Talk Like TED - Carmine Gallo

Book Summary: Always found yourself in that rabbit hole of YouTube with all the TED talks? I know I have, and I've always been in awe of the skill and finesse of the public speakers to reel in audiences within a couple of seconds into their speech, and leave the audience wanting more after 18 minutes. How do they do it? Through communicating ideas - the currency of the twenty-first century. TED talks have now become the gold standard in public speaking, and Gallo has studied them all for us to understand their secrets. 

My Thoughts: I've realised this is the very first time I've reviewed a non-fiction book on my blog - how cool! Even though I'm not much of a non-fiction reader, this year I really have been wanting to improve my public speaking skills to become a better me. I've recently been attending Toastmasters and putting my hand up for every opportunity I could to stand on a stage. Now a lot of people would think that I would be confident because of this - heck no! If anything, it was actually the lack of confidence that drove me to these opportunities, because all I wanted to do was be better at public speaking and receive feedback on how I could improve. Whilst this book didn't exactly provide me with direct feedback, it did provide me with some great strategies and tips I could use to improve my presentations. 

Here are three of my favorite secrets I've learnt from the book: 

Passion 

What is your passion? What do you reaallly whole-heartly love? Write down what this is and make sure this oozes throughout your speech. Think of a story that speaks towards this passion and create characters, plotlines, triumphs and challenges. This will help your audience feel extremely immersed into your presentation and experience it on a whole other level. Most importantly, it will make your speech memorable.

Aristotle's Components of Persuasion 

Way back when Aristotle was still around, he affirmed that your presence in a room was dictated by 3 main aspects:

1. Ethos (also known as credibility - takes up 10%)
2. Logos (also known as evidence and data - takes up 25%) 
3. Pathos (also known as the emotional appeal - takes up 65%) 

How much of your presentations are demonstrating this pathos? Often people get caught up in the logos and ethos, but forget about the story they're trying to illustrate. This is just as important, if not more, than your stats. Let your story shape your stats, and have them come alive in your work. 

Practice, practice, practice 

Did you know that Steve Jobs, yes the founder of Apple, was actually a terrible public speaker? You'd never guess given how great his iPhone and Macbook presentations were. To prepare for this large scale events, he would practice his presentations more than 200 times! Don't just practice alone - practice in front of friends, family, people who you trust, and even record yourself and watch the playback. Whilst all these situations are extremely cringe-worthy, they are extremely important if you want to understand what your habits are (e.g. slouching, tapping your foot, looking away etc) and make attempts to reduce this habit. 

I really enjoyed how he wove in references to numerous TED talks, which really made me tempted to watch them whilst I was reading ... Overall, a great book that I would highly recommend if you're trying to add that extra spark to your public speaking. 

You can purchase this book on Book Depository here.