Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds

by Carmine Gallo

Billionaire Warren Buffett says there is one skill that will boost your professional value by 50 percent. It’s a skill that will change your life and fuel your success. That skill is public speaking.

Learning to speak persuasively

In an age where ideas matter more than ever, the ability to deliver a persuasive presentation capable of changing hearts and minds is the single greatest skill to gain an edge.

TED talks were started to give ideas a voice.

We are a social species and we want to be heard. We also pay attention to what others think about us and crave their approval.

public speaking is a skill we can build with coaching, role models, strategies, and practice.

Cain’s TED Talk, “The Power of Introverts,” has garnered more than 28 million views, making it one of the top-10 TED talks of all time and one of Bill Gates’s favorite talks.

Speaking is natural; public speaking is a skill.

Public speaking is also an art, because—like a painting, a book, or a movie—it can stir emotions and spark the imagination.

you can learn and adopt specific strategies to transform yourself into a mesmerizing speaker.

Everyone has an idea to share, but those ideas are worthless if they are not expressed effectively.

alongside Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

The book you’re holding or listening to is meant to teach you the art of public speaking using examples and strategies

The tools we use to communicate have changed; the human brain has not.

Build your public speaking skills

In this book you’ll find formulas, examples, and strategies to elevate your public speaking skills. And, most important, you’ll find your voice, the most beautiful sound in the world.

IDEAS ARE THE CURRENCY OF the twenty-first century.

In March 2012, civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson delivered a talk to 1,000 people attending the annual TED conference in Long Beach, California.

longest standing ovation in TED history,

David Christian

“Big History” in schools after delivering a riveting 18-minute TED talk

One tells stories, the other delivers mountains of data

that the most popular TED presentations share nine common elements.

Richard Saul Wurman created the TED conference in 1984 as a onetime event.

Technology-magazine publisher Chris Anderson purchased the conference in 2001

Until 2005 TED was a once-a-year event:

2009, the organization began granting licenses to third parties who could organize their own community-level TEDx events.

The world was and still is clearly hungry for great ideas presented in an engaging way.

we decided to flip the organization on its head and think of ourselves not so much as a conference but as ‘ideas worth spreading,’ building a big website around it.

The first six TED talks posted online are considered classics

Do Schools Kill Creativity?”—attracted 70 million views and remains the number-one TED talk of all time.

emotional, novel, and memorable.

When celebrities want to be taken seriously, they hit the TED stage.

present astonishing new ideas in what can only be described as a Cirque Du Soleil for the mind.”

learning, passion, and inspiration … stimulating intellectually,

I never thought the ideas I heard would move my heart as well.”

“TED is where brilliant people go to hear other brilliant people...

Steve Jobs’s famous commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005 was a magnificent illustration of his ability to captivate an audience.

it contains the same elements as the best TED presentations

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

Don’t be trapped by dogma—

which is living with the results of other people’s thinking,”

have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

They’re seekers. They’re eager to learn. Discontent with the status quo,

inspiring and innovative ideas that move the world forward.

Talk Like TED digs far deeper into the science of communication than almost any book on the market today.

I thought of it as Dale Carnegie for the Twenty-first Century.

keep their talks short.

stories were powerful ways of connecting emotionally

metaphors and an...