Road To TED | Public Speaking / TED Talks / TEDx / Toastmasters / Business Speaking / Mike Brooks And Dino Dogan

Tell A Story What do all TED speakers have in common?  What do all great speeches have in common? Sarah Fretwell embodies what a great speaker does. A great speaker tells a story. The story is never self serving. It's always a message the speaker was compelled to deliver. Sarah is not only a prototypical TED speaker, but she is also the prototypical Road To TED guest. We caught her in throws of  preparation for her TEDx SkidRow performance. I believe we've captured the anxiety, the nervousness, and the excitement that's inherent in being only weeks away from delivering the most important talk of her life. The Challenge Putting together a show like ours can present challenges. The biggest challenge of all; to make it engaging, valuable and interesting for the listener. So much so, that they are riveted to everything we say. When you can grab the reader or listener in a way that tunes everything else out in our noisy world, you’re doing it right. One of the many ways the best shows do this by following a format. So the first thing Dino and I did when we set out to co-host Road To TED was to create a format. Now of course, we also wanted it to be a loose format that we could have some fun with. But make no mistakes, this show has a format to it. The main component is that each episode is an interview with a future or past TEDx speaker. And the topic of the interview will be their journey to their talk. Our goal is not to study our guest’s topics, but how to become a better speaker. So what we want to talk to them about is public speaking. How This Episode Almost Went Bad So it’s quite interesting to see how we, or more accurately I, derailed this episode and broke from our format. It is actually quite instructive. At first I was mad at myself for letting it happen. But after listening again to the interview, I realized how this was actually a hidden gem of a lesson on public speaking. But First... Before I go into the details of the story, first let me tell you about our guest. Sarah Fretwell gave her talk at TEDx Skid Row in Los Angeles on September 8th, 2013. The talk titled “The Truth Told – Unreasonable Activism – A Jounrey Into The Democratic Republic Of Congo”. This was a call to action for Sarah, an award winning photographer, that literally came to her in a dream. She went to the Congo to document the rape of young women in the war torn Democratic Republic of Congo. What happened then was a call to activism for Sarah. As you can hear, she is an incredible advocate for helping these women. Her story and talk will tug at your heart strings as it did mine. In this episode we open strong asking her several questions about her speaking experience. As she was answering, I was messaging Dino over Skype that I wanted to ask her about her talk topic. So I took the interview completely off topic and broke our format. But it was great. But It Was The Perfect Lesson On Public Speaking I was pulled in by the story of what she was doing. I had heard enough about the topic that it peaked my interest and I had to know more. I found her passion for it to be almost hypnotic. Plus, this topic just struck a chord with me. I have always been a cause guy. I am a pretty easy mark to be pulled into a charity or public service group. I was a member of a Rotary club working on clean water projects around the globe. I volunteered my time helping kids with many different issues. I volunteered for the March Of Dimes, a senior care organization, just to list a few. What I have never done, however, is completely immerse myself in a cause. And I think part of me regrets that and wants to. So Sarah’s story, her talk topic, intrigued me. And that is the big lesson for me. Sarah is indeed the prototypical TED speaker. She isn’t there talking about herself. She has a cause that is bigger than her. Her passion and enthusiasm for it grab you and wont let go. Why All Speakers Should Do This

Lori Ruff, the LinkedIn expert other LinkedIn experts learn from, joins us on this second episode of Road To TED podcast. We start this podcast with some awkward banter between Mike and I, and then we bring in Lori for some amazing convo. Lori Ruff is a Forbes' Top 50 Social Media Influencer. She is a speaker, trainer and online business reputation consultant, with a 15 year career in international corporate and conference training. We were very lucky to get such a high profile guest considering we hadn't even launched the podcast when this interview took place. Difference Between a TED and a TEDx Talk Some folks may not be aware that there is a difference between these two. The simplest way to think about it is that TED Talks are the majors, and TEDx Talks are the minors. The main TED Conference is held annually on the North American West Coast. That's it. One conference, 4 days, 50+ speakers, and one shared experience. TEDx events came out of the high demand for TED talks. They are smaller, and independently organized, while at the same time, they demand same level of excellence of their speakers. You can learn more about different types of TED initiatives here. Provocative Transparency Lori's practice run for her upcoming TEDx talk in January. Lori's favorite phrase is "great people refuse to be stopped by doubt and fear". Post Interview Mike and I discuss things we learned in the interview. We turn introspective and discuss "dead space" in the interview. We bring up the first season of Seinfeld. You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out what the tie-in is. :-) The significance and the effect of building relationships We discuss Planner Tech event We find out that "How to Win Friends and Influence People" doesn't work on 12 year olds Ted Rubin's Return on Relationships book comes up in the post interview. I share a story of RonR with a direct ROI from just being nice. Lori chooses an unexpected favorite TED talk. Unexpected why? You'll have to listen to the post interview to find out. What did you learn from Lori? Lori's Favorite TED Talk Lesley Hazleton: The doubt essential to faith.   Lori's Team No (wo)man is an island. Lori has a number of people that are helping her on her Road To TED. Mike O'Neil Kare Anderson Joel Comm Connect with Lori Connect with Lori on LinkedIn Follow Lori Ruff on Twitter Check out Lori's blog TV- ready LinkedIn training (Free) by Mike and Lori What is YOUR favorite TED talk?

Welcome to the very first episode of Road To TED (RTT). If you love public speaking as much as we do, you will find kindred spirits here. In this episode of RTT, Mike Brooks and Dino Dogan talk about where the idea for the podcast came from, why they decided to do it, and they even have a special guests who crashed the podcast mid way through. In this episode, we talk about: The Format Our typical format for the show is to interview a TED (or TEDx) speaker who is in the throws of preparation for their TED talk. We like to catch them while they're in the middle of it. :-) After the interview is over, we talk about our guest behind their back by sharing things we've learned from them with you. And I hope you'll share things you've learned with us in the comments, or by embedding our podcast in your blog and writing additional commentary. In the Midst of it all There's a special type of nervousness and energy a speaker will have when they're mere days or weeks away from giving the most important talk of their life. And we want to capture that, bottle it, and learn from it. However, we stray from this format a bit when called for. A god example is this first episode which is just me and Mike talking about where we want to take this show and what we hope to accomplish with it. Few episodes from now, we interview a TED organizer to find out what TED curators look for in speakers. So, as you can see...we plan on using a specific format, but we're not opposed to changing things up if it makes sense. :-) The Podcast Crasher John Bates crashes our first episode mid way through, and contributes his unique perspective on TED talks. John Bates is a speaker, and a speaking coach, and has worked with thousands of speakers getting them prepared for their performance. He shares some valuable insight into the process and we were very grateful to have him in our corner. We didn't know it then, but John became instrumental in helping us get the initial few bookings on RTT podcast before we even launched, which is something we will always appreciate. Thanks John. At the very end of our episode, John mentions a resource he is using with his clients to demonstrate some great and some not-so-great talks. You can see those on John's YouTube channel. Before Mackenzie Unintentionally, our first few interviews have been with female guests. And having Mike and I interview a female guest felt a little...shall we say unbalanced? Plus, Mike and I really suck at scheduling, organization, setting dates and deadlines, and we need someone to keep us in line. So, few episodes into RTT, we decided to bring Mackenzie Labrecque, who is a wonderful blogger, she's super-smart, she loves public speaking, and I figured she would provide the right balance by being our on and off the air producer for the show. If you're preparing for a TED talk and you'd like to come on the show and share your road with us, contact Mackenzie. Favorite TED Talk One of the questions we ask all of our guests is to choose their favorite TED talk. So, it's only fair that the hosts share theirs as well. Mike's Favorite TED talk: Lessons of Steve Jobs by Guy Kawasaki Mackenzie's Favorite TED talk: John's Favorite TED talk: The transformative power of classical music by Benjamin Zander Dino's Favorite TED talk: How we rescued the dancing bears by Kartick Satyanarayan This is your Road To TED That does it for this inaugural podcast, I hope you'll join us in our journey to TED. We would love nothing more than to help you get there, and we hope to get there ourselves some day. And since we showed you ours, it's now your turn to make a tough choice... What is YOUR favorite TED talk?