When you look in a mirror, the face looking back at you isn't the face that everybody else sees. It's a reversed, somewhat distorted image.  The True Mirror was invented by a brother and sister team in New York. They discovered if you put two mirrors together at right angles and remove the seam, the images bounce off each other. This is what other people see when they look at you.  When you look in a regular mirror, you look for reassurance that you're beautiful, young, or tidy. When you look in a True Mirror, you see yourself differently. You look for revelation, not for reassurance.

How other people see you

When you look at truly remarkable individuals, not monetarily successful, but people achieving what they set out to do, you'll find that the one thing they have in common is that they have nothing in common. They have managed to find their unique gift and put that at the service of their goals. We often refer to these people as larger than life.  It is remarkable to see them in the full flow of their humanity. They shine, they gleam. However, most of us don't take up nearly the space the universe intended for us.

Being unique

Your job is not to copy remarkable individuals. Your task is to be as unlike them as you can possibly be. You have to be as good at being you as they are at being them. So, ask yourself, 'Who do you think you are?'  Just be yourself, because when you're yourself, you're fabulous.

Who do you think you are?

Where you were born, when you were born, and to whom you were born all have a particular influence or impact on how you become who you are.  Figure out what you expect from life and what life expects from you. A good starting point where you were fantastic at being yourself is when you were a kid under five.<ul><li>As a kid, you don't know how to disguise your differentness.</li><li>As you grow older, society's archetype emerges, and you become more self-conscious and less good at being yourself.</li><li>When you're wrinkly, you are also good at being yourself. You become less compromising and more honest.</li></ul>

How to be yourself

We are authentic when we're very young and when we're old, but in the middle, we develop the "I complex." The hourglass model helps you figure out which "I" you mean when you say "I".  <ul><li>If you have a superiority complex, you think you're the most important person in the room.</li><li>If you have an inferiority complex, you suffer from an over-modest self-regard.</li><li>Both are signs of a fragile ego.</li></ul>A third way is a made-up word called 'interiority. ' where you know that nobody can be like you. Other people have their things, but you have yours. Theirs can never compare to yours.

The hourglass effect

When you figure out how to be yourself, it's incredibly liberating. You're not just somebody's boss or somebody's mom. You're yourself. While you can never be perception-less, you can be perception-free. Tune into what you would like everybody else to think of you. It's not about being fake but about potential.

Your adaptive personality

You're already different. Your job is to figure out how and then become more of that.At certain times, your life will lend itself to change. It will make change quicker and deeper. These are intervals of possibility. You meet a stranger at a bar, or your boss offers you a new job. You know if you make the change the speed of your life will change. Some of these intervals of possibility are catastrophic. Someone you love will get sick, or you'll get sick, or you'll get fired, or a tsunami happens.

Intervals of possibility

On the one extreme of your ego, you feel on top of the world. On the other extreme, you have days where nothing works. Your legs don't work, your mouth doesn't work. Your entire life is about building a stable relationship with your ego. Your challenge is to take the ego from its dominant position and put it in service to yourself. That's when it becomes useful. In order to do that, you have to find the point in the middle of those two extremes. The confidence that comes from there is what you're after.

Your ego: What you think of you

You may not be as big a message as Gandhi's but your life has to be your message. So, when you think about your identity and what it means to be alive, you're not your thoughts. You can't be your feelings. You're not what you have, nor what you do. You're not even who you love or who loves you. There's something underneath that. If you can tap into that, you'll never feel superfluous again.

Your life is your message

Wisdom From Ms Caroline McHugh, CEO of IDOLOGY.

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Stashed ideas

The art of being yourself | Caroline McHugh | TEDxMiltonKeynesWomen

We're all going to get lumps, and we're all going to get bumps. None of us can predict the future, but we do know one thing about it and that's that it ain't gonna go according to plan. We will all have high highs and big days and proud moments of smiles, but between those high highs, we may also have some lumps and some bumps too.Having a great attitude is about choosing, no matter how difficult it is, no matter what pain hits you, to move forward and move on and take baby steps into the future.

Attitude

Try hanging out with three-year-olds and observe how they see the world because they're seeing the world for the first time. Having a sense of awareness is just about embracing your inner three-year-old. Because you all used to be three years old. That three-year-old is still part of you. And being aware is just about remembering that you saw everything you've seen for the first time once, too.

Awareness

This is just about being you and being cool with that. When you're authentic, you end up following your heart, and you put yourself in places and situations and in conversations that you love and that you enjoy. You meet people that you like talking to. You go places you've dreamt about. And you end up following your heart and feeling very fulfilled.

Authenticity

We are the only species on the only life-giving rock in the entire universe that we've ever seen, capable of experiencing so many of these things (airplanes, highway lanes, interior design, magazines, concerts, movies, architecture, horoscope signs. We've got fashion magazines, house party scenes, books, buffets, weddings, rollercoasters, bakeries, naps etc.)We've got all that, but we've only got 100 years to enjoy it. And that's the sad part. Life is so great that we only get such a short time to experience and enjoy all those tiny little moments that make it so sweet.

There Are Many Things To Be Happy About

And that's why I believe that if you live your life with a great attitude, choosing to move forward and move on whenever life deals you a blow, living with a sense of awareness of the world around you, embracing your inner three-year-old and seeing the tiny joys that make life so sweet and being authentic to yourself, being you and being cool with that, letting your heart lead you and putting yourself in experiences that satisfy you, then I think you'll live a life that is rich and is satisfying, and I think you'll live a life that is truly awesome.

Neil Pasricha reveals the 3 secrets (all starting with A) to leading a life that's truly awesome

http://www.ted.com Neil Pasricha's blog 1000 Awesome Things savors life's simple pleasures, from free refills to clean sheets. In this heartfelt talk from TEDxToronto, he reveals the 3 secrets (all starting with A) to leading a life that's truly awesome. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome

Impact bias is the tendency to overestimate the hedonic impact of future events.For example, consider two groups of people where one group won the lottery, and the other group became paraplegics. Data shows people of both groups are equally happy a year after the event.  A recent study suggests that major life traumas that happened over three months ago had no impact on happiness.

Impact Bias

In 1642, Sir Thomas Brown wrote that he is the happiest man alive. "I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles. Fortune hath not one place to hit me. " All humans have the same remarkable notion. We can think of it as a psychological immune system that helps us change our views of the world so we can feel better about the world in which we find ourselves.

Psychological immune system

<ul><li>Natural happiness is what we get when we obtain what we want.</li><li>Synthetic happiness is what we make when we don't get what we want. </li></ul>In our society, we strongly believe that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind. However, synthetic happiness is as real and enduring as natural happiness. Studies show that when we get what we didn't want, our liking for the owned object increases and our liking for the unowned object decreases. That's the synthesis of happiness.

Synthesising happiness

All human beings have this capacity to synthesize happiness, but some can do it more effectively.<ul><li>Freedom - the ability to make up your mind and change your mind - is a friend of natural happiness because it allows you to choose the one you would most enjoy. </li><li>However, the freedom to choose and make up your mind is the enemy of synthetic happiness. </li></ul> The psychological immune system works best when we are totally stuck because then we will find a way to be happy with what we have. When we still have options available, we will always wonder if we have made the best choice.

The ability to synthesize happiness

In a Harvard study, students could join one of two photography courses where they can also develop two of their best photos, one for them and the other for headquarters. <ul><li>They could join the course where they had four days to decide which photo they wanted to keep.</li><li>They could join the course where they had to make up their mind right away.</li></ul>Sixty-six percent of students preferred the course where they could change their minds, meaning they chose to be deeply dissatisfied because they didn't understand the conditions under which synthetic happiness grows.

The importance of understanding synthetic happiness

William Shakespeare said, "Tis nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, said, "The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from overrating the difference between one permanent situation and another... The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires."

Our desires are often overblown. Of course, some things are better than others, but when our preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we overrate the difference between the two, we risk sacrificing things of real value.  When our ambition is bounded, we're prudent and thoughtful. When our ambition is unbounded, it can lead us to lie, steal, cheat, and hurt others.

Bounded and unbounded ambition

http://www.ted.com Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don't go as planned. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate If you have questions or comments about this or other TED videos, please go to http://support.ted.com

The surprising science of happiness | Dan Gilbert

Creative people across all genres have this reputation for being mentally unstable and undone by their gifts. Not knowing if you can top your great success is one of the most painful reconciliations in a creative life. Once artists produce a magnificent work, they are asked, "What if you'll never ascend to that height again? Then what will you do with the rest of your life?"

The impossible things we expect from creative geniuses

In ancient Greece and Rome, people did not believe that creativity came from human beings. It was believed to be a divine attendant spirit that came to humans. <ul><li>The Greeks called these attendant spirits of creativity "daemons." </li><li>The Romans called it a genius. Romans believed a genius was like a magical entity that lived in the walls of an artist's studio and invisibly helped the artist.</li></ul> This understanding helped the ancient artist protect himself from certain things, such as too much narcissism. If your work was brilliant (or terrible), you couldn't take all the credit for it.

Managing the inherent emotional risks of creativity

During the Renaissance, the individual was placed at the centre of the universe. People started to believe that creativity came only from the self, not from mystical creatures that took dictation from the divine. It is the first time in history that people refer to certain artists as a genius, rather than having a genius. Allowing someone to believe that they are the source of all divine, creative, eternal mystery is too much responsibility to put on one fragile human psyche. It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun. It creates unmanageable expectations about performance.

Believing creativity came from the self

The pressure of unmanageable expectations about performance is destroying artists. As an artist, you may be full of anguish if believe that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you. But if you believe that a genius was on loan to you from another unimaginable source for some portion of your life to be passed along when you're finished,  it changes how you feel. When you create, don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it and use the creative moment when it comes to you. Otherwise, keep on showing up.

Removing the pressure to outperform

Find an accurate transcript (and subtitles in 46 languages) on ted.com: http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius/transcript?language=en "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. TED Talks is a daily podcast of talks and performances from TED, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages are available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate Follow TED Talks on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tedtalks Like TED on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TED

Your elusive creative genius | Elizabeth Gilbert

The dogma is this: If we are interested in maximising the welfare of our citizens, we have to maximise individual freedom.  The reason is that freedom is good, valuable, worthwhile, and essential to being human. The way to maximise freedom is to maximise choice: The more choice people have, the more freedom they have. The more freedom they have, the more welfare they have.

The official dogma of all Western Industrial Societies

We have an almost unlimited variety of choices, for example, hundreds of salad dressings, an unlimited variety of phones, choices in health care, prescription drugs and more. Even something like our identity can become a matter of choice. We get to invent and reinvent ourselves as often as we please.  This huge freedom of choice means we have to make a decision, again and again and again. Should I answer this call? Should I respond to this email? Should I draft this letter?

Too many choices

Too much choice has two negative effects on people:<ol><li>Paradoxically, it produces paralysis rather than liberation. Too many options, and people find it very difficult to choose at all.</li><li>Even if we overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of our selection than if we had fewer options. It's easy to imagine that a different choice would've been better.</li></ol>

Not everything should be a matter of choice

Too many options lead us to expect perfection - you may never be pleasantly surprised by quality because your expectations have gone through the roof.  When you choose from thousands of options, you may always feel disappointed. You may think you're at fault because you could've chosen something better. As a result, you have higher expectations and do better in general, but you still feel worse.

Expecting perfection and feeling worse

The problem that lies in the modern, affluent, Western societies is that expensive, complicated choices don't help. They make us worse off. Therefore, income redistribution can make everyone better off, because of how excess choice plagues us. Too many choices don't give freedom. It paralysis us, and decrease satisfaction.

Less choice as a policy matter

http://www.ted.com Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.  TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes -- including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

The art of being yourself | Caroline McHugh | TEDxMiltonKeynesWomen

Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome

The surprising science of happiness | Dan Gilbert

Your elusive creative genius | Elizabeth Gilbert

The paradox of choice | Barry Schwartz

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