TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

by Chris J. Anderson

The woman on the stage is weaving wonder, not witchcraft. But her skills are as potent as any sorcery.

as the storyteller speaks, each listener imagines the events that are being described. That imagination brings with it the same emotions shared by the characters in the story. This is a profoundly powerful process. It is the literal alignment of multiple minds into a shared consciousness. For a period of time, the campfire participants act as if they were a single life form. They may rise together, dance together, chant together. From this shared backdrop, it is a short step to the desire to act together, to decide to embark together on a journey, a battle, a building, a celebration.

You’ve led a life that is yours and yours only. There are experiences you’ve had that are unique to you. There are insights to be drawn from some of those experiences that are absolutely worth sharing. You just have to figure out which ones.

language works its magic only to the extent that it is shared by speaker and listener. And there’s 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.

Our ideas make us who we are. And speakers who have figured out how to spread their ideas into others’ minds are able to create ripple effects of untold consequence.

focusing on what you will give to your audience is the perfect foundation for preparing your talk.

Reputation is everything. You want to build a reputation as a generous person, bringing something wonderful to your audiences, not as a tedious self-promoter.

Absolutely one of the most powerful things you can experience when watching a talk is inspiration. The speaker’s work and words move you and fill you with an expanded sense of possibility and excitement. You want to go out and be a better person.

more and more speakers, attracted to the drug of audience adoration, are trying to walk this path. Please don’t be one of them. Here’s the thing about inspiration: It has to be earned.

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?”

Anthropologist Polly Wiessner has spent forty years researching certain forager cultures and periodically recording who said what and when. In 2014, she published a paper that showed a dramatic difference between daytime and nighttime gatherings. Daytime talk, even when larger groups were involved, centered on economic discussions and social gossip. At night, the mood mellowed. There might be singing, dancing, rituals. But the most time was spent on storytelling. Tales that brought people from distant places to the hearth and into the hearts and minds of listeners. Tales of people alive and dead. Present and distant. Tales evoking hilarity, tension, and awe.

the ability to paint a compelling picture of the future is truly one of the greatest gifts a speaker can bring.

my entire entrepreneurial life, my mantra had been to follow the passion. Not my passion—other people’s. If I saw something that people were truly, deeply passionate about, that was the big clue that there was opportunity there. Passion was a proxy for potential.

In a world in which machines are rapidly getting super-smart at any specialist knowledge task we can throw at them, what are humans even for? It’s an important question. And the answer to it is actually quite thrilling. What are humans for? Humans are for being more human than we’ve ever been. More human in how we work. More human in what we learn. And more human in how we share that knowledge with each other.

humans, for most of history, have made a living doing the same thing over and over again. Our future won’t be like that. Anything that can be automated or calculated ultimately will be.

We’re entering an era where we all need to spend a lot more time learning from each other.

for the first time in history, it’s possible for anyone on the planet who has access to the Internet to summon to their home the world’s greatest teachers and inspirers. The potential that represents is breathtaking.

For all of history, the vast majority of all talks given before an audience have remained invisible to all but those who were actually there. Today, for the first time, it’s possible to go online and see thousands of different speakers in action, on almost any topic you care to name.