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

by Carmine Gallo

Personal stories are stories about yourself, but they can also be stories about other people with whom the audience can empathize.

Empathy is the capacity to recognize and feel emotions experienced by somebody else. We put ourselves in the shoes of the other. We’ve seen how stories can h...

Stories about Brand Success

“In embracing the diversity of human beings, we will find a surer way to true happiness.”

We fall into presentation mode and forget that the most effective way of delivering information is through the emotional connection of story. Stories make concepts and ideas real and tangible.

During a job interview, tell a personal story about your success managing a team or executing a difficult project. In a new business pitch, share a story about how your product helped a client increase sales despite the economic downturn. During a product launch, tell a personal story behind the product’s inception. You might be surprised at how many people remember the stories you tell.

“Stories are such a powerful driver of emotional value that their effect on any given object’s subjective value can actually be measured objectively.”

“Boy Gets Girl.” The story starts with an average person on an average day and something good happening to that person. Of course, the person comes close to losing the good fortune and gets it back again to end the story happily. “People love that,”

Vonnegut’s writing advice: “give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.”

INTRODUCE HEROES AND VILLAINS. Whether it’s a movie or a novel, every great story has a hero and a villain. A strong business presentation has the same cast of characters. A spokesperson reveals a challenge (villain) facing a business or industry. The protagonist (brand hero) rises to meet the challenge. Finally, the townspeople (customers) are freed from the villain, the struggle is over, and everyone lives happily ever after. In some cases the villain can be an actual person or competitor, but tread carefully in these cases. Above all, make sure the hero—your product, your brand, or your idea—comes in to save the day.

Don’t fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it.

Secret #3: Have a Conversation Practice relentlessly and internalize your content so that you can deliver the presentation as comfortably as having a conversation with a close friend.

The video camera is the single best tool to improve your public speaking ability.

HOW TO SAY IT SO PEOPLE LISTEN The four elements of verbal delivery are: rate, volume, pitch, and pauses.

RATE: Speed at which you speak VOLUME: Loudness or softness PITCH: High or low inflections PAUSES: Short pauses to punch key words

Studies show that 150 to 160 words per minute is the ideal rate of speech for audio books. It seems to be the rate at which most listeners can comfortably hear, absorb, and recall the information.

The problem with most technical or scientific discussions is that the presenters fail to make their content visual, interesting, and entertaining.

I can’t tell you how many leaders I work with who get very nervous before public presentations—and these are people at the top of their professions, often worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The secret is not to eliminate nerves but to manage them.

“And so I want to say to you, don’t fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it.”

Secret #3: Have a Conversation

Shepherd has a point. While she uses her body effectively to tell her story, her “strength” comes from the inside. Your delivery and gestures, mastered through hours and hours of practice, will enhance your overall message, but without passion and practice, your presence will be severely diminished. Your strength as a speaker comes from the inside.

Teach Me Something New Everything I’m going to present to you was not in my textbooks when I went to school. —TITANIC EXPLORER ROBERT BALLARD, TED 2008

Secret #4: Teach Me Something New Reveal information that’s completely new to your audience, packaged differently, or offers a fresh and novel way to solve an old problem.

The next logical question is, “How do I increase dopamine?” According to Burns, the answer is remarkably simple and straightforward: make the information new and exciting.

Dopamine is addictive.

Secret #4: Teach Me Something New

“Every superhero has an origin story. So do you. Don’t follow someone else’s. Create your own masterpiece.”

Why it works: Jaw-dropping moments create what neuroscientists call an emotionally charged event, a heightened state of emotion that makes it more likely your audience will remember your message and act on it.

But if you don’t have the story in the first place, your gorgeous slides won’t matter.

“The first one is a wide-screen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.”12 He repeated the three products again. Then he said, “An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone, are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone.”

Here are five ways to create a holy smokes moment in your very next presentation (each of these has appeared in TED presentations).

Props and Demos

Unexpected and Shocking Statistics

However, some of the best TED speakers are known to deliver statistics that are more than a bit shocking. Among them:

Secret #6: Lighten Up Don’t take yourself (or your topic) too seriously. The brain loves humor. Give your audience something to smile about.

An analogy is a comparison that points out the similarities between two different things. It’s an excellent rhetorical technique that helps to explain complex topics.

Quotes An easy way to get a laugh without being a comedian or telling a joke is to quote somebody else who said something funny. The quotes can be from famous people, anonymous people, or family and friends.

LIGHTEN UP YOUR PRESENTATION WITH VIDEO AND PHOTOS. Most PowerPoint presentations are dreadful because they have so little—if any—emotional impact. Incorporate a humorous photograph or video clip to lighten the mood.

As I developed as a speaker, I realized that I didn’t have to make the audience laugh; all I had to do was reveal the humor in a particular situation. You don’t have to go for a laugh all the time, but you should try to elicit at least a smile.

Secret #6: Lighten Up

The key is to be authentic. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. But if something makes you laugh, there’s a good chance it will make someone else laugh, too.

Secret #7: Stick to the 18-Minute Rule Eighteen minutes is the ideal length of time for a presentation. If you must create one that’s longer, build in soft breaks (stories, videos, demonstrations) every 10 minutes.

Some people might argue, “I have too much to say. I can’t possibly deliver all the information in 20 minutes.” Try to do it anyway. Your presentation will be far more impactful and creative simply by going through the exercise.

simple explanation of a complex topic gives the audience confidence in the speaker’s mastery of the subject. Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

Keep your presentations and pitches short and simple.

I’ve used the rule of three very successfully with communicators in nearly every industry. It works for me every time, and it works for some of the most popular TED talks.

Having a great attitude is about choosing option number two, and choosing, no matter how difficult it is, no matter what pain hits you, choosing to move forward and move on and take baby steps into the future.”

“That three-year-old boy is still part of you. That three-year-old girl is still part of you. They’re in there. And being aware is just about remembering that you saw everything you’ve seen for the first time once, too.”

Here is the three-step process for using a message map to build a winning pitch. For this exercise you will need a notepad, Word document, PowerPoint slide, or whiteboard.

Step One: Create a Twitter-Friendly Headline