Are Personal Stories Allowed on TEDx?
By Bilyana Georgieva, Public Speaking Coach, Multi-Award Winning Professional Speaker, Digital and Social Media Nerd, and founder of the ‘Red Dot Speaker Star’ coaching program, podcast and weekly newsletter.
This ‘Red Dot Speaker Star’ newsletter gives you tips, tricks and hacks for your successful TEDx Journey. Make sure you follow me on Medium and click the 🔔 button on my profile to be notified when I share them.
I was chatting today with Ameya Paratkar, the license holder of TEDxPune, when he asked me
“Are personal stories allowed on TEDx?”
Interesting question! I thought everyone knows the answer, but it turned out it’s one of this ‘well known for me information’ that actually others don’t know it or are confused from mixed info.
There are 2 guides given by TED, where you can find the answer:
And to save you time I’ll give you the shortest possible answer:
Yes, you are allowed, as long as your stories support your TEDx idea and don’t go against the two guidelines
TEDx talks should not be about you, your business or your life but about the wisdom you’ve learned, and the idea you know it will affect the lives of your audience.
Under section ‘2. Develop an idea’ of the TEDx Speaker Guide you will read:
“.. your idea can be new or surprising, or challenge a belief your audience already has. Or it can be a great basic idea with a compelling new argument behind it. An idea isn’t just a story or a list of facts. A good idea takes evidence or observations and draws a larger conclusion.”
Under section ‘3. Make an outline and script’ of the same TEDx Speaker Guide you will find:
“Don’t focus too much on yourself.”
and
“Whatever structure you decide on, remember:
1. The primary goal of your talk is to communicate an idea effectively, not to tell a story or to evoke emotions. These are tools, not an end in themselves.
2. Your structure should be invisible to the audience. In other words, don’t talk about how you’re going to talk about your topic — just talk about it!”
❌ Majority of first time TEDx speakers do the mistake to turn their talk into a “Me — Myself — I — Me — Me — Me” speech.
Some even tells what their service or products are, the name of their companies or promoting their books.
That goes against the TEDx Content Guidelines that starts exactly with this:
“Guideline 1: No commercial agendas
If it’s essential to a talk that the speaker mentions what they do and describe the businesses that they’re in, they should. But speakers may never use the TED or TEDx stage to pitch their products or services, plug their books, or ask for funding. While entrepreneurs and business leaders can speak at TEDx events, their talk should be driven by an idea and not sell from the stage. A TEDx event is not a platform for professional or circuit speakers, such as motivational speakers and professional life coaches — it’s a fine line between shameless self-promotion and wholesome self-reporting so, as a rule of thumb, if it feels like an advertisement, it probably is.”
You will find similar warning under section ‘3. Make an outline and script’ of the TEDx Speaker Guide
“Avoid ending with a pitch (such as soliciting funds, showing a book cover, using corporate logos).”
As I have your attention let me tell you two more mistakes people do, as they relate to telling stories on TEDx stage:
❌ The second big mistake people do when they tell their stories is using stats that are not checked
In the section ‘2. Develop an idea’ TEDx Speaker Guide you will read:
“.. so whatever you say in your talk, please fact-check — especially facts you may take for granted: statistics, historical anecdotes, scientific stats. If you’re drawing an example from a discipline that is not your main area of knowledge, use research from widely accepted and peer-reviewed sources, and, if at all possible, consult with experts directly.”
❌ The third mistake I’ve seen as well is actually made by TEDx organisers, asking speakers to include stats only if they’ve been published in medical journals. The last section of the TEDx Content Guidelines is the TEDx Fact-Checking Guide and there is no such rule mentioned there.
So where is the fine line?
It would be a complete advertisement and against the TEDx rules if you get on stage and say something like:
- My book “ABC” is now available on Amazon, go and buy one
- I found my company “XYZ” in 2020, go and check our website on www. xyz . com
- Find out what I do on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook (or any names of social media platforms)
If in the middle of you story you say something like
“In chapter 3 of my book “ABC” I explain the third step of the A.B.C. method and that is “C” for Clarity. Today I want to tell you about it, as it changed so many people’s lives..”
Now does that sounds like an ad and self-promotion or as part of your story?
I totally made up the above example but I hope you see the difference.
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Sending you love and energy!
Yours,
Bilyana
#TEDxtips #TEDx #personalbranding
