Secrets of an Engaging and Wow Talk
Hope you find this useful and enjoy reading
This blog is a combination of my personal experience of giving my talk at TEDx and many platforms across a summary of few workshops that I have attended and my key take away from the book I consider as the bible of public speaking – TED TALKS by Chris Anderson, Head of TED.
The Hero of the Talk has to be the TALK itself.
- Idea: Most important mission as a speaker is to take something that matters deeply to you and to rebuild it inside the minds of your listeners. We’ll call that something an Idea. By Idea we do not mean a scientific breakthrough or an innovation or an application or human insight. An Idea is anything that can change how people see the world. If you can conjure up a compelling idea in people’s minds, you have done something wondrous. In a very real sense, a little piece of you has become part of them. Many of the best talks are simply based on a personal story and a simple lesson to be drawn from it. Remember, it is a journey that Speaker and Audience take together. Focusing on what you will give to your audience is the perfect foundation for preparing your talk.
- The Thorough Line: You have a great idea but if your pointers in the talks are not connected, the audience could feel it. Their facial expressions will say it loudly. Your talk should have a connecting theme that ties together each narrative element, very much like a book, a play or a movie. Look for a single big idea that is larger than you or your organization and use your experience as leverage to show that it isn’t just empty speculation or words.
- Preparation: “President Woodrow Wilson once said – if it is a 10- minute speech, it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it, if it is a half hour speech, it takes me a week, if I can talk as long as I want to, it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now”. This is so true for delivering a powerful talk.
- Show why it matters: What’s the question you are trying to answer, the problem, you’re trying to solve, the experience you’re trying to share.
- Flesh out each point you make with real examples, stories, and facts. Don’t manufacture any of it.
- Great writing is all about the power of the deleted word. It is true for speaking too. The secret of successful talks often lies in what is left out. Less can be more.
- Structure of your talk
o Introduction – getting settled, what will be covered
o Context – why this issue or subject matters
o Main concepts
o Practical implications
o Conclusion
- Checklist for thorough line
o Is this a topic I am passionate about?
o Does it inspire curiosity
o Is my talk a gift or an ask?
o Is the information fresh, or is it already out there?
o Can I truly explain the topic in the time slot of 18 minutes or less and complete with necessary examples?
o Do I know enough about this to make a talk worth the audience’s time?
o Do I have the credibility to take on the topic?
- 5 Core tools that speakers use: You can use all 5 or just one of them or couple of them but this is what it is. You can mix and match o Connection
▪ Find a way to establish early connect.
▪ Walk confidently for your talk, look around and most importantly once on stage, make eye contact.
▪ Eye contact with a warm smile is an extremely powerful tool to connect with audience.
▪ Be Warm, Be Real, Be You
▪ Show your Vulnerability – It helps you disarm an audience. If you are feeling nervous, it can actually work in your favor. Audience is not expecting a cowboy on stage. If you feel you are choking up, it is ok. Pick up a bottle and take a sip and just say what you are feeling. “As you can see, I am feeling a bit nervous out here, Normal service will resume soon or something like that. You will find the audience immediately with you. They could relate you are one of them. But do not fake it as they could see through you.
o Narration
▪ Story is very important. Offer the right level of detail. Too little and the story is not clear. Too much and it gets bogged down.
▪ Fine tune your story
o Explanation
▪ You need to explain your narration
▪ Beware of the Curse of Knowledge. Sometimes our knowledge about the subject takes us away from the point that we want to make.
▪ Good to share a draft script with the curator.
▪ Post the discussions; share the same with your friends and colleagues – the close ones.
▪ Try the talk in front of private audience who can be open to you. Ask them – Did that make sense? Was anything confusing?
▪ If you explain it well, it will create excitement
o Persuasion – Reasons can change mind forever. It is all about convincing an audience that the way they currently see the world isn’t quite right. Before you pursue, you need to demolish/ prim the current understanding of the subject that you are pursuing in your talk. However, it is a very delicate line without getting into a tug of war with your point of view.
o Revelation: Should take the breath away
▪ The best way to show an idea to audience is to show them. ▪ Your work should be given to them in a way that delights and inspires.
▪ Use images or presentations or any prop that will help you make it wow.
▪ You can give a demo of your innovation/ idea
- All the 5 steps above can be used with mix and match approach or chose just one or whatever that fits in your story, your message.
- Traps to avoid:
o Don’t plan to take but give
o No sales pitch
o Don’t try and be the hero of the talk. I did this; all this is because of me etc.….
o Avoid your organization bore like the structure of it. Its fascinating for employees and shareholders but not for audience. o Don’t pause too long in your talk waiting for applause. Applause is a feeling that audience will, when they feel it. Don’t be a stalker for applause.
- Preparation process:
o Visuals: Important but not necessary
▪ Use visuals to show something that’s hard to describe. ▪ A picture is worth a thousand words but the best explanation happens when words and images work together.
▪ All slides/ photographs should be shown full bleed (full screen)
▪ Do not have multiple images/ slides in one slide
▪ Maintain the same typeface in your entire presentation. The recommendation is medium weight sans-serif fonts like Helvetica or Arial.
▪ Use 24 font size or larger
▪ Use Black on white, a dark color on white and white or yellow on black. Preferably use only one color of font per presentation unless you have a surprise up your sleeve.
▪ Check if the picture and words are legible to read from a distance.
▪ Avoid bullets, underlining, and italics.
▪ Photo credit: If you are using images, good to mention the source of the image. For example, if the source is National Geographic, say it to audience or give one slide where you mention their name as photo credit.
▪ If you have, add one picture of you in your working environment.
▪ You can show video of your work but duration of over 30 seconds is not recommended. Do a test run and check with A/V if it is working fine.
▪ Store your script, presentations and video in one USB and carry with you. Label each of them so that it is easy for you to identify.
▪ Make sure the images/ videos you use are your own or are free images. For TEDx to upload your videos, this is the key. Otherwise, it may create rights issue as the videos are seen globally.
▪ Testing: Test your presentation with your friends and family. Also test with the event team. Sometimes what works on your computer may not work or is not compatible at event system.
- To memorize or not to memorize – Even Bill Gates, one of the world’s busiest men, puts a huge effort into learning and rehearsing for TED talks.
o Write your script, as you would like to speak.
o When you are writing for the first time, do not try and write what is relevant but write whatever the flow of thoughts makes you write.
o The first version has to be more from your heart and passion and let it be as long as it can be. Don’t worry about how will I cover this in 17 to 18 minutes.
o After the first draft, start reading it and every time you read, you will find something that is not compelling or not relevant or something that you are not excited about. Either delete it or mark in a different color. Share the script with me by sending the file in word document or scan and email me if it is hand written.
o We will have a Skype/Zoom call or in person meet depending on your location, go through the entire script and your talk. I help you curate and put a structure if required.
o Start practicing it many times over so that you can broadly memorize it. Once you have memorized well enough, you will be surprised to notice that words are flowing from the heart.
o The best tool to improve your talk is to rehearse repeatedly. You should have rehearsed so many times that you could speak even in your sleep and in front of anyone.
o Rehearse in front of mirror, in front of your phone video (make sure it is recording), rehearse in front of your family, rehearse in the garden, rehearse sitting at your desk, but without using notes. Make sure that you include your visuals (if you have any) since timing with them is critical.
o Ideally you should memorize your talk and avoid any paper in hand. However, if you want to carry few note cards with bullet points, you can use that.
- What kind of impression would you like to make – It’s extremely important how you begin and end your talk. These are the most important part of your talk. If you open strong, the attendees’ stays with you throughout and when you end strong, you stay with them much after you left the stage.
o Four ways to OPEN strong
▪ Deliver a dose of drama – Your first few words matter a lot
▪ Ignite curiosity
▪ Show a compelling slide, video or object
▪ Tease but don’t give it away. Don’t give it on a platter, as you will lose audience. For example – Over the next few minutes, I plan to reveal what I believe is the key to success as an entrepreneur and how anyone can cultivate it. You will find clues to it in the story I’m about to tell you. Vs. Today I am going to explain to you that the key to success as an entrepreneur is simply the determination. As an audience which one will you prefer?
o Five ways to END strong: If you held people’s attention through the talk, don’t ruin it with flat ending.
▪ Camera pull back: You have spent the talk explaining a particular piece of work. At the end, why not show the bigger picture, a broader set of possibilities implied by your work
▪ Call to action: If you have given the attendees a powerful idea, why not end by nudging them to act on it. ▪ Personal commitment: If your call to action is supported by your personal commitment to act, it makes a hell lot of difference.
▪ Values & Vision: Can you turn what you have discussed into an inspiring or hopeful vision of what might be?
▪ Lyrical inspiration: Sometimes, if the talk has opened people up, it’s possible to end with poetic language that taps deep into matters of the heart
- What to wear: Don’t overthink this part of your talk. This is important but not the most important.
o Decide few weeks before hand what you want to wear to avoid last minute stress.
o Wear that makes your feel great, comfortable and confident.
o At TEDx we are ok with casual clothes also, giving the sense that we’ll are on retreat together.
o Since we will be using over the head microphones, avoid dangling earrings, jangly bracelets or anything flashy that might cause reflection.
o Wear something that will set you apart from the background of the stage and not blend in.
o The audience loves bold, vibrant colors and so does the camera.
o Fitted clothing look better on stage then outfits that are loose and baggy.
o Before you take the stage, be sure your clothes are neatly pressed.
o If your talk is later during the day, it may be even worth bringing your clothes on a hanger and changing into closer to the time of your talk.
- How do I control my nerves: Remember if you are going to be standing on stage, addressing an audience, it means someone, somewhere decided you had something important to impart to others. Some of the tools that you can use to calm the nerves are the following:
o Monica Lewinski was very nervous before her TED talk. Her two mantras that helped in calming herself were – “THIS MATTERS” and “I’VE GOT THIS”. She kept telling herself these two lines till her name was announced. It worked for her.
o Use your fear as motivation: I was very nervous from the time I received the invitation to talk at TEDx. I killed that fear by committing to practice the talk as many times as I could.
o Let your body help you: Anything that calms you down, you can do before the talk. One of the things is to take deep breath right into your stomach, and let it out slowly. Mr. Anderson once went backstage and did push-ups before he went to stage and it did calm his adrenaline.
o Drink water: 5 minutes before you go, drink a third of the bottle to ensure your mouth is not dry before the talk. Don’t drink too early. Salman Khan did, and then had to rush to the men’s room just before his introduction.
o Avoid an empty stomach
o Remember the power of vulnerability: Audiences embrace speakers who are nervous.
o Find known faces in the audience: Focus on them while talking and you will slowly find rest of the audience connecting with you.
o Focus on what you’re talking about: Remember we mentioned above – “THIS MATTERS”. It’s not about you but about your idea.
- Voice and Presence: Give your words the life they deserve. There are multiple tools that you can use – volume, pitch, pace, tone. Listen to the TED talk by Julian Treasure called “How to speak so that people want to listen”.
Wishing you a Great success as a storyteller and public speaker. Lokesh Nathany
Storyteller | Motivational Speaker | Trainer | Curator | Host | Financial Protection & Goals Champion | TEDx Speaker | Founder – My Innings |
“Awarded 50 Most Innovative Storyteller of the year by World HRD Congress & World Storytelling Congress”
Mobile: 9052203070 and Email: lokesh@lokeshnathany.com
