I love inspiring people and people who inspire. TED Conference and TEDx Conferences around the world have given stage to many inspirational people and ted.com is the website I visit whenever I want to to be inspired and find originality, uniqueness and creative.
Too many people give up on their dreams because they think they are not good enough, capable enough, young enough… because it’s too late, or not for them…
Life has taught me that there is no such thing as a “perfect” or “ideal” moment to make your dreams or goals come true, that you don’t have to be perfect to live your dreams and that we tend to tell ourselves too many excuses not to follow our dreams.
Here’s a selection of the talks that have inspired me to take action, change and follow my heart and my dreams.
Mason Zayid – I Got 99 Problems… Palsy Is Just One
I had the pleasure to know about Masoon Zayid at TEDx Roma in 2015. Unfortunately she wasn’t on the stage, but the video of her talk was shown at the event. She is a writer, actor and comedian and, along with Dean Obeidallah, she founded the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, now in its 10th year.
She has never let her disability stand in the way of her achieving her dreams. She has acted in a film with Adam Sandler, tap danced on Broadway, regularly performs standup in front of crowds of hundreds and has even performed in front of boxing heavyweight legend Muhammad Ali, which she says has been one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of her career so far.
She spends several months of the year in the Palestinian Territories running workshops for disabled and orphaned kids in refugee camps, using art to help them deal with trauma.
“My name is Maysoon Zayid and I am a Palestinian, Muslim, virgin with cerebral palsy from New Jersey with no health insurance, so if you don’t feel better about yourself, maybe you should.”
Tony Robbins – Why Do We Do What We Do
Changes and results only occur when you take action. That’s the difference between people who take actions and those who don’t: the former achieve results and often success, the latter most of the times don’t. This video of Tony Robbins always inspires – and reminds – me to think big and take action.
“I believe that the invisible force of internal drive, activated, is the most important thing. I believe emotion is the force of life.
What will you focus on? You have to decide what you’re going to focus on. Consciously or unconsciously, the minute you decide to focus, you must give it a meaning, and that meaning produces emotion”.
Steve Jobs – 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
I have watched this talk again and again and quoted more often than I can remember. Following my heart and intuition I’ve changed direction numerous times in my life looking for my true calling. And whenever I didn’t follow my heart and intuition, I lost my path… and myself
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Simon Sinek – How Great Leaders Inspire Action
I get so frustrated and angry by all those people – especially women I’m afraid – who use excuses not to follow their dreams. This not only is my inspiration for following my dream – my big WHY – but also for wanting to help other women and men to follow their dreams.
“By “why,” I mean: What’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? As a result, the way we think, we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in, it’s obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations — regardless of their size, regardless of their industry — all think, act and communicate from the inside out.”
“People don’t buy what you do or how you do it but why you do it”
Sir Ken Robinson – Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Being the mother of two teenagers, I firmly believe that our school system should undergo a major make over. Sir Ken Robinson argues that we don’t get the best out of people because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity — are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences.
“We are educating people out of their creativity,”
Stephen Hawking – Questioning the Universe
A living example of what we can be capable of, no matter what. Though the motor neuron disorder ALS has confined Hawking to a wheelchair, it hasn’t stopped him from lecturing widely, making appearances on television shows such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Simpsons — and planning a trip into orbit with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.
“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
I hope these talks have inspired you as much as they inspired me to dream big and to always keep in mind the destination I’m heading to, no matter what.
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Thank you for reading, watching and sharing
To your success and prosperity
With love
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