How to master life transitions
What you’ll learn
Week 1
- Debunking the myth of “the linear life”
- The definition of disruptors, lifequakes, and life transitions
- The quantity, duration and frequency of life transitions
- The importance of making meaning out of our life transitions
Week 2
- The three phases of all life transitions
- How to identify your transition superpower
- How to identify and accept the emotions that come with disruption
- The importance of rituals–and how to create your own
Week 3
- Exploring “the messy middle” in legends and real life
- How to shed old habits and identities
- Disruption as a catalyst for creativity
- How to share your challenges and get the feedback you need
Week 4
- Understand the importance of “autobiographical occasions”
- How to practice and balance agency, belonging and purpose
- Creating and launching a new life story
What you’ll get
- 1 welcome video
- 3-4 video teaching segments/week (~60 minutes total)
- 4-5 exercises/week (17 total)
- 1 virtual live event/week (attendance is optional)
- Community discussions, polls and chat
- Support from a TED Courses facilitator
- Carefully curated related resources from TED
- PDF course workbook
- After the course, access to an archive of course videos, activities and curated resources
To get the most out of the course,
plan to spend at least one hour each week–longer, if you plan to explore the optional curated resources or join the virtual live event.
Here’s what learners are saying about this course:
Bruce Feiler is one of America’s most thoughtful voices on contemporary life. He is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers; the presenter of two prime-time series on PBS; and the inspiration for the NBC drama series Council of Dads. Bruce’s three TED Talks have been viewed more than four million times. A former columnist with The New York Times, Bruce writes the popular newsletter “The Nonlinear Life” about navigating life’s ups and downs.
Employing a firsthand approach to his work, Bruce is known for living the experiences he writes about. His work combines timeless wisdom with timely knowledge to encourage people to live with more meaning, passion, and joy. His latest book, and the inspiration for this TED Course, is Life Is In The Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age. It describes his journey across America, collecting hundreds of life stories, exploring how we can navigate life’s growing number of life transitions with purpose and skill. “One of those books that’s so profoundly aligned with the zeitgeist that you end up underlining the whole book,” Arianna Huffington wrote in Thrive Global. “Bruce Feiler is the perfect person to lead us on this journey.” The book was a Top 10 New York Times bestseller.
A longtime contributor to The New York Times, Bruce has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Gourmet, where he won three James Beard Awards. He is a frequent commentator on radio and television. A former circus clown, he has been the subject of a Jay Leno joke and a JEOPARDY! question, and his face appears on a postage stamp in the Grenadines.
A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bruce lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their identical twin daughters. For more information about Bruce, visit brucefeiler.com.
