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

by Carmine Gallo

When you’re designing a presentation outline, include the three supporting messages that support the overall theme.

Step Three: Reinforce the Three Messages with Stories, Statistics, and Examples Add bullet points to each of the three supporting messages. You don’t have to write out the entire story. Instead, write a few words that will prompt you to deliver the story. Remember, the entire message map must fit on one page.

Message Map Template. Created by Gallo Communications Group, www.carminegallo.com.

BUILD YOUR OWN MESSAGE MAP. Using the blank template in figure 7.2, insert in the bubble at the top the headline I asked you to create in chapter 4. Now, what’s your rule of three? Take the product, service, brand, or idea you built your headline around and create three points to support it. If you have more than three key messages, divide the content into three categories.

Secret #7: Stick to the 18-Minute Rule Long, convoluted, and meandering presentations are dull; a surefire way to lose your audience. The 18-minute rule isn’t simply a good exercise to learn discipline. It’s critical to avoid overloading your audience. Remember, constrained presentations require more creativity. In other words, what isn’t there makes what is there even stronger!

Secret #8: Paint a Mental Picture with Multisensory Experiences Deliver presentations with components that touch more than one of the senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.

Gore understands that complex material requires a simple explanation and more pictures to help the audience understand the concepts.

The University of Western Ontario psychology professor Allan Paivio was the first to introduce a “dual-coding” theory.

storing the concept as pictures and words is much more effective.

Today we know that students who learn through pictures and words recall the information more vividly than those students who learned only through text.

term multimedia p...

At TED 2010, Gates gave the very popular presentation “Innovating to Zero!” U2 lead singer Bono said the presentation “gives me hope,” and he ranks it among his all-time favorite TED talks.

Bono speaking at TED 2013.

Bono’s slides were professionally designed, which I recommend for anyone who has a mission-critical presentation intended to be delivered to several audiences or important enough to attract new customers or investments.

Every time Bono delivered a statistic, the number—and that number only—appeared on the slide. Bono advanced one slide per data point.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I recommend striving for no more than 40 words in the first 10 slides. This will force you to think creatively about telling a memorable and engaging story instead of filling the slide with needless and distracting text.

Kill bullet points on most of your slides.

Text and bullet points are the least memorable way of transferring inform...

exercise. Once you force yourself to eliminate wordy slides, you’ll realize how much more fun you can...

“We remember pictures better than words, so when I talk if I help you create visual images, you will remember that information much better than if I just use abstract words,”

Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech is one of the most famous and quoted speeches in contemporary history. King didn’t use PowerPoint, Prezi, or Apple Keynote. Instead, he painted images with his words—images that have stuck with us for half a century.

Secret #8: Paint a Mental Picture with Multisensory Experiences

I know you have courage. Find it, celebrate it, and revel in it. Courageous public speaking will transform your life and the lives of the people who listen to you. You have ideas that were meant to be seen, felt, and heard. Use your voice to astonish people, inspire them, and to change the world.

Secret #9: Stay in Your Lane Be authentic, open, and transparent.

Why it works: Most people can spot a phony. If you try to be something or someone you’re not, you’ll fail to gain the trust of your audience.

YOU CAN LEARN FROM OTHERS and how they achieved success in public speaking, but you’ll never make a lasting impression on people unless you leave your own mark.

Please keep this in mind. When you deliver a presentation, your goal should not be to “deliver a presentation.” It should be to inspire your audience, to move them, and to encourage them to dream bigger. You cannot move people if they don’t think you’re real. You’ll never convince your audience of anything if they don’t trust, admire, and genuinely like you.

if you speak with conviction and you’re passionate about your subject, your audience will be far more forgiving of your mistakes because they’ll have faith that you are telling the truth. Prepare, then take your time and relax. Speak from the heart.”

The host asked Buffett, “What habits did you cultivate in your 20s and 30s that you see as the foundation of success?”5 Buffett answered, “You’ve got to be able to communicate in life and it’s enormously important. Schools, to some extent, underemphasize that. If you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you’re giving up your potential.”

Then, once we craft, visualize, and rehearse the presentation, it’s time to let go and, as Branson suggested, speak from the heart. This approach has never failed.

Above all, do not try to be Tony Robbins, Dr. Jill, Bono, Sheryl Sandberg, Richard Branson, or any of the other people you’ve read about in this book. They carved out a lane for themselves and drove in it exceptionally well. Stay in your lane. Hold the space. Be true to your authentic self—the best representation of yourself that you can possibly be.

If you’re like most people, you’re capable of so much more than you’ve imagined for your life.

Don’t let negative labels hold you back from achieving your destiny. Some people might tell you that you’re not good enough, that you don’t have what it takes to make a compelling business pitch or to give a great presentation.

You can’t control what other people say about you but you can control how you frame those comments and you can most certainly control the things you tell yourself.

reframe your thoughts and replace those negative labels with words of encouragement, empowerment, and strength.

Your ideas will change the direction of your life and potentially change the world. Don’t let anything—including n...

You don’t need luck to be an inspiring speaker. You need examples, techniques, passion, and practice. You also need courage—the courage to follow your passion, articulate your ideas simply, and express what makes your heart sing.