How can it be mom’s spaghetti? She has been dead for 16 years.
7 Principles I Learned From Doing a Ted Talk
It was this time last year that I was getting ready to do my first TEDx Talk. I was beyond nervous; this is the super bowl of public speaking. This is like when William Wallace was about to give his big freedom speech: he was either going to convince the entire army to fight with him or he was going to fight all alone.(Maybe not all alone, I think the fat Scottish guy would have fought with him regardless of the speech, but the rest of them? forget about it.) It does not get any bigger than a Ted Talk, this was my one shot. “My palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy, there was vomit on my sweater, mom’s spaghetti.” Then I remembered my mom has been dead for 16 years and she never made spaghetti. She was a horrible cook. Sorry, sometimes I lose myself in the moment and get my life confused with B-rabbit’s from 8 Miles, it was his mom’s spaghetti on his sweater. Regardless of whose spaghetti it was, I was still nervous. Not nervous to speak in front of hundreds of people, I have done that before. I was nervous because of the reality of the situation. This was truly a chance of a lifetime and I knew that.
This experience would change my life for the better and I want to share some of the things I learned with you to help you become a better writer. I am a writer, so I am always looking to improve my writing. I am also a speaker, but to be a good speaker you need to first be a good writer. So, these 7 principles I will talk about today will help you improve your writing and speaking, savvy? We all on the same page now? Good, let’s begin.
1) If you are hunting buffalo, shoot a buffalo, not a turkey.
If you don’t master this, you will not become the best writer or speaker you can be. Picture yourself going on a hunting trip with a group of friends and you’ve got a guide and everything. Your goal is to hunt buffalo. You and your crew are in the wilderness and the tour guide goes, “Look, guys, there is a turkey, who wants to shoot it?” After one of you shoot it your tour guide says “Great job everyone, let’s go home.” You would be livid. That was not the purpose of the trip.
Same with writing or speaking, you need to pick one main topic and stick to it. One point. You must ask this question, “What does your audience need to know_____?” This is a lot harder than you think. I wish I had done this better with my Ted Talk and with the book I wrote, Freedom Clause: 14 Amendments to Freedom. This is something we can always improve on over the course of our lives, but you have to work on it. Be as specific as you can! Think of sharpening a spear: it works best when you make the point as sharp as possible.
When I sat down with the Ted Talk panel they said to me “Colby, what is your main point? What do we need to know? Tell us in one sentence, not two, not three; one.” My answer to them was, “Every one of you is an addict.” Then I leaned back and let them ask questions or try to argue my statement I had just slapped them across the face with.
If you are writing or speaking, know that during this step you are not writing yet, you are thinking over and over again on your one point to get it as narrow as possible.
Application:
What I do and what I am challenging you to do is this: focus think 25 minutes a day on the topic. When I drive I won’t listen to the radio I just think over and over again on one topic so I can break it down as much as possible. Sometimes when I wake up I will sit in my sunroom and just think in the quiet for 25 minutes on one topic. I do this for weeks until it is as narrow as I can get.
2) I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore; why am I here?
Have you ever woke up on a nice Sunday morning after a long night of drinking when you were in high school laying in a parking lot of a church as people step over you as they go into service as you say “Where am I? Why am I here?” Or, has a friend ever called you up and said, “I need you to come to Utica with me, I need your help.” So you think some guy owes him money so you say, “Yes, I will come help,” but then you find yourself in a big concert hall full of people as a multi-level marketing guy tries to sell you on a product and you turn to your friend and say, “Why am I here?”
I can say yes to both of those stories.
The why is just as important as the what. When you are writing or speaking you need to define, then answer, the why. If you don’t answer the why nobody will listen or care what you have to say. You need to ask yourself this question, “Why do they need to know this_____?”
As I sat in the room full of Ted Talk experts they said to me, “Colby, tell us in one sentence, why do we need to know we are all addicts?”
If you are about to take people on a journey through your writing or your speaking you better tell them why you are taking them on this journey if you want them to pay attention.
Application:
In every story you tell someone this month or everything you write about this month, think of the why. Before you proceed in telling your story, why does the person need to know what you are telling them?
A free piece of advice for you that did not make my 7 principles is this: keep your message short, whether it be writing or talking. People do not want to sit for a long period of time to read or hear what you have to say. Get in and get out. That is why the Ted Talk format has an 18 minute rule, your speech cannot be any longer than that. They simply will not allow it; they actually encourage you to be shorter. That being said I am going to end this post on this point so I adhere to my own rule. Tune into my next post and I will share the rest of the 7 principles. My next post we will share:
3) The Leg Bone is Connected to the Knee Bone
4) Little Sally Never Stops Talking in Class
5) Grab Your Audience by the Shirt and Headbutt Them in the Face
6) Have You Tried my Applesauce?
7) Finish Him, Mortal Kombat Style
If you want to watch my Ted Talk:
