My favorite TED Talk is a speech by Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy called “Your body language may shape who you are.” While she begins by discussing posture and confidence within business schools, specifically how power dynamics are influenced by body language, she ends with a heartfelt anecdote about a student who struggled with confidence just like Dr. Cuddy herself did until using these techniques to improve her life. My favorite part about this is how she includes both statistics and examples from her research and life in order to provide methods of enhancing one’s self confidence and increasing career success. Personally, I’m fascinated by physiology, so the fact that she connected body language to hormones that account for leadership skills and confidence was really interesting to me. LINK TO TED TALK
For my speech, I’m considering researching a topic related to wellness or self-efficacy, somewhat similar to what Dr. Cuddy did. My favorite TED Talks are always ones that include methods of improving one’s life, so I think I’d like to incorporate that into my project as well. I could research how attitudes towards meditation or therapy have shifted over time or specifically how gender plays a role in achievement, self-image, happiness, and success in relation to the different waves of feminism. I think that because gender roles are ever-changing in our society, connecting my topic to them would be a helpful way of measuring real developments in our opinions or perspectives on whatever subject I choose.
This Ted Talk sounds really interesting. Confidence is definitely a key to success, and your idea to pair that with gender sounds really cool.
I also chose this Ted Talk to write about in my blog, and you did a really great job at pointing out all the parts of Dr. Cuddy’s speech, that made it so moving for myself. As someone who has taken advantage of mental health resources, I think this is a great Ted Talk idea for you. The only that may be difficult is being sensitive to your audience while explaining a subject that has lots of harsh history to it, but you’ll be able to do it! Great job!
It seems like this Ted Talk was very popular among our class (or at least our smaller group of bloggers), and from what you wrote, I can understand why. If there’s one thing that I feel like I could improve upon most when giving a presentation, it’s definitely my posture, as it is often one of the first things people notice about you when you start presenting. I think that both your ideas for your topic sound really good, and there would be plenty of material for you to work with whatever option you choose.