TED TALKS: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

by Chris J. Anderson

It’s called presentation literacy.

The word’s core meaning is simply “the art of speaking effectively.”

But you will find tools and insights that may be useful for those occasions and, indeed, for every form of public speaking.

she just began forcing herself to do it.

“For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.”

Within moments the energy of the building went from despair and defeat to a massive buzz of determination as people began to focus on moving forward instead of looking back.

Amy Cuddy gave a hugely popular talk about how changing your body language can raise your confidence level.

Your goal is not to be Winston Churchill or Nelson Mandela. It’s to be you.

just be you.

If you know how to talk to a group of friends over dinner, then you know enough to speak publicly.

You simply have to pluck up the courage to try.

Your number-one mission as a speaker is to take something that matters deeply to you and to rebuild it inside the minds of your listeners.

It planted an idea inside the minds of those listening.

can be a simple how-to.

If you can conjure up a compelling idea in people’s minds, you have done something wondrous.

Style without substance is awful.

There’s a paradox here: You have always been you, and you only see yourself from the inside.

Your own first-person experience of life.

An important idea, wrapped up in a fresh story, can make a great talk, if it’s told the right way.

Think back over your work of the last three or four years; what really stands out? What was the last thing you were really excited by? Or angered by? What are the two or three things you’ve done that you’re most proud of? When was the last time you were in conversation with someone who said, “That’s really interesting”? If you could wave a magic wand, what is the one idea you’d most love to spread to other people’s

Refer to this to dig deep.

You can use the opportunity of public speaking as motivation to dive more deeply into some topic.

In fact, the same questions you ask as you do your research can help provide the blueprint for your talk.

What are the issues that matter most? How are they related? How can they be easily explained? What are the riddles that people don’t yet have good answers for? What are the key controversies? You can use your own journey of discovery to suggest your talk’s key moments of revelation.

Come back to this to draft the blueprint.

Any chance at speaking to a group you respect can provide the incentive you need to get off your butt and work on something unique to you!

In other words, you don’t need to have the perfect knowledge in your head today. Use this opportunity as the reason to discover it.

focusing on the how,

language works its magic only to the extent that it is shared by speaker and listener.

You can only use the tools that your audience has access to. If you start only with your language, your concepts, your assumptions, your values, you will fail. So instead, start with theirs.

It’s only from that common ground that they can begin to build your idea inside their minds.

7 percent of the effectiveness of communication is down to language, while 38 percent depends on tone of voice and 55 percent comes from body language.

Whichever metaphor you use, focusing on what you will give to your audience is the perfect foundation for preparing your talk.

Reputation is everything. You want to build a reputation as a generous person, bringing something wonderful to your audiences, not as a tedious self-promoter.

The key principle is to remember that the speaker’s job is to give to the audience, not take from them. (Even in a business context where you’re genuinely making a sales pitch, your goal should be to give. The most effective salespeople put themselves into their listeners’ shoes and imagine how to best serve their needs.)

“When people sit in a room to listen to a speaker, they are offering her something extremely precious, something that isn’t recoverable once given: a few minutes of their time and of their attention. Her task is to use that time as well as possible.”

So if you’re going to gift people with a wondrous idea, you first have to spend some preparation time. Rambling is not an option.

we redoubled our efforts on speaker preparation.

Absolutely one of the most powerful things you can experience when watching a talk is inspiration.

Inspiration can’t be performed. It’s an audience response to authenticity, courage, selfless work, and genuine wisdom. Bring those qualities to your talk, and you may be amazed at what happens.