5 Inspiring TED Talks for PhD Students

All TED talks are designed to be inspiring, but some deliver exactly the right “good medicine” at precisely the right time. Looking for a spot-on spark of motivation, stimulation, or provocation during your PhD studies? If so, look no further than these five TED Talks perfectly suited for grad student life.

The power of vulnerability

Brené Brown, American academic and podcaster

Brené Brown knows what it’s like to be a doctoral student- she’s been there and done that. In her 2010 TED Talk, Brown details her years-long journey into researching the roots of vulnerability to eventually determine, “Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.”

The ultimate takeaway? To reach the highest highs, we sometimes need to endure the lowest lows. In other words, only in acknowledging our mistakes, dealing with our failures, and embracing our vulnerabilities can we truly accept ourselves. Brown concludes with advice fitting for every graduate student at one point or another: “The most important thing is to believe that we are enough. That thought relaxes us, makes us gentler, kinder to ourselves and the people around us. We will start listening to others rather than complaining. We will have a more peaceful world to live in.“

What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness

Robert Waldinger, Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development

"The good life is built with good relationships." That's how Robert Waldinger ends his short but powerful talk about the findings of the longest-running study on happiness: the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

At the time of his talk in 2015, the Study had been running for seventy-five years, and the results were staggering in their simplicity. Good relationships keep us healthy, longer. Waldinger outlined the three main findings:

• Loneliness is bad for our health
• Good relationships protect our health
• Relationship quality has an impact on memory

So what does this mean for PhD students? While working hard to gain success may be your goal, if that success comes at the price of relationships and happiness, it may not be worth it. Take some time to connect with friends and family.

Questioning the universe

Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and former director of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge

We’re all trying to make sense of the universe in whatever limited, microscopic way we can. But if anyone had an inside edge on figuring it all out, it was legendary physicist Stephen Hawking. In his 2008 TED Talk, Hawking breaks down three of the biggest, keep-you-up-at-night questions into surprisingly simple explanations:

• How did the universe come into being?
• Are we alone in the universe?
• What is the future of the human race?

As for living with debilitating ALS since the age of 21, Hawking (who was not expected to live past the age of 25 post-diagnosis) said, “I have been very lucky that my disability has not been a serious handicap. Indeed, it has probably given me more time than most people to pursue the quest for knowledge.” Hawking never sank into self-pity; so what’s your excuse?

Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

Tim Urban, author and blogger

Think your life as a graduate student would be so much better if you could just stop procrastinating? In his 2016 TED Talk, Tim Urban dives into the mind of a master procrastinator - his own mind - to unpick how procrastination happens. Using his unique cartoon style, Urban illustrates the three characters that live in the mind of a procrastinator: Rational Decision-Maker, Instant Gratification Monkey, and Panic Monster. In Urban's mind, these three perpetuate the cycle of procrastination. Despite the Decision-Maker's best efforts, the Monkey procedes with his goal of endless fun, which is only thwarted when a looming deadline wakes the Panic Monster.

While Urban's comic descriptions of procrastination are amusing, his conclusion is something more pressing for us all. We all have these three characters in our minds. But the Monster only wakes up when there's a deadline or a crisis. And the real world - our relationships, goals, and health - don't always have a concrete deadline.

How to Make Hard Choices

Ruth Chang, philosopher and legal scholar

We make choices every day. Some are as small as what to have for lunch, and others are as magnitudinous as which career to pursue or whether to marry. For PhD students, these decisions often take on even more weight. After all, there’s no small amount of sacrifice involved in getting a PhD, so the pressure to get everything right can be sky-high. In her 2014 TED Talk, Chang proposes the value in reframing our mindsets not to see things as right and wrong or better and worse when facing “hard choices,” but instead as possibility-filled alternatives - each an opportunity in its unique way.

Chang’s parting words? “Far from being sources of agony and dread, hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition, that the reasons that govern our choices as correct or incorrect sometimes run out, and it is here, in the space of hard choices, that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves to become the distinctive people that we are. And that's why hard choices are not a curse but a godsend.”

No one ever said being a graduate student was easy. But it’s a lot easier with some inspiration. And if these TED Talks have inspired you, click the button below to start your PhD journey today!