If you’re an entrepreneur, of course you want to be successful. For some, success is measured strictly in rands and cents. But for the majority of small business owners, success means that and much more. It also means healthy relationships, fulfilling work, and giving back.
If you’re striving for business and personal success, check out these 5 popular TED Talks. They’ll provide you with insights and strategies that can help you become a better entrepreneur.
There’s no question that launching a business means you’ll experience stress, and likely lots of it. Juggling everything from marketing to administration to financing your business is stressful, and you may find that the more stressed you become, the more you worry about stress. And if you’re not worried about it, your family members probably are.
Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal offers a fresh take on stress and how to use it to your advantage. This popular TED Talk is not really focused on how to reduce stress – which will be a relief to many of us who feel it’s unavoidable – but McGonigal does offer a tangible stress-reduction tool you can use when it feels like you’re reaching your limit.
Insight: “The harmful effects of stress on your health are not inevitable. How you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress.”
It’s tempting to think that money (or marketing) will ensure the success of your entrepreneurial venture. Bill Gross link, founder of multiple businesses including Idealab, studied 200 businesses that succeeded or failed and identified the most important factors correlated with success. In this TED talk, he highlights the one factor that you will want to consider whenever you’re considering starting a new business or a new direction or product for your current business.
Insight: “Be really, really honest about it, don’t be in denial about any results that you see because if you have something you love, you want to push it forward, but you have to be very, very honest about that factor.”
It doesn’t matter if your team currently consists of just one person: you. Leadership expert, , will help you understand how to inspire your customers, your network, and your future team by showing that it’s not the “what” but the “why” that makes individuals and companies into great leaders. After all, no one wants to be a terrible leader, but it’s easy to do. When I queried my colleagues at about which TED Talks they’d recommend entrepreneurs watch, this one was the most highly recommended. Not surprisingly it’s been watched almost 39 million times so far!
Insight: “Whether they’re individuals or organisations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead—not for them, but for ourselves.”
Is your business taking you much longer to get off the ground than you planned? Are you putting off hard activities or projects? Are you sacrificing the important for the urgent (or even the unimportant)? If that’s the case then you’ll probably relate to entertaining TED Talk on procrastination. It’s not really about specific techniques for conquering procrastination, but it will provide major insight that may help you find ways to conquer yours.
Insight: “It’s this long-term kind of procrastination that’s much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier, short-term deadline-based kind. It’s usually suffered quietly and privately. And it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness and regrets.”
Continual improvement isn’t just optional if you want to be successful; it’s essential. Many of us spend much of our time in what calls the “performance zone.” But to grow and improve, we must also spend time in the “learning zone.” This TED Talk offers actionable advice to help you move your life and business forward.
Insight: “The way to high performance is to alternate between the learning zone and the performance zone, purposefully building our skills in the learning zone, then applying those skills in the performance zone.
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