TIME Business Careers & Workplace Top 10 Inspiring TED Talks for 2014 Justin SullivanGetty Images Bill Gates, Edward Snowden, Larry Page, and the inventor of the World Wide Web converged on the year's hottest topics <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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If youve yet to accumulate enough frequent-flier miles to dash off to this innovation conference, you can get inspired at home by watching the following top TED Talks of the year. <\/p>\n
In 1993, Bill and Melinda Gates took a trip to Africa that changed the way they viewed what was truly valuable. The extreme poverty they witnessed then instigated a lifelong commitment to give back 95 percent of their wealth. <\/p>\n
In this TED Talk, the mega-philanthropists talk to Chris Anderson about marrying Bills affinity for big data with Melindas global-minded intuition to help save millions of children from hunger and disease around the world. The always-ambitious Gates are now trying to persuade other business leaders and wealthy entrepreneurs to give back. Warren Buffett recently donated 80 percent of his fortune to the Gates Foundation. <\/p>\n
These are people who have created their own businesses, put their own ingenuity behind incredible ideas. If they put their ideas and their brain behind philanthropy, they can change the world, Melinda Gates said. <\/p>\n
Using the plight of painters, archers, and Arctic explorers as an extended metaphor, art historian Sarah Lewis makes a case for celebrating the near win: missing the mark but never losing sight of the target. <\/p>\n
Mastery is in the reaching, not the arriving. Its in constantly wanting to close that gap between where you are and where you want to be, Lewis said. <\/p>\n
Lewiss near win theory has been the driving force behind some of our cultures greatest minds, from Michelangelo to Franz Kafka. Almost succeeding gives leaders and competitors the focus and tenacity required to try again. According to Lewis, it is by harnessing these near wins that we can master a more fulfilling path. <\/p>\n
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