5 Things I Learned About Public Speaking From Delivering A TEDx Talk (Video Inside)

Note: If you’re looking for the video to my TEDx talk, you can find it embedded at the bottom of this article.

In October of 2013, I had the amazing opportunity of delivering my first ever TEDx talk. From the months of preparation to the delivery of my speech, it was an unforgettable experience.

I had done many public speeches before, but speaking at TED was completely different. There was a lot of hype around the event and there was good reason for it. The process from preparing and delivering my talk taught me a lot about public speaking I didn’t know before.

In this article, I share 5 things I learned about public speaking from delivering a TEDx talk:

1. Do It For The Message, Not The Money

The world of public speaking has been tremendously saturated by individuals who want fat pay checks for a few hours of their time. I too was in this fairytale land and collected a few great checks for speaking to people.

I spent over 200 hours planning, practicing and perfecting my pitch before delivering my talk in October. Most normal speeches are too focused around you, which ends up causing people to preach to their audience.

After seeing a handful of individuals get cut from our lineup, I quickly realized that I couldn’t rely on my traditional speaking skills to get me through my TED talk. I had to quickly adapt. After spending 200 hours, I didn’t get a single dollar in return. The whole focus for my talk was my message, which is why I went out of my way to run focus groups to gather data to back up my ideas.

This lesson was really simple and I plan to implement this in all future speeches I deliver. Focus on your message and what people can take away from it. Only a few people get the opportunity to talk to an audience, give them something to remember.

2. Don’t Make Everything Serious

Throughout schooling and my first few public speaking gigs, I had always been taught to deliver a speech. The format of speeches were supposed to be serious and formal sessions where I could convey a message, idea or information to others.

The hardest adjustment I made for TED was figuring out a proper way to be conversational during my speech. If you’re constantly serious with your audience, they feel like they’re listening to a superhero and have a really tough time relating with you.

I quickly figured out that the best speeches are ones where the speaker keeps things informal and conversational. Make your audience feel relevant and help them relate to your story and message. That’s what truly makes a great speech.

3. Work The Crowd

At the end of the day, remember that your audience is investing money, time or sometimes a combination of the two. Teachers teach and preachers preach. However, a speech is all about getting your audience involved.

Make them laugh and engage with you during your speech. While TED isn’t fond of allowing your audience to answer questions or join you on stage, a great speech gets the crowd hyped up for what is to come. Understand who your audience is and what they’re looking for so you can better deliver on their expectations.

Before I delivered my speech, I made conversation with the attendees so they could get a better understanding of me. I wanted to introduce myself to everyone and chat with people to build a positive relationship with them long before I got on stage.

4. It’s Not All About You

Many speakers convert their speech into a self-interview session. What I mean by that is people often talk about themselves and their story without paying any attention to the needs of the audience.

While my TED talk does share a lot of experiences from my life, it’s not about that. My background helps to build up the story and the message to provide more of an impact on the idea I’m trying to share.

When you watch my video, you’ll clearly notice that my message has nothing to do with me. It’s all about showing people that there is no better time to chase their dreams than now.

5. Maximize Your Time

I went through all the major moments from my business career, shared data from my focus groups and showed people how I overcame the barriers others faced in less than 10 minutes. Before TED, this type of speech may have taken me around 45 minutes to deliver.

TED isn’t about wasting other peoples time and no speech should be like that. Just because you have 1 hour to deliver a speech doesn’t mean you should use all of it. Maximize your time on stage because you only have the attention of your audience for so long.

Focus on the main points and hit on them. Don’t beat around the bush and add a ton of pointless fluff to your story if it is irrelevant. I had a clear focus of what I wanted to achieve through my talk and I was able to do that!

Conclusion

If you are a public speaker or have dreams of becoming one someday, I hope you take these tips into consideration. Furthermore, I would love for you to watch my TED talk and share it with the world if it inspires you in any way (TEDx video from my speech can be found at the very bottom of this article).