#355: The Secrets To MASTERING The TEDx Talk with Ashley Stahl TEDx Talk Booker & Speechwriter, Bestselling Author, Career Fulfillment Coach, & Top 100 TEDx speaker

So the question that I have for anybody listening right now is how can you create something that is your soul's best and how can you put it in one place that is going to keep getting eyeballs?

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Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to be with our guest this week. If you've been riding with me for a while, you've actually met before a couple years ago because this is her second time on and I very rarely have repeat guests on, but this is important. Today we're hitting you with a very important message. But I want to first talk about and introduce Ashley Stahl. She's a counter terrorism professional turned career and public speaking coach, podcast host and international best selling authority, passionate about helping others make what she likes to call a U turn where they discover their true selves, attune to their intuition and unlock greater clarity and fulfillment. With more than 8 million views, her TED talk is ranked amongst the top 100 TED talks on the Internet. And her self development show, the U turn podcast is ranked amongst the top 100 mental health shows in the U.S. her private coaching has also helped more than 40 storytellers book a spot on the TEDx stage and and she's also coached them on writing their speech. Her message is this, don't do what you love, do what you are. Ashley, thank you so much for being here today. Yay.

Thank you for having me back.

It's so exciting. All right, so let's dive in. First of all, I've been getting so many questions about public speaking and how to get into public speaking. And as we've talked about a lot offline for both of us, a lot of these doors have opened because of our personal brand. So I was hoping that you could walk everybody listening through. How was it that you got started? Like, yeah, we can see all the 8 million views of your TED talk and bestselling author now, but how do they even begin? Whether they want to take the biggest stages in the world or they just want to start finding a relationship and owning a personal brand.

What I love about personal branding is that as someone who has a lot of masculine energy, like I can go do and execute all fricking day long, like I am so capable and I feel like you have the capability to tune into that too. We've got podcasts, we've got blogs, we've got, we've got, we've got. But I think a lot of people don't realize that if you really want to hold the keys to more peace in your career, it comes through a personal brand. And here's why. Yes, you need to build it, but once you build it, it invites this feminine energy into your career. Because what happens is when you put yourself out there, you put yourself in front of so many different people's eyeballs that they are thinking about you for opportunities that you may have never consider. So you move from pushing and creating to attracting and inviting and allowing other people to think of things for you. So for me, speaking, I just thought to myself the first two years of my business, which was like 15 years ago, I'm just going to put content out there. I'm just going to be focusing on making myself credible so that I have a brand to stand on. So that when the right opportunities come and they're scared to invest in me, they're going to see all my credibility on the Internet. So for the first two years of my business, I wanted to make money, but more than that, I wanted to build something lasting. I feel like, especially during like the mid 2015ish era with Facebook ads, we kind of went through like a get rich quick time where it was like, get clients overnight, get rich overnight. And there's a saying in Japanese culture. I just had interviewed someone on my podcast from Japan, and he was talking about how there's this saying that fast money has fast feet. Like, it walks away quickly if it comes in quickly. And so I've had really slow feet with building something sustainable. So that's the first thought. As far as speaking more goes, you want to build credibility. You want to have a speaking reel. So, you know, a lot of people will think, like, how do I get a speaking reel? I would say first thing is, well, how can you book a talk for free? How can you reach out to a university, a nonprofit, go to meetup.com or eventbrite and find organizations that need speakers. You know, offer your expertise on a complimentary basis. And by the way, say, hey, is it okay if we have a videographer that comes and captures this that you can create your own speaking reel? I have a speaking reel on YouTube as an example. People can look at. It's, you know, around three minutes. But I would recommend people not going much past 90 seconds. I'm a little bit long and showing all of your press, showing all of your credibility. And when I talk about That I think about how the Internet is like a bunch of different islands. Like, I have 700 blog posts on Forbes. That's an island. Right? And I've been at it for a decade. I have my podcast, that's an island. I have my book, that's an island. I have YouTube. And you and I, Heather, we've been creating islands for years. And I think a lot of people look at that and think, oh, my gosh, how am I going to do all this? Well, each one took me a year or two. So you build slowly over time.

The key is to get started. And you make such a good point, because I look at. You've been at this longer than I have, and I always get so jealous. I'm like, oh, shoot, why didn't I start, you know, 10 years before I did, five years before I did? And for anyone who's feeling that way right now, which I'm sure some of you are, just start today. Start now. I'm so grateful I got fired because that gave me the push to say, wait, I need to start investing in me. I need to start holding the pen, telling the story of my life instead of letting everybody else write it for me. So what are some of the steps that somebody can actively take today to get the ball rolling? Like, what small steps can they take?

Yeah, I love this question because it's so actionable. Okay. After writing 40 TED talks and booking 39 of those on stage last year, I can safely say TED is the super highway to personal branding. Whether you want a speaking career, whether you want to sell books, whether you just want to position yourself in your corporate career. So we can get into that. But initially, obviously, you don't start at the top of the stairwell. You start small. So I would say the first thing is to ask yourself, what is my skill set? I know the first time you had me on the podcast, my book was coming out. We talked about figuring out your zone of genius. I feel like that applies to personal branding because you cannot sustain a personal brand. Like, for example, I don't like being on YouTube. Like, something about the camera and the guy looking at me and being like, talk, and, you know, share your genius. It just stresses me out. I love podcasts. Like, I'm able to be more reflective. I look down. I'm not thinking about who's watching me. I'm more in my mind and in my soul. That's aligned with my core skill set, which is words. So I think the first thing is to ask yourself, what are all the islands on The Internet. We've got Twitter, we've got TikTok. Now we have Threads, we have YouTube podcast, you name it. There are islands. I know I met someone who they were the number one writer on medium. Com. Another person who was the number one writer on quora.com, like, who even knew? These are all islands that you can build a brand on. There's more than we even realize. So I think the first question is, what's your zone of genius? And then the second question is, what are the islands that are associated with that? And even more specifically, what are the islands that your ideal customer tends to visit because you want to meet, not only what your skills are, but where your people are? Like, I know for sure that I'm not going to have the same luck finding people who want me to write and book their TED talk on Instagram as I am on LinkedIn. Like, I'm helping a lot of professionals write their legacy and put that on the TED channel. So for me, even though I could look at something like Facebook or Instagram and say, this is a great place for me to write and share, my people aren't there. So you really need to think about both. Where's your skills? Where's your people? What are the islands? I think from there, you know, blogging is really powerful. So I think that even if you aren't an actual writer, you might want to have some sort of presence online. And my rule when it comes to blogging is, is go wide, don't go deep. Here's what I mean. Instead of giving all your blogs to some sort of platform that has you as a contributing writer, maybe you just want to do a few with them and use it like a snowball. Okay, now you gave them a few. Use those to get another blog that you can hop onto and expose yourself to use those two to get another blog. So there's a couple things to consider with that. The first thing is contributor guidelines. Like, you know, for Forbes, the rule is that you need to be in touch with an editor or a contributor who is paid by Forbes needs to recommend you. So you can't just have a blog post and upload it somewhere. You need to get in touch with somebody. There's other platforms where there's, you know, the contributor guidelines are that they want you to submit a blog post and it's going to go through some sort of process, and they're going to get back to you if they accept you as a writer. So again, even if you're listening and that is not your core skill set. I give a caveat to this one because I think that having your voice imprinted online through a blogs is at least valuable because people can experience you and get the SEO benefit of Googling you. And you become way more googleable when your SEO is on the back of an engine that's already built. Right? That's why Yelp is so powerful. Yelp has such good SEO. If you're a new business owner and you have a Yelp profile, people are going to find you much faster than if you go at it by yourself. So it's the same thing with blogs. Another thing to ask yourself with blogging is, do they own my content? What's the terms? Right, like, so some blogs are going to say it's okay for you to copy and paste that blog post and put it on your LinkedIn or on your personal blog. Other ones are going to say, no, we own this content. And you want to be clear that they don't own your ideas, they just own that piece of content. Right. You don't want to give them your intellectual property. Most platforms won't ask for that. But it's good to know. So I would say first things first. Knowing your zone of genius, knowing where your customers are, knowing the islands, figuring out a match there, and then also considering something more basic, like just getting some blog posts out. I would say like the magic number is like 12 to 15 blogs peppered through the Internet, maybe four or five different platforms holding those and never forgetting that you can blog on your own LinkedIn. That's a really appropriate place for you to position yourself and to engage with people and to add value. We also have tools like ghost writers, like people who are listening right now that are thinking like, that all sounds good, Ashley, but I'm not a writer. That's what ghostwriters are for. I wrote 40 TED talks for people who didn't want to write their own talk. And we booked them because they were great talks. So I feel like people who are listening now, there are people out there that this is their zone of genius. You can find a really talented ghostwriter from 25 to $70 an hour. And they all work at different paces, right? The one for 70 an hour might be able to pump something out in an hour. So it's important for you to maybe get on Craigslist or Upwork or fiverr all of these different websites, find a ghostwriter and ask yourself, what are the top 15 titles of blog posts that you think your ideal customer would be googling in the middle of the night when they're stressed out about whatever the thing is that you can help with. From there, open up ChatGPT if you have access to it and ask it to SEO, optimize your titles or ask it for new titles and from there you can hand your ghostwriter the titles and maybe you have a few bullet points under each title saying here's my three tips. Can you flesh them out and put some research in it? A good ghostwriter can probably write a 500 to 1000 word blog post which is pretty standard size in a couple of hours, especially once they get your flow. And here's another thing about ghostwriters is they take a minute to manage like they take a minute to get you. So don't think that if they're totally off in the first pass, they're going to keep being totally off. They might just need feedback to totally click in with you. So I would say anyone listening today rank right now the online platforms from lowest to highest hanging fruit in your opinion. So for me when I started my brand I knew I wanted to be in Wall Street Journal and ted, but I also knew that that was like high hanging fruit. I needed to create a snowball to get there. So I started with small blogs and then I moved into a career platform that let me blog for them and I wrote a pitch, I wrote an email to the correct so there's so many different things to consider. But I think having a base with blogging, not being afraid to pitch yourself as a free speaker to create your speaking reel, you need to invest in this capital as you lock into where you're going to really build out your first island of your personal brand.

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What's so important about this is that this is an investment you can take wherever you go. So for anyone listening, that's thinking right now. Yeah, but I don't want to work for myself. It doesn' matter. When I was listening to you describe all this Ashley, I was thinking to myself back in my corporate life, it would have benefited me so much more. Forget that Heather's out on her own now. Back then I wanted to stay in corporate America. I had no interest in leaving, but had I been investing in my personal brand earlier on, I would have been attracting talent to me and the company that I was recruiting for.

Right.

I would be attracting opportunities. I would be staying top of mind with people the way that you described. You're still flowing and attracting business to you and allowing the world to get to know you. People do business with people they know like and trust. You're still going to be benefiting. It's such a large scale that you can't even imagine over time. And for some people I know I've seen in the past two years, some people's personal brands have blown up in under a year online. I'm sure you've seen some of that too.

Yeah, yeah. They hit their messaging. Right. I do think that it's about the compounding effect. So I think some people release a blog post and they think like, oh, who's going to read it today? I don't even think think about that. I don't even know when my blog post released. I'm just thinking this is an investment in my island that eventually is going to be more powerful because of the sum of its pieces. Right. So I didn't look at the first five blog posts. Now I look at 700 of them and think to myself, people can't not find me if they're googling personal branding or career coaching. People can't escape me. And it's a compounding effect. It's every single day who's googling these topics? Who's wanting to learn about these? So if you can at least have some of those and each if you don't want to lead with that, you know, you can invest in a ghostwriter to help you write 30 blog posts or 20 blog posts. Find a home for all of those on the Internet. Your lowest to highest hanging fruit. Give a few to one place, use those pitch an editor to get to the next place. Another thing to think about is your pitch. When you email an editor, number one, you need it to be the right editor. Like the fashion editor is not going to care about your politics pitch and they're not going to forward it for you. And also know that no response doesn't mean no. It means not right now. People will remember. And a powerful subject line for your email is to put for and the editor's name comma expert on what kind of expert are you that gets their attention always gets opened and then you just share with them. You know, hey, I saw your writing on this. I'm really inspired by this topic. Here's a little bit about me. Here's a few topics I would love to cover and here's a few sample Titles that I would love to do. And by the way, here is an attached blog post sample that is usable if you want to post it, follow up two weeks later if they haven't used it and say, hey, is this okay for me to submit to another platform? I see that you're not using this. That puts a fire under them. So just being able to pitch, just being able to build anyone listening right now, it's like if you could set a goal to kind of micro step this into motion, right? Like, what are the 15 platforms? Can you figure that out today? Can you rank them in order? What are their guidelines? How do you approach each one? What is your pitch? What are your titles? If you could just set aside time to write that down, where is the ghostwriter that you need? What are your three tips or five tips under each title? Scope it out with the ghostwriter, try and get a flat rate if you can so that you can keep your pricing under control. And then from there, start to pitch these editors and know that life is a numbers game. You know, it's high intention, low attachment, like, keep going. Because there are so many blogs out there, there are so many platforms out there. And once you do that, whether employers Google you, whether prospective customers Google you, they're going to see so much content that is going to provide that value. New customers finding you and that credibility is going to be able to get you those free talks. Those free talks is going to be able to get you that speaking reel. That speaking reel is going to be able to get you the TED Talk and the bigger things. So it's really a compounding effect.

Oh, it's so true and so good. Thank you for saying that. I was at a John Maxwell event last week and James Clear spoke and he was speaking about the importance of the compound effect. And he explained that, you know, we all have the same choices in any given day to spend our time, you know, in one arena or another. He said one of the things that's made him so incredibly successful is that he started noticing years ago that if he did the Today show or a radio show, it was a one and done that would air one time. And it seemed great in the moment, but it was over. And there was no long tail effect to him or his name or his credibility or his business over time. He started noticing for him, he said I was doing podcasts also. The time he said I would start noticing, I'd get notes and DMs. I just heard you on so and so show. Well, he said I had recorded that podcast a year or two years earlier, and they were still delivering new listeners, new readers, and new fans of his work. And that's when he said, I started pivoting away from doing any type of medium or media that was a one and done and only leaning into what you're describing. The same thing with blogs, opportunities that had a long tail effect, a compound effect, he said, and when you start approaching things through that lens, you will see over time that you will have that hockey stick trajectory where instead of, okay, I'm growing a little bit every year, you will hit that tipping point where suddenly you're getting massive results, massive opportunity, because you made those smart decisions earlier on.

Yeah, they're like little micro investments. I think the blog posting and the speaking reel and the free speaking is a foundation to stand on so. So that you can start building a real island. Like, okay, I've got some influence here. People are going to get kicked off the fence about me. People are going to know I'm credible now. I can stand on this and get the big islands that I want, like ted, like a Forbes column, like a magazine column, whatever it is that you want. I love the idea of really differentiating the one and done because it kind of goes back to what we started with, which is masculine versus feminine energy. And for those who aren't familiar with these concepts, it has nothing to do with gender. I think an evolved soul can really walk through both energies. And really what it's about is masculine is pursuit, it's going, it's doing, it's executing. Feminine is receptivity attracting. Intuitive. Right. So I think all of us could use a little more feminine energy in our careers when it comes to the culture of burnout and disengagement that we're in. So the question is, what are those higher hanging fruits that are not one and dones? That's why I love ted. That's why I love podcasting so much. It's legacy work. It lives on longer than you do. So my TED Talk, for example, I remember when I wrote it, and this was after I did all of these groundwork things that we talked about. The blog posting on a higher scale, the speaking reel, the free speech. I mean, I probably spoke for free like a hundred times before I started getting paid a keynote speaker fee. So it depends on what your goals are. But you need to have those assets. If you're in your first six figures of your business, it might make sense for you to get a publicist for a few months. A good publicist can probably run anywhere from 2 to 6K. If you're paying too much more than that, you're probably overpaying per month. So I would say being really intentional so that you can add those media interviews to your speaking reel. Add the credibility, stack it on from there. Here's what I love is, you know, one concept that's really been clear over the years is that we cannot bat a hundred, 100% of the time. And what I mean by that is we cannot, we truly cannot say to ourselves, everything we ever create is an A, because who we are as humans are living, breathing, changing organisms. Things happen in cadence. And so if you're creating something in your career right now, putting the pressure on yourself to be 100% every single time, that's not real. When I look at my career, I give myself like a 92, 93 on most podcasts I go on. I'm like a strong a. I'm probably 120%. For somebody who's not an expert in what I'm an expert on. I don't put the pressure on myself to be perfect and to be my best. There are two things in my career that I've told myself. I'm batting a hundred. I'm pouring everything into this because it's not sustainable to live like that. The first thing was my book. I was like, this is going to be magic. I'm only putting my soul into this. And I'm investing money and time and there's research, by the way, that things you invest money into, you get better results, right? Like, it just shows more commitment. I put everything into those. My TED Talk, I was like, this is going to be my best work. And I remember having this moment where I felt like, wow, this. I've given two talks. The first one, I'd never been on a stage in my life, so it was probably like a B minus, B plus at its best. But I'm proud of it because I got on stage after Guy Kawasaki and all these seasoned speakers and had no idea how to speak. My recent one, in 2019, was my better work. I batted a hundred. I cleared my schedule for three months. And I told myself, all I care about for these next three months is writing the best TED Talk and giving the best TED Talk of my life. And I knew it would go viral. And then it released on the Internet and nobody watched it. It literally died for like six months. And I did everything. I had all of our friends sharing it. Nobody would watch it. And then one day, just like I knew it would, it Started going crazy viral. And since then it's been 10,000 people watching it every single day. So the question that I have for anybody listening right now is how can you create something that is your soul's best and how can you put it in one place that is going to keep getting eyeballs? I have not found one place more powerful for me than the TEDx channel. And you know, as far as the brand goes, there's Ted and Tedx. Both of them have around 40 million people following them on YouTube. Meaning those subscribers get a notification when a new talk is released. Meaning you have a shot in front of 40 million different subscribers that you wouldn't have had. And the traction, the life of its own that that can take is so powerful. And I always tell clients when I'm writing their TED talks that going viral, it's actually quite simple. It might not be easy, but it's simple. You simply write the best thing you've ever written in your life. And that's why I've been so excited to be able to help people with this, because I see people who are so burnt out and I'm like, okay, this is going to take some work, but once you do it, it's going to keep paying you back. So now every day I have 10,000 people thinking about things and opportunities and ideas for me that I never would have had. It's translated into me getting spokesperson contracts. I've been spokesperson for SoFi for four years and I love them so much. I feel like it's translated into me getting book deals, multiple bidders, it's just the amount of things, new book buyers. And there's a couple things consider. Number one is your title and again, ChatGPT can help you with that. And number two is just look at what's trending right now. If you look at the top 100 talks, the ones that have been up there for like 12 years, those might not be a reflection of what's trending. Those have gone viral and they're continuing to compound. The ones that are trending are going viral fast. Those are the ones you want to look at. And I've noticed that most of the most viral TED talks are relating to self development, to self improvement. So it's a really good time to be a healer, to be a speaker, to be a communicator. I mean, I could go on forever. But I'll leave you there.

Where were you before I gave my talk? I mean, were you so nervous for your talk when you got on stage? Because I will tell you Ashley, I, that was the most nervous I've ever been for any talk in my life.

I know the first one I gave, I told people like 49. Worst thing I've ever done. 51% best thing I've ever done. You know, clients that come in, there's a couple tips that I have for anyone listening. So whether they ever come to me to write a TED Talk and book it or not, they can do this. One thing is TED Talks range from 10 to 19 minutes most of the time. Why would we write a 19 minute TED Talk when we can write a 10 minute TED Talk? Why would we put that kind of workload on ourself? That's double the amount of time you need to memorize a 10 minute TED talk is three pages typed in Times New Roman 12. Three pages. And it's not typed like a book. There's space because it's a speech, right? So even if it's not double spaced, you're getting plenty of spacing there. So all you gotta really do is memorize three pages. And TED Talks usually run about three to six months out. So even if you book a spot in one which we have booked, 97% of our people have gotten booked on stage. We tell them like, it's going to take a couple months for us to go back and forth and write your speech. Then it's going to take a couple of months for us to book you on stage. Then you usually are running three to six months out. Those three months I always tell people give like five hours a week to memorizing your talk. So that when you get on stage, it's like the test day that you studied for. It's no big deal, there's nothing else you could do. It's almost like you're just doing it again in your kitchen, except you're on a red dot and a bunch of people are there. And yes, that's nerve wracking. But this is the thing, if you don't practice enough, your nervous system is going to take you over. And that's why you want the words to be in the cells of your body as you're giving that talk.

Oh, it's so true. One of the things that helped me, I was like you, I practiced for months. It's interesting though, now hearing you talk about it, there is value to doing a TED Talk multiple times because I'm sure you were more confident taking the stage the second time because you had seen the movie before, you had done it before. So that's interesting to me. I really never thought about giving another one. But now that I'm hearing you talk about, I'm like, oh, shoot, maybe I need to do another one now. And P.S. it took me a year and a half to land my TED Talk. Where were you again before? I wish I had known that I needed to hire you because I could have turned it around so much faster. So people listen. There's always a hack, there's always a way. Because everyone's always wondering, like, how did a person get that stage so fast? They knew the right person to call. They knew the Ashley in that arena, right? You just haven't connected the dots yet. You haven't found that right person. Ashley is the right person if you want to give a TEDx talk. So knowing that, one of the things that helped me, I'm a very visual learner. So, like you, I wrote it out, right? And actually, you know, that helps me remember things. I read it and reread it. I filmed myself. I had somebody else film me. I practiced ad nauseam. I visualize. I mean, I did the whole thing. I went to the venue ahead of time so that I could actually put myself there and see myself. Like, I went all in. But one of the things that helped me most because I'm so visual as a learner is I took. There was like seven big moments in my TEDx talk. And I tied an actual stance, a physical stance that I would take, you know, during. It's called anchoring, to help me remember where I am in the talk. The power of the word that I'm saying, the pause, whatever it was that I felt was important, you know, for that moment. So I would anchor a movement to a word. And then I took those big seven moments and I put them up on poster boards all around my condo. I looked like a total psycho. My son told me I was crazy. And for a month, I had those big power moments written out on poster board so I could just be doing laundry in my house. And I'm walking down the hall and I see one of them and I remember, what is the anchor moment? How am I standing when I'm saying that? Oh, gosh, that's such a power. Those power moments were in my face everywhere. So this is above and beyond me, just practicing and rehearsing. This is just through my life. It was like organically in my face. And that was a really helpful tool for me. Did you ever do something like that?

Yeah, that's the thing is once we book people on the TED stage, we work on delivery. So people Will fly out and practice in front of me. Anchoring is huge. I love that you talked about that. Another thing to pay attention to is pauses. You kind of touched on that. One of the first things I do after we book somebody on stage is we go through their script and we put together. Put slashes in the script of where they need to pause. They speak it out loud. They pause. The way I learned speaking was through Obama administration. I used to work for him at the Department of Defense. But it was interesting because, you know, he was an incredible speaker. Whatever your politics are, we could agree he had pretty good influence with his speaking.

Yes.

And the way that he formulated his talks has really guided the way that I write TED talks. So for people listening, there's a couple of things. Number one is the structure. We talked about, like, maybe 10 minutes or 12 minutes. That's three to four pages. You know that. I would say if that's your structure, your opening is going to be like three quarters of the first page. The goal of the opening is to really grab attention. It doesn't always have to do with your exact topic. So you want to ask yourself, what are one of the most poignant, special, interesting, powerful moments of your life? Really taking the person sitting in the chair into that moment. I'm writing a TED Talk right now for someone who became an orphan at a really young age. And when she came to me, she was talking about all these different moments that she lost, different family members and the story of that. But what moment really struck me was the moment the last one died and she realized she's on her own. And so that was the moment we opened up with. And so I think it's really important to not always think about the big stories, but think about moments that you can take people into. What is the one moment? What is that pivotal moment? Her talk is going to be on leadership. So in the moment she became an orphan was also the moment she became a leader. So it's like really writing these things. Another thing is, in 10 minutes, 12 minutes, you really can't have more than two to three points. And so those can be action steps, mind shifts, questions, insights. But you don't want it to be too crowded. So once you look at a few pages and 3/4 of it is the opener with this powerful moment, you're looking at, you know, maybe one page per point, you know, three quarters of a page per point, and you're done. So it's really not as much of an undertaking. Writing a talk, I think being inspirational, being original, having Sound bites that people really hear is really potent. And one thing that most people forget is we're so busy being subject matter experts saying, like, how do we give the best content? We forget, well, this is a platform that wants an idea worth spreading. So in the same way, when I wrote my book, the idea was, don't do what you love, do what you are. That was my argument of my book. How do you figure out who you are in your career? Don't follow your passion. You need to have a message. So, for example, one of the TED clients that I'm working with right now, she didn't have a message. So sometimes as a speechwriter, I work with my booker to think about, well, what is a good message for this person. So for her, her talk was also about leadership. So the message is, when you're a leader, people don't work for you, you work for them. That's the message. So then we thought about, how do we point that out in these steps throughout the talk. So to me, it's about not only having your content structure and having your sound bites and having your delivery tools, but really being clear on what your message is. And I think when you have all of that, you're in a really good position to get booked. And the thing about that is it's a chicken or egg thing. Like, who wants to write a TED Talk if you're not booked? But why would the TED curators want to book you if they don't know what you're going to say? We have this one and done offer where it's like, we're going to write it and book it for you because, you know, the reason we've had a, I think good success rate is just because the talks are good. And the bookers, you have to remember they're TED curators. They work for different places that have a TED license and they get exposure. Right. My most recent TED Talk was at a university in the Netherlands, and that university has gotten more enrollments because of the TED Talk going so viral. So it's like these places want incredible speeches because it gives them press. So there's so many different dynamics to consider.

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It's so interesting because I coach a number of different people around speaking, not around TEDx talks and not around TED talks the way that you do, but just speaking in general. And it was funny. I was on a zoom coaching call the other day with one of my clients and she'd asked the question, Heather, I want to look at the best speakers in the world and see what they have in common. You're going to love this, Ashley. And no, you're not going to be. So we were looking at, you know, the top 10 in her competitive arena, right? Because everybody's got a different arena that they're in, whether it's leadership, motivation, you know, whatever it is that you're doing in business or life, whatever. So we were going down her rabbit hole for her competitors. And wouldn't you know, the first thing from an SEO standpoint when you would Google each of their names was either their TEDx talk or their TED Talk every single time. So much so that. And this was when I said hang on because now it was so clear she needs, she has to have a TEDx talk or a TED Talk if she wants to be. If this is your goal, if you want to get to this level, this is the one thing I see from a commonality standpoint that's a differentiator. It's I don't care if you're just checking the box, but it's driving the SEO. Like if you want to be at this level, you have to check this box. So I said hang on a second, I'm gonna do mine now. And I type my name in. Wouldn't you know the first thing that showed up when you Google Heather Monahan is my TED Talk. And it was just an eye opening moment to say wow, that is the through thread. And again, listen, I'M sure there's other people have other goals out there and you don't need one, and that's great for you. But if you really want to make it in speaking, this is something that it is worth investing your time, energy, effort and resources in. And now that you have the hack that you know you can reach out to Ashley directly. Not only will she write the talk for you and listen, only take direction from somebody who's been where you are going. This woman has been there. Her ted talk has 8 million views. Right. She's done it. She's got the recipe. She worked for Obama. I mean, come on. People like this woman knows how to craft a great speech. Okay? She's learned from the master. She is a master. So not only will she write it for you, but then she'll get you booked and your booking percentage, success rate is 97%.

97.6%. Yeah.

That is unheard of.

Yeah. You know what? I think that we've been really intentional about who we're helping. And what's so cool about the TED platform is it's a democracy. It's not about who you are, it's about what your story and your message is. And that's what our goal is when we start working with somebody is, what is that? How do we take your life and put it into a legacy? 12 minutes. And how do we get that booked for the right event? Our Booker is a TEDx curator that. We have a Rolodex of TEDx curators now. And they just love our talks and they're not doing us any favors. It's just that they're good talks and that's beneficial for their event. So I think for anyone listening, it's like really taking a look at these steps as like a means, not to an end, but to a process. You create those blog posts, you create those different elements of your brand, whether it's a speaking reel, these are all to fold into these bigger opportunities. And once you get the bigger things like the Teds or the Forbes columns or the Wall Street Journal or whatever it is that you're yearning for, Today show, whatever have you. And that's the thing, even with tv, you need to do local media before bookers will take you for national media. I'm not going to get on Good Morning America or Today show unless I've been on Good morning LA, good morning Washington D.C. good day Baltimore, whatever it is. So you want to kind of create these little lily pads to leap you over to the big thing. And once you get to the big thing. You give it your all, you give it your best because it's going to be there forever. And when you do that, you have other islands that you're intentionally building on, right? So maybe you decide to build on Instagram. Well, now your TED Talk is going to bleed over to your Instagram, it's going to bleed over to your podcast, whatever it is that you decide you want to build from there. But I think being really intentional and strategic about what you're doing, you know, at its best, personal branding is honoring yourself. And at its worst, it's a delusion. It's like inventing Anna, Anna Delvey and you know, the Tinder swindler and people who do giveaways to the point where like no real people are following them on Instagram. Like, at its worst, personal branding is delusional, but at its best, it's the most self respecting thing you could do for your career.

Oh, and you know what? For everyone listening, it doesn't just have to be someone who is working for themselves, just doing this or that. I have a client that owns a very large technology company and very successful business and he has an amazing give back program through his company that he's very proud of and works a lot with jails. And he's very into giving back. And he decided, he said, I have a message worth spreading, which is I want to let other business owners know you don't have to hoard all your money. In fact, you'll be happier, you'll make the world a better place, you'll feel better about who you are and you'll attract more opportunity to you if you start giving back. He said, and I think the way that I want to do it is I want to do it through a TEDx talk. And I thought that was so interesting. When I tell you this man put the work and invested in himself, you know, made the commitment to do this, spent his time, money, energy, effort and resources, delivered an incredible TEDx talk. And the feedback that he's gotten, he only did it a couple of months ago. The opportunities that have presented themselves, but was such a great business decision, not only a great life decision to help others and share this amazing concept and idea and pay back. But he's attracted more business opportunities to him and partnerships and things he could have never fathomed as a result of taking that TEDx stage. So I think that you can't imagine the TEDx is what landed me on Dr. Phil randomly. Two years later, someone Dr. Phil's team saw it and called me and said, we loved your TedX talk. We'd love to have you on the show. Which gave me other opportunities when I was in la. You never know what that domino effect will actually result in, but what it will do is bring forth your idea, your light to potentially millions of people to live on forever for that compound effect. So, Ashley, who are the people that should be reaching out to you about this?

I think it's someone who feels like either they have a story, they have a message, they want to take their career further and they know that if they use their voice that they can really make an impact and they just need help making it happen. They need help getting the speech right and getting it booked on stage. If you're an entrepreneur, you want book deals, you want speaking deals, get more credibility. That's an obvious slam dunk. If you're a corporate and you're looking to take it to the next level in your career, I would say this is a really good move. And you know, I want to offer anyone listening. If you reach out within a few weeks of this episode releasing, I want to offer you all $2,000 off. All you have to do is mention Heather's podcast. Best to get it. So the form is over@ashleystahl.com talk. It's a S H L E Y S T a h l.com talk and just fill it out. Let me know you found me with Heather and I'll be able to help you assess if it's good for you. We really try to take the right people on so that we keep our booking rate high.

I will put Ashley's link in the show notes below. Make sure to mention my name or that you heard it on the Creating Confidence podcast. And you're going to get $2,000 for off Ashley's program. She's writing the talk for you, she's booking the talk for you, and she's at a 97.6% closing rate on getting this done. If you want a TEDx talk, Ashley is the key to making it happen and making it happen with massive results. Ashley, thank you so much. I wish I had met you before 2019 so I didn't have to work a year and a half to frigging stumble around to figure it out. But I'm grateful that we get to share this secret with everybody so that they can bring their idea we're sharing for forward.

Thank you so much for letting me share this with your community. I don't think there's a way that I could be helpful to people in their career more. So it really means a lot.

All right, guys, check out Ashley. I'm putting the link in the show notes below. Go apply. Get your idea in front of millions of eyeballs and start changing the world. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. You know I will be. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.