Look at your current pair of running shoes. No doubt they’re made with a lot of plastic and synthetic materials. And do you know where they’re made, and by whom? When you’re buying new running shoes every year, it pays to know where they come from and how they’re made. I’ve collected a bunch of...
After 20 minutes or so of running, I tend to get into a rhythm where each step blends into the others. If you run a lot, you’re probably used to this. There’s a particular point in a run, probably different for everyone, where you hit your stride and stop thinking so hard about what you’r...
You might recognize Peter Dinklage from his Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning role as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones. Though it seems obvious that he would be winning awards for a great role like this now, Peter’s career trajectory was a lot less certain when he started out. Rocky beginnings As much as he’d...
Rita Pierson has been a teacher for 40 years, and comes from a family of educators, so she knows a thing or two about helping kids learn. Her TED talk is rhetoric as it should be: the kind of speech that has you jumping out of your chair saying, Yeah! I can make a difference!...
It’s not unusual for actors to practice acceptance speeches for awards they haven’t won yet, dreaming of the peer acceptance and industry-wide respect that inevitably comes with an Emmy, BAFTA or Oscar award. Andre Royo, well-known for his portrayal of drug addict Bubbles on The Wire, is one such actor. He felt that Baltimore was...
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see the name Houdini? Unless you’ve researched his life, it’s probably his famous feats of escaping from seemingly impossible situations. Getting out of a straightjacket, handcuffs or a sealed box underwater is pretty memorable stuff, after all. I was surprised to find that there was...
If you’ve read any of Dr Seuss’s books, you probably won’t be surprised to find that he was fond of being silly and using his imagination. In fact, he used these techniques to overcome one of the most difficult things artists face: creative blocks. Few people outside his inner circles of friends and family knew...
Is there anything more heart-warming than a story of someone who chased an impossible dream and managed to catch it? This TED talk by filmmaker Martin Villeneuve is one of those stories. Martin wanted to make a futuristic scifi film set in Montréal, but he didn’t have the funding to get it done. This is...
It doesn’t take much to start something great. Matthew Hoffman is proof of that. He started the You Are Beautiful project ten years ago with just 100 simple stickers. Each one was printed with the message “you are beautiful.” Matthew and his friends stuck them up around their locals areas. After that, he set u...
If you’re wondering whether persistence pays off, this story should prove just how much you can achieve if you don’t give up. After all, as Babe Ruth said: It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. Nikola Tesla’s story covers more struggles, hurdles and frustration than many of us would put up with,...