How to Be a Better Human

Life can throw curveballs that you feel wholly unprepared for-- just ask Dr. Lucy Hone, a resilience researcher, who tragically lost her 12-year-old daughter in a road accident. While all of us may experience tragedy in our lives, not everyone knows how to manage it. In this episode, Dr. Hone shares the strategies that got her through unimaginable adversity and—in doing so—helped her find meaning through loss. Co-director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, Hone's research is published internationally and her PhD was acknowledged for its outstanding contribution to wellbeing science at the World Congress of Positive Psychology in 2019. Her grief work now encompasses the best-selling book, Resilient Grieving, alongside other engaging online content. Hone's work has been featured in several documentaries by the BBC, Swedish Television, The Bolt Report Australia and TVNZ. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman

Lucy's Resilient Grieving course will be published this week here: https://new-zealand-institute-of-wellbeing-resilience.teachable.com

“What am I doing with my life? Where am I going?” During this isolated time, many of us are having to readjust our identities because our visions for what life was supposed to look like completely shifted -- and so perhaps has the locus of our self-worth. Dr. Meag-gan O'Reilly is a licensed Staff Psychologist at Stanford University's Counseling and Psychological Services. In this episode, she offers helpful frameworks for cultivating a life --and society-- that can better recognize the basic intrinsic value of each person. Dr. O’Reilly’s research interests focus on social class, college student mental health, resilience, and multicultural identities, particularly gender and ethnicity. She also operates a private practice in downtown Palo Alto, Inherent Value Psychology, in which she provides clinical services to Silicon Valley professionals. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman

Is your family, community, or even your country more divided than ever? Today’s guest Robb Willer is here to share some compelling insights on how we might bridge the ideological divide and offer some intuitive advice on ways to be more persuasive. Robb is a professor of sociology, psychology and organizational behavior at Stanford University. He studies the role of morality in politics. His research shows how moral values, typically a source of ideological division, can also be used to bring people together. His political research has investigated various topics, including economic inequality, racial prejudice, masculine overcompensation and Americans' views of climate change. Willer's writing has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, including his op-eds "The Secret to Political Persuasion" and "Is the Environment a Moral Cause?” Willer received a Ph.D from Cornell University and a BA from the University of Iowa. Before becoming a professor, he worked as a dishwasher, construction worker, mover, line cook and union organizer.

Do you think Hollywood needs to change? How about your own industry? It’s difficult to get decision makers to step outside of the tried and true and attempt something new. Franklin Leonard is Founder and CEO of The Black List-- a company that elevates great screenplays and the writers who create them. In this episode, he discusses how he shifted the way Hollywood works and how anyone can catalyze change if they start by questioning whether the conventional wisdom is all convention and no wisdom. More than 400 scripts from the annual Black List survey have been produced as feature films, earning 250 Academy Award nominations and 50 wins, including four of the last ten Best Pictures and ten of the last twenty-two screenwriting Oscars. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman

Why do so many of us wait until a new calendar year to start setting our goals? For today’s guest, Gretchen Rubin, “there really is no magic to January 1st”-- and the best time to start a healthy habit is just, well, “now.” Gretchen is a podcaster and the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including “Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life.” In this episode, she shares eye-opening frameworks on the different ways to make and achieve goals, gives tips on how to create habits that actually improve our lives and discusses why chasing happiness isn’t always fun – and why it doesn’t always make us feel happy. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts