieving our dreams.
4. What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection – Jia Jiang
“Jia Jiang adventures boldly into a territory so many of us fear: rejection. By seeking out rejection for 100 days — from asking a stranger to borrow $100 to requesting a “burger refill” at a restaurant — Jiang desensitized himself to the pain and shame that rejection often brings and, in the process, discovered that simply asking for what you want can open up possibilities where you expect to find dead ends.”
5. Why the Best Hire Might Not Have the Perfect Resume – Regina Hartley
“Given the choice between a job candidate with a perfect resume and one who has fought through difficulty, human resources executive Regina Hartley always gives the ‘Scrapper’ a chance. As someone who grew up with adversity, Hartley knows that those who flourish in the darkest of spaces are empowered with the grit to persist in an ever-changing workplace. ‘Choose the underestimated contender, whose secret weapons are passion and purpose,’ she says. ‘Hire the Scrapper.'”
6. Know Your Worth, and Then Ask for It – Casey Brown
“No one will ever pay you what you’re worth. They’ll only ever pay you what they think you’re worth.” In this talk Casey Brown explains how business owners and employees can define and communicate how they add value in order to earn their full worth. If people only ever pay you what they think you’re worth and you control their thinking it’s your responsibility to communicate your worth.
7. The Chinese Zodiac, Explained – ShaoLan Hsueh
Unlike the Greco-Roman zodiac which is made of 12 signs spaced throughout the year, the Chinese Zodiac is 12 animals that make up and entire year and change every year. These zodiac signs are a big part of Chinese culture and life. It affects business and birth rates. ShaoLan explains the Chinese Zodiac and why and how it’s so important. She urges business people to pay more attention to this crucial component of Chinese culture as more and more companies do business with China.
8. How Airbnb Designs for Trust – Joe Gebbia
“Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, bet his whole company on the belief that people can trust each other enough to stay in one another’s homes. How did he overcome the stranger-danger bias? Through good design. Now, 123 million hosted nights (and counting) later, Gebbia sets out his dream for a culture of sharing in which design helps foster community and connection instead of isolation and separation.”
9. Want to Innovate? Become a “Now-ist” – Joi Ito
“‘Remember before the internet?’ asks Joi Ito. ‘Remember when people used to try to predict the future?’ In this engaging talk, the head of the MIT Media Lab skips the future predictions and instead shares a new approach to creating in the moment: building quickly and improving constantly, without waiting for permission or for proof that you have the right idea. This kind of bottom-up innovation is seen in the most fascinating, futuristic projects emerging today, and it starts, he says, with being open and alert to what’s going on around you right now. Don’t be a futurist, he suggests: be a now-ist.”
10. How to Make a Splash in Social Media – Alexis Ohanian
“In a funny, rapid-fire 4 minutes, Alexis Ohanian of Reddit tells the real-life fable of one humpback whale’s rise to web stardom. The lesson of Mister Splashy Pants is a shoo-in classic for meme-makers and marketers in the Facebook age.”
