TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

by Chris J. Anderson

There are many ways to prepare for and deliver a talk, and it’s important to find the one that’s right for you. Because when it comes to the exact moment, even if you’ve prepared something that is stunning, there is a long list of things that can go wrong, among them: Your tone of voice puts your audience to sleep. You sound like you’re reciting. You run out of time before you’ve completed half of what you wanted to say. You get flustered trying to remember how your slides fit with the words you prepared. Your videos fail to start, and your slide clicker doesn’t work properly. You fail to make eye contact with a single member of the audience. You feel uncomfortable on stage, not knowing whether you should walk around a little or stay rooted to one spot. So instead you compromise and shuffle awkwardly from leg to leg. The audience fails to laugh when they were supposed to. The audience laughs when they most definitely were not supposed to. The standing ovation you dreamed of is replaced by a smattering of polite applause. And—the one thing people dread most—you forget what you were going to say next, your mind goes blank, and you freeze.