The BEST episodes of TED Talks

#1 - Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes

Season 2013 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/12/2013

#2 - Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work

Season 2011 - Episode 61 - Aired 2/7/2011

Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. At TEDxSydney, Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity -- and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.

#3 - Ella Al-Shamahi: The fascinating (and dangerous) places scientists aren't exploring

Season 2019 - Episode 161 - Aired 7/15/2019

We're not doing frontline exploratory science in a huge portion of the world — the places governments deem too hostile or disputed. What might we be missing because we're not looking? In this fearless, unexpectedly funny talk, paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi takes us on an expedition to the Yemeni island of Socotra — one of the most biodiverse places on earth — and makes the case for scientists to explore the unstable regions that could be home to incredible discoveries.

#4 - Barry Schwartz: Using Our Practical Wisdom

Season 2010 - Episode 46 - Aired 11/1/2010

#5 - Barry Schwartz: Our Loss of Wisdom

Season 2009 - Episode 28 - Aired 2/7/2009

#6 - Adam Grant: Are you a giver or a taker?

Season 2017 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/3/2017

In every workplace, there are three basic kinds of people: givers, takers and matchers. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant breaks down these personalities and offers simple strategies to promote a culture of generosity and keep self-serving employees from taking more than their share.

#7 - Franz Freudenthal: A new way to heal hearts without surgery

Season 2016 - Episode 169 - Aired 9/9/2016

At the intersection of medical invention and indigenous culture, pediatric cardiologist Franz Freudenthal mends holes in the hearts of children across the world, using a device born from traditional Bolivian loom weaving. "The most complex problems in our time," he says, "can be solved with simple techniques, if we are able to dream."

#8 - Christopher Bell: Bring on the female superheroes!

Season 2016 - Episode 162 - Aired 8/30/2016

Why is it so hard to find female superhero merchandise? In this passionate, sparkling talk, media studies scholar (and father of a Star Wars-obsessed daughter) Christopher Bell addresses the alarming lack of female superheroes in the toys and products marketed to kids — and what it means for how we teach them about the world.

#9 - Olivier Scalabre: The next manufacturing revolution is here

Season 2016 - Episode 156 - Aired 8/22/2016

Economic growth has been slowing for the past 50 years, but relief might come from an unexpected place — a new form of manufacturing that is neither what you thought it was nor where you thought it was. Industrial systems thinker Olivier Scalabre details how a fourth manufacturing revolution will produce a macroeconomic shift and boost employment, productivity and growth.

#10 - Danielle Feinberg: The Magic Ingredient That Brings Pixar Movies To Life

Season 2016 - Episode 68 - Aired 4/6/2016

Danielle Feinberg, Pixar's director of photography, creates stories with soul and wonder using math, science and code. Go behind the scenes of Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Brave, WALL-E and more, and discover how Pixar interweaves art and science to create fantastic worlds where the things you imagine can become real. This talk comes from the PBS special 'TED Talks: Science & Wonder.'

#11 - Travis Kalanick: Uber's Plan To Get More People Into Fewer Cars

Season 2016 - Episode 44 - Aired 3/4/2016

Uber didn't start out with grand ambitions to cut congestion and pollution. But as the company took off, co-founder Travis Kalanick wondered if there was a way to get people using Uber along the same routes to share rides, reducing costs and carbon footprint along the way. The result: uberPOOL, the company's carpooling service, which in its first eight months took 7.9 million miles off the roads and 1,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the air in Los Angeles. Now, Kalanick says carpooling could work for commuters in the suburbs, too. 'With the technology in our pockets today, and a little smart regulation,' he says, 'we can turn every car into a shared car, and we can reclaim our cities starting today.'

#12 - Thomas Peschak: Dive into an ocean photographer's world

Season 2016 - Episode 40 - Aired 2/29/2016

Somersaulting manta rays, dashing dolphins, swarming schools of fish and munching sharks inhabit a world beneath the ocean's surface that few get a chance to see. Conservation photographer Thomas Peschak visits incredible seascapes around the world, and his photos reveal these hidden ecosystems. 'You can't love something and become a champion for it if you don't know it exists,' he says. Join Peschak in a new, immersive TED Talk format as he shares his stunning work and his dream for a future of respectful coexistence with the ocean.

#13 - Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin: A hilarious celebration of lifelong female friendship

Season 2015 - Episode 216 - Aired 12/17/2015

Legendary duo Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin have been friends for decades. In a raw, tender and wide-ranging conversation hosted by Pat Mitchell, the three discuss longevity, feminism, the differences between male and female friendship, what it means to live well and women's role in future of our planet. "I don't even know what I would do without my women friends," Fonda says. "I exist because I have my women friends."

#14 - Hannah Fry: The mathematics of love

Season 2015 - Episode 26 - Aired 2/13/2015

Finding the right mate is no cakewalk — but is it even mathematically likely? In a charming talk, mathematician Hannah Fry shows patterns in how we look for love, and gives her top three tips (verified by math!) for finding that special someone.

#15 - Siddharthan Chandran: Can the damaged brain repair itself?

Season 2014 - Episode 36 - Aired 2/24/2014

After a traumatic brain injury, it sometimes happens that the brain can repair itself, building new brain cells to replace damaged ones. But the repair doesn't happen quickly enough to allow recovery from degenerative conditions like motor neuron disease (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS). Siddharthan Chandran walks through some new techniques using special stem cells that could allow the damaged brain to rebuild faster.

#16 - Tony Robbins - Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Season 2006 - Episode 6 - Aired 6/27/2006

Tony Robbins discusses the "invisible forces" that motivate everyone's actions -- and high-fives Al Gore in the front row.

#17 - Brené Brown: Listening to shame

Season 2012 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/16/2012

Shame is an unspoken epidemic, the secret behind many forms of broken behavior. Brené Brown, whose earlier talk on vulnerability became a viral hit, explores what can happen when people confront their shame head-on. Her own humor, humanity and vulnerability shine through every word.

#18 - Allan Savory: How to green the desert and reverse climate change

Season 2013 - Episode 43 - Aired 3/5/2013

#19 - Tshering Tobgay: This Country Isn't Just Carbon Neutral - It's Carbon Negative

Season 2016 - Episode 49 - Aired 3/11/2016

Deep in the Himalayas, on the border between China and India, lies the Kingdom of Bhutan, which has pledged to remain carbon neutral for all time. In this illuminating talk, Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay shares his country's mission to put happiness before economic growth and set a world standard for environmental preservation.

#20 - Apollo Robbins: The art of misdirection

Season 2013 - Episode 173 - Aired 9/13/2013

Hailed as the greatest pickpocket in the world, Apollo Robbins studies the quirks of human behavior as he steals your watch. In a hilarious demonstration, Robbins samples the buffet of the TEDGlobal 2013 audience, showing how the flaws in our perception make it possible to swipe a wallet and leave it on its owner’s shoulder while they remain clueless.

#21 - Sir Ken Robinson - How schools kill creativity

Season 2006 - Episode 3 - Aired 6/27/2006

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

#22 - Tim Urban: Inside The Mind Of A Master Procrastinator

Season 2016 - Episode 52 - Aired 3/15/2016

Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn't make sense, but he's never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window - and encourages us to think harder about what we're really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.

#23 - Arunabha Ghosh: 5 steps for clean air in India

Season 2019 - Episode 274 - Aired 11/18/2019

India's big cities have some of the worst air quality in the world. How can we fix this public health crisis? In an actionable talk, social entrepreneur Arunabha Ghosh lays out a five-step plan to put India on the path to cleaner, safer air -- and shows how every citizen can play an active role in getting there.

#24 - Gangadhar Patil: How we're helping local reporters turn important stories into national news

Season 2019 - Episode 220 - Aired 10/8/2019

Local reporters are on the front lines of important stories, but their work often goes unnoticed by national and international news outlets. TED Fellow and journalist Gangadhar Patil is working to change that. In this quick talk, he shows how he's connecting grassroots reporters in India with major news outlets worldwide — and helping elevate and expose stories that might never get covered otherwise.

#25 - Jochen Wegner: What happened when we paired up thousands of strangers to talk politics

Season 2019 - Episode 186 - Aired 9/3/2019

In spring 2019, more than 17,000 Europeans from 33 countries signed up to have a political argument with a complete stranger. They were part of "Europe Talks," a project that organizes one-on-one conversations between people who disagree — sort of like a Tinder for politics. Editor Jochen Wegner shares the unexpected things that happened when people met up to talk — and shows how face-to-face discussions could get a divided world to rethink itself.