Famous Latter-day Saints

10 TED Talks Given by Latter-day Saints

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TED Talks have become increasingly popular over the past few years, sharing new, powerful, or unique ideas in short video segments. TED speakers come from all walks of life, and locally sponsored TEDx conferences appear in cities and college campuses all over the country.

It's no surprise that Latter-day Saints have made their way into the TED sphere, sharing their own thoughts and stories on knowledge, comedy, purpose, education, beauty, success, mental illness, and a variety of other topics. Below are TED/TEDx talks from 10 Latter-day Saints that you might like to check out. 

1. Clayton Christensen

Clayton Christensen is a professor of Business Administration at Harvard University and author of several books, including the well-known The Power of Everday Missionaries. The talk featured below discusses principles from his book How Will You Measure Your Life? in which Christensen uses business theories to explain why we often, without meaning to, implement personal strategies that lead us far away from the lives we truly want to live. 

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How Will You Measure Your Life? Clay Christensen at TEDxBoston

2. Justin Osmond

At 2 years old, Justin Osmond was diagnosed with 90 percent hearing loss. As part of a family of Billboard-chart-topping artists with 30-plus gold and platinum records, Osmond had to come to grips with how he could relate to his musical family. After being told he would never play an instrument, he defied expectations by learning to play four—violin, viola, piano, and drums. For decades, Osmond has dedicated his time to helping the deaf and hard-of-hearing around the world find connection while sharing his inspiring story. 

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Embracing our Limitations | Justin Osmond | TEDxRexburg

3. Elizabeth Smart

In 2002, when she was 14 years old, Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her bedroom in Salt Lake City. She spent nine months in captivity and was severely abused by her captor. Smart shares her story in her book My Story and in the TEDx talk with the same title below. In the talk, Smart uses her story to encourage anyone going through trials to not give up and to fight and move forward. 

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My story | Elizabeth Smart | TEDxUniversityofNevada

4. James Perry

Studio C cast member James Perry discusses his search for a career path and life purpose in his talk "How I Stumbled on a Purpose" for TEDxBYU. "I've always been so jealous of those people who seem to know, from a young age, exactly what they want to do in life," Perry begins. With humor, he shares his journey of worry, stress, continuously changing majors, and accidentally walking into his purpose. He offers three tips for those struggling like he once did. 

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Studio C’s James Perry: How I Stumbled On A Purpose | James Perry | TEDxBYU

5. Kate Hansen

Latter-day Saint Olympian Kate Hansen hadn't always aspired to be a luge world champion. As a kid, she simply looked at the sport as a great way to get out of class. Later, however, when she missed her chance to go to the Olympics by two spots, she decided it was something she wanted to do. In her TEDx talk, Kate talks about embracing struggle and doing what's hard as she shares her story of not letting anything—even a broken foot—stand in the way of her luge Olympic dream.

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How Failure Got Me to the Olympics | Kate Hansen | TEDxBYU

6. Lindsey Stirling

YouTube sensation and Dancing with the Stars runner-up Lindsey Stirling shares her art on stage at TEDxBerkeley. She performs two numbers and talks briefly about how she wrote the second piece, "Transcend," when she was in a tough spot. She shares her hope that others find their own passions to help them transcend the troubles in their lives. 

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Transcend - Lindsey Stirling at TEDxBerkeley

7. Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is the author of several best-selling novels, including the Ender's Game series and the Pathfinder series. In his talk for TEDxUSU titled "Creative Education—How to Keep the Spark Alive in Children and Adults," Card uses humor and his own experience to discuss how rules and form contribute to creative endeavor, but how adult control and homework kill it. He describes how he fosters creativity in his own children, and suggests how these principles might be applied to schools and workplaces. 

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Creative education--how to keep the spark alive in children and adults | Orson Scott Card | TEDxUSU

8. Dave Vance 

Think humor might enrich your message to the world? Dave Vance thinks so, too. As the second Studio C cast member to appear in a TEDx talk, Vance advocates for the role of comedy in his talk entitled "Pooping Unicorns and the Power of Comedy." He begins by describing how comedy helped him share Squatty Potty's message to 70 million viewers and increase their sales by 600 percent. He then offers three strengths of comedy and three recommendations for using it responsibly. 

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Pooping Unicorns and the Power of Comedy | Dave Vance | TEDxBYU

9. Lindsay Kite

Lindsay and her twin sister Lexie are the founders of the non-profit organization Beauty Redefined, which promotes positive body image. In her TEDxSalt Lake talk, Lindsay describes her own journey of body shaming and explains the concept of image resilience. "Girls and women aren't only suffering because of the unattainable ways beauty is being defined. They are suffering because they are being defined by beauty," Lindsay says.

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Body Positivity or Body Obsession? Learning to See More & Be More | Lindsay Kite | TEDxSaltLakeCity

10. Theo Bennett

Theo Bennett is a Montana native now studying neuroscience at BYU. With poetic expression, Theo describes his experience as the son of a man with bipolar disorder. "The first time that I was forced to face my father's bipolarity, I was barely 12 years old," Theo says. "I was confused." He discusses how he faced his own misconceptions regarding mental illness and talks about how society's perception of mental illness is skewed. 

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A humanistic view of mental illness: Theo Bennett at TEDxBozeman

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