Rugby World Cup winner and Olympian Heather Fisher discusses what identity means as a woman who looks and feels different.Under the scrutiny of world-class performance systems from the age of 16, her journey to self-discovery has been a bumpy one and rarely in her control.25 years on she finally feels able to be herself and is ready to share a whistlestop insight about into her story.
Birmingham-based Rugby World Cup winner and former GB bobsledder, Heather is an accomplished elite athlete, motivational speaker, LGBT advocate and media personality.After a difficult start in life and teenage struggles with anorexia , Heather quickly found she excelled in the sports arena. Breaking her back in four places in her late 20s left her in a full-body cast for 18 months and triggered alopecia which impacted her self-confidence and perception of herself. Never to be held down, she returned to win win the 2014 Rugby World Cup and four Six Nations, medalling at the Commonwealth Games and representing Team GB in the Olympic Games Rio 2016.Since retiring as an athlete, she has become an accomplished motivational speaker, MC an event host and has taken on a number of TV and radio opportunities. Building on her stint on Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins, she became a celebrity warrior on BBC survival show Go Hard or Go Home. Heather also does extensive charity work raising money for young people with autism and for those with alopecia. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
More from TED
- 14:38Superhuman Intelligence: Meet AI with Our Deepest Humanity | Srinija Srinivasan | TEDxPaloAltoSalonNOTE FROM TED: This talk only represents the speaker’s personal views and understanding of consciousness, divinity, and artificial intelligence, which some viewers may find objectionable. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdfSrinija Srinivasan explores how we can meet superhuman intelligence not with fear or rivalry, but with presence, values, and deep self-awareness. With clarity and curiosity, she invites us to reflect on the human qualities that no machine can replicate, and why nurturing them may be our greatest responsibility in the age of AI. Born in India and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Srinija Srinivasan has followed a lifelong curiosity about consciousness, wondering from a young age what possibilities can arise from believing divinity is in ourselves and all around us. She studied artificial intelligence at Stanford and then worked at the Cyc Project, a large-scale AI effort to build an immense database of commonsense knowledge.In 1995, she joined Yahoo! as their fifth employee and self-titled Ontological Yahoo, where she continued over 15 years as Vice President, Editor-in-Chief. She simultaneously chaired the board of non-profit SFJAZZ, leading her to co-found Loove, a Brooklyn-based music venture exploring how commerce and technology can be guided by artistic values rather than letting our culture be led by market values.She has recently cofounded Jubilee College, a two-year school in Dunsmuir, CA where students will be equally rooted in physical work, rigorous liberal arts study, and contemplative practice.Srinija is a board member of the On Being Project and a former vice chair of Stanford University's Board of Trustees. She lives in Palo Alto, CA and Brooklyn, NY. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
- 12:50Museums must give back what they stole — here’s why | Dorota Blumczynska | TEDxWinnipegWhat does it mean to hold stolen history? Museum CEO Dorota delivers a powerful call for accountability and transformation within the cultural sector. Drawing from her experience at the Manitoba Museum, she exposes the legacy of colonialism that still lives in museum vaults—through artifacts taken without consent, displayed without context, and separated from the communities they belong to.With clarity and conviction, Dorota urges institutions to go beyond symbolic gestures: to return sacred objects, share authority with Indigenous communities, and become true allies in truth and reconciliation. This talk invites us to reimagine museums not as neutral spaces, but as platforms for justice, healing, and co-creation. Dorota Blumczynska, CEO of the Manitoba Museum and Vice-President of the Canadian Museums Association, advocates for museums as spaces of truth, reconciliation, and social justice. She shares her vision for transforming museums to foster healing and understanding. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
