My TEDx talk coaching

The organizers invited me to speak at TEDx with less than two weeks to prepare so for those two weeks I worked as much as I could.

(Here’s the video if you missed it before.)

Preparation

I hired a coach, John Bates of Executive Speaking Success, to help prepare and I’m glad I did. He had experience giving TEDx talks, with the TED/TEDx community, and with coaching people on it. He offered a useful online course and we met several times by video. He recorded the coaching calls so I could review my performance, which helped.

Below are our coaching calls. I don’t pretend they’re thrilling, but you may find them useful when you prepare for an important talk. You may also learn about me and my work. I found coaching casual and fun despite having to perform in front of hundreds of people plus video for the world.

If you like learning about yourself and improving your public speaking, you may like them. They’re long but I hope entertaining and educational.

I find coaching effective, even when I know what I want to do. A coach helps you see yourself from other perspectives, holds you accountable, connects you with others, and gives advice from experience.