TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

by Chris J. Anderson

Your only real job in giving a talk is to have something valuable to say, and to say it authentically in your own unique way.

In every culture on earth, as language developed, people learned to share their stories, hopes, and dreams.

It’s because there’s a lot at stake—not just the experience in the moment, but in our longer-term reputation. How others think of us matters hugely. We are profoundly social animals. We crave each other’s affection, respect, and support.

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.

Many of the best talks are simply based on a personal story and a simple lesson to be drawn from it.

the key clue to how to achieve the miracle of re-creating your idea in someone else’s brain. 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.

It’s possible to disagree where the line is between sharing an idea and pitching, but the principle is crucial: Give, don’t take.

Ofttimes the heads of organizations are by default their spokespersons, always in selling mode, believing it’s their obligation to honor the hard-working team that surrounds them. And because the work they want to talk about has taken place inside the organization, the most obvious way to describe it may be to anchor it to organizational acts. “Back in 2005, we set up a new department in Dallas in this office building [slide of glass tower here], and its goal was to investigate how we could slash our energy costs, so I allocated Vice President Hank Boreham to the task . . .” Yawn. Compare that statement to this one: “Back in 2005 we discovered something surprising. It turns out that it’s possible for an average office to slash its energy costs by 60 percent without any noticeable loss of productivity. Let me share with you how . . .” One mode retains interest. One kills it. One mode is a gift. The other is lazily self-serving.

throughline, the connecting theme that ties together each narrative element. Every talk should have one.

“On my recent trip to Cape Town, I learned something new about strangers—when you can trust them, and when you definitely can’t. Let me share with you two very different experiences I had . . .” The first setup might work for your family. But the second, with its throughline visible from the get-go, is far more enticing to a general audience.

good exercise is to try to encapsulate your throughline in no more than fifteen words. And those fifteen words need to provide robust content. It’s not enough to think of your goal as, “I want to inspire the audience” or “I want to win support for my work.” It has to be more focused than that. What is the precise idea you want to build inside your listeners? What is their takeaway?

Barry Schwartz, whose talk is the first one in the list above, on the paradox of choice, is a big believer in the importance of a throughline: Many speakers have fallen in love with their ideas and find it hard to imagine what is complicated about them to people who are not already immersed. The key is to present just one idea—as thoroughly and completely as you can in the limited time period. What is it that you want your audience to have an unambiguous understanding of after you’re done?

My advice to speakers would be to look for a single big idea that is larger than you or your organization, but at the same time to leverage your experience to show that it isn’t just empty speculation.

In this journey metaphor, the throughline traces the path that the journey takes.

It’s certainly not the case that a shorter talk means shorter preparation time. President Woodrow Wilson was once asked about how long it took him to prepare for a speech. He replied: That depends on the length of the speech. If it is a 10-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now. It reminds me of the famous quote attributed to a variety of great thinkers and writers: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

To say something interesting you have to take the time to do at least two things: Show why it matters . . . what’s the question you’re trying to answer, the problem you’re trying to solve, the experience you’re trying to share? Flesh out each point you make with real examples, stories, facts.

To provide an effective talk, you must slash back the range of topics you will cover to a single, connected thread—a throughline that can be properly developed.

Author Richard Bach said, “Great writing is all about the power of the deleted word.” It’s true of speaking too. The secret of successful talks often lies in what is left out. Less can be more.

leave space and SAY LESS.

The better question for me is, ‘What can you unpack in a meaningful way in 18 minutes?’”

And here’s version 2: I want you to come with me to a student’s room at Oxford University in 1977. You open the door, and at first it seems like there’s nobody there. But wait. Over in the corner, there’s a boy lying on the floor, face up, staring at the ceiling. He’s been like that for more than 90 minutes. That’s me. Twenty-year-old me. I am thinking. Hard. I am trying . . . please don’t laugh . . . I am trying to solve the problem of free will. That deep mystery that has stumped the world’s philosophers for at least two millennia? Yup, I’m taking it on. Anyone looking objectively at the scene would have concluded that this boy was some weird combination of arrogant, deluded, or perhaps just socially awkward and lonely, preferring the company of ideas to people. But my own narrative? I’m a dreamer. I’ve always been obsessed by the power of ideas. And I’m pretty sure it’s that inward focus that helped me survive growing up in boarding schools in India and England, away from my missionary parents, and that gave me the confidence to try to build a media company. Certainly it was the dreamer in me that fell in love so deeply with TED. Most recently I’ve been dreaming about the revolution in public speaking, and what it could lead to . . . So which version tells you more about me? The first one certainly has far more facts. It’s a decent summary of big parts of my life. A 2-minute resume. The second one focuses on just a single moment of my life. And yet, when I try this ...

You will only cover as much ground as you can dive into in sufficient depth to be compelling.

And this is where the concept of a throughline really helps. By choosing a throughline you will automatically filter out much of what you might otherwise say. When I did the above experiment, I thought, What aspect of me should I focus on for a little more depth? The decision to go with “dreamer” made it easy to anchor version 2 on my time studying philosophy at Oxford and slash back most of the other parts of my life. If I had chosen “entrepreneur” or “nerd” or “global soul,” I’d have made different cuts.

The most viewed TED speaker at the time of writing this book is Sir Ken Robinson. He told me that most of his talks follow this simple structure: A. Introduction—getting settled, what will be covered B. Context—why this issue matters C. Main Concepts D. Practical Implications E. Conclusion

“There’s an old formula for writing essays that says a good essay answers three questions: What? So What? Now What? It’s a bit like that.”

An issue-based talk leads with morality. An idea-based talk leads with curiosity. An issue exposes a problem. An idea proposes a solution. An issue says, “Isn’t this terrible?” An idea says, “Isn’t this interesting?”

THE CHECKLIST As you work on developing your throughline, here’s a simple checklist: Is this a topic I’m passionate about? Does it inspire curiosity? Will it make a difference to the audience to have this knowledge? Is my talk a gift or an ask? Is the information fresh, or is it already out there? Can I truly explain the topic in the time slot allocated, complete with necessary examples? Do I know enough about this to make a talk worth the audience’s time? Do I have the credibility to take on this topic? What are the fifteen words that encapsulate my talk? Would those fifteen words persuade someone they’d be interested in hearing my talk?

five core tools that speakers use: Connection Narration Explanation Persuasion Revelation

To make an impact, there has to be a human connection.

early connection with their audience. It can be as simple as walking confidently on stage, looking around, making eye contact with two or three people, and smiling.

(People can detect fake smiles and immediately feel manipulated.

TED, our number-one advice to speakers on the day of their talk is to make regular eye contact with members of the audience. Be warm. Be real. Be you. It opens the door to them trusting you, liking you, and beginning to share your passion.

Vulnerability can be powerful at any stage of a talk.

“Formulaic or contrived personal sharing leaves audiences feeling manipulated and often hostile toward you and your message. Vulnerability is not oversharing. There’s a simple equation: vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability. It can be anything from an attempt to hotwire connection to attention-seeking, but it’s not vulnerability and it doesn’t lead to connection. The best way I’ve found to get clear on this is to really examine our intentions. Is sharing done in service of the work on stage or is it a way to work through our own stuff? The former is powerful, the latter damages the confidence people have in us.”

Audiences who laugh with you quickly come to like you. And if people like you, they’re much readier to take seriously what you have to say. Laughter blows open someone’s defenses, and suddenly you have a chance to truly communicate with them.

Laughter says, We as a group have bonded with this speaker. Everyone then pays more attention.

Caution: Successfully spending that much time on humorous stories is a special gift, not recommended for most of us. But if you can find just one short story that makes people smile, it may unlock the rest of your talk.

Tell anecdotes relevant to your subject matter, where humor is natural. The best humor is based on observation of things occurring around you and then exaggerating or remixing them. Have a funny remark ready if you flub your words, the A/V goes awry, or if the clicker doesn’t work. The audience has been there and you instantly win their sympathy. Build humor into your visuals. You can also have the humor be the contrast between what you’re saying and what you’re showing. There are lots of great possibilities for laughter. Use satire, saying the opposite of what you mean, then revealing your intent, though this is really hard to get right. Timing is critical. If there’s a laughter moment, you have to give it a chance to land. That may take the courage to pause just for a moment. And to do so without it looking like you’re fishing for applause. Very important: If you’re not funny, don’t try to be funny. Test the humor on family or friends, or even a colleague. Are they laughing? If not, change it or spike it. Dangers (even in the hands of people blessed with the gift of humor): Off-color remarks and offensive language: Don’t. You’re not speaking at a late-night comedy club. Limericks or other seemingly funny poetry Puns Sarcasm Going on too long Any attempted humor based on religion, ethnicity, gender identity, politics. Members of those communities maybe can; outsiders definitely can’t.