Transform Your Relationships: How An Expert Prepares and Delivers a TED Talk

Reading this headline you might be thinking: “Oh yeah, this guy says he is an expert? Is that really true?” In this fake-news world, that is an entirely reasonable caution. Would the following qualify me?

· My TED Talk was my 546th public speech

· I am a Master Trainer for Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

· I am a certified High Impact Presentations Instructor

· I have just published my book, Japan Presentations Mastery

Having taught thousands of people how to present over the past 20-plus years, I thought it might be interesting to pull back the velvet curtain and reveal how I prepared for my TED Talk. Expert or otherwise, I am at least someone with substantial public speaking experience.

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, has certain restrictions around what you can talk about and how long you can talk. The TED mission is to research and discover “ideas worth spreading”. I needed a topic which was a fit for the format and I had up to 13 minutes to deliver my talk. There are many things which I could have addressed on stage, but I thought “Transform Our Relationships” would have universal appeal, given TED Talks are broadcast all around the world.

The first thing to consider was how to end the talk. I needed to clarify the central message I wanted to impart. “Transform your relationships” became my choice for the close and I made that phrase my speech title. I also linked the close back to some remarks I made right at the start, so I was able to tie a neat bow on the talk. There are no questions in the TED format, so there was no need to design the second close.

Next, I did some research on what others were saying about transforming relationships. I found a report entitled Relationships in the 21st Century. When I read the report, I thought the findings were rather unremarkable and that it would be perfect for debunking at the start. A slightly controversial start can be an attention grabber. Of course, I left the final design of the opening until the end of my preparations. The start has only one aim—to grab audience attention so that they listen to what it is we have to say.

I had the end clearly in mind and a vague idea about the opening, so now I needed to build the various chapters for the talk. Thirteen minutes is quite short, so every word is gold. I thought Dale Carnegie’s human relations principles were the perfect tool, which I could pass on to the audience to transform their relationships. There are 30 human relations principles, so that was too many for the time available. I selected seven.

Each principle formed a chapter, so that made the construction of the talk quite easy. I needed some flesh on the bones of this skeleton though, so I selected some easy-to-access examples of how to use the principles. Some of these vignettes were created to make the point and some were actual examples from real life.

I needed a bridge between the start of the talk and the Dale Carnegie human relations principles, which would set the scene for what was to come. I drew on some well-known historical influencers: Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi and English physicist Isaac Newton. I wanted to make the point that the secret of achieving a transformation was to start with yourself, rather than expecting everyone else to change to suit you. Gandhi’s quote is well known. “Become the change you wish to see in the world”. Perfect.

Also, every high school student has studied Newtonian physics and so remembers his proclamation that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Perfect. I could make the point that if we want to transform our relationships, we can change the angle of approach with others and we will get a different reaction. This was extremely easy for an audience to grasp as a concept to transform their relationships. I made this a core message linking each chapter back to the central thesis of “start with changing your angle of approach”.

My final design task was to go back and polish the attention-grabbing opening. I selected the conclusion from the report and then declared it was too obvious. By doing so I have now engaged the audience to anticipate what I am going to say, if I am not accepting this report’s conclusion as sufficient to understand relationship-building in the 21st century. I wasn’t doing this for dramatic effect. I honestly thought it was all too obvious. If it had delivered some earth-shattering insight, then I would have used that instead by way of an authority reinforcement.

As I have said many times, rehearsal is so critical in giving talks. I soon discovered I had too much material for the time allowed, so one of the human relations principles had to be jettisoned. I had organised the talk into chapters, so each one was complete in itself. Rather than trying to water down the other chapters to squeeze in Chapter seven, it was better to keep the others powerful and cut one.

I then took all the content and wrote it up as a complete script. I don’t normally bother with this step. I knew there was no way I would remember every single word of a 13-minute talk, however this script gave me the core content to draw on. Obviously, I wasn’t going to read it to the audience—that would be a fake expert! I recorded it and played it over and over to myself about 10 times, until I had absorbed the flow of the talk in my mind.

I did another three live rehearsals with the cut-down materials and kept editing to make sure I could get through it in under 13 minutes. At the beginning I had toyed with the idea of no slides so that all the attention would be on me. In the end, I decided that slides would help me with the navigation. This talk goes around the world, so my personal and professional reputations were on the line—especially when you go around saying you are an expert on public speaking. I thought it was better to be smooth in my delivery and not to lose my place or have a brain whiteout while on live-streaming camera, particularly as that means no editing rescue capability. None of us are required to memorise a TED Talk, by the way.

Once I had selected the slides I wanted, I made sure I owned the use of the images. I could have just taken some images from the internet, but there is a copyright issue right there. We all need to respect the intellectual property of the owners of those images. I also made sure I had pictures with people in them wherever possible. People are always of more interest to an audience.

On the day before the talk, I did five full-blood, full-power rehearsals and recorded them, so I could check how I sounded. On the day of the delivery, I recorded 10 full-power rehearsals, one after another, checking the time to make sure I didn’t go over the 13-minute limit. Full rehearsal at full power, with many repetitions is key.

Of course, this full-power repetition was very tiring, but I didn’t worry about peaking before the event. I knew my nervous energy would kick in once I was on stage under the lights, confronting the live-streaming cameras and the faces of the assembled audience. Knowing how to marshal your nervous energy is an advantage when presenting, rather than a cause for concern, if you have done the hard yards during your rehearsals.

On the day, there was a technical issue with the reference screen in front of the stage. It is positioned so that the speaker can see what is being displayed on the main screen behind them. I wasn’t worried. I had confidence—thanks to my rehearsals—that I could do the talk without slides, if I needed to. For whatever reason it worked perfectly for me, so I reproduced my delivery as I had practiced it over and over and over.

Waiting in the greenroom, I didn’t chat with the other speakers. I concentrated on slowing my breathing down to make sure I was calm and quietly read the full script again. With 10 minutes to go, I was being wired up for the talk. I made sure the head-attachment microphone apparatus was pulled out away from my cheek and mouth, because I knew I would be projecting a lot of power to my audience. I didn’t want any audio dissonance caused by my being loud to find its way on to the recording because the microphone was being set in the wrong place by the stage technical crew.

As it turned out, four seconds before I was to be introduced by the MC, they needed to fix a technical issue, so they decided to show a promotional TED video instead. Naturally I was fully psyched up, ready to go and then had to bring everything to a screaming halt. This type of stop/start thing can throw your equilibrium off balance. I knew what to do. Previously, when I was a karate athlete in competition finals, I had experienced these interruptions and the sudden delay before you can go out on to the mats to fight.

I immediately moved away from the backstage crew in order to keep my concentration at full peak condition. I happened to notice there was a mirror just around the corner of the backstage area. While they ran the video, I began quietly running through the start of my talk, checking my gestures, etc. The start and finish of the talk are critical elements and we must get these right. Also, we cannot allow anything to cause us to lose our concentration or peak energy levels just before we hit the stage.

I walked confidently to the round red carpet, which was my spot from which to talk, paused to enjoy the applause and create some anticipation. I then hit the opening hard with a strong voice and a big double-arm gesture. The rest of the talk went pretty close to my plan. The key thing to note is, only I knew what the plan was! At the end I bowed, stayed there to receive the applause, then unhurriedly and confidently moved backstage. First and last impressions are being formed as soon as we move to and from our positions and we have to have those well planned. A speaker rushing from the stage leaves a different impression to someone staying there momentarily and then walking off with purpose.

TED Talks are quite specific as a formula, but the essence of what is required can be applied to most talks. We don’t plan to fail, but failing to plan a talk which potentially will be seen by the whole world is bound to give you pause. No one will remember what you spoke about but they will get an impression about you. Our personal and professional brands are on display, so let’s design and deliver the presentation like experts.

Action Steps

1. Select a topic which is congruent with TED’s purpose and specifications.

2. Select the punchline and design backwards from there.

3. Rehearse to check that the time and content configuration is correct.

4. Rehearse at full power, just as you plan to deliver on the day.

5. Plan your walk on and off stage.

6. Have contingency plans ready in case the slides are not working.

7. Have a clear plan in place if there is a sudden delay before you go on.