282. The unfiltered debrief of my Tedx Talk

I’m officially a TEDx speaker 🎤 - and in this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my very first talk at TEDxUQ.

I’m answering your most-asked questions:

• How did the opportunity come about?

• How do you actually write a TEDx talk?

• How do you memorise it without sounding robotic?

• And how do you handle nerves on the day?

I’m also sharing the real, unfiltered moments… because not everything went to plan (think: tech issues, unexpected distractions, and a dropped clicker 😅).

You’ll hear:

• What makes an “idea worth spreading”

• Why great speakers aren’t born — they’re made

• My exact process for memorising a talk so it lives in your body

• The biggest mistake people make when applying for TEDx

• And the one thing I highly recommend before any big presentation

Plus, a powerful reminder: don’t go it alone. The right support can take you from good to unforgettable.

If a TEDx stage is on your vision board - this episode is your starting point.

DM me if you’re ready to get closer to your talk 💫

Transcript

Hello! Welcome back to That Voice Podcast, I’m Sally Prosser and as of now officially a Tedx Speaker.

Yes, on Saturday March 14, I did my first Tedx Talk at the University of Queensland – it was Tedx UQ.

In this episode I’m answering the frequently asked questions – some by people who’d like to do a Tedx Talk. Maybe this is you. DM me to get closer to manifesting your talk.

Questions like – how did it come about? How did you write the talk? How did you memorise the talk? How did you manage nerves on the day?

So I’ll answer all those, and I’ll also share things that didn’t go to plan… because there were a few.

AND I’ll share the key thing I’d highly recommend you do before any big presentation to make it a success, they definitely worked for me.

So question one … how did this come about?

Now you need to know that a Tedx Talk is different to a Ted Talk.

Tedx means it’s independently organised – separate to the main Ted brand. Now my talk may get picked to be on the main TED website… what do I mean of course it will… gotta manifest these things…

So because Tedx is independently organised, it means each Tedx event has a different application process. And some have no applications at all, the team just reaches out to people they want on the stage.

With Tedx UQ. It was an online application, the next round was a zoom interview, and then I was chosen as one of the 10 speakers.

So when people ask how to do a Tedx, I would say GO to a Tedx Event as an obvious start and then just look for how to apply online.

No matter what Tedx you’re applying for, they’re looking for AN IDEA WORTH SPREADING – that’s the tagline of Ted.

So a mistake I see, and actually the reason I haven’t applied earlier – although this was the second Tedx application I’d put in. Speakers think they have a great topic or a great story, and that’s not enough. It’s about having a clear argument, a clear hypothesis, which you prove throughout your talk. Kind of like a one person debate. Now this isn’t the case for ALL great Ted Talks, but this exercise will help you distill your amazing points and stories to an idea worth spreading.

What was mine – The aim of speaking is not to be heard, it’s to be remembered.

Now in the UQ application, they were of course interested in speakers who had an affiliation with the uni. I actually used to tutor journalism here, I’ve been a speaker coach for TedxUQ for 3 or 4 years, I’ve done a lot of work for the uni, the business school, the ventures program, the future leaders program. So it was a great fit for me to apply here, and I know from looking at the speakers – UQ affiliation was a big thing.

So if you’re looking to apply, which town or organisation makes the most sense for you? I did apply to Tedx Hobart a few years ago. And my idea wasn’t as strong for one. And also, it was mainly Tasmanians speaking to Tasmanian themes.

If you want to do a Tedx you absolutely can make that happen.

Go to an event. Research the best place. Look at the application process. Apply. Apply again.

And I have a whole masterclass in Soul Speakers with a longer checklist of what you can be doing, and if we work together privately I’ll help with your application and writing your talk.

I’m a big believer in surrounding yourself with a great team to help you achieve your goals.

And that’s the big tip with all this. Do not go it alone.

So even though I help write speeches as my job, you can’t see the wood from the trees when it’s your own stuff, so I hired a gun Tedx Speech coach from America  – Neil Gordon is his name, and he took my speech from good to great. That set of eyes and expertise is so important – I interviewed him in last week’s podcast, so you can hear more about Neil’s process.

I also hired an artist to do my slides. Jade Miller, she’s amazing. Not only did I want the slides to look great, I also didn’t want to run into any trouble with copyrighting because that would prevent the speech being uploaded online. I mentioned famous faces, so even if I found royalty free images or paid for them, it’s murky. So I got Jade to do cartoons of the faces.

I hired the amazing Roya, who I always work with – to do my hair and makeup the morning of the talk. She was at my place bright and early at 6am. But it took it off my plate. And with bright light and cameras you need more makeup than you think. Blokes, you get a bit of a pass with this one, but you do need your wardrobe sorted. One of the other speakers brought his suit and changed into it right before the talk – smart – not sweaty, won’t get marked. And of course I had my outfit all laid out 2 days before. To make sure I had time to clean, change etc.

And then of course my partner Patrick. He gets paid in non-monetary terms, he was an essential part of the day. I knew he could drive me, drop me right outside, carry all the gear.

When you are a speaker, you are the talent. And if you’re wrangling all the logistics, you can’t focus your energy. And every day, I get messages from clients about how much my coaching  and speech writing has helped them and opened up opportunities. Whether it be a Tedx – I remember helping Cat White a couple of years ago and she “Sally was able to help with the style of the presentation, the wording to help it land with the audience and I’m incredibly proud of the final result.” It could be a board presentation, one of my amazing clients messaged me last week and said the presentation went SO well, she got such good feedback she’s now been asked to present at a conference in May. So good, I’m like yep let’s get it!

It takes something off their plate. And they’re using my expertise. It’s like I look at the slides Jade illustrated and I’m like wow, I can’t even draw a stick figure. So if you’re not investing in yourself with experts who can help you improve, you’re going to move slower and it’s going to feel harder.

So with all the logistics off my plate. The speech was on me. And I had to memorise it.

To give you an idea of the timeline. The final speech was pretty much memorised 3 weeks out, which was the dress rehearsal. I wouldn’t normally have things memorised so far out, but hey it’s a Tedx and I wanted to rehearse it so much that it didn’t sound rehearsed. The words needed to NOT be in my head, they need to live in my body.

So I recorded it to my phone and listened morning and night, practised daily, in front of a mirror, in the shower, while walking.

Now yes, can I jump up and speak impromptu, yeh. I always have the structure. Prepare in the masculine, deliver in the feminine. I always have a basic structure, whether it’s speaking at the accounting and business expo down in Sydney last week, or speaking at my mum’s 70the birthday which was last night. If you are listening to this episode right after drop time on Sunday, yes I am recording this Sunday morning. March has been hectic.

And if you want to learn more about how to speak off the cuff, join Soul Speakers, reach out for private coaching. As I say in my book Voiceprint – which you HAVE to get a copy of. It’s easy to wing it when you’ve been preparing your whole life.

And I really want to stress this. Great speakers are not born, they are made. They work for it, they prepare, they practice and I hate it when people just assume oh they’re good and I’m not, nah, they’re learning the skills, they’re taking action, they’re feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Now with a Tedx it needs to be pretty much word perfect, you operate off a script because of timing and it’s just the nature of it. The other thing is the speech needs to make sense as a flow. It’s like barrel of monkeys, where each monkey links arms with the next one to make a big chain. In my speech, each line links to the next. If I get stuck. I do a gesture sequence which helps me link it. For example. Arm out on line one, other arm out on line two, bring arms in for line “here’s what I’ve discovered”. Now if it keeps getting snagged, I know I need to change it. The script is your bitch right. It works for you. You don’t work for the script. Because if I can’t remember that link, it means it’s not there. I need to write something that links more seamlessly. Honestly, every time I see people unable to memorise scripts, it usually because the script needs editing. Again, it pays to work with a professional.

Something that surprised some of the other speakers was my script was so sparse. I typed it one line per paragraph pretty much. There were NO slabs of typing. I write my book like this too, so when my editor had to squish things up for formatting I was like NOOOO and this is the journalist in me, because that’s how you write news scripts. You give me a slab of black and white, my eyes are going to glaze over. So when you’re writing speeches, enter and elipses … are your best friend. No one is editing this like an English assignment.

Now, that level of memorisation really helped me on the day.

I went from speakers green room, to quiet room, to backstage .. to onstage ….. ready to go  and was I feeling nervous. Hell yes, the heart rate was up. So what did I do. I ran the magnetic voice formula – belief, body, breath – this course is FREE, the link is in the show notes. It’s not about getting rid of the nerves it’s about using it… so anyway, I’m all ready and I walk onto the red dot to begin  and … all I can hear is a loud high pitched whistling coming from the right hand side of the stage. Now this was loud. I almost stopped and said wth. I could see other people heard it. Which was good because I was like is this in my head? Now the best speakers stay present in the moment, yet here I was having this whole inner dialogue about the bloody whistling. All the practise came in, muscles memory, I was doing the speech. Turns out it was the wind through a not fully closed door. I was later assured it didn’t affect the recording for the video…. We shall see, it was pretty damn loud.

And THEN. Of course, the clicker did not work. My slides would not budge. And this is the unfiltered debrief you’re getting on this podcast. I had specificialy asked if someone could drvie my slides, I wanted to take that off my plate, but we were told that wasn’t an option we had o drive the slides from stage and then they didn’t work. So you run with it. It was kinda cute the first time and then got annoying for everyone. Oh well the show must go on, it’s happened before and in the recording they can do editing magic hopefully. And it didn’t affect the MESSAGE landing.

Because then I dropped the damn clicker, it fell out of my hand onto the carpet. I’ve been having this weird weakness in my right hand, so I just all of a sudden lost function. Luckily with all the pilates and yoga, I swept up that clicker like the floor was lava and I utilised it. Remember than episode called – how to catch curveballs with confidence – this I what I did. It was right before the line “So how do you become memorable” -and I added apart from dropping things on stage. So it was used instead of ignored.

And then I went back to the speakers green room, awaiting news on whether I had to re-record. Like I said, they said the audio worked, so it was good I didn’t need to do it in the break, especially because I had audience interaction so that would’ve looked weird re-recording with no audience.

And then I mingled with the attendees. Mum was there too which was so nice.

And we dropped her home and had a little cheers! It’s so important to celebrate these things.

Season of life. First you plan and prepare, then you execute, then you rest and revaluate and celebrate. Those 3 steps must be followed for you to energetically feel satisfied. This is why a lot of the population is burnt out, because it’s execute, plan, execute plan, and they’re missing the rest, re-evaluate and celebrate. So don’t miss that step.

And I would have loved to have a bit more of a rest, but after Tedx I was straight into preparing to speak at the expo in Sydney, then had my Sydney Speak up for your business workshop, and the back home, spoke at mum’s 70th, and here I am recording this podcast on Sunday morning before running out to see my friend for lunch… and it’s kinda crazy.

But this is where devotion comes in and what I call audibility rules for yourself. One of my audibility rules, is no matter what I show up on social media and I get this podcast to you on time, dropping Sunday arvo Australian time. So if you’re in business, what is your BAR your business audibility rules … ooh maybe I should do an episode on this …

So there you have it the unfiltered debrief of my TedxTalk. If I missed anything reach out to me on socials @sallyprosservoice – no gatekeeping, happy to answer any questions.

Oh and what’s the title of my talk … STOP SPEAKING TO BE HEARD …