The Top lessons Learned From Giving My First TEDx talk!

All right, then. Hi, everybody. Oh, I don't know why when I start that it goes upside down, but here we are. Welcome. I'm Kathy Caprino. Welcome. How's that? Is that working? There we go. Welcome to my Facebook Live. Breathe up Tuesday. I hope you're doing well today. It's a gloriously sunny day. Beautiful fall here in Connecticut, which I'm loving, although it's a little chilly. Anyway, I hope you're doing great, too. Hope your fall has been wonderful and happy November 1st. Hope Halloween was fun. I raced out of the house and went to a movie. The Girl on the Train. Loved it. All right, I am really keen to talk to you today about an experience I had Friday, which was, to me, a dream come true. It was my first TEDx talk for TEDx Centennial park women in Atlanta. There was so much I learned from this experience, so much I gained that I feel so fortunate to have gained. And also I saw, you know, with every triumph, there are valleys and pitfalls and blind spots. And I want to share all those, you know, what I really learned about myself, about being a thought leader, about being a presenter, about being in a community of amazing women who inspire you. And I just want to share it all with you. And I'm also hoping that what I'm going to share is helpful to people who want to do their own TED Talks and also people who have big dreams if they're in the thought leadership community. Maybe it's they want to write a book and they're desperate to move forward on that, or. Or they want to launch their coach and they want to launch a course or a consultant or a service provider, and they really want to launch a course delivering content. I'm hoping that all of these lessons will be useful to you. But again, I am going to focus on the TEDx experience. So again, type your questions. I hope you'll join me live and ask any questions you have. So I want to tell you a little bit about my love relationship with ted. Ted, TED Talks. So I think I started really immersing myself in the TED Talks. And if you don't know what those are, go to ted.com ted I believe it stands for Technology, Engineering and Design. I ought to know that. But when I first learned about them, I think maybe three or four years ago, I flipped my lid because to me, this was the place where it was like a life university. And I literally, you know, I spend my time in funny ways. But to me, a hobby is. Or the most fun leisure time is watching these TED Talks, because on ted, these are the most illustrious figures and speakers and thinkers and scientists and teachers and writers in the world. And what they're sharing truly can change everything. It can change your life, it can change how you're operating in the world, it can change how you're running a business. This is life changing content, but also it's incredibly entertaining and engaging and compelling. So hours could go by just watching. And then we saw the springing up of independent events and organizations. TEDx. That's what X means. And there's thousands and thousands of them all over the world. And what's wonderful to me about those is maybe the profile of the individual speakers isn't perhaps as high as the national conference ted, but what it shows you is everyday people, people in your community have messages to share that will change your life, will inspire you and make you think differently and think about yourself in a new way. So the TEDx events are just amazing. So, you know, my love relationship with ted, it really got catalyzed when I saw Brene Brown's Power of Vulnerability, which has, I think, well over 20 million views. And when I saw Shawn Acor's talk the Happy Secret to Better Work, also millions and millions of views. And if you haven't seen it when you're off of this, go and watch it. You'll find it. Shawn. Achor, Achor. The Happy Secret to Better Work. It's hilarious. I mean, I've watched it, oh, scores of times and I still laugh, guffaw out loud. It's the most fun you'll have in 15 or 18 minutes. And all of them are under 18 minutes. So when I began to be really moved by these viral, viral talks, I have to say, and maybe this was three, three years ago, two years ago, I said, I really want to do a TEDx talk. I really want to do one. And so I want to talk to you a little bit too about when we dream to do something, what has to happen for it to come into fruition? I'd love to chat about that. So. Well, I'll start right there. The first lesson I want to talk about is readiness. So we often have huge dreams. And those dreams propel us forward to take action, to hone our message, hone the way we help people, refine the way we engage with the world and our clients and our customers and our employees and our businesses. So the dream is the first step. It occurs in your mind and your heart and your spirit. And then what has to happen if you actually want to achieve the dream? Are A few things. So let me talk about readiness, and I'm going to talk about thought leaders, coaches, anybody who wants to do a TED Talk. And again, I warn you, this just happened Friday, so it's all new and fresh. I'm sure that in a year when I look back, or maybe after I've done my second dream, I will have a lot of different thoughts. But this is my real raw experience coming to you. So the idea of readiness, I remember I'm writing my second book now, and it's on brave up, the 10 critical ways to Rise up, speak up, and Stand up for yourself and change everything. And as many of us do, we send it out to agents, we talk to our publishing friends. And you know, one thing, before Brave up came to me, I had another book idea. And an agent said, you know, what publishers are looking for are incredibly fresh new ways of saying something, of sharing something very impactful. And I remember thinking, well, this is fresh, this is new, this is my voice. But then I want to tell you, I went to see Gretchen Rubin speak at our library. I don't think I've mentioned this in other videos. And she was talking about her book that had just gone from hardcover to paperback, better than before, about habits. Why is it that human beings find it so hard to sustain habits, even when they're enjoyable? And there were 500 people there, it seemed. And there was just one thing that she talked about that changed the entire audience and the audience exploded. And it was about the four styles in terms of the way we interact with expectation, internal expectation, external expectation. She had four styles, and this had come out of her research. And I want to tell you, it was the most novel thing I'd never thought about how I relate to expectations. And it was funny and it was engaging and it was eye opening. And people were like, oh, I'm the Obliger and the Obliger. I'm forgetting the names now, but, you know, some styles don't get along with other styles. So it was really funny because, oh, no, I'm married to an Obliger and I'm a. I'm a challenger or skeptic or I forget the words. But it. Everybody was so engaged with this. And I left there and I said, I get it. I see what is required. So if you want to write a book, if you want to do a course, if you want to do a TED Talk, what's really important, I feel now, is to find a way to look at the world that will help other people look at the world. And Say it in a way no one else is saying it. So how do we do this? I believe this. It's research. And I know people who go, I hate research. I'm never going to need to do research. I don't believe in research. Some of my, you know, best and closest colleagues say this. Well, I don't agree with that. And I'll tell you why. Some of it is because I think I've always been a researcher. I've always wanted to understand why things are happening the way they are. Not just 28% say this, or 70% of women I studied, which is true, said they're having one, at least one of the 12 hidden crises I've uncovered. And on average they're saying they're facing at least three at the same time. So that's a fascinating statistic that I talked about in the TEDx talk. But what I want to know is why. And to do that, you need research. So today we can do research in so many ways. We can do in depth studies, in depth interviews. We can do a case study, numerous case studies. We can do surveys. They're so easy. There's so many online platforms that allow you to do Typeform, survey monkey, oh my gosh, it goes on and on. But research is what. There are really no new ideas in the world, you know, brand new, I think, except in science and research, because we have to dig deep to understand how things are working and to see those mechanisms and processes in a different way and start speaking about them differently. That's what changes, changes things. So I want to tell you, after I saw Gretchen Rubin speak on her styles towards expectations for the next six months, I said, I am. But it started right after I saw her. I said, I want to understand what's happening in people's lives that I work with. So it's over 11,000 people now in 11 years. What's happening in their life that, that I'm seeing here with all the data and all the information that I'm working with. And what started to come to me was that people are different in terms of how they take action to a goal, what motivates them to take action. We're all very different. And then how we take action, we're very different. So I started to look at all the data I had in front of me, and then I started to develop some hypotheses. And what emerged over a period was that there are six dominant action styles in terms of what motivates us to take a goal and how we do it, striver seeker, pacer researcher, challenger and advocator. And I'm not going to go too much into it because it doesn't have so much to do with my TED Talk. But the point is that research began to unfold so much for me that was different that I could use with my clients, so helpful. And then I did a quiz, And I think 7,000 people have taken that. And I'm doing an ebook now, and. And it will definitely be in the next book I write on braving up. So why am I bringing this up? Because that research taught me some things. It taught me, number one, what is my deepest message? If I could only say one thing in the world, one thing, what would it be? And this is what I started to have to ask myself for this TED Talk. If I step back and look at after 11 years of doing this work with people, the one thing that is missing from their lives, the one message I would leave, the one legacy right now, what would it be? And what came to me was, we're not brave enough yet. And I began to formulate that as an idea. And then, okay, what does that mean? Were we ever brave enough? And what does brave look like? And why did. Why women in particular? Why have we lost our ability to be brave? What has happened here? What's going on? And then how do we regain it? And what does it feel like? And what does it do to our lives when we regain it? And it started to be revealed to me that that is my most central. That's really what I'm doing with people. Even though we're talking about LinkedIn or interviewing or resumes or networking or identifying your special gifts and talents, really, it's all about braving up. So as I started understanding that what is my deepest message? Then I wanted to do more research. And I'm sharing all this with you because if you want to do a TED Talk, I really think this is a great process. Understand, step back and say, what is the one deepest, most impactful message that I have? And then two, I need to learn more about that. And you know, I'm going to share with you now. Not everybody is like me. Not everybody has the same picture pitfalls and challenges I have. On the other hand, thousands do. So I'm hoping that you're one of the thousands. I remember when I was starting to write my book Breakdown Breakthrough, I didn't believe I need to do any research. It was about the challenges working women face. And Janet Goldstein, a wonderful consultant, said, you need to do research. And I remember I left that meeting in New York and I cried. I called my husband and I cried because I thought, no, I'm ready to tell my message now. And I see this in a lot of thought leaders. They're impatient and they're ready to go, and they don't want to do the deeper work. No, I got the message. I challenge you to think about that again. Because when I began to do the research, interviewing a hundred women across the country on professional crisis and how they overcame it, my mind was blown. And I was just mentioning this to a course member in Atlanta that I met, one of my course members. What happened was I wrote down because I had done market research in the corporate world, I knew how to do this. I had a strong idea about how to do research. But I wrote down all my hypotheses about why women are experiencing so many professional crises. And after doing the research and speaking to 100 women, 50% of those hypotheses were not correct. And I wouldn't have known that if I didn't do this research. On top of that, what the research did for me, and I believe this is really true about why you need to do it. I thought I had all the solutions to getting over professional crisis, but that couldn't be possible because I was only two months out of being in professional crisis. Well, how much can you learn in two months? So talking to 100 women and asking them, how did they get to their professional crisis? How did they overcome it? What tips do they give? What are the top three strategies and suggestions that they would give? Oh, my gosh. They were so powerful and so helpful. And I wouldn't have known that if I didn't have Janet saying, you need to do research. So anybody who resists it, I ask you to think again. So for my TED Talk, I began researching how we need to be braver. What does it look like to be brave? How do we know when we're brave? And I started using these dominant action styles as a way to do this. Let me explain. When I look at kind of the core of who I am, and one of my other core messages is, it's this. I want you to love yourself. I want you to love who you are. We so are Awe. Thank you, folks. I love that I'm seeing hearts, and we don't love ourselves. We don't understand ourselves. We don't see how we're brilliant and amazing. We attach meaning to negative events, and the meaning tears us down. And I live this, folks. I live this every minute. I'm Not a guru on the mountain already cooked and perfect. I live all of this every day. In fact, this morning, something happened that got me all worked up. I want people to understand how precious and valuable and important they are. And for that to happen, they have to brave up. We're not brave enough yet to see that. And women in particular are not taught to see that. And you'll hear all about that when the TED Talk is available in a month. So I began to research all about that. How do we help people see how brilliant and beautiful and complete and whole and talented they are and how much the world needs them? So if they're shining, they're hiding their light. The world is deprived of their specialness and their value. So research. I can't. I can't tell you how important it is. And I want to tell you, last year, I submitted an application for a TED Talk on the top lessons your life is trying to teach you. And. And it didn't go forward. And the reason was that isn't my real message yet. That's one of the things I teach. It's a whole video in my amazing career project training series and course. But that isn't the deepest issue. So I encourage you understand the deepest message that you have, the one that if you die before you share it, you'll feel regret. All right, so that's the deepest idea. And then saying it differently, really hard people say, well, I am saying it differently. Like I said, well, you're not. Because many of you, many of us, because what a lot of people do is read every book that they can get their hands on, and they love these messages. They look at the current thought leaders, the current people in vogue who are really rocking it, and they started adopting these strategies and these ideas, which is great, but they're not your ideas. They're not the way you would say it if you've done a lot of research and figured out what is really going on in the niche that you care about. So I really want to help people understand because I didn't get it when publishers and agents said, you know, you need to say it. It's not compelling enough. You need to say it differently. I didn't understand what they meant. Only until I did so much research and started writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and honing the message did the new language come. So you do need to find a way to say it in a way that no one else is saying it with new language, new terminology, new categoriz. Right? That's what has to Happen. So there's another piece too, and I'm talking all about this so you can begin to be ready for your TEDx experience or your TED Talk or your first big talk in front of 500 people or your first video. Right. I feel like all of those are going to be informed by this. The other incredible challenge lesson I learned doing this TED talk, TEDx talk is it had to be 12 minutes. You might as well have asked me to scale Mount Everest. It's so hard for me. Anybody who knows me knows this. I can talk for hours, but ask me to do something for 12 minutes really hard. And I don't know if you're like me, but why it's hard is to me, these messages are life changing, but you need a little time to explain them. So for instance, you could put a photo quote, photo image in a quote like I love to do up on Facebook. And it can engage people, right? Or a lot of people. Or you can write a blog post, for instance. One of mine is going viral right now on LinkedIn. Five regrets of midlife. The five regrets of midlife Professionals. And it's based on research. It's based on 11 years of working with mid career professionals. So you can do a post and that's a little longer than a photo image and a quote and a post hopefully can change people's lives, but harder because it's short. Or you could write a book that's longer and that can change people's lives. But 12 minutes is really hard. So what I want to ask you to do or challenge you to do, if you want to do a TED Talk, if you want to. Oh, sorry, messages are coming through. If you want to prepare yourself to be the thought leader you really, really want to be, what I'd ask you to do is practice doing it in 12 minutes. 12 minutes. So hard. So what goes into creating a talk in 12 minutes? Well, there's a TED Talk on how to craft a story. Nancy Duarte, I think that's how you pronounce it. D, U, A, R, T E, Nancy, look it up. TED Talk. And she, she has, she's a presentation guru and she's analyzed some of the most famous talks of our time. Oh, it's so fascinating. And she looks at what's going on from Martin Luther King to Steve Jobs. And so there are certain elements, but some of the key elements are this, these. It's important to present an image of a vision of the world that you want to create through this message. It's so important to share where we are today and where we're going. Where we are today and where we see the world going or the niche that you're talking about, for me, it's professional women. So the challenges and then where we see it going. I'm sorry, I have to keep hitting my screen because I'm getting a lot of texts. So that's element number one. You also have to, I think, set up the challenge in a way that people can relate to you. Give them enough information that they're nodding their head and that they're understanding. Yes, this is relevant for me. Right. And I also believe that you must have an element of your personal, authentic story. And I think I mentioned this in another video, but when I first started giving Talks years ago, 11 years ago, people would come up and the word they would say is, you're so authentic. And I was so floored, I didn't know what that really meant. And what I've learned that it meant is we are so bombarded with facade from bull, from. I don't know how to say it, from inauthentic nonsense, from people who claim that they're experts and they're living the best lives, and just follow me and you'll, you know, you'll make $10 million and live on an island. And so much of it is so inauthentic and fake. I'm so turned off. I have an allergic reaction to fakeness. But a lot of us in either thought leadership or in coaching and consulting, don't want to share with people some of the raw challenges of their life because they think people won't come to me. People won't pay me if they know I'm struggling with this. That and the other thing, I don't believe that. I believe that what engages people is being deeply authentic, sharing the rawness of it. Right. That's what. Look at the top people in our world who we look up to. Most of them and most of the TED talks that have gone viral are. There's an authenticity there that you. You engage with and resonate with. So also, in 12 minutes, what you need to do is. And I think most ted talks are 18 minutes. And I think mine in the end was 16 minutes. You need to share authentically some piece of your story that makes people say, wow, this person is living my world. I really understand this person and I really want to listen because she and I have something in common, something really important. So all of that has to be happening in your 15 minutes. So begin to practice it. Understand what is your biggest message that has the biggest impact in your mind. What's the thing you want to leave behind? Then research it so that you have different language and a different way to talk about it and a different way to engage with it. And you have different strategies to offer than 5,000 other gurus in that field. Become an expert in that. Right? And then begin to practice it. And I want to say one more thing. Visualizing it. Here's a lesson I've really learned actually. Visualizing in your mind with every sense that you have, with your sense of smell, with your sight, with hearing, visualize you doing it. And I visualize myself on a stage, at a podium for this TED Talk. And in some ways it was really similar. In some ways it wasn't. But the visualization allows. It kind of marshals all your internal and external resources. And it, without you knowing, unconsciously, it clears the pathway to get to this. This big event, this big dream. Visualize it. There's a book that I love, Shakti Gawain. G A W A I N Creative Visualization. I feel like that's the mother of how to do creative visualization. Get that book. Tiny little. You can read it in a day. Tiny little paperback. Shakti Gawain. I have visualized some of the biggest things that have come to pass in my life. My book, you know, having a great relationship, starting a business. Do it. All right, so what am I going to say? The top lessons have been, for me, for this TED talk, that crafting my message in 15 minutes was so hard, and now I'm going to know how to do it better. But that was the hardest challenge and the biggest lesson. And I think I've talked about how to go about doing that. Dimensionalizing the core message and telling it with an arc of a story in 15 minutes. So hard. But I feel more confident now. Now I know how to do that. The second thing is there was an amazing. There were 15 speakers here, 15amazing speakers. And I want to talk about them in a minute. But one of them was an actor from the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, which this guy, Jay Nobles, I think his name was, he did an exercise that blew me away. I can't go on too long about it, but he talked about three types of energy. Inner energy, present energy, and external energy. And all of us, outer energy. All of us are most comfortable in one circle. Either inner, more introverted, more quiet, more introspective, present, being completely present with what's going on with the other person, totally in sync with the other person, or out that's present energy number two. Number three is outer energy where you are kind of trying to shape and control what's happening. Leadership energy where it's outward. And he did an exercise where there were two people. One had to be the leader, one had to be the follower and the leader started slowly making hand gestures and the follower had to follow. And in order to do this, you had to be in the second circle, you had to be fully present. The whole exercise revealed unraveled in me so much self awareness that I didn't have about the energy I'm comfortable in, about the challenges to having fully present energy. It was so amazing. And I learned that in order to make this experience a life changing experience, I couldn't just bring my outer energy to it. About me, presenting all about me, me, me. And how do I control, not control, shape the audience, impact the audience. Yes, do that for your 15 minutes. But for the whole event I found being in the second circle, being fully present to learn from these other 14amazing people on stage and when I could put my outer energy, you know, shift that more to the present, it made the entire day a life changing day. I get a little choked up because every woman from so many different walks, sports, the film industry in Atlanta, one of the very few pilots, commercial pilots, who's a woman, everybody had an amazing story and amazing lessons to share. And only when I was in the present energy circle number two could I really soak that in. And I think that's so important that yes, you're there to present, but you're also there as part of humanity to learn and grow. The final lesson I'm going to share with you is we've got to let go of our need for perfection. So you know, when you're investing your own money and you're staying in Atlanta and you know TED speakers aren't paid, you're really wanting this to go very well and you're wanting to. I'm wanting to have something come out that I can use on my website and hopefully a lot of people will view. What happened to one person? Unfortunately of the 15, her mic, she had a handheld mic and it kept going out so she couldn't use her video. And that rattled us, you know, that rattled some of us. And she was so unbelievably poised and they gave her a chance to do another segment and it rocked and she was amazing. So she came out with a video and. But what I think is a really important lesson is we have to let go of the need to control every detail of the need for perfection, of feeling like if it doesn't go a particularly certain way, it's a complete disaster. Number one, we suffer when we have that attitude. Number two, it's really not life. I mean, in watching this woman's poise, when it didn't work the mic, she didn't let it rattle her at all. Talk about circle number two, being fully present in your energy. And then she got a chance to do another exercise that was fantastic. She went with the flow of life. And I believe that even the biggest dreams that you spend 10 years crafting, you cannot, you will suffer if you bring to it the need for everything to be perfect. In today's day and age with technology, there's so much that can blip, and we have to love ourselves and not overly attached to any particular outcome and not overly attached to, you know, the good opinion of others or the bad opinion of others, the perfectness of how it went or the imperfectness it just is. And the more Zen we can be about it, I think the happier and the more fulfilled and the more impactful this experience will be. So that was a long, long video. If you want to do a TED Talk and you're wanting help, I hope these, these tips will help you understand your core message, who you are in the world, how you want to speak about it differently. Do research, don't shun that. It will open your eyes. Yes, you're an expert, but talking to many other people will make you more of an expert, and it'll give you so much more confidence. Then practice your story. Craft a compelling story in 15 minutes and then practice it and practice it and watch yourself do it. And I promise you, with all of that in place, plus your readiness and your visualization, and you're telling everybody you know, I'm really hoping to do a TED Talk that. That would be a TEDx talk that would be really meaningful for me. I believe that your opportunities for doing this are going to flow your way and your dream will come true. I hope that's helpful, folks, and I will see you next Tuesday at noon and write your questions. Bring your questions, ask them later. I'm here to help. And if you want to talk about this TEDx experience, I hope you will. Oh, I have to. One more shout out. I did a meetup in Atlanta with, you know, I threw it out to my list. Anybody live in the Atlanta area and want to get together for dinner? We had 10 women. It was so amazing, and I felt so blessed. And I want to thank anyone who is watching who came to that meetup and that dinner, that amazing Southern dinner. It was one of the highlights of this year for sure. Thanks, everybody, and I'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.