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Some people think that there's a TED Talk formula:
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"Give a talk on a round, red rug."
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"Share a childhood story."
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"Divulge a personal secret."
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"End with an inspiring call to action."
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No.
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That's not how to think of a TED Talk.
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In fact, if you overuse those devices,
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you're just going to come across as clichéd or emotionally manipulative.
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But there is one thing that all great TED Talks have in common,
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and I would like to share that thing with you,
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because over the past 12 years, I've had a ringside seat,
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listening to many hundreds of amazing TED speakers, like these.
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I've helped them prepare their talks for prime time,
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and learned directly from them,
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their secrets of what makes for a great talk.
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And even though these speakers and their topics all seem
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completely different,
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they actually do have one key common ingredient.
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And it's this:
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Your number one task as a speaker
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is to transfer into your listeners' minds an extraordinary gift—
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a strange and beautiful object that we call an idea.
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Let me show you what I mean.
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Here's Haley.
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She is about to give a TED Talk
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and frankly, she's terrified.
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(Video) Presenter: Haley Van Dyck!
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(Applause)
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Over the course of 18 minutes,
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1,200 people, many of whom have never seen each other before,
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are finding that their brains are starting to sync with Haley's brain
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and with each other.
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They're literally beginning to exhibit the same brain-wave patterns.
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And I don't just mean they're feeling the same emotions.
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There's something even more startling happening.
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Let's take a look inside Haley's brain for a moment.
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There are billions of interconnected neurons in an impossible tangle.
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But look here, right here.
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A few million of them are linked to each other
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in a way which represents a single idea.
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And incredibly, this exact pattern is being recreated in real time
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inside the minds of everyone listening.
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That's right. In just a few minutes,
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a pattern involving millions of neurons
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is being teleported into 1,200 minds,
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just by people listening to a voice and watching a face.
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But wait—what is an idea, anyway?
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Well, you can think of it as a pattern of information
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that helps you understand and navigate the world.
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Ideas come in all shapes and sizes,
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from the complex and analytical
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to the simple and aesthetic.
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Here are just a few examples shared from the TED stage.
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Sir Ken Robinson: creativity is key to our kids' future.
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My contention is that creativity now
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is as important in education as literacy,
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and we should treat it with the same status.
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Elora Hardy: building from bamboo is beautiful.
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It is growing all around us,
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it's strong, it's elegant, it's earthquake-resistant.
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Chimamanda Adichie: people are more than a single identity.
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The single story creates stereotypes,
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and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue,
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but that they are incomplete.
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Your mind is teeming with ideas,
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and not just randomly.
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They're carefully linked together.
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Collectively they form an amazingly complex structure
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that is your personal worldview.
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It's your brain's operating system.
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It's how you navigate the world.
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And it is built up out of millions of individual ideas.
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So, for example, if one little component of your worldview
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is the idea that kittens are adorable,
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then when you see this,
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you'll react like this.
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But if another component of your worldview
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is the idea that leopards are dangerous,
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then when you see this,
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you'll react a little bit differently.
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So, it's pretty obvious
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why the ideas that make up your worldview are crucial.
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You need them to be as reliable as possible — a guide,
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to the scary but wonderful real world out there.
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Now, different people's worldviews can be dramatically different.
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For example,
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how does your worldview react when you see this image:
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What do you think when you look at me?
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"A woman of faith," "an expert," maybe even "a sister"?
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Or "oppressed," "brainwashed,"
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"a terrorist"?
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CA: Whatever your answer,
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there are millions of people out there who would react very differently.
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So that's why ideas really matter.
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If communicated properly, they're capable of changing, forever,
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how someone thinks about the world,
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and shaping their actions both now and well into the future.
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Ideas are the most powerful force shaping human culture.
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So if you accept
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that your number one task as a speaker is to build an idea
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inside the minds of your audience,
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here are four guidelines for how you should go about that task:
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One, limit your talk to just one major idea.
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Ideas are complex things;
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you need to slash back your content so that you can focus
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on the single idea you're most passionate about,
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and give yourself a chance to explain that one thing properly.
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You have to give context, share examples, make it vivid.
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So pick one idea,
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and make it the through-line running through your entire talk,
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so that everything you say links back to it in some way.
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Two, give your listeners a reason to care.
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Before you can start building things inside the minds of your audience,
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you have to get their permission to welcome you in.
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And the main tool to achieve that?
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Curiosity.
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Stir your audience's curiosity.
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Use intriguing, provocative questions
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to identify why something doesn't make sense and needs explaining.
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If you can reveal a disconnection in someone's worldview,
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they'll feel the need to bridge that knowledge gap.
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And once you've sparked that desire,
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it will be so much easier to start building your idea.
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Three, build your idea, piece by piece,
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out of concepts that your audience already understands.
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You use the power of language
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to weave together concepts that already exist
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in your listeners' minds.
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But not your language, their language.
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You start where they are.
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The speakers often forget that many of the terms and concepts they live with
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are completely unfamiliar to their audiences.
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Now, metaphors can play a crucial role in showing how the pieces fit together,
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because they reveal the desired shape of the pattern,
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based on an idea that the listener already understands.
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For example, when Jennifer Kahn
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wanted to explain the incredible new biotechnology called CRISPR,
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she said, "It's as if, for the first time,
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you had a word processor to edit DNA.
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CRISPR allows you to cut and paste genetic information really easily."
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Now, a vivid explanation like that delivers a satisfying "aha moment"
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as it snaps into place in our minds.
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It's important, therefore, to test your talk on trusted friends,
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and find out which parts they get confused by.
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Four, here's the final tip:
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Make your idea worth sharing.
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By that I mean, ask yourself the question:
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"Who does this idea benefit?"
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And I need you to be honest with the answer.
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If the idea only serves you or your organization,
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then, I'm sorry to say, it's probably not worth sharing.
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The audience will see right through you.
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But if you believe that the idea has the potential
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to brighten up someone else's day
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or change someone else's perspective for the better
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or inspire someone to do something differently,
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then you have the core ingredient to a truly great talk,
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one that can be a gift to them and to all of us.