How to prepare for a Tedx Talk

Slidebean CEO Caya was invited to present at a TEDx event a few months ago. We asked him what were his biggest fears or concerns as the day of the presentation drew near, and how he managed to overcome them.

His answers might prove useful for you to prepare for your next presentation!

"I feared the presentation wouldn't display as I planned"

The way he and the TEDx team made sure everything worked perfectly was rehearsing in the exact same conditions as the day of the real presentation. That gave room for correcting any technical issues. He also practiced to the point were he could do the presentation without relying on the slides. "I practiced over and over again, to the point where if everything went wrong, and the slides failed to appear at all, I could still present a cappella."

"Having a mental blank and forgetting what came next"

When you are presenting the last thing you want happening to you is a mental blank. "I didn't memorize a script for TEDx. I never do, actually. It doesn't feel natural and it increases the chances of blanking at some point. Instead I try to tell a story as I would say it to a friend." Caya also mentions there are ways to overcome mental blanks. "Step back for a moment and quickly summarize what you've covered already. This triggers memory connections in your brain that are contextual to your story as a whole, and is a good way of recovering your train of thoughts."

"I was nervous of speaking in front of a big audience"

"It's always going to be nerve wracking to see a lot of faces staring back at you, whether it's a big audience or a small classroom." He says there's got to be a way by which the audience connects with you. "Tell something you believe in, tell something you would sit on a chair to listen to. People hate boring presentation as much as they love interesting ones. If you manage to grasp people's attention, almost all fears go away."

Caya is a Costa Rican graphics designer and entrepreneur. He has been invited to speak at events such as TEDxYouth and The Next Web Conference.

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