TED Talks Daily

Kate Canales, a designer and professor who studies how people move through everyday spaces, explores the weird brilliance of handmade signs. She looks at confusing doors, bathroom directions, card readers and overly sleek machines. The conversation follows how people patch bad design with quick notes, arrows and warnings, turning daily frustration into small acts of care.

Andy Weir, sci-fi novelist behind The Martian and Project Hail Mary, talks about why he loves research and worldbuilding more than writing. He gets into killing bad ideas, using discipline over inspiration, and stitching separate concepts into a novel. There’s also a fun lightning round on Mars, aliens, sequels, and how fatherhood changed his view of the future.

Eric Stackpole, an engineer and ocean explorer behind low-cost underwater tools, tells the wild story of a homemade whale tag that captured rare footage of sperm whales communicating deep below the surface. He also talks about tinkering as a path into science, why failure helps discovery, and how curiosity and storytelling can open up exploration for more people.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lucy Hone, a resilience researcher and author shaped by both science and personal loss, explores how people face grief and adversity. She talks about losing her daughter, rejecting victimhood, accepting suffering as part of life, training attention toward what still matters, and choosing thoughts and actions that support healing.

Jon Youshaei, a video creator and former YouTube and Instagram insider, dives into how perfectionism can secretly fuel procrastination. He explores why prolific creators often outperform overly careful ones. Expect stories about James Corden, Mozart, Edison and Monet. The conversation circles around publishing more, flops, failures and the creative cost of endless tweaking.

Ever had a hard time doing daily household tasks -- cooking, cleaning, laundry -- and felt like a terrible person for struggling in the first place? Therapist KC Davis is here to flip that negative internalized script with a simple yet perspective-shifting fact that may change your approach to life. Learn a gentler, more practical approach to mental health as Davis shares hard-won wisdom and helpful shortcuts on how to get by when you feel like you've barely got it together.This episode originally aired in 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Burnout shouldn’t be the price of success, but setting boundaries at work is easier said than done. Tarveen Forrester, who oversees workplace culture at Kickstarter, shares practical strategies for protecting your time and cultivating “sustainable ambition,” so you can crush your goals — without letting them crush you.This episode originally aired in 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Crawford-Bohl, a nurse and healthcare leader focused on courageous communication, explores why silence can feel safer than speaking up. She shares the personal story that shaped her moral courage. She introduces a simple four-part compass for hard conversations. She also revisits a public criticism that became a path to accountability, empathy and stronger relationships.

Yara Shahidi, actor, producer and activist from black-ish and grown-ish, explores why curiosity is not a distraction. She talks about childhood imagination, resisting pressure to choose one path, and blending Harvard, storytelling and activism. The conversation also touches on overwhelm, challenging fixed truths, and how everyday curiosity can spark social change.