The TED Talk Test

The other day in a private conversation, I was annoyed to realize that I was enjoying retirement so much that, to be honest, I was unwilling to make the big investment of time and energy necessary to move this blog from a part time ministry to a full time commercial product. I am certainly more knowledgeable than when I started the Silver Eagle Experiment and my writing skills have improved over the last nine years. I don’t expect any change in those trends, but when will I ready to try and jump to another level? Leaping into the unknown is always pretty scary unless a hungry bear is getting close to your leg. I felt that way when I left the saw chain factory for engineering school.

I jumped and never looked back.

While considering this conundrum, I came up with an interesting thought experiment. Let’s say you are given the opportunity to present a TED Talk. If you spend much time on the Internet, you have probably listened to at least one of these lectures. TED started as a conference presenting 18 minute lectures by people with amazing, inspired new ideas in the fields of Technology, Entertainment, and Design to an audience of movers and shakers. The presenters were not only given an opportunity to share their life’s work, but also a chance to begin to build a network of well positioned patrons and allies who could provide fuel for their passions.

Here is the deal.

You will be given the opportunity to present an eighteen minute lecture on any subject you consider important to an audience of 200 or 300 men and women of your choosing. They could be venture capitalists with hundreds of millions of dollars looking to invest in new products or services. They could be the managers and owners of publishing houses or broadcasting companies looking for new books to publish, movie scripts to produce, or ideas for TV shows. They could be powerful politicians and the donors who fund their campaigns. Your choice, but you only get one shot at the big time.

There is another bonus if you are successful. The best TED talks get millions of hits on YouTube and other services. You will not only have instant name recognition, but your dream will be granted Internet legitimacy.

Eighteen minutes is somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 words depending on how fast you talk. I don’t even know what I would say that would differentiate what I am trying to do from a hundred others, some household names who have sold books and courses in the hundreds of thousands and others, who are anonymous bloggers just like me. Let’s say that at some point I have the words. Then I would have to practice in private until I had the speech just about memorized. After that I would have to experiment with live audiences to perfect timing and delivery. If I had spent years learning the art of public speaking, it wouldn’t take as long, but it would still represent a major effort for anyone.

David didn’t hit Goliath with the first stone he ever placed in a sling. From having been a small boy who owned a sling, I expect that David’s major source of entertainment out in the sheep field was learning how to throw stones with that weapon. Unlike me, I expect he was also learning how to sing psalms and play the psaltery to avoid going mad with boredom. I could hurl a rock an enormous distance with my sling, but where it would land was anybody’s guess. A champion slinger could hit a target the size of Goliath’s head, at least most of the time. I saw this demonstrated on cable TV. I believe God put the rock between Goliath’s eyes, but I also believe that David’s skill is what landed that rock on the Giant’s head.

What would it take me or you to care about something so passionately that we would make the kind of effort it takes to jump whatever you are dreaming about to the next level? What kind of things would we do that others might find a bit crazy, because we cared so much we couldn’t help ourselves from trying just a little harder?

I heard a successful televangelist talk about the first days of his ministry. Once he rented a room and no one came to hear him speak. He went ahead and delivered his sermon to the empty room, in the belief that God had told him to do it and if no one else was listening, at least God heard it. I might question this man’s theology, but who can gainsay his determination?

Will I be ready to deliver my TED Talk when the opportunity presents itself? If I haven’t delivered it to a lot of empty rooms and at least 20 or so small audiences, I would expect the answer would be, “No.”