Talk like ted book summary
talk Like TED
is a smart, practical book that will teach you how to give a kick-butt presentation. This book is about discovering what moves you and then moving others with your vision.” – Daniel Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author on the back of ‘Talk Like TED’
Carmine Gallo distilled nine public-speaking secrets out of hundreds of TED talks and wrote Talk Like TED. These nine secrets provide a great framework for your own presentations.
In this article, I’ll be summarising the nine secrets of Talk Like TED. And when you want to download a 1-page summary of the book click here.
STRUCTURE OF TALK LIKE TED
The speaking formula is split into three segments. And each of the segments has three secrets. So, you basically have a 3×3 model. As we will see in secret #7, the number three has a special meaning. And when you read through to the end, you can find out how to get access to even more book summaries.
THE THREE SEGMENTS ARE
Emotional: Storytelling is very much about emotions. Facts play a far less important role. Stories are facts with a soul. This is how ancient wisdom was transferred to the next generations. But in today’s modern world, a lot of this art is lost and needs to be recovered again. But there is more than stories to emotions
Novel: We all thrive on NEW! Be it new things, new information, new knowledge, new experience, and so on. So, how do you present this to your audience?
Memorable: Most information gets lost very quickly. How do you create a difference and a longer lasting memory of your talk or presentation? Read secrets #7 to #9 to find out.
EMOTIONAL
SECRET #1 – UNLEASH THE MASTER WITHIN
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to present something, but you were not passionate? How did it go?
I personally do my best when I’m really passionate about the topic, cause or the team or client.
Is passion really relevant in today’s world? Think about how much content there is. How many blogs, posts, articles you can access.
And one of the biggest differences is the level of passion the author or presenter brings to the work. This creates the real connection.
So ask yourself these two questions:
What makes your heart sing? When you’re able to answer that, you are on a good path to delivering a great presentation!
What is your passion? That’s related to question number 1, but is a bit wider. You can be passionate about quite a few things, but maybe not everything makes your heart sing.
With that in mind, let’s move to the next secret.
SECRET #2 – MASTER THE ART OF STORYTELLING
When I look back at the presentations I gave since reading this book, I have always incorporated stories.
One of the stories that resonate quite well is that I’m from Germany (I now live in Australia). So people recognise that I have an accent but they are not always 100% certain where the accent is from.
So I reassure them that they are correct in guessing Germany. And I share why I moved with my family from Germany to Australia.
Carmine shares a “formula” you can follow:
Between pathos (emotion), logos (logic) and ethos (character) try to have a ratio of 65 / 25 / 10. That means that emotions are about ⅔ of the presentation. That might feel like a lot, but for a presentation in front of an audience, that’s what moves people.
You can use personal stories, stories about others or fictional stories. And also use concepts like heroes and villains. Your audience will be able to relate and won’t forget you and your story.
SECRET #3 – HAVE A CONVERSATION
That’s probably one of the bigger challenges.
Have you ever given a presentation and you roughly knew what you were going to talk about? And then you walk in and ‘wing it’?
I have done this many times – and it somewhat works. It’s “the standard quality” of presentation. It’s the norm.
But now imagine that you rehearse. You know the most important words you need to hit. You practice “punching them out”. Suddenly your probability of hitting the mark is a lot higher.
That doesn’t mean that you need to learn your presentation word-by-word. But it’s about practicing again and again until it becomes natural and doesn’t sound “learnt”. This takes time and effort. But for the right presentation it can be worth it.
NOVEL
SECRET #4 – TEACH ME SOMETHING NEW
Are you watching the news? Do you want to know what’s going on? Are you interested in trends, developments, discoveries? Most of us are curious. We want to be on the forefront of what’s happening.
We are also keen on the latest and newest gadgets, books, recipes and so on. Even when you think about cookbooks! There are hundreds and thousands of free recipes online available. And still, cookbooks are constant best-sellers because we want new recipes and new books. Even when we only try one or two from a new book.
So integrate new information into your presentation. Something that your audience hasn’t heard before. And the best way to deliver it is in a Twitter friendly headline.
Try to use no more than 140 characters! This grabs attention.
SECRET #5 – DELIVER JAW-DROPPING MOMENTS
In one of the TED talks, the speaker presented a human brain on stage. Something like this might not always be feasible. But what can you integrate into your presentation that makes the audience say ‘Wow! That’s incredible! That’s unbelievable!’ ?
And when you wrap this information into a story, it becomes even more powerful. For example, I demonstrate the power of exponentiality using a very visual exercise on the beach of San Diego.
SECRET #6 – LIGHTEN UP
Yes, I can talk about this as a German. But it took me quite some years to get better at this.
Use humour in your presentation. The more laughs you get, the better you’ll be remembered.
What also helps are anecdotes (a short version of stories), metaphors and quotes like the one I used on top of this article.
When I hear: ‘You’re not a typical German because Germans don’t have humour’, I know that I’m on the right path.
Now your presentation is emotional and novel. Finally, we need to work on making it memorable too.
MEMORABLE
SECRET #7 – STICK TO THE 18MIN RULE
This is probably the most interesting one. TED Talks are not more than 18min long. One of the rare exceptions is Tony Robbin’s talk. But his shortest seminar has a minimum of 50 hours. So it’s probably ok for him to go a few minutes over time when he was on the TED stage.
The reason for the 18min rule is simple: Our brain is an energy hog. Concentration fades quickly after a while. Keeping a full room alert and attentive is a big challenge. And when you want to be remembered, it’s better to have a short and great presentation.
Like Winston Churchill said – and I’m not quoting word-by-word: I didn’t have time for a short presentation, so I prepared a long one.
The other suggestion Carmine makes is that you stick to the rule of three. And guess what! He follows this rule in his book. Structure your presentation into three elements and then have three key points (or secrets) per element. This is simple but powerful. It helps me a lot in my presentations.
SECRET #8 – PAINT A PICTURE WITH MULTI-SENSORY EXPERIENCES
Imagine that you’re standing on the beach of San Diego. Your bare feet are in the sand. It’s warm. You smell the fresh ocean air and birds sing a morning song. You’re facing the water. It’s flat and still. Now you take thirty steps (1 meter per step) forward. Where are you?
That’s how I start my presentation explaining the power of exponentiality. Curious about the rest? Well, follow me and you might hear the rest sometime.
SECRET #9 – STAY IN YOUR LANE
That’s another interesting one! Today, a lot is talked about authenticity. It’s easy to talk about something you have some knowledge about. But when you really want to capture your audience, it needs to be “in your line”.
That goes back to #1, but it’s more than that. Be authentic, transparent and open. And your audience will really like you and will want more from you.
By the way, the reason why we moved to Australia with the family was that we wanted to live and work in another country. We wanted to give our daughters this experience. It was probably the best decision we have ever made. Though we don’t know what would have happened otherwise. So let’s move forward from where we are.
That’s the book in a nutshell. Try to use those secrets in the preparation of your next talk and presentation. And let me know how you go 🙂
WANT MORE BOOK SUMMARIES?
When you like this summary and you got some good ideas and value out of it, I would briefly share something with you that you might want to check out.
I am reading a lot. Most books are at the intersection of Digital Disruption and Personal Transformation because that’s “my lane” and “my passion”.
And I share these models and concepts when I talk to or work with people. And they always want more. So I created a book club
New book shit happen By Kulveer singh at amazon:- https://amzn.to/2WAfP3W