Meraki

Meraki (pronounced may-rah-kee; Greek): Doing something with soul, creativity, or love. It’s when you put something of yourself into what you’re doing. What a lovely notion: You infuse all your acts of creation are infused with a piece of you.

  • Character strengths: Creativity, Love, Honesty, Spirituality and Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence. 
  • Strengths of competence: Presence, Discoverer and Achiever talents.

Want to take your Meraki to the next level?

  • Start with reading: The Element by Ken Robinson

Great TED talks to check out:

Canadian filmmaker Martin Villeneuve talks about “Mars et Avril,” the sci-fi spectacular he made with virtually no money over a seven-year stretch. In this charming talk, he explains the various ways he overcame financial and logistical constraints to produce his unique and inventive vision of the future.

Jose Antonio Abreu is the charismatic founder of a youth orchestra system that has transformed thousands of kids’ lives in Venezuela. Here he shares his amazing story and unveils a TED Prize wish that could have a big impact in the US and beyond.

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies “originals“: thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including embracing failure. “The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they’re the ones who try the most,” Grant says. “You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.”

Elizabeth Gilbert was once an “unpublished diner waitress,” devastated by rejection letters. And yet, in the wake of the success of ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ she found herself identifying strongly with her former self. With beautiful insight, Gilbert reflects on why success can be as disorienting as failure and offers a simple — though hard — way to carry on, regardless of outcomes.

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.

Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, looking for hints of how hers evolved.