The most popular TED Talks seem to tell us that we’re living life all wrong

TED Talks, as a general concept, are fairly inspirational (or at least informative). I have the TED Roku channel for this exact reason: sometimes I just want to watch 2–3 in a row to help me contextualize an issue better. (In a weird, circuitous way, a TED Talk helped get me my current job. You can read how/why in this post.)

If you look at the most popular TED Talks of all-time, then, what can you learn? Well, Inc. Magazine watched the 20 most popular and came up with a series of “mind-blowing life lessons.” Ignore the clickbait headline and focus on the content. It’s somewhat interesting.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Essentially, if you’ve ever watched this, she argues that genius can exist in any person. That’s pretty much the opposite of how most people think about really smart or really-motivated individuals. They tend to think, “Oh, that person was gifted with something, or works harder.” Both are probably true, yes, but that shouldn’t necessarily limit how you perceive yourself and how far you can…