This is how one of the worst days of my career ended up being the opening story of a TED Talk.
It was almost an act of rebellion to post an Instagram story one dreary night back in February of 2018 that read “Be addicted to appreciation.” After a comically horrible day in corporate America, I found myself pleasantly distracted by a New York City manhole cover and a passing musing about its history and origin. Instead of beating myself up for being easily distracted by the wonder of the mundane, I chose to honor the feeling of being addicted to appreciation with that four-word post. This was a disposition that I would come to learn was a very real thing, backed by a professor at Rutgers who also had concluded that appreciation is foundational and can deliver a higher quality of well-being than just about any other personality factor.
In 2019, I started making TikToks as a work experiment for my job (my team was responsible for making 20,000 TV commercials a year for small businesses), and those TikToks became a creative outlet for me, too. The habit blew up in ways I never fathomed, largely in part because of the appreciation for the small things in life, which viewers saw in how I crafted my daily vlogs.
Throughout that, a TED Talk was, at best, a pipe dream that I kept in the back of my mind. As TikTok grew, speaking opportunities came, and I took anything I could get my hands on because I loved it and wanted the practice. Somewhere along the way, TED noticed my content and had some scouts in the audience at my local speaking gigs. Then, in what still feels like a bit of a fever dream, I got an email earlier this year extending an invite to speak at TED Next. The topic of "appreciation" was one they thought was needed in the world today, knowing I was already working on a book also titled How To Get Addicted To Appreciation.
It began with a script that took several months of back and forth to get us to a crisp 1,200 words. Then eight minutes on what is arguably the Super Bowl of speaking opportunities. With no teleprompter, no notes, and being as nervous as I have ever been in my life, I was just hoping to make everyone who helped get me there proud.
Your worst day is not only your worst day, but it might also be an opportunity to tell a story and share a perspective that can put some good back out into the world. Here's what happened when I told my own:
Timm is a former marketing executive who fell backwards into social media in 2020 and is now an EQ coach, writer, brand consultant, speaker, and NHL double-emergency backup goalie. His book, How to Get Addicted to Appreciation, is scheduled to hit shelves in the fall of 2026.
