Planting your “Idea Seed”

There is nothing more cringeworthy than sitting through a boring presentation. As a presenter and public speaker, it is your job to keep the interest of your audience so they don’t fall asleep on you mid presentation. Although this is a particularly hard thing to do, if you can beat your anxiety of standing in front of people and speaking, it is time to take the next steps by figuring out how to grab the attention of the room

I did some exploring on the TED website and came across a short video of Chris Anderson, a well-respected English Writer. In the video, “TED’s secret to public speaking”, Chris gave one tip to all the aspiring public speakers like myself that really hit home…

“Your number one task as a speaker is to transfer into your listeners’ mind an extraordinary gift — a strange a beautiful object that we call an idea.”

Chris goes on to explain the process that goes into transferring this idea. He breaks it down like this: You have this idea that you feel strongly about and you want to share it with the world (or a few people). As a speaker, by planting this idea into the minds of your audience there is a certain point in time where everyone is attempting to wrap their head around the same idea. Everyone has this “idea seed” that you put there.

All you need to do is be able to communicate one simple idea, and plant it inside the head of your audience. You want them to leave the classroom or the meeting room or wherever you are giving your presentation talking about what you said. If you accomplish that, your presentation was golden.

References:

Anderson, C. (2016). TED’s secret to great public speaking. Retrieved March 02, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_teds_secret_to_great_public_speaking