Public Speaking Lessons I Gained From TEDx

In 2016, I applied to a TEDx event and won an audition. With the invitation came an excellent preparation package I am going to share with you now. In the future perhaps I will write my own words of advice on public speaking and delivery (I can feel it coming, as selling ideas is part of my job), but for now this helps everybody and I have my resources cataloged. I agree that being able to present your ideas well is key to all forms of success. I hope you enjoy this except gifted to TED candidates. Stay Tuned my own savvy version of “Tips for Speech Wellness”. Bientôt,
~Julianne

“9 Public Speaking Lessons From The World’s Greatest TED Talks” by Carmen Gallo

Unleash the Master Within

Passion leads to mastery and mastery forms the foundation of an extraordinary presentation. You cannot inspire other unless you are inspired yourself. You stand a much greater chance of persuading and inspiring your listenings if you express an enthusiastic, passionate, and meaningful connection to your topic.

An Idea That Matters… To Everyone

Not only does your idea need to matter to people in your industry or area of expertise or community, but you should hone in and identify the core idea that has global applicability, that matters to everyone.

Do Not Lose the Audience

Often times, speakers who are experts in their own area will race ahead of the audience. Many speakers are used to addressing people in their own field. Scientists are used to talking to scientists. Artists are used to talking to artists. Avoid industry jargon; it’s incredibly alienating. The audience needs to be able to follow along with you throughout your whole talk.

Tell Stories

Tell stories to reach people’s hearts and minds. Brains scans reveal that stories stimulate and engage the human brain, helping the speaker connect with the audience and making it much more likely that the audience will understand the speaker’s point of view. The personal story is the way each of us relate to an individual [TEDTalk]. We may not know anything about the subject matter; we may not have thought that we even cared about it. Stories connect us. Tell more of them.

Practice Relentlessly

Harvard brain researcher Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s “Stroke of Insight” talk has been viewed 15 million times on TED.com. Taylor rehearsed her presentation 200 times before she delivered it live. Practice relentlessly and internalize your content so that you can deliver the presentation as comfortably as having a conversation with a close friend.

Teach Your Audience Something New

Th human brain loves novelty. An unfamiliar, unusual, or unexpected element in a presentation jolts the audience out of their preconceived notions, and quickly gives them a new way of looking at the world. Robert Ballard is an explorer who discovered the Titanic in 1985. He told me, “Your mission is any presentation is to inform, education, and inspire. You can only inspire when you give people way of looking at the world in which they live.

Deliver Jaw-Dropping Moments

The jaw-dropping moment - scientists call it an ‘emotionally competent stimulus’ is anything in a presentation that elicits a strong emotional response such as joy fear, shock, or surprise. It grabs that listener’s attention and remembered long after the presentation is over. In this column on how Bill Gates radically transformed his public-speaking skills, I demonstrate how Gates learned to incorporate a jaw dropping moment into many of his public presentations, including his now famous TED talks.

Use Humour Without Telling a Joke

Humour lowers defences, making your audience more receptive to your message. It also makes you seem more likeable, and people are more willing to do business with or support someone they like. The funny thing about humour is that you don’t need to tell a joke to get a laugh. Educator Sir Ken Robinson educated and amused his audience in the most popular TED talk of all time: Do Schools Kill Creativity?. Robinson makes humorous, often self-deprecating, observations about his chosen field, education. “If you’re at a dinner party and you say you work in education - actually, you’re not at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education…” Robinson makes very strong, provocative observations about nurturing creativity in children, and he packages the material around humorous anecdotes and asides that endear him to the audience. Lighten up. Don’t take yourself (or your topic) too seriously.

Focus

A [TEDxEastVan] presentation can be longer that 15 minutes. It is the ideal length of time to get your point/[idea] across. Researchers have discovered that “cognitive backlog", too much information, prevents the successful transmission of ideas. TED curator Chris Anderson has been quoted as saying that minutes is “long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people’s attention.”
You may be used to a much longer time than this to speak, You might want to tell everything, You might want to include multiple ideas and get it all in under your time. Don’t. I Focus on one idea at a time. Do not rush through things or leave things out; things will not make sense to the audience.

Favour Pictures Over Text

Powerpoint is not the enemy. Bullet points are. Some of the best TED presentations are designed in PowerPoint. Others use Keynote or Prezi. Regardless of the software, there are no bulet points on the slides of the TED presentations. There are pictures, simple well-designed animations, and limited amounts of text - but no slides cluttered with line after line of bullet points. This technique is called “picture superiority”. It simply means we are much more likely to remember an idea when a picture compliments it.

Stay In Your Lane

The most compelling TED speakers are open, authentic, and, at times, vulnerable. Researcher Brené Brown even gave a TED Talk on the topic of vulnerability and how her own research led to her personal journey to know herself. Opening up paid off for Brown in a big way. Oprah discovered Brown on TED, invited Brown to be on her show, and today Brown is a bestselling author and regular contributor to O, The Oprah Magazine.

Make no mistake. Your ability to persuasively sell your ideas is the single greatest skill that will help you achieve your dreams. Follow these nine rules and you’ll astonish, electrify, and inspire your audiences.

“9 Public Speaking Lessons From The World’s Greatest TED Talks” by Carmen Gallo
Revised by: Julianne Claire Chladny (2019) http://www.JCenterprises.international/blog/2019/1/22/public-speaking-lessons-i-gained-from-tedx

Other Sources:
Chris Anderson (TED Curator) on what makes a great talk… great
How to TEDx: How to give a great TEDx Talk