I was talking to my boss the other day about motivation, self-improvement, staff and such. We’ve discussed these topics before – I think we both agree these are important goals.

He mentioned that he was reading the biography of Benjamin Franklin currently. Mr. Franklin didn’t finish school, he learned the hard way – because he wanted to. Benjamin would dedicate 5 hours each week to reading, not just anything either… he would read something different than what he was working on – so he didn’t just read about newspapers or how to discover electricity (they didn’t have “Discovering Electricity for Dummies back then) but things outside his regular wheelhouse.

It’s a good idea – I read a lot actually but mostly stuff I love and work in. Insurance magazines, accessibility information, comic books… but it’s much better to expand my horizons and expose myself to something new once in a while.

So I thought I’d start tonight to try some more continuous improvement – but not with books… I decided each day I’m going to watch at least one TED Talk.

The tag line on TED.com is “ideas worth sharing”and I’ve watched a few over the years…

• Amanda Palmer – The Art of Asking (a while ago, her husband talked about it on his Tumblr so I checked it out) interesting, I liked it
• Stanley McChrystal – Listen, Learn… then lead – not what I was expecting but good lessons about leading, failing and not becoming failures
• Paola Antonelli – Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA video games as art, if you’ve any doubts about the beauty of video games subscribe to World of Warcraft for 30 days and see some amazing stuff… I’m sure there are other games just as beautiful

I watched a few others that don’t stand out in my mind at the moment… but the bottom two were for tonight and I’m thinking I can watch at least one tomorrow too.. Let us see what these great minds can share with me.

I’ll also likely pick up the biography as it sounds interesting. I had just read an article on Mr. Franklin’s schedule not that long ago and now RBU mentions it… so I think that’s a good indicator of what I should read next. Many moons ago several people talked to me about the Kite Runner in the same week so I read that, well worth it too.

If I find some phenomenal TED talks I’ll share em here or on social media.