How I prepare my TEDx – part 1
When I was preparing for my online course last weekend,
I found something very interesting.
Something that I shared it with my students,
and now I want to share it with you too:
the elements every speech should have to connect with the audience
(according to one of the TED founders).
In case you don’t know what TED Talks are,
they are 18-minute speeches on “ideas worth spreading” from various fields such as:
mindfulness, science, technology, business… you name it.
In the list,
there are about 16 points,
but I want to focus on my favorite three:
✓ don’t re-introduce yourself
✓ invite them on a journey
✓ avoid absolutes
Let me go into the details.
📥 Receive in your inbox a FREE mini-course to learn
how to speak in public better than 90% of your colleagues
Don’t Re-introduce Yourself
I like to think that my audience has two buttons,
a green one and a red one.
After listening to me for 15 seconds,
they need to decide if they want to hear more (green button), or if they have already lost focus and want to hear someone else (red button).
Starting my speech with:
“Thank you so much to the organization for bringing me here. It is my absolute pleasure. My name is Carlos and I hope you are all doing very well today.”
This does not seem like the best option to me.
It would likely be a direct red button in most cases.
Instead, start strong with something engaging, for example a story.
Invite Them on a Journey
A simple way to engage your audience is by telling them a story.
At the beginning,
it can be difficult to find stories, but with practice, you will be able to find them faster and faster.
A tip: If you are good at prompting your Artificial Intelligence, you will be able to get many creative ideas in less than one minute.
(If you don’t know what prompting is or how to leverage Artificial Intelligence,
reply to this email and I will send you some useful documentation.)
Avoid Absolutes
Using absolutes risks losing most of your audience. As much as possible (this would be a sentence where to avoid an absolute), try to avoid sentences such as: “100% of the time” “This always happens” “All of you are going through this”
I will tell you about the aesthetic elements recommended by one of the TED founders.
PD1: This is my favorite TED Talk.
by the way,
this is one of my favourite TEDx Talks
Since watching it,
I discovered meditation, and it has become part of my routine.
📥 Receive in your inbox a FREE mini-course to learn
how to speak in public better than 90% of your colleagues