137: Ryan Hildebrandt - On Landing a TED Talk

Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful. That's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh, so waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Good Monday morning, movers. Hope everybody's had a great weekend. I am— hmm, how am I feeling this morning? I'm sore. I'm sore because I'm trying a kickboxing class, which— go ahead and laugh, that's fine. I'm really into the roundhouse kicks, let me just say that. Those are fun, those are really fun. But what I have not mastered yet is the actual boxing, because I came into it, I did not think I was— it was called kickboxing, so I thought it was going to kick things, but no, that's only a small part of what I do, but it is, man, it's hard. It feels really good though. I'm into it. So anyway, that's how I'm feeling this morning is sore and super excited to dump. Nope, I'm not good. I'm super excited to jump into this week's episode because it's all about TED and I love talking about TED, not your Uncle Ted or my Uncle Ted, but TED Talks. TED Talks. TED Talks, as you all know, and I know I'm preaching to the choir here, they have made the careers of some of my all-time favorite people who I don't know but who I'd like to know, namely Brené Brown. Brené, if you're listening, Brené, by some sort of miracle, let's hang out. TED has changed the game for speakers, and I think TED is responsible for this renaissance that I think we're experiencing in the speaking industry, this realization that through the power of our words and through this 20-minute format, you can really open people's minds and change the way people think and behave and act. And that is a core belief that I have because I've experienced it and seen it so many times. But I just think it's such a powerful format and a powerful idea. And I was super jealous when it began 15 15 or so years ago because it was my idea. I wanted to do that, but I was 25 and had no business starting anything like that. But I am, I'm a believer. I'm a believer in the format. I'm a believer in what's possible with it, and I understand why every speaker I know has that as a goal, to land a TED Talk, to get up on a TED stage, because we all have this hope that, right, you'd have a Brené Brown story, right, where you give a TED Talk at your local TEDx conference, and because it is this magical combination of the right message at the right time from the right person, and it goes viral, which you cannot, you cannot bank on or expect, but it's a dream that we have, but it starts with getting up on that stage the TEDx stage. So because it is such a consistent wish and hope and dream, I decided to reach out to Ryan Hildebrandt, a TEDx organizer himself, who teaches experts how to land their first TED Talk. And notice I said he, he doesn't teach speakers how to land their first TED Talk, he teaches experts how to land their first TED Talk. And you're gonna hear that distinction in our conversation today. We dove into some really great tangible steps, hows, how you can do this that you can get started on, um, right now. Um, and as a part of this, Ryan is offering a free online course for my listeners here on This Moved Me, walking you through exactly how to land that first TED Talk. So thank you, Ryan. I'm super excited about that. I have been through the course myself, um, and there's lots of good stuff in there that just helps you get going and get started. So if this is something that you want to do, this could be really cool. I'll share that link with you at the end of the show, but for now, let's get to it. How to land your first TED Talk. Here he is, Ryan Hildebrandt.

I started the event from nothing. There was a town in England that didn't have a TEDx event, and then I You applied for a license from TED and you say, "Hey, here's all the reasons why I'm not going to mess up your event and ruin your brand, and this event is not going to suck," basically. That's their worry, I think. And then you just start. It's all self-funded. So if you, as an organizer, do not sell tickets, then you either pay out of pocket or you just cancel the whole thing and call it a massive failure. So that's one thing. Then you start recruiting a team and you start telling people in the community about the event and you start promoting it to social media. And you also start getting applications from speakers or start evaluating who you would like to speak and the theme of the event and things like that. So we looked at, so in 2015, we looked at 85, Speaker applicants and 25 performers, selected 13 speakers and 3 performers, so like musicians and things like that. And back to your point about owning what somebody does in relation to getting a TED Talk, I would totally agree that it's important. So, I mean, we had people that would say, Well, actually, one distinction that I saw often was people owning— either they own, like, I am a speaker, or they own, it is my mission in the world to make sure that, you know, autistic children are appreciated and valued for who they are. So kind of own their mission. Yeah. So we wanted people that were owning their mission and had some previous momentum and experience with it. So we didn't want someone that just all of a sudden came up with this great idea yesterday, uh, because— and it's not that it's bad that you have a new idea, but it's, it's always better if you've got some history with it because that proves that you're— you actually are committed to it, right? Uh, rather than just like, it's like a spur that I've been thinking about this and yeah, I guess it's a thing I could talk about. So If you will do, as a quick tidbit, you will do far better for landing a TED Talk, or I think most things in life, if you own your mission rather than, and owning your idea or your concept, rather than owning your ability as a speaker. Just like saying, you know, I'm a writer versus what do you write about? So it's the same. I mean, if you think about a book, the reason you would buy a book is because of what's written inside, not because the writer is an excellent writer and can use commas correctly. Right? And that's the same reason we would accept a talk is because of the idea that was shared. And so the stronger that your identity jives with the idea, the better. And there's a bunch of factors into that. I like to call it credibility. So it's the answer to the question, like, why would we choose you to speak about this idea and not somebody else? Like, why? I mean, so for example, I'm traveling right now. I'm in Southeast Asia. And if somebody wanted to do a talk about travel, Or if I— if there was some kind of travel-related thing that I could talk about, sure, I could talk about that. But if I'm in a room full of other travelers, then it'd be more difficult for me because, you know, chances are there's somebody— there's a lot of people there that have traveled to more places than me. Right. In the same way, the kind of credibility factor, the identity ties into How do you stack up against everybody else? So if your identity is an entrepreneur and you run a hair salon, nothing wrong with hair salons, and you want to speak at a kind of community event, right? I think that's a great thing and you'll probably do very well. If you want to speak at a TEDx event, chances are half the room runs bigger businesses than you, so it will be difficult for the organizer to justify putting you on stage unless there's another angle. So unless your identity is a hair salon entrepreneur and, I don't know, you're blind, so you have this different, you have this completely different take on things than anybody else would have. And so that's your USP, that's your selling point.

Right. Yeah, I mean, the thing that I love about TED is that it's ideas first. And as a, as a coach, like, those are the speakers I want to work with— ideas first speakers, kind of what I sometimes call like mission-driven or purpose-driven people, rather than speakers who are, um, first and foremost just want to speak and what they're speaking about is secondary. Um, and because an audience can feel that, and I think that the integrity of that for TED has held up, and I so appreciate their focus on that because I think they get better talks from it. Not necessarily like excellent in terms of the skill, or, you know, like there's— I think that's an interesting sort of tension that they create in that, that it's You don't always get the best speakers, but you get the most interesting ideas. And I appreciate their focus on that. But for you as a creator of a TEDx experience, did you feel that tension at play where it was, you know, it's ideas first, but you also want to make sure that what they're delivering is going to be excellent? So how do you kind of shore that up for them?

Okay. Well, I mean, we have— so every event is independently organized. So my approach to this will vary a little bit to different events. So I'll start with that as a disclaimer. First off, I'll say that you mentioned that TED is ideas first, but— and this is like I'm talking directly to your listeners here— everybody that basically— 90% of people that are public speakers mess this up when they, at least when they applied to my event.

Yeah.

They all said, hey, guess what? My name is Sodi, like whatever. And I'm a public speaker and I've won these Toastmasters awards and I'm a coach. And, and oh, by the way, my idea is, uh, I wanna share whatever.

Mm-hmm.

So they did the exact opposite thing that you're, you're talking about. And it frustrates me so much. I, I wish they would all stop doing it. And focus on their idea, and rather than tell me that they're a great speaker, just demonstrate it. So I'll start with that as probably the most important thing that I'll say specifically to your audience. So the question is, how do we evaluate speakers? How do we make sure that the people that go on stage are people that will make the audience love them and share their talks and be moved and all these great things? We looked at basically 3 factors. And actually, I realized that we were looking at these 3 factors after the event when I started putting together my site and thoughts for it. So we looked for how is their— what's their idea? Like, is this idea something that is an idea that we want to spread, that needs to be spread? So as an example, A good idea is you should eat more vegetables. That's a fantastic idea. Does it need to be spread? Not really, because people kind of know it already. However, if you have a new way of communicating that that is surprising in such a way that it makes people go, "Oh, I— that completely changes the way that I thought about vegetables." Now you're onto something, right? So your idea is is one aspect of it, and we'll get into like more about what that means later. The second bit is your credibility. So why should we choose you to speak about this? Or do you have any— if we said, hey, here's a speaker and his name is Ryan and he's speaking about vegetables, like what's the connection there? So does Ryan have a PhD in vegetables? Has Ryan written a book on vegetables? Is Ryan been only eating vegetables his entire life. I love all these things. What's the thing here, right? Obviously these are just ridiculous.

The PhD in vegetables who's only eaten vegetables his entire life. That'd be so cool.

Yeah. There was a— oh man. There was like an Indian guy who he's like eaten nothing for years. That's crazy. Anyways. Back to vegetables.

I love it.

So your idea, incredibly, and those two tie together because the more specific your idea is, the less it matters that you're famous in it. So if you want to share my lessons from entrepreneurship, well, guess what? I mean, half the audience is an entrepreneur, if not more, and online, probably this huge percentage. So they're all going to be sitting there thinking, yeah, well, either I know these lessons too, or You're incorrect about half of them because people that are in the audience either have bigger businesses than you or they've been doing it for longer. That's a really, really, really tough sell. That's why you see Richard Branson delivering that message and nobody else. Or if it is somebody else, it's probably at a really, really small— an event in a small town where there's little competition. Anyways. Uh, but if your, if your idea is very narrow, uh, like there was a talk by a 12-year-old app developer, right? Like I have no business doing a TED Talk on app development because I've been doing it a week. If a 12-year-old's been doing it for a week, now we're talking.

Yeah.

Right? Because now he's got that interesting component of, oh, he's an app developer. Oh, but he's 12. So now people are, are going to be fascinated. Right. And, uh, the reason that matters is because as a, as an event organizer, you want people to actually buy tickets. And if you have a speaker who's a 12-year-old app developer, people will, people will show up for that.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, if you have a 31-year-old in my case, who's been developing apps for a week, less interesting. Right.

Although I just have to tell you, I'm kind of curious. So there might be something there. If you said, here's what I learned about app development in a week.

Sure.

Turns out you can develop an app in a week.

In a week. Yeah, for sure.

There might be something there.

There might be something here. Anyways, that was a silly example. So, and then onto your question about presentation, like how do you ensure that people are actually okay communicators? Yeah. Um, What we, so one thing that we did, we had a structured and staged application process. So step one, we had an application form. It was a Google Docs form. People filled it in. It was stuff like their Twitter and their email and their name and a brief description of their idea. And we asked them to put some stuff about, you know, if they had a website or YouTube or degrees in their books, any kind of self, like a bio basically we asked. Yeah. That was it though, 85 people filled it in. And we had probably 5 or 6 people that applied from other parts of the world that were not England. And so we eliminated those right away, not because we were biased against, you know, foreigners, but because again, this goes back to me and my own needs as an event organizer. I wanted my speakers to be part of our marketing force. And to tell everybody that they've ever known in their life that they are so excited to be speaking at this TEDx event, TEDx Leamington Spa. And if they're in California, nobody's gonna come to the event from California, no one's gonna sponsor the event from California, no one's gonna volunteer from California. So, um, that was why we did that. I mean, if somebody applied that was famous, like a celebrity, and could put the event on the map, maybe we'll consider it, but it's unlikely they will be Googling us and filling in some Google Docs form, right?

Right.

Yeah. So the, uh, and then, then the next stage, we, we actually asked for more detail from people. So we said, okay, can you send us just a one-page synopsis of, of your talk and then record a little 3-minute YouTube, like put it up on YouTube, make it a private video. And so what we were trying to do is at each stage refine, like, just make the list smaller and then get more information from people so that we knew that we were providing coaching at each, or guidance each stage, not asking for too much upfront, but also making sure that as we were making decisions, we were making decisions with enough information. So once we did that, we eliminated a bunch of people. So we went from 85 to 65. Um, we eliminated some people and some people just didn't ever do the one-page summary, which is actually what I was hoping would happen, um, because it would make our job easier and, and tell us who was willing to do the work and who wasn't. And then after that, we cut from 65 to 17, and we did that in, in one day. And I'll remind me to talk later in the episode about the repercussions of that, um, of just looking at mass amounts of talks and mercilessly cutting ideas. And then, so we had— we then had these, uh, this group of 17 people, and we said to all of them, we don't know how many people we're gonna have on stage. And that was true, we could have had all 17, um, but But we could cut some, we could not cut some. We actually were flexible on that. But could you give us a full first draft of your talk? Mm-hm. And also deliver the same talk to video. Mm-hm. So back to your question about how we ensured people were good enough presenting. Mm-hm. The 3-minute video was surprisingly informative. Some people came across as really creepy, honestly. Some people were just awkward looking. Some people did a great job. So, I mean, most times it was fine.

Did you find that the people who— because obviously translating through video is very different than being on stage. Did you find that the people who were great on video were also great on stage or that there were any surprises in that?

Um, no, I don't think there were. No, um, no, no, it was, it was fine. Uh, we did find a lot of value from the video though, and, and that's why, I mean, I mentioned before that not every event will do the same application process. So I mentioned before, like, do not lead with, I'm a great speaker, I won these Toastmasters awards, blahdy blahdy blah. Just send in a 3-minute video of you talking about your idea. Yeah, you know, send a video that says, hey, I'm Ryan, I'm traveling Asia right now, and one of the things I learned while traveling is, I don't know, the, uh, the importance of, of rice. And I learned from all these different people in different Asian countries about how they use rice, and I would love to share that with you. Right, just something that is— that demonstrates the fact that you're a normal person, you can, you can communicate okay, and also hits on the main interesting points of your idea.

Yeah, right. Yeah, totally. Because, you know, when I said like that tension, I think is important that it's not all about like— I'm glad you do some filtering for people just to make sure, like, because the way people communicate is obviously really important. But I also, I also think this is accessible to people who are not necessarily natural speakers too.

Oh, definitely.

And because if you're— if your idea is strong enough and if your story is strong enough, it can survive some unusual delivery and unusual circumstances. You know, I think you've all seen that.

You hit the nail on the head. So here's the thing, um, in the nature of an event like this is If someone says they're a good speaker and they used to be a good speaker up until that day, and then they slept poorly or they freak out or something happens and they bomb, I don't have control over that. I can't, I can't like stop them and say, oh no, never mind, ignore that speaker. We're gonna show you a video of them doing the same talk from a month ago. Like, I don't get to do that, right? So, um, if I have someone who's got a great idea, It still is like a great idea, like you said, Will, will carry an audience's interest because they're fascinated in hearing more about that idea, right? But it's a really, it's a huge challenge to do a great delivery and be a great communicator of an idea that nobody really wants to hear about. Like, you've gotta be really, really good for people to be interested in that. So we bias towards, let's just find great ideas and make sure the speaker is like okay, and everything else is practice, or it doesn't even matter because people will be so interested in what they're actually saying, the core message, that they will be willing to tolerate any kind of awkwardness on stage.

Right. Well, and I really credit TED and sort of the revolution and the movement that TED started you know, 10 years ago when they, they started bringing all these talks online and made them free in public for people to see and access was this realization that, uh, in 20 minutes we can communicate really powerfully what is happening in this world and, and how we see the world and that these The belief and the philosophy behind TED, I think, is so important, that ideas worth spreading. And I think it has opened up the speaking world to people beyond the professional, quote unquote, speakers. And it's not about that. It's really about how we can translate who we are and what we believe in and our passions to other people. And let that spread throughout the world. That excites me and that's why I've always loved TED and TED Talks and the TED Conference because that's what I'm all about as a coach. I'm talking to the choir on that one, I know, but I just think that TED has been a part of this revolution in terms of bringing people into the craft of speaking and wanting to get their their message and their voice out into the world because now it's accessible and they believe in it and they know it can be powerful. Totally.

Do we, um, would it be helpful, like, there's, there's a couple things I can share in terms of, uh, tips on, on standing out to, to events.

Great. I think that these are just really, really good.

All right, these are a couple quick things. Number 1, shorter is always better. So there are TED Talks that are 3 minutes long. And if you as an organizer, me as an organizer, get someone saying, hey, listen, here's a punchy message. I've actually just done the whole thing. Here it is. It's 5 minutes. That's like, that's gold. That's so good. And here's why, because everybody else wants to do something that's like 50 minutes long. And so if you've got an event stacked full of 50-minute talks, It gets really dull.

Oh yeah.

And it's really hard to manage audience energy after that long of like just boom, boom, boom. So if you have short, like any kind of like variety of messages, that's so good. There's some events that will even say, okay, we've got X number of slots for 18-minute messages. We've got X number of slots for 10-minute ones. We've got 2 slots for 5-minute ones. So if you can, cut things mercilessly from the, the whatever it is you would like to say, that's awesome. Uh, second thing, be— embrace the thing that's weird and unexpected about you. So when I advise people on finding a topic to speak about, I'll ask questions like, uh, what is it that you disagree with about everybody else in your field? Like, what pisses you off? What are you just like, you know what, of all the people that love vegetables in the world, they all think it's one way, but I'm telling you it's not that way. Right? You're trying to find the thing that is, that will surprise people and will change their view on the world, not the thing that they already know. Right? Bring something new.

Bring something new.

Bring something new. Exactly. The other thing I will say is, Basically, some people do this, but test your idea and get feedback on it. I've been actually thinking about this in the last couple days, but there are certain tests and ways of testing that are more effective than others at different stages. A lot of people that I speak to, they'll say, "Oh yeah, I have this talk that I deliver, and at the end, I always ask for feedback, and people always love it, and they were surprised by this part of it." and this is the part of it and this is the part of it. And that's an awesome thing to do. But I would also say the danger is when you apply for an event, often they're not gonna read through your entire talk or watch your entire talk before deciding one way or the other because they've got 100 of them to evaluate. So if you, and this is back to the 3-minute pitch video, If you test out just like a one-sentence thing or a 30-second thing with people and don't even— don't ask for feedback. Just say, "Hey, my name is Ryan and I study the ways that different Asian countries use rice." Right? I haven't asked for feedback. I've just said, "Hey, this is what I do." And you say, "Oh, cool. I'm Sally. I run a podcast." Wonderful. And if your response to my introduction is, oh, I'm Sally, I run a podcast, then guess what? It means you don't care about my idea. You're not interested in it. But if you go, oh, holy crap, that's crazy. Tell me more about this. I thought, I thought, uh, what about rice in South America? What about, what about, uh, whatever? Um, that means that you're, you're, you're fascinated by some aspect of it. So that's, that's what, that's one way that you can test out how interesting your idea is without asking for it. You just get it. And you, I mean, you might see if you mentioned something about South America or Africa, then I know that, oh, South Americans use rice too. Well, maybe that's a different aspect of it, right? Right. Now that informs my research about my talk. Or you might say, oh, well, actually I saw a documentary about this recently, or, um, or whatever. So the way I stumbled upon this actually, this method of testing, was actually in running this TEDx event. So I would say to people in the town, "Oh hey, yeah, yeah, guess what? I'm running a TEDx conference here." And they would, most people look at me really funny and they wouldn't know what I was talking about. And so I was like, "Oh, well, so it's this conference, it's all over the world." And, uh, you know, the acronym stands for Technology Entertainment Design, and they've got people like, you know, Richard Branson and Bill Gates and, and these people that do talks. It's on YouTube. And people go, oh, you mean like, uh, TED Talks? And so I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like TED Talks. And so then I changed. So what I realized is that if I introduce the topic or the, the subject as a TEDx conference or a the TED conference, no one knows what I'm talking about.

Right.

Right. It's not the phrasing that the audience will, will resonate with. So I just said, hey, do you guys know of TED Talks? Yes. Okay, great. I'm running a TEDx event here in town. And then they would go, oh yeah, that's cool. Let's get involved. So in the same way, your idea, um, you know, I was talking to a client the other day and she She talked about the subtlety between, like she's teaching people how, business leaders how to have more influence in their market. So how to blog and podcast and how do you reach out to people and use social media and things like that. And so she's found through, again, this testing process that people respond to, when people hear influence, they think they're supposed to be, it only applies to business people. But when she changes it to trust, how to get people to trust you, well, you can have a continual interaction with them and there's people that know you, people that don't know you, and you can still get all those people to trust you. It's a different word of describing the exact same concept, but as a result, it resonates more. Oh, that's interesting. Right. If you only go through your entire talk with an audience or you only show people an entire article you've written on something. It doesn't ever give your audience the opportunity to go, well, wait a second, like the entire concept, you missed me there. And they're gonna instead look for body language and the examples you use, and they're gonna make, try to make small tweaks on the overall thing. Mm-hmm. But if you just, if you start with testing out the core concept, like your core elevator pitch in such a way that you don't actually ask for feedback, you just get it. Then you'll realize very quickly if you need to change direction from, or change positioning from the get-go. Right.

I love that because I think it's such a tangible and easy way for people to just little bits at a time test something out. It's not like you've got to sit somebody down and give part of your talk and it just feels like this high-risk thing.

No, no, no.

That's too much. It's like, no, how are you framing this up? And is it interesting? And is there intrigue and curiosity built into what you're talking about? So I love that. That's a great idea.

You know, and I, back to the app thing, I was testing out names or testing out, yeah, positioning for my app in the same way. And the app is primarily for me, so I'm not super fussed if anybody actually uses it, cuz I get to learn how to make an app and I get to use it. It's a win.

Yeah.

But I, it would still be nice if other people cared about it too.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right. So. Basically, the app is, it's, it, I mean, I write down every day the things that I won at that day. So like the great decisions that I made. So did I choose, did I choose vegetables over fries? Did I, you know, uh, talk to this girl that I was kind of into, right? Did I go on a hike? Um, did I send a pitch email to a new client? Did I raise my rates? So something, something that I appreciate about my own own day, or just great stuff that happened, right? And anyway, so I call it a daily review. That's just the word that I use. And so I put up on a Facebook group that I'm part of, hey, who here does a daily or weekly review? What do you do? And, you know, how, like, why do you do it? All these kind of questions. And what I realized when I posted that, again, this is like a short way of testing just the core concept. Is when people hear the word review, they think of like tasks. Like they say, okay, well, I do a weekly review where I make sure I have enough groceries and I go through all my tasks for the week and I plan out exactly what I'm going to do Monday and Wednesday and Friday and on the weekend. And that's my review. And I use Getting Things Done or I use Evernote or something like that. So I realized, well, wait a second. When I, when I'm introducing this concept, people have a different understanding than I do of the terminology, right? So if I use, if I say I have a daily review app, it will be confusing to people, period. Most people. So I started testing more and I, you know, I did things like I sent my friends, uh, or when some people responded back and said, oh, well, yeah, I do that. And I use something called the 5-Minute Journal. I looked at the Five Minute Journal and it's a cool product. It's a book, a physical book you'd buy. It has some of the same kinds of things that I do. I thought, "Well, I guess journal is a better word." That's one different way that I could test this. I started messaging friends. I said, "Hey," like on Facebook. I said, "Hey, if there was an app called the Daily Journal, what would you think it would do?" And they, you know, they responded back on text. And over time I refined it and I found things like most other apps out there that do the same thing. The term journal is kind of boring. I didn't, and I didn't want it to be boring. I wanted it to be like a fun thing. You're celebrating the wins. And so I messed it around a little bit and I, like, ah, it could be like the Daily Wins app. Also kind of boring. Like it's kind of academic. Kind of serious. Um, and then I changed it to Daily Whoop, like the thing that you would like whoop, like I won on something. Oh, I love that. So that's how, I mean, that's how like my idea hasn't changed. The app hasn't changed. The only thing that's changed is the name.

Oh my God.

And in the same way, you can, you can test your own, you can test your own kind of core concepts.

Oh my gosh. And that's such an awesome example of the iterative nature of this work again and again and again, like coming back to it and getting feedback and then reflecting on it and then an idea comes and it was like, that is how this works. And I love where you ended up. That is so fun.

Totally. And you know what? Daily Whoop. Daily Whoop, you know? And I knew I had a winner when I would mention it to friends in conversation like, oh, I have this app and it's called Daily Whoop and this is what it does. When like days later they would respond to something that I said on Facebook about how my day was going and they would be like, that's your daily Whoop. And I was like, yeah, they remember it.

It's so sticky. Yeah.

The re— so the reason I bring that up and the reason it's important to test is again, because of honestly the sheer volume of competition.

Yeah.

Right. And the thing you have to remember, and this is not, I don't say this so that the, it can sound a little bit discouraging that the fact that you're for every spot you're competing with 10 other people. And it's, it's 10 of the people that unfortunately are CEOs of businesses or have a book published or have, are also coaches and speakers.

Right.

And honestly, a lot of them will not be doing this testing process to find out what the most interesting way of framing their idea is. So if you're the one that's doing it and is just finding subtle ways of making your idea stickier, right, and honing a pitch, then you're just increasing your chances that you'll get accepted or will progress further.

There's so much good stuff in this, Ryan, and I know that you have more. Um, and before we go, I want you to share with everybody where they can find out more about how they can dig into this process because, um, every speaker I work with, this is a goal. This is a goal that they have, and I totally get why. And, um, as an insider, I think you hold a lot of insight here. So before we go, we'll hear more from you, okay? But for sure, it is time to do our This Moved Me moments, and I am going to start because mine's really short, and then, and then I'll hand it over to you. So this morning I was doing another recording of an interview with a man named Jason Freeman. And so if— I don't know if Jason's show is going to come out before or after this one, but if people have heard this episode, they know it was a really thoughtful, um, it was a moving conversation for me in a lot of ways because Jason happens to have a speech impediment and he's this professional speaker and he speaks about imperfections and he speaks about really, you know, that process of finally for himself coming to a place where he was owning who he is. He was born with a speech impediment and really owning that and sort of the liberation that came with that. And I think, I don't know if it will translate to the listeners how moving it was, but I got to see, so he had his camera on, we were recording via Skype like you and I are doing right now, but he had his camera on so I could see him. And watching his face and watching him tell his stories was so moving to me, partly because his speech is a little stunted and, you know, it's not sort of a quote-unquote typical speech pattern. And so that visual was so important and it really connected me with him and watching him like respond to what I was saying was so moving, and I haven't had that experience before, partly because I don't like having the camera on normally. And it was really, it was really powerful. At one point, he was talking about the first time he spoke on stage and how nervous he was, but that the audience responded to him so openly. And so generously that he said, "Okay, I can do this and people are accepting me and I have something to say." And it just, like, that moment was really transformative for him. And then what he does now is he, like, bears witness to other people's stories and helps them see for themselves their own worth, even when they come to the table with, you know, all the crap that we all come to the table with. And I said, so you are the audience for these people, like your audience was for you. And he went, oh my gosh. And just watching his face as he kind of had that realization that he was bearing witness to people the same way that that audience did for him. I was like, wow, I got to see him have this realization in this moment. And it really— I was like, dang, I love my work. This is so cool to like have these connections and have this moment. You know, I don't know Jason. I don't know him. Just like, you know, you and I are connecting for the first time. Like, this is a It's such a strange, wonderful thing, these podcast interviews, and I love doing them. And it just was a reminder today of like, oh my gosh, this is— this really amazing things happen. So it's not about me. It's really about just Jason and watching him connect with me. It was really cool.

So cool. I love that. And you know what? You know, it's interesting for me there. If you were to, if you're pitching that podcast episode, all you'd really have to say is, hey, I have this, you know, I have this episode and it's with a professional speaker with a speech impediment. Right? And now all of a sudden that's the, I mean, that's the hook or that's the headline that grabs people because it's not a normal, that's not the normal thing. Like that's not what you would expect. It's like, oh, that's surprising. Well, let's hear more from that.

Right.

So that's back to the whole like testing of the, you know, testing of the, uh, the hook or the headline or the elevator pitch that I talked about before. Like that's, that's the surprising thing is he's a speaker. Okay, great. With a speech impediment. Oh, well hold on.

Interesting.

Like that's not, that's different than what I know. Yeah. So cool.

Yes.

So, well, okay. So, so my, yeah, my, this moved me moment. Which is a lot of alliteration. This goes back a couple of years, but it's relevant. It's still relevant today, and I'll tell you why. I was in Switzerland. I traveled for work, and I like to do a lot of meditation and reflection. I talked about how I do a weekly review, and I've started doing daily reviews about a year ago. One of the things that I did that particular day is I I turned off my phone. I didn't read anything. I didn't watch TV. There's no internet. I didn't talk to anybody. And I sat and meditated for a bit. And then I had some questions written down that I was just writing out answers to. So it was questions like, what am I afraid of? What do I really want out of life? What's great about now? What am I grateful for? Just questions, especially like, what am I afraid of, that require quite a lot of introspection. I wrote down a bunch of stuff and it was really interesting for me. It was stuff like, I'm afraid of dressing really well because I think my friends will think I'm putting too much effort in and a little bit metro, metrosexual. Stuff like that. And it's that the examples aren't as important, but what I realized towards the end of that 2 hours, and 2 hours without any kind of stimulation is really, really hard. But what I realized is that, you know, all these things that I'm afraid of, they all take, I mean, they all take quite a bit of courage to do, but I could do them. And what I realized is that courage is like the Courage is the muscle or the power that allows you to overcome the things you are afraid of. So I started looking at things I was afraid of differently. I started looking at them as opportunities to be courageous. So I think what I've heard a lot is, "Oh, you should conquer fear and fear will stop you from doing things." But I think if you— for me, I started looking at the things I was fearing as like a gift. Like, oh, if I'm a little bit afraid to raise my prices for my engineering business, well, then that takes a little bit of courage. But if I raise them even more, then I get to be more courageous, and isn't that a cool thing? In the same way that you would go to the gym and you lift some weights, and once you can lift the heaviest one, you need to find another gym. Like, if you can lift everything in the gym, you need to go somewhere else intentionally to get more of a challenge. So the reason I bring that up today is I, you know, we talked about doing app development and I learned how to make balloon animals a couple days ago and I, you know, the travel thing and these are all things that—

I love it, Ryan.

They're hard, they're not easy, but if you look at challenges in life as an opportunity to be courageous, I think it's It's made me more courageous because I look at it as this crazy cool thing I get to do. So, why is that important for your audience? Doing a TED Talk is really hard, and it's not hard because you have to prepare and do a lot of work. It's hard because you have to— you're putting yourself on the same stage as people with these incredible ideas, and it's, for a lot of people that I talk to, There's a real kind of question of worthiness, like, am I worthy of doing this TED Talk? Am I good enough? Do I have a big enough social media following? Is my book selling enough copies? Do I have enough coaching clients? And at the center of that question is, am I enough? And I know it's hugely, it's very, very difficult to take the first step and start actually moving towards doing a TED Talk rather than dreaming about it as this far-off thing that eventually you'll do, but you probably won't until you start making steps towards it. So I would, uh, yeah, I would, I would challenge people to think more on that and to use it as, use it as an exercise in demonstrating how courageous you are rather than waiting to be no longer afraid. Seeing the fear as this opportunity, like you get to do a thing that's hard. Isn't that cool? Because that means you're a courageous person. So I would say one way people can take the first step is I put together, or I will put together, a special page for listeners of your show.

Ooh, awesome.

So that's getyourfirstaction.com. Tedtalk.com/sally, S-A-L-L-Y. Yeah, special. And you can go there and I— so I— you can find all the systems and things that I use and blog posts. But if you saw, I can send you a— it's, it's just how— it's how to take the first step. It's how to find TEDx events near you, and there are probably a lot more than you think there are. If you've only been relying on word of mouth and Google and things like that to this point. And it's been surprising. I ran this, I ran a, call it, land a TED Talk challenge a couple weeks ago. And one guy, he was shocked. He's from Malta, which is this little island in the Mediterranean. And there's a TEDx event in Malta. And this place is small. So if you think you live in the middle of nowhere, or you think you're in a big city and you know of like 3 of them, there's probably, you know, London I think has got 20-something events.

Oh really?

Oh my gosh. New York will have lots, yeah, yeah, there's gonna be lots. So one really empowering thing you do is again take that first step and find out about events that are near you, because once you find out about those, then it becomes no longer a one-off, like a dream somewhere down the line, but something that you can do in 8 months or— and is 2 miles away from your house.

Right.

So that's one thing.

Focus your effort. I love it.

Yeah, yeah, just do one thing. That's it. You don't have to apply. Just find them. Just find where they are and what, you know, when they are. That's it.

Where and when. Step 1.

Yeah, that's it. Step 1.

Imagine it. Because it can happen. Um, oh my gosh, Ryan, this is so cool. And I love that we'll have our own page. So it's getyourfirsttedtalk.com/sally.

Sally. Yep.

Yeah, I love it.

That's right.

Okay, I'll of course put this on the episode page and in the show notes, and, um, it'll go out in my newsletter and all that good stuff too. So Hopefully we can help some people land a TED Talk.

Sure, it's a lot more accessible than you think it is, but it does require that you do some work and exhibit that courage, you know? It's going to be hard. You know, don't expect somebody to call you up one day and say, "Hey Bob, you want to do a TED Talk?" 'Cause that's probably never going to happen, but there are things you can actually do to get there, right? And, uh, it's doable. You can do it.

Awesome. Well, Ryan, this has been so great and just full of really good insight and, and tips. I love how tangible, uh, this conversation has been for people. So thank you so much for joining me on the show.

Oh, thanks. It's been awesome. I love your conversation style. It's been fun. I've never, I've never had an introduction to a podcast before that just was just— we're just talking.

We're just talking.

That was— that was cool. It's like we're just happening. And by the way, I'm still recording this, so yeah, that was fun.

Well, I, I wanted to feel like people are just listening into a conversation that we're having.

Yeah, yeah, that's how I roll, Ryan.

Cool. Do you think—

cool.

Okay. Awesome Movers, thanks. This was super fun. Ryan, so excited to have you on the show. Thanks for all of the nitty-gritty how-tos, tangible steps that we can take and just be reminded of as we are out there trying to bring our talk to the world. I think one of the things that's important to point out is that I think a lot of these ideas don't just apply to TED. I think they apply apply across the board. So there's some wonderful stuff in there. I hope you enjoyed that. So let's get to it. Ryan said he was gonna offer up a free online course, and I'm pretty jazzed about it. So here's the page you can go to for that giveaway. It is getyourfirsttedtalk.com/sallykoeringzimney. Hey! I was like, "Aww, gonna use my name. That's nice." Okay, so it is getyourfirsttedtalk.com/sally. Go check that out. I think there's some good stuff on there, and you get to know Ryan a little bit better too, so that'll be cool. Okay, so that's some business we're taking care of there. One of the big things I want to share with you is that I still have a few slots open this month for my TMM Quick Coaching. I know I, I spent a whole episode on it last week talking about why I think I've become a believer that through just an online exchange, we can really come to some big ahas that I can help redirect you and bring you to some new realizations about what you can be doing differently and maybe better, hopefully better, as you are bringing your talks out into the world. So if you have a talk right now that you are wrestling with in any way, or if you're somebody who just gives a lot of talks and you want some feedback from a coach, someone that you trust, and if you trust me, I'd love to be that person for you. So go check out my website where you can learn a little bit more about this. It's called TMM Quick Coaching, and the site is thismovedme.com. I don't know if it's a slash or a dash. That's— it gets so confusing. Okay, here's what it is. thismovedme.com/tmm-quick-coaching. Go check that out, and if you're interested, sign up, because once those slots are full, I'll close it down until I can open it up again. So hopefully you can get yourself in there. And if you are an email subscriber, you get $20 off, which I think is pretty awesome. So if you want to do that, you head over to the website, and there's lots of different ways that you can sign up for the newsletter, and I will make sure that you have that discount code if you want it before you sign up. All right, that is it for me. I'm so grateful for your connection and for you listening. To this show. This is a passion project of mine, and I really enjoy it. And knowing that you're listening makes all the difference. Hope you guys have a great week. See you next week. This moved me, movers. What's moving you? What's going on? Love to hear about it.