By Jodi Wellman
For many of us professional speakers, delivering a TEDx talk is on our list of “Things to Pretty Please Get to Do Before I Die,” right? I hear you. I was fortunate enough to have delivered one in March of 2022, and I’m still counting my lucky stars for the opportunity.
Although the experience was thrilling, it was perfectly imperfect. Let me tell you about two almost-derailing moments:
- Memorizing a 16-minute speech ain’t for the faint of heart! I was rehearsing three times a day and after month three it wasn’t sticking. What was sticking were feelings of mild panic. An immediate game-changer for me was advice from my coach to try the “Loci Method” (a cool way to associate chunks of your talk with specific locations in your home, for example) and I had my talk fully memorized within two days. Winged speech— and panic— gratefully averted.
- Tech glitches happen. Imagine walking on stage, managing not to take a tumble on the round red TED carpet in four-inch heels, and launching into your talk. Then imagine your mic inexplicably cutting out after a couple of minutes, and seeing the MC out of the corner of your eye frantically waving at you to come backstage. Imagine learning that your little dangly earrings were causing interference with your mic headset, and that you do, in fact, need to start your talk over from the beginning. Imagine having to get psyched up to go back out onstage again, in front of the 700 people in the audience who already heard the first two minutes of your spiel. Yep, that can happen. If you watch my talk with this in mind, you’ll notice that the audience were champs for hooting a hollering, so much so that I was taken aback by their exuberance.
How will you handle the daunting task of memorizing your talk (because while some TEDx events have teleprompters, most don’t)? How would you handle a tech glitch (other than by not wearing dangly earrings)— would you look unflappable, or would the glitch throw you off your game? Keep these questions in mind to be ultimately prepared for your big day. Contingency planning (not to be confused with catastrophizing!) can help you feel calm, confident, and in control. I wish you a phenomenally successful talk when you, too, get to share your message from the red dot.
Bio:
Jodi Wellman is a leading authority on living lives worth living. As a speaker and facilitator, she helps her clients live squander-free lives while they’re lucky enough to still be above ground — while cleverly beginning with the “big end” in mind. She named her business Four Thousand Mondays because it shines the light on the finite number of weeks we have to live like we mean it. Jodi holds a Master’s of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also an Assistant Instructor. As a certified coach with 25 years of corporate leadership experience, she helps executives, teams, and high performers work well and live even better. Her TEDx talk can be watched here.