Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

http://www.ted.com Alain de Botton examines our ideas of success and failure -- and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments. Is success always earned? Is failure? He makes an eloquent, witty case to move beyond snobbery to find true pleasure in our work.

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. 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

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[310sucks]

So put simply, the less you think like an American, the happier you'll be.

[crespaandreea]

i adore this guy.....and his intelligent humor

[ascarletfantasy]

this is wrong. It may sound right, but there is a level deeper to it, and he hasn't got that yet.

[Rizlaandbeer]

@ComicPenius clearly someone was listening to what he said about judgement in society and the role of parents... retard.

[markymao]

@ComicPenius errr...that's doesn't make him a rothchilds.

[dawblades]

go read some tony robbins, this guy said nothing.

[ComicPenius]

Alain's father was the president of Rothschild's bank in New York and his mother is an outspoken Zionist.

[ComicPenius]

I believe that the rising tide raises all ships. Alain de Botton is an engaging speaker but he seems to believe that we should return to feudalism with his family (the Rothchilds) permanently entrenched at the top.

[rypaz87]

@RuudJH somehow I posted this to the wrong video. I meant to post it on his Atheism 2.0 TED talk, sorry for the confusion.

[RuudJH]

@rypaz87 You mean the bit about responsibility and luck? I thought it was mostly humanist morality, perhaps a bit agnostic, but certainly not the twisted religious idea of a god who pre destines everything.

[zeiitgeist]

Meritocracy is a system based off the Chinese model, without the other qualities like Benevolence, understanding Chain reactions(taking future, past, present, self thought of chain reaction notions are itself a change), etc will result it to being really harsh, take Singapore, College and Universities for example, the education,job or business performance becomes the crucial standard of measure even though imperfect will make people those who didn't accomplish seem redundant.

[IseeRightThrough2you]

39 people are Social Darwinists.