Make Your Ideas Irresistible To The World With These 9 Secrets From ‘Talk Like Ted’

I love Ted Talks.

I love writing.

Public speaking? I wouldn’t say love. I mean, I’d rather stick knitting needles in my eyes.

So with an important speech to over 100 guests at my wedding looming over me like a dark cloud, I needed guidance… which arrived in the form of an audio book titled ‘Talk Like Ted’ by Carmine Gallo. And wow!

I learnt how to keep my audience captivated.

How to capture their imaginations, hearts and minds (without sweaty palms or a shaky voice).

The speech went down a treat and I wasn’t nervous beforehand because I felt prepared (I even ate my starter).

Wedding speech aside, as an entrepreneur the ability to communicate and present ideas effectively is a winning way to get people to listen, be inspired and take action.

Fancy becoming a master of communication and persuasion?

Then you need listen to (or read) and learn ‘the 9 public speaking secrets of the world’s top minds’; only good things will come from this for you, trust me. It’s science.

Allow me to wet your appetite with a brief précis of these 9 superb secrets.

Secret #1 Unleash The Master Within

What are you truly passionate about? “What makes your heart sing?” as Carmine Gallo would say.

Gallo expresses the importance of being passionate in your presentations because passion is contagious and that to truly inspire others, you need to first be inspired yourself. So find out what fires you up (something salient to your self identity) and communicate it passionately to create a strong and meaningful connection with your topic. If you are charismatic and radiate joy and happiness when you speak, it will be sure to rub off on your audience. They will really feel it.

Speaking of charisma, we can all learn a thing or two from the master himself – Steve Jobs.

Secret #2 Master the Art of Story Telling

Maybe stories are just data with a soul – Brene Brown
Gallo tells us how stories are like persuasive gold dust which help build trust and keep people emotionally engaged and captivated. Plus, people are more likely to agree with you off the back of a story because narrative is a powerful way to break down resistance (good to know eh?). According to a study (revealed in the book) there is an actual science behind the power of stories too, our brains become active when we hear a story and sensual, visual and motor areas of the brain are triggered. This helps people to really experience your content and what you are saying. Byran Stevenson is a fantastic storyteller, see for yourself:

To make your stories powerful and convincing, Carmine refers to a Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who divided the means of persuasion into three categories: Ethos, Pathos, Logos.

Sounds complicated right?

It’s not, it surprisingly simple and actually makes a lot of sense:

• Pathos – is what you are saying emotionally appealing? Emotions. Values.
• Ethos – is your presentation credible? Credibility. Trust.
• Logos – what data can you present as evidence? Logic. Reason. Proof.

Secret #3 Have a conversation

None of us want to sound like a robot when we’re talking to people. It’s not natural. Gallo observes how having a conversation is the best way to be authentic, build rapport and establish trust with your audience. So practise having a conversation and keep practising until you sound like you’re having a chat with a friend over dinner. When you give a presentation, pay attention to the pace of your speech – 150 – 160 words per minute is easily digestible. Your pace of delivery can also be used to support the narrative. Brian Stevenson’s Ted Talk (above) is also a great example of a how to be conversational when you present.

In the below Ted Talk, Amy Cuddy talks about how to use your body language to your advantage:

Secret #4 Teach me something new

Gallo explains how the human brain loves novelty and that in order to ‘jolt people out of their pre-conceived notions’, we need to teach them something new because when we ‘bombard the brain with new experiences’, it triggers dopamine which manifests a reality in people’s minds, helping them to remember the feeling; it’s like a save button for the brain. So think about how you can package and present your statistics in a novel and concrete way – get this right and you’ll make people think and disrupt the brain’s effort to take short cuts and switch off.

Helen Fisher’s Ted Talk tackles the complex topic of love. She teaches us something new.

Secret #5 Deliver jaw-dropping moments

Gallo tells us to ‘unleash an emotionally charged event’ to trigger a part of the brain called the Amygdala which releases dopamine and forces the mind to remember (like a post-it note). This should be the ‘wow’ moment of your presentation (known as the hook) – a vivid and emotionally arousing experience. Try to deliver a show-stopping moment to make people care and then link it to a tangible explanation with specific statistics. Like when Bill Gates released mosquitos into the audience….

Or when Dr Jill Bolte presented a human brain…

These are moments the brain simply can’t ignore (sorry, but these are stuck with you now!).

Secret #6 Lighten Up

This secret teaches us how our brains love humour and can not ignore novelty. So Gallo explains how combining novelty and humour will create a winning formula because it helps make people like you – people are more likely to do business with someone they like. This doesn’t mean telling contrived jokes because they’re not authentic. Gallo says ‘humours observations’ are a better way to get a few laughs and make us more likeable.

Secret #7 Stick to the 18 min rule

All Ted Talks (with a few rare exceptions) are no more than 18 minutes long. This is no accident, it’s neuroscience. Gallo explains how the accumulation of a lot of information leads to what’s known as a ‘cognitive backlog’. Imagine your brain doing a benchpress, and every minute your presentation goes on another weight is added to the bar and after 18 minutes your brain can’t hold the bar anymore. The information is too heavy. Fatigued, your brain drops it all – splat. Your attempts to get the brain to lift another rep at this point are futile. Frustrated, it has burnt too much energy and given up. Fortunately you can avoid this from happening by building cognitive breaks into your presentation; this can include photos, short videos, or quotes and will leave your audience’s brain with a healthy reserve of glucose. So be kind and stick to 18 minutes.

Secret #8 Paint a mental picture with multi-sensational experiences

We need to paint vivid pictures in the minds of our audience to stimulate all of the senses (or at least more than just one). This can be achieved by asking people to imagine smells or tastes. Gallo also explains how visual aids are powerful way to offer a simple explanation to complex material because, according to science, concepts presented as images are much more likely to be recalled than words alone – pictures help us remember 6x more information than just listening to the words. Rich metaphors can help convey emotion; the blow torch metaphor (with props) to explain chronic pain in Elliot Krane’s Ted Talk is a fantastic example of this:

And David Christian does a stella job of painting a vivid image in the mind of the audience.

Secret #9 Stay in Your Lane

Gallo talks about the importance of being authentic during your presentations and how being vulnerable and expressing raw emotion, is likely to achieve a favourable response from the audience. So speak with conviction, put in the time and effort, let go and talk from the heart.

If you’re like most people, you’re capable of so much more than you’ve imagined for your life.  You have the capacity to move people, to inspire them, to provide hope to the despondent and direction to the lost. You have the ability to educate and electrify, inform, and inspire, but only if you believe in your ability to do so. – Carmine Gallo

Like I said, this is just a taster, so if you want all the juicy details (which you do, trust me), grab yourself a copy of Talk Like Ted, be enlightened and start selling your ideas to the world.

Audiobook: www.audible.co.uk
Book: www.amazon.co.uk