TEDxJacksonville: Introducing the Speakers

TED POWELL
When Your Mind Works Against You

Ted Powell helps organizations, teams and people thrive in business while living their dreams.

Since 1995, he’s been a Managing Partner at Stop At Nothing, Inc, a 25-year-old Jacksonville-based consulting firm. Prior to that, he enjoyed a 14-year marketing career with American Express and AT&T. In coaching and observing hundreds of leaders throughout the world, Ted saw that self-awareness and personal responsibility (or lack thereof) contributed more to success or failure than any other leadership skill. By facilitating break-through learning experiences for teams and individuals, Ted realizes his dream of helping leaders maintain healthy, creative, and inspired environments, where people can collaborate and create to their fullest potential.

Ted has also been challenged to apply these experiences in contributing to the health and well-being of his family, which include his wife Nancy, and their “early-20” children, Laura Jane, Teddy and Scott. Work/life balance, practiced imperfectly, is one of his most passionate hobbies. Ted grew up in Memphis, TN before obtaining a B.A. in Economics at the University of Virginia in 1981.


Why Did I Apply?

As a 23-year Jacksonville resident and transplant, I want to help our city expand and strengthen its role in promoting the constructive dialogue, creative thinking, and collective energy required to solve complex problems in our rapidly changing world. We are on the cusp of elevating Jacksonville’s stature and influence, I’m grateful to play a small part in that progress.

What Is My Favorite Ted Talk?

My current favorite is Drew Dudley’s 6-minute “Leading with Lollipops”. Drew delivers a succinct and powerful punch that inspires people to recognize the substantial influence they have on each and every life they touch.

What Does Unknowing Mean To Me?

Letting go of invalid beliefs or faulty thinking that I embrace out of my fear of change or my unhealthy desire to stay comfortable. People’s ability to wander into a place of unknowing has always been the catalyst for our greatest human achievements, whether it be the Wright brothers showing us how to fly or Steve Job’s showing us how to imagine.

What Do You Wish Jacksonville Could Unknow?

While this mindset is fading, I’d like to see our community fully release the feelings of inferiority, which keep us labeled as being a “backwater” city. This restrains our ability to passionately unite around a common vision of progress, excitement and optimism.