"I like to call myself a recovering judgemental, perfectionist control freak - I won't tell you when I last relapsed."
With two failed marriages and a couple of career changes under her belt, Kylie still strived for perfection - making it easy for her internal critic to harshly judge every mistake and failure.
A few months after her 39th birthday, Kylie started a self-designed project called My Year of TED. It was her attempt to regain control of her life through 21 TED-inspired 30-day activities. Kylie didn't realise it at the time, but she was setting out on her own Yellow Brick Road to find the wisdom to understand herself, the compassion to reconnect, the courage to change, and a way home.
Do Share Inspire is a collection of blog posts from that year and some of the subsequent adventures. It shares a surprisingly honest story of taking inspirational ideas from TED Talks to create practical activities which unravelled her life and reshaped it via a rollercoaster journey of amazing insights, painful realisations, significant changes and eventually, greater happiness.
...launching a courageous year of taking TED talks to heart and translating them into action. This book is an inspiring account of Kylie's "year of TED." Barry Schwartz, TED Speaker and Author
The ground-breaking program Kylie designed fused the universal wisdom of TED's ideas into a pathway that led her to rediscover her authentic self, change her life and, finally, take ownership of what she wanted.
Along the way, she learned: you never know what you're capable of until you try action is not only powerful, it is vital ("There's no point in being inspired if you never do anything with it") being open about your imperfections is important you are allowed to change your life to be whatever you want it to be.
These days Kylie deliberately lives so far outside her comfort zone that she feels it no longer exists - like it disappeared completely when the project ended. Oh, and she has recently started learning aerial circus.
Now a TEDx speaker, trainer, consultant and published author, Kylie lives in Tasmania's Huon Valley with her partner Derek and their beloved crazy dog Lily, in a strawbale home they built themselves.
Industry Reviews
"Having given several TED talks, I can speak from experience that very few speakers expect that anyone will take what they say seriously enough to act on it. Kylie Dunn did, launching a courageous year of taking TED talks to heart and translating them into action. This book is an inspiring account of Kylie's "Year of TED." I hope that people will read the book and learn from it that life change is possible. And I hope that future TED speakers will read it and learn that they really need to mean what they say, as lives may hang in the balance." -- Barry Schwartz is professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, author and popular TED speaker. His recent book Why We Work, is based on his latest TED Talk. "Even the lucky few who attend the expensive TED conference tend to head home without making any change in their life. I so admire what Kylie has done here, and so glad she's shared her story, in this charming, captivating, and inspiring book." -- Derek Sivers is a creator, writer, speaker and entrepreneur who has delivered a number of popular TED Talks. "What I really appreciated about Kylie's project, was that she opened up a broader discussion with these TED Talks. As a speaker, I enjoyed the connection to Kylie during her activity on leadership, and seeing what she's done overall. It's the sort of thing I wish happened more often." -- Dave Logan is the President of CultureSync, teaches at the USC Marshall School of Business and gave a popular TED Talk on tribal leadership. "Love the idea of going beyond the quick hit of a TED talk to test the ideas in real life. A brave, smart and fascinating experiment." -- Carl Honore is an award-winning writer and TED speaker."