I Gave My First TEDx Talk And This Is What I Learned

I recently gave my very first TEDx Talk and here are a few things that I learned from the experience that might help you prepare for your big talk. I frame them in the form of questions to help as you prepare and execute your talk

Am I Prepared?

• In the process of preparing, I recorded entire talk and listened to it over and over. As I listened to corrected my errors and perfected my talk

What’s my message?

• What’s that one thing that you want people go home with saying: “I’m glad I was there!” Without it, your talk is nothing but fluff

Does my talk provoke an implicit question?

• If it does not, chances are your topic isn’t relevant and simple enough. Your goal should be to share your concept in a way that it’s easy to understand and at the same time triggers some implicit questions that you might want to answer explicitly (I did this at 10:53 in my talk). This engages the audience even more and gets them to realize that you’re thinking what they’re thinking.

Do I have a Plan B?

• At one point in my talk the PPT went off. I wasn’t perturbed by it. I carried on because during my preps, I made sure that I was able to function without technology or other dependencies.

Am I Crisp?

• Being crisp is perhaps the most important part of your talk. You need to respect your audience’s time and attention. In my case TED offered me 18 minutes, my goal was to finish in less that that for sure!

While I hope my learning helps you in giving better talks there’s nothing quite like getting out there and giving one yourself! So don’t wait, find yourself and opportunity and go give your first TEDx Talk — The world wants to hear what you have to say.. But you have to believe that first!