Don T Eat The Marshmallow Summary

“Don’t Eat the Marshmallow!” by Joachim de Posada

This video tells about psychological perspective and a behavioral principles concerning selling, producing, and consuming of goods. The experiment was held with children of pre-school age. The experiment was the following: 3 kids were told not to eat a marshmallow left for them: there were only three marshmallows one for each of the kids; the man said to kids that in case their marshmallow will be there after 15 minutes they will have something else for their pleasure (another marshmallow). Two out of three kids ate theirs immediately after the experiment’s researcher left the room. The third kid tried not to eat almost up until the end of the estimate time. This self-disciplined kid did not

succeeded at that moment however he won in a long perspective. With time when these kids grew up to the age of 18-20 those who tolerated the desire to eat their marshmallow showed better results (in 100% of the cases) than those who ate theirs instantly. What is this all about? An importance of keeping the satisfaction prolonged which not only makes one think better in long perspective (most easily: if I don’t eat it now then it will be tastier when I will eat it later as I’ll want to eat with greater desire than now) but also helps to control one’s own desires which can’t be always satisfied immediately. In business kids who ate a marshmallow instantly are those who buy and sell without thinking of how something can be saved or how more products can be sold. People of the other type who think differently always look further than just according to their basic present needs and possibilities.

“How to Tie your Shoes” by Terry Moore
This video wouldn’t be so interesting for me if I didn’t happen to learn exactly such a way of tying the shoe laces myself couple years before. Terry bought new expensive pair of shoes and he loved them but he couldn’t properly tie the laces. I had the very same problem. My mother told me that I used the wrong kind of a knot. This is the thing that salesman at the shop told Terry. There are two kinds of knots. One is weak and the other one is strong. The most usual and average knot is the first one however from time to time I saw and meet people who use the right kind of a knot. You can see it on the video or Google it but the advantages of another knot are that it unties not so often (almost never) and it looks better. I think that this example is a brilliant situation that shows how even small things in our life can become developed for the better if the perspective is changed. How many different things in our life are uncomfortable but we don’t think about them so because we are used to it? Not noticing the problem doesn’t mean that there isn’t any problem. The perspective decides everything and sometimes even the laces on our shoes can become a problem the solution to which will depend on this significant skill of seeing the issue in other light.

“Weird or Just Different?” by Derek Sivers
Another interesting video about the matter of perspective. If anything is true it doesn’t necessarily means that the opposite is false. Some ideas can go at odds with other ideas but all of them can be applicable to the different environment with different circumstances. Derek uses an example of a Japanese asking a name of a block in the middle of an American town. He wonders why blocks don’t have names. In the very same way an American in Japan wonders why streets don’t have names and all there is are block numbers. Different people and various circumstances of reality demand the ability of looking differently and not to be a conformist conservative seeing things in one and only way. Look backwards and on the sides, from the top and from the down. This helps to build a better apprehension of the subject just as well as it helps to comprehend any physical object more clearly.

“The Danger of Silence” by Clint Smith
This one is the best TED Talks I watched.

School literature teacher tells about the ignorance that can so often be met on the streets everywhere but most of all inside the hearts of those who are too proud, weak or inattentive to notice the problems around themselves like they live in a bubble. All people are human and humanity is united and connected. Problems like those that are mentioned by Clint come from foolishness, arrogance and carelessness. Altogether they are the silence which is a root of all evil. Smith starts his brief speech with Martin Luther’s quotation that the silence of our friends is more dangerous than the words of our enemies. He then follows it with a description of his own experience of overcoming the ignorance of people which they establish by ignoring the minorities’ problems and poverty of the lower classes. He makes his pupils follow 4 simple rules: read critically, write consciously, speak clearly and tell the truth. Clint’s own truth evolves and develops from his ignoring the beating of a gay person in front of him to serving food in the public kitchen. But this are only crumbs and the main message is that he tells how dangerous is the silence of those who can make everything fair, right and balance the scales of society. And this capability is in hands of anyone. He accurately connects silence with horrible Rwanda Genocide which happened only 20 years ago at the end of the 20th century in a world which we consider civilized. We can’t be civilized if the problems of the world community don’t mean anything to us. It is like in Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” – everybody and everything is connected. The hand that doesn’t give will not receive. Clint ends his message with a grand appeal to everyone to use their voice. Each and every human person has a power to make things right. It is neither fair nor moral to keep silence when evil speaks and be still when human duty calls for

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“Embrace the Remix” by Kirby Ferguson
I don’t know if it’s just a bare chance or a blind luck but this video here naturally prolongs and continues the ideas put in the previous two video speeches. Kirby on the example of Bob Dylan and Apple talks about the nature of creativity. Every idea like in the quotation of Henry Word that he uses, comes from outside and those who we consider talented only know where to take these ideas and how to arrange them. Everything is there for anyone to take if a person overcomes his shortsightedness. Kirby tells how Bob Dylan following the example set for him by his mentor Woody Guthrie became a voice of generation by arranging differently songs that existed before him. He presented them in a new light and so did Guthrie before him. Kirby also tells that by keeping ideas restricted and secluded by patents and author’s right progress overall develops slower. He uses an example of a touchscreen patented by Apple and Xerox which have used it on their printers long before that in 1980s. If Xerox which was then a huge company would patent such a small thing at that time it wouldn’t be possible for Apple to develop on the basis of this innovation. The logical conclusion of author is that there are no original ideas in reality and every great breakthrough is a synthesis or a summary of ideas developed before which are put in a new context.