Building in Public 4#: Preparing for my TED Ideas Talk
A recap of what's happened while building Mane Hook-Up.
Hey there 👋🏾,
For those of you who are short on time, here are the sections of the newsletter you can skip ahead to…
Progress🏅: The application, interview, script writing and memorising
Problems🤕: How I ended up shaving off seven minutes of my talk
Plans💡: Practice makes perfect: public speaking tips
🎯 Recap of the previous week
Prepping for my TED Ideas Talk in December
Many of you may already know that I’m giving a TED Ideas talk next week, on the 12th December. This is a HUGE personal milestone for me, especially as public speaking has only been on my agenda for the past five months.
While, on the surface, this doesn’t look like an opportunity to turn Mane Hook-Up into a small giant, it certainly is when we think about how thought leadership plays a role in connecting with a wider audience.
Not to mention, the talk preparation has been my core focus for the past two weeks, so this is a perfect opportunity to shed light on the ins and outs of the TED Ideas process, without giving the content of my talk away 😉.
For anyone who is getting into public speaking (or thinking about it) feel free to drop me an email or DM and we can swap notes!
🏅 Progress
The application and interview
About 18 months ago, I started working on my vision board, thinking about some of the big things that I wanted to achieve. Not just as a Founder, but personally.
One of those things, was a TED Talk.
In June, I started looking for public speaking opportunities. Mainly to do two things: 1) start more conversations in the textured hair space and — by virtue — build Mane Hook-Up’s reputation and 2) start speaking about the topics that are really meaningful to me (like leadership and supporting underserved communities).
Three months later, a TED Ideas application landed on my desk.
Given I haven’t given a keynote speech before, there are plenty of reasons I could have run away to the hills. But something in me thought, why not? Worst case scenario, I’m not selected and at the very least I’ve gained some insight into what the TED process looks like.
I loved that this particular type of TED talk prompted people to unearth ideas from different spaces. It made me to think about how communities can build wealth, specifically from the textured hair industry, and what that can do for individuals, local communities and underrepresented groups as a whole.
There were three key questions also helped me to formulate my thoughts, they were:
Why does my idea matter?
What are the key takeaways for the audience?
Why me?
A short video (60s or less) with a combination of all these answers.
Now given the big event is just a week away, I’ll shed more light on the process than my topic — to make sure there are no spoilers — and to help anyone who is thinking about doing a TEDx or Ideas Talk.
While the application process was pretty straight forward, I found it really hard to narrow my idea down. The textured hair industry is huge, and I could easily end up talking about it non stop for hours on end had if I go in without a concrete sense of direction.
Not to mention, as a big picture person, narrowing things down isn’t always my strength 😆.
So, I spent the best part of two days, trying to identify the key takeaway from my hypothetical talk. Once I’d done this, the rest felt much easier. Given TEDx and TED talks are usually no longer that 16-17 minutes, focus is everything.
Three weeks after completing the application — and momentarily forgetting about it — I got a call asking to join the team for an interview.
This was my final opportunity to leave a good impression and to really explain the crux of my talk to the people who know the audience far better than I do. It was roughly 30 minutes, and I can’t quite remember all of the questions they asked me that day. Except for the last one… which was this:
Can you summarise your talk in 30 seconds with a clear beginning, middle and end?
Now, my big picture brain momentarily went into a state of panic (especially as my talk involves so many moving parts), but I managed to pull all of my ideas together and create a coherent thread from beginning to end.
At this stage, I also got the impression the team already loved the ide, and this conversation was a combination of getting to know me better as a person and seeing if they could imagine me on stage, delivering my thoughts convincingly.
My advice to anyone who makes it to the final stages is this. Be yourself, because ultimately, while the TED team are buying into an incredible idea, it’s also about them buying into who you are as a person. It makes no sense to have a personality transplant for an interview, only to bring your whole self to the talk and leave everyone feeling confused lol.
TIP FOR ANYONE APPLYING FOR TED IDEAS: Run your application passed a friend, family member or colleague to make sure the point that you're making can be easily understood. If the people who know you (and will probably make more of an effort to figure it out) still can't quite grasp your idea, the idea probably needs to be refined. Writing and memorising
Remember, this is my first keynote.
So, when I was given around 10 days to write my talk, I panicked (you’ll notice there’s a lot of that), before throwing myself knees deep into the process. Personally, I prefer throwing all of my throughs down on paper first and refining them as I go along. That’s just a preference thing, some people like to do all of their research first and then start writing. My advice is, you know yourself so do what works best for you.
But, there are some things you may want to do before or while you’re writing…
Find a speaking coach 🦸🏾♂️: Whether they have or haven’t done a TED before is irrelevant, in my humble opinion. The main thing is, having someone you can speak to about both your content and your delivery. Having two coaches to speak to has really calmed my nerves, helped me to iron out my script faster and helped me gain a tonne of feedback that, otherwise, I wouldn’t be privy too.
Speak to other speakers 👋🏾: To get an insight into their process. This helped me understand various different preparation methods and identify what could work best for me given my working style.
Speak to a TEDx speaker🎙️: To get an idea of what to expect (while it may not be like for like, it can help). You can cover anything from the theatre you’ll be giving the talk in, team likes and dislikes. It’s all about info gathering.
Do the industry research 🤔: Once the talk is said and done, your content will be online for thousands of people to see. And you want it to be credible, so speak to other people in your industry to get gather first hand feedback on anything that you want to reference. I, for example, spoke to the owner of a Black hair shop to better understand what this role looks like.
All of the above played a huge role in helping me to write my script and handing it in.
Once the script was down, I then started to memorise the talk in chunks by doing the following.
Blocking my calendar out for rehearsals 📅: I’ve been doing one woman rehearsals for the past 2 weeks and committed to 3-4 hours a day of focussing purely on the talk. This made it much easier to memorise what I had written as I had several hours of uninterrupted time to focus on memorising and delivery.
Splitting the talk into chunks 🪓: This gave me some parameters to work with. After splitting my talk into seven chunks, I aimed to memorise 2 sections a day (but usually managed 3).
Writing the talk out ✍🏽: Unsure where I read this, but we apparently find it easier to remember things that have been written down. So I wrote each section of my talk in a diary before I began reciting it word for word. This often helped me to cut some words out to make things snappier.
Don’t keep starting at the beginning 🔂: Many people nail the beginning of a talk and flail towards the end as they always start from the top when memorising a section. To prevent that from happening, I always started my re-runs with the section I had just memorised. Once that was nailed, I would do a run-through of the entire talk with the new section included.
Listening to my gut when it came to weaker areas 💛: When you start saying the words out loud, it’s much easier to identify phrases and sentences that don’t need to be there. My solo rehearsals have often been used as a cutting opportunity (helping me to cut my talk time in half).
Check that paragraphs are fully formulated thoughts 🗨️: If you’re prepared to talk at a bunch of strangers for 10 minutes, guaranteed you’re talking about something you love. You’re also likely to overestimate how much the audience knows because of how much you know. So, it’s good to triple check that each section and paragraph clearly explains what your points.
With all the above done, it took me a little over 2 days to memorise my entire script. Giving me roughly two weeks to start focusing on my delivery (because the reality is, that’s often what people remember).
The time that it takes to memorise the entire talk will vary, but as long as you put time aside to run over your notes everyday, reciting it all will gradually get easier.
TIP FOR SPEAKERS MEMORISING A TALK: Record yourself running through the talk and listen to the recording over and over again. When you're walking, driving, doing chores around the house and more. One of the best pieces of advice I received is this: recordings are like music, after you've played it a few times, you naturally start to remember more and more, at speed. 🤕 Problems
Shaving off two seven minutes
Like the other ten amazing speakers that have been selected, I have been given a time limit for my talk.
And, my overzealous self was seven minutes over time 😭. After going through a round of feedback with the TED team, I tried to apply all of their suggestions but didn’t take into consideration that my first edit was bang on time, taking the new version waaay off.
I also started to memorise the entire script after making these changes, leaving me with the task of shaving some minutes off and removing some lines from my memory.
A challenge, but a huge learning curve that made me realise two things:
Overshare, and people will tell you what they don’t need to know: Had I mentioned that my talk was to time, I doubt they would have expected me to make many big changes. And, had I mentioned the running time while I was practicing, I would have had feedback sooner about the talk being slightly too long.
Know yourself and your talk, and you will automatically know what feedback to apply: You are delivering the talk and need to be invested in the outcome and convinced of the content. Without this feeling, it’s so hard to deliver a talk meaningfully. The more you know yourself and the purpose of your talk, the easier it’ll be to say yay or nay to certain suggestions. Leaving you with a script that instils confidence, and helps you to perform better on the day.
That all said and done, I managed to shave some time off and with my content finalised, I can move onto the final step…
TIPS FOR SPEAKERS GETTING FEEDBACK: Don't feel pressured to apply everything someone has suggested. Remember, it's your talk. So take the time to consider whether the information you're adding is helping or hurting the chances of your audience getting the core message. 💡 Plans
Practice makes perfect
Nothing really beats the act of practicing your talk over and over again.
For those who want to get into public speaking or see themselves doing a TEDx or TED Talk one day, here are just a few ways you can practice:
As you’re doing chores: I believe there is power in practicing while you’re distracted. Makes it much easier to run through a talk when there’s nothing else to focus on. Kind of like running after you’re been wearing weighted wrist and ankle straps.
As you’re driving: Similar to the above, driving is distracting and if you can concentrate while you’re driving through the streets of London, you’ll always find it much easier elsewhere.
To mentors or colleagues over Zoom: I wildly underestimated how nervous I would feel reciting my talk over Zoom. Having done it a couple of times now, its nerving and, if you don’t contain your nerves, can lead to you skipping a beat.
In a room of family and friends: This will never quite be the same as presenting in a room of 400+ strangers, but it will help you to simulate some of the nerves you’ll feel on the day and provide you with an opportunity to keep them under wraps.
That’s about all I have at the moment! I might write a follow up further down the line, but let me know if any of you have specific questions about the process in the comments and I’ll be on touch.
🤔 Questions?
Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below! Until next week,
J x
P.S. Here are some of my other posts:
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