Most Inspiring Women Ted Speakers

"I have cerebral palsy. I shake all the time," Maysoon Zayid announces at the beginning of this exhilarating, hilarious talk.(Really, it's hilarious.) "I'm like Shakira meets Muhammad Ali." With grace and wit, the Arab-American comedian takes us on a whistle-stop tour of her adventures as an actress, stand-up comic, philanthropist and advocate for the disabled.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions -- and offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite.

In 1998, says Monica Lewinsky, “I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously.” Today, the kind of online public shaming she went through has become a constant. In a brave talk, she takes a look at our “culture of humiliation,” in which online shame equals dollar signs — and demands a different way...

Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy argues that "power posing" -- standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don't feel confident -- can boost feelings of confidence, and might have an impact on our chances for success. ..

http://www.ted.com Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Dame Stephanie Shirley is the most successful tech entrepreneur you never heard of. In the 1960s, she founded a pioneering all-woman software company in the UK, which was ultimately valued at $3 billion, making millionaires of 70 of her team members. In this frank and often hilarious talk, she explains why she went by “Steve,” how she upended the expectations of the time, and shares some sure-fire ways to identify ambitious women …...

Tennis legend Billie Jean King isn't just a pioneer of women's tennis — she's a pioneer for women getting paid. In this freewheeling conversation, she talks about identity, the role of sports in social justice, and the famous Battle of the Sexes match against Bobby Riggs....

Shonda Rhimes, the titan behind Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder, is responsible for some 70 hours of television per season, and she loves to work. "When I am hard at work, when I am deep in it, there is no other feeling," she says. She has a name for this feeling: The hum. The hum is a drug, the hum is music, the hum is God's whisper in her ear. But what happens when it stops? Is she anything besides the hum? In this moving talk, join Rhimes on a journey through her "year of yes" and find out how she got her hum back.

Organizations are often run according to “the superchicken model,” where the value is placed on star employees who outperform others. And yet, this isn’t what drives the most high-achieving teams. Business leader Margaret Heffernan observes that it is social cohesion — built every coffee break, every time one team member asks another for help — that leads over time to great results. It's a radical rethink of what drives us to do our best work, and what it means to be a leader. Because as Heffernan points out: “Companies don’t have ideas. Only people do.”

Mel Robbins is a married working mother of three, an ivy-educated criminal lawyer, and one of the top career and relationship experts in America. Widely respected for her grab-'em-by-the-collar advice and tough love, Robbins drills through the mental clutter that stands between people and what they want. Her approach is smart, effective and entertaining. Five days a week, Mel hosts her own syndicated radio show The Mel Robbins Show, discussing hot topics and giving advice to callers across America. She is starring in a new series, In-Laws, airing this summer on A&E. In addition, she writes a monthly column for Success Magazine, is a former CNBC contributor and is the co-founder of Advice for Living, Inc., which develops products and television programming with experts in the wellness, health, relationship and career categories.

We're raising our girls to be perfect, and we're raising our boys to be brave, says Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Saujani has taken up the charge to socialize young girls to take risks and learn to program — two skills they need to move society forward. To truly innovate, we cannot leave behind half of our population, she says. "I need each of you to tell every young woman you know to be comfortable with imperfection."

When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations — and that most of us don't converse very well. Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades, and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. "Go out, talk to people, listen to people," she says. "And, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed." ...

Close your eyes and picture and engineer. You probably weren't envisioning Debbie Sterling. Debbie Sterling is an engineer and founder of GoldieBlox, a toy company out to inspire the next generation of female engineers. She has made it her mission in life to tackle the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math.

GoldieBlox is a book series+construction set that engages kids to build through the story of Goldie, the girl inventor who solves problems by building simple machines. Debbie writes and illustrates Goldie's stories, taking inspiration from her grandmother, one of the first female cartoonists and creator of ""Mr. Magoo."" Her company, launched in 2012, raised over $285,000 in 30 days through Kickstarter, and has been featured in numerous publications such as The Atlantic and Forbes.

Prior to founding GoldieBlox, Debbie served as the Marketing Director of Lori Bonn, a national jewelry company. For the past 7 years, she has also served as a brand strategy consultant for a wide variety of organizations including Microsoft, T-Mobile, Organic Valley and the New York Knicks.

Debbie's inspiration to create a mission-driven company came in 2008, when she spent 6 months volunteering at a grassroots nonprofit in rural India. She created a viral fundraising campaign called ""I Want a Goat,"" raising over $30,000 for economic and educational development in the region. This experience helped pave the way to finding her true passion: inspiring the next generation of female engineers.

Debbie completed her degree in engineering at Stanford (Product Design, '05) and currently lives with her husband in San Francisco....

Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share.

Shirin Juwaley's husband threw acid on her face after she requested a divorce. In this harshly honest talk, Juwaley challenges society, and even the audience, to question their stereotypes and prejudices. Why are people with visual disfigurements socially ostracized and isolated? And more importantly, why is this behavior acceptable in society? This unforgettable talk will forever change your presumptions and perceptions about visually different people.

Our kids are our future, and it's crucial they believe it themselves. That's why TED Fellow Nadia Lopez opened an academic oasis in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of the most underserved and violent neighborhoods in all of New York City — because she believes in every child's brilliance and capabilities. In this short, energizing talk, the founding principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy (and a star of Humans of New York) shares how she helps her scholars envision a brighter future for themselves and their families.

Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like.'" A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.

Leaping off buildings wasn’t exactly something graduate student Yubing Zhang ever thought she’d do. But pushing beyond her comfort zone and taking that bungee cord leap taught her more than she ever could have imagined.

Yubing Zhang is a first-year MBA student at Stanford University. A series of transformational moments have led Zhang to completely change her understanding of fear and courage, redefine her comfort zones and push herself to the edge. She has experienced the unlimited potential that exists when we break through our comfort zones, and is dedicated to inspiring others to do the same. Zhang has lived in six different countries and worked in four different industries. She holds a master of science degree from the University of Oxford and a bachelor's degree from the University of Hong Kong. Zhang has served as an entrepreneur for the Bank of China, launched a vocational training program for victims of domestic abuse in Cambodia and founded a platform that supports and coaches everyday people to share their passion, ideas and extraordinary stories through talks and performances.

Everyone has the ability to build mental strength, but most people don't know how. We spend a lot of time talking about physical strength and physical health.. but much less time on mental strength and mental health.
We can choose to perform exercises that will help us learn to regulate our thoughts, manage our emotions, and behave productively despite our circumstances - the 3 basic factors of mental strength. No matter what your goals are, building mental strength is the key to reaching your greatest potential.

Amy Morin is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist. Since 2002, she has been counseling children, teens, and adults. She also works as an adjunct psychology instructor.

Amy’s expertise in mental strength has attracted international attention. Her bestselling book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, is being translated into more than 20 languages.

Amy’s advice has been featured by a number of media outlets, including: Time, Fast Company, Good Housekeeping, Business Insider, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Success, Glamour, Oprah.com, TheBlaze TV, and Fox News. She has also been a guest on dozens of radio shows.

She is a regular contributor to Forbes, Inc., and Psychology Today. She serves as About.com’s Parenting Teens Expert and Discipline Expert.

As a frequent keynote speaker, Amy loves to share the latest research on resilience and the best strategies for overcoming adversity and building mental muscle.
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Alison Ledgerwood joined the Department of Psychology at UC Davis in 2008 after completing her PhD in social psychology at New York University. She is interested in understanding how people think, and how they can think better. Her research, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, investigates how certain ways of thinking about an issue tend to stick in people's heads. Her classes on social psychology focus on understanding the way people think and behave in social situations, and how to harness that knowledge to potentially improve the social world in which we all live.

Tracy McMillan is a television writer (Mad Men, United States of Tara) and relationship author who wrote the book Why You're Not Married...Yet, based on her viral 2011 Huffington Post blog. She also appeared as a dating coach on the NBC reality show Ready For Love. She lives in Los Angeles and is the mother of a 16-year-old guy.

In her TEDxOlympicBlvdWomen talk, McMillan answers the question: "Who is the one person you need to marry in order to have a successful relationship? (Yourself)"

This talk begins with a personal story of sexual violence that may be difficult to listen to. But that’s the point, says citizen journalist Meera Vijayann: Speaking out on tough, taboo topics is the spark for change. Vijayann uses digital media to speak honestly about her experience of gender violence in her home country of India — and calls on others to speak out too....

"Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

What's the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain today? Exercise! says neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki. Get inspired to go to the gym as Suzuki discusses the science of how working out boosts your mood and memory -- and protects your brain against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.