How to survive your first TEDx talk

[Applause]

a couple of years ago i received an

invitation from a business client

i’m working as a trainer for franklin

covey maybe you heard of the founder

stephen r covey he’s the author of the

book

the seven habits of highly effective

people

who’s familiar with that book oh wow

you can imagine that it’s a privilege

for me to

help people in organizations with their

personal and leadership development

but this time they did not ask me to do

a training

with 12 people they asked me to deliver

in a keynote at an annual meeting

at 800 of their employees

at first it seemed like a good idea

sharing our knowledge

to so many but looking back now

everything that could go wrong

went terribly wrong first of all what do

you do when you need to prep for a

presentation

yes i opened up powerpoint

we’ve all been there right never ending

presentations

slides full of information the

well-known

death by powerpoint well i stepped in

the same pitfall

creating 84 slides for a 40-minute

presentation

like what’s 84 slides but back then it

seemed like a good idea

using it as a cheat sheet while doing

the presentation

and even though i asked to put some

front screens

at the front of the stage when i arrived

at the venue there weren’t any front

stage screens

instead in order for me to see the

slides i need to turn my back to the

audience

and look to the backdrop

while i was waking waiting backstage all

of a sudden a

nerf wrecking anxiety popped up

believe me i tried multiple things i

tried walking around

i tried listening to some music i tried

even some meditation but that did not

help at all

my nerves took over control

i remember it was so hot backstage that

i wanted to undress my jacket but

i had these big circles of sweat so i

couldn’t

oh minutes felt like hours and i

thoroughly wished i had this magical

cloak from harry potter

so i could disappear

if it not could get any worse five

minutes before the presentation started

the producer came to me and said glenn

we’ve got a problem due to some delay in

previous presentations we have a time

schedule problem

and you’re the last speaker and

afterwards we’re going to dinner

but dinner cannot wait so could you do

your 40-minute talk into

20 minutes what 20 minutes i did not

prepare for that and

what about those 84 slides i can’t

change them around anymore

and and two minutes later he stands next

to me again saying glenn are you ready

now

let’s go and i can remember

i was walking near the stage and already

heard the presenter sharing my name

all of a sudden i thought i was getting

sick and while i moved through the

curtains and i saw this

big room with 800 people

i i

would you like to know how the story

ends yes

yes well maybe i will come back to that

at the end of this talk

but what i want to bring across right

now is that that specific day

opened up my eyes all of the sudden i

saw

everywhere people stressing

for the fear of public speaking

colleagues

with never ending presentations i saw

salesmen

that became billboards full of

information and an executive

that does not know how to bring his

vision

across stage in today’s world

the attention span of an adult is

depleting rapidly

and the inability to engage

or persuade an audience is one of the

biggest hidden costs

so i was thinking how are the best

public speakers of the netherlands

coping with this do they have a

fear for public speaking could we learn

from them

but if i would just send them a personal

message or

call them i believe the chances were

very low that they would spend an

afternoon

or evening with me so that’s where the

idea was born

what if i could create a professional

podcast

a podcast where we would crush the fear

of public speaking and learn how to

speak with more impact

maybe then they would say yes and

fortunately

almost everyone i asked said yes to the

proposal

and in the past one and a half year i

interviewed over 50 experts in the

fields of public speaking

you know the good news it’s a learnable

skill

everyone has the potential to inspire

and engage in audience just like a good

movie

and you know what all the great speakers

have in common

they practice the skill of connection

and they connect

on three different levels they connect

with themselves

they connect with the audience and they

connect with their message

and after this talk you will know how to

connect on these three levels

so your presentations will be more easy

more fun

and more interesting let’s start with

that first one

how to connect with yourself because the

most difficult thing

communicating on stage is not with the

audience

it’s with that internal voice in your

head

that internal voice in your head that’s

saying

i’m not good enough

i’m not smart enough

i’m definitely not pretty enough

i’m not good enough you have these

voices

i have these voices as well right here

right now

we have a saying where focus goes energy

flows

so if i would focus on that voice right

now then

yes yes i can hear it he’s like shouting

glenn here you’re standing on the stage

again

and now i see you looking at me don’t

look at me what did i wanted to say

glenn don’t don’t don’t black out don’t

don’t black out oh no no this is a bad

suggestion

no no don’t black out don’t say

that

where focus goes energy flows right so

if i would focus on that voice then

probably the bad suggestion would become

a self-fulfilling prophecy

so what should we do with that voice

then

bad presentation work workshops say that

we need to get rid of that voice

dear friends i think we’re not able to

a best practice for a lot of speakers is

try to become

friends with that voice not neglect it

but try to accept it hey

voice i hear you and it’s

okay

you will experience the feeling of

relaxation

from the moment we try to accept that

internal voice

but if we neglect it or even worse try

to push it away it

becomes this skippy ball that pops up

eventually

probably at the moment we don’t want it

to

so let’s shake hands with that voice and

say hey voice

good that you’re here but there’s your

chair thank you very much

i interviewed paschal of ahutum and

pachella vagutem is a

persuasion expert he did a lot of

research in order

how to be persuasive you know

relaxation is the number one skill

in order to be persuasive but what we

see around us

is that people stress out and they step

in these pitfalls

these primitive reactions such as fight

flight or freeze

together let’s take a deep breath in

relax and let’s slow down in order to

speed up

and that brings us to the second level

of connection

how to connect with the audience

and that’s where a lot of people get the

fear of public speaking right they don’t

feel that anxiety when they talk

one-on-one

but in a group and experts ghost wolkens

and janet berghardt

share with me it’s all about connection

as well

and they study public speaking through

the lens of relational presence

which basically means the ability to

connect

with one person at a time

and this really feels like an open door

what about one person at a time

but don’t misunderstand me common

knowledge is

often not common practice if i would

only need to connect with one person at

a time

that means that it doesn’t matter if i’m

with one with 10

with hundreds or 800 people

and the first time i met goes in yanet i

realized that they were connecting with

me in a different way

i felt an openness and curiosity

and feeling of equality

a mutual respect it was quite refreshing

actually

when i practiced this the ability to

connect with

one person at a time the results were

quite magical

because i realized it’s also in a way

of non-verbal listening and i thought

that if we look to our daily life

normally we don’t listen in order to

bring the best in ourselves or each

other

we listen with the intent to reply

we listen from our own frame of

reference

we we listen because probably we neglect

that little voice in our heads that

wants to be heard

you know what’s the best thing about

this skill

we have these things in our head that’s

called mirror neurons

which means that i if i thoroughly

connect with one person at a time

the rest of the audience will feel that

as well

and that’s what i want you to remember

connect with one

but engage with everyone

okay i i realized that we did not share

anything yet

right but but we did two very important

things we

we connected with ourselves and we

connected

with the audience but how can we connect

to our message then

what does it mean to connect with your

message well it means that you

really believe what you’re sharing and

you’re sharing it

with passion and purpose i really love

this quote

people don’t care how much you know

until they know how much you care

and if i can be very honest with you

preparing this specific that talk was

quite a struggle for me

because i was thinking about that theme

question of

tonight what really drives you

what really drives me that’s a difficult

question to answer right

but i think taking some time to

thoroughly

find your own answer or doing some soul

searching really can help to elevate

the power in your message because if you

don’t know

what’s really important then everything

seems important right

you know what all great speakers such as

kremko classes josh burgess john von

setter or yitzke kramer have in common

they transform information into

stories all great speakers

are great storytellers

remember that time back in the days when

we were a kid

and our mom and dad shared the bedtime

story

we were hypnotized and while we leaned

forward we really wanted to know how the

story ends

well interesting enough the way we like

to get informed and persuaded

is not very differently now in grown-ups

so what is a story then right

well every story has either a conflict

or a challenge remember frodo beckons

who becomes ring barrier and needs to

destroy the ring and mount doom

right or luke skywalker who wants to

become a jedi knight

or romeo falls in love with gilead

all stories have a conflict or a

challenge

so if you want to persuade your audience

share your struggles share your pain

challenge yourself to be vulnerable

shall we get back to that cliffhanger

while i walked near the stage i could

hear the presenter already sharing my

name

and i thought i was getting sick and

while i moved through the curtains and i

saw this big room

with 800 people i

i i blacked out

i did not have any clue what i wanted to

share why i wanted it to share it

it really felt horrible it felt

basically like

dying on stage but

i realized now looking back the mistakes

i made

the first mistake i made is that i did

not connect thoroughly with my message

i start prepping my my presentation in

powerpoint

don’t get me wrong powerpoint can be a

very strong tool

but inspiration isn’t born in powerpoint

emotional engagement is not founded in

powerpoint

speaking from the heart does

the second mistake i made is that i did

not connect with myself i was

forcing against the nurse instead of

accepting them and adding those two

mistakes

i did not connect with the honeys as

well i i placed a dot

in the end of the room and i was

focusing

on that dot so i would not die

and probably you feel that i’m doing

this right now that i’m not

really connecting with all of you and

that’s true

because i’m not connecting at all

it sounds really like a silly metaphor

right that if i want to search something

in google i need to go online

first if i don’t have any connection i

don’t get any results well

we people work the same

so go online first

go online because the power

lies in connecting in three different

levels

connect with yourself connect with the

audience

and connect with your message

but i’m happy that i made these mistakes

because these mistakes give me the

energy that i really wanted to learn

about this topic about public speaking

and and those mistakes led to the

podcast and the podcast

led to meeting more than 50 brilliant

experts

and those interviews led to my final

test

delivering this ted talk in front of you

right now i really

thoroughly believe that we all have a

story worth telling

we all have an idea where it’s spreading

and i realize now that it’s my drive

to help and inspire others finding their

own voice

and even if you don’t give presentations

in your professional life

that doesn’t matter see this as a

metaphor for conversations you have

every day

the story you tell at a dinner table

the information you share at a

conference call

that important lesson you want to share

to someone important

or as simply as saying to your husband

or wife

i love you thank you