I had a chance to go to my very first "Ted" event yesterday with my good friend Bert Hunecke. We had our own TED conference on the way there and back in the car talking about everything under the sun. Good times!
TEDx UGA really was much better than I expected, and I expected it to be good.
What is TED? Basically, the sharing of ideas. Speakers have a maximum of 20 minutes to share their ideas. The TED event yesterday was in Athens, GA at the University of Georgia. By the way, all Georgians should be proud of The University of Georgia! I'm still loyal to Auburn of course, which is impressive too but UGA is an top-notch institution by any standard and one of the best colleges in the country.
From the official Ted Site, a history of Ted:
https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/history-of-ted
Yesterday's speakers ran the gamut: Bioinformatics, Tango, Entrepreneurship, Geography, Athletics, you name it. One common theme: positive ideas worth spreading.
Here are some thoughts from the conference, many of which relate to health & wellness:
- Sometimes mental illness is glorified like it's something to be proud of, on the other hand sometimes it's shamed. Neither is a good.
- Slavery, in the form of prisons, is technically written in the US constitution. The speaker proposed paying prisoners for their work, and then using the money to repay society and families. Interesting thoughts but our thoughts were "who's going to pay for it?"
- Parasites are 1) speciose 2) have a high biomass 3) Integrative.
- Parasites are "canaries in the coal mine" and can predict the health of an entire ecosystem
- Lose one link, like a parasite, and the whole ecosystem can crash
- Let food be our medicine- Hippocrates
- Disease not wellness, pervades our society
- Americans on average spend more money going out to eat than on groceries
- We're depleting our wallets, and inflating our waistlines
- The speaker used singing, theater, and dance to teach kids about eating healthy
- Dr. Caree Cartwright was her name, excellent presenter about childhood obesity
- One speaker proposed converting former USPS offices into banks run by the government
- I thought this was a great idea, but my friend who understands banking much better than me thought it was not a good idea- too expensive
- 1/2 of the US population has less than $500 savings. SCARY!
- 40 million Americans spend 10% of their money on financial transactions, same amount they spend on food- doesn't seem fair to me
- Great speaker, Mark Golin developer of several successful businesses including a new APP called "Roadie" that allows people to compete with UPS for package delivery:
- Suspend disbelief
- look where it ain't
- don't be afraid to break things
- practice practice practice
- don't be afraid to break things
- perfect is the enemy of done
- Speaker taught about the importance of vulnerability through community
- Vulnerability requires risk, community requires vulnerability
- Speaker taught us to use social media tools to tell a positive and life-affirming story
- This is relevant. I get caught up in too much negativity on social media sometimes
- Instead, use social media to tell positive stories which spread
- Boredom is your friend: sit, think, ponder and you may tap into your inner genius
- Mark Twain thought everyone had a genius of some type inside of them
- Exchange selfies for SELFLESSS
- Resting the brain allows it time for inspiration, information, genius
- Speaker, who was a student at UGA and who has Cystic Fibrosis, taught how mapping the Gene code is going to change health care when it comes to understanding and treating disease
- last speaker: think Big, but think mainly think small
Lastly, one of my all time favorite TED talks is one by Brene Brown on vulnerability:
If you ever get a chance to see a TED talk conference, I highly recommend it.
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