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How to Connect with a TEDx Audience

How can I connect the audience with my message? — that was my challenge at TEDx. And a challenge that every presenter faces. Your talk needs to hook the audience in the opening seconds. It must give them just enough context to follow the journey you’re about to take them on and prime them to receive your big idea.

When the audience shares your experiences and perspective, this is easier to do. But sometimes you have almost nothing in common with them. They’re on the other side of an intellectual Grand Canyon — and you must build a bridge to reach them.

My talk at TEDx KU Leuven was about leading through the first moments of a crisis, so I told the story of a surprise attack during combat operations in Iraq in 2008. My audience? Hundreds of Belgian university students, half my age, with little understanding of the military.

Most were just entering their careers, with little to no experience in leadership or managing organizational crises. My talk was directed at a problem they had yet to face. So before I could share insights on crisis leadership, I had to help them visualize what their own future crisis might look like. I needed to build a bridge from my crisis to theirs.

Connecting with a TEDx Audience

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A Glimpse Into My TEDx Story Rehearsal

“Practice makes permanent.”

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations,
we fall to the level of our training.”
(Archilochus, c. 650 BCE)

“There is no tough. There is only trained…and untrained.”

Left over from decades of training for combat operations, big leadership moments, and Ironman races, these mantras echoed in my mind every day during my TEDx preparation.

I had been offered a unique opportunity—and I had to deliver. That meant I couldn’t just wing it.

I had to craft every word, plan every movement, and rehearse every detail. I needed to become so familiar with the 1,900 words of my presentation that I could pick it up at any point and keep going.

I memorized lines during early morning runs. I rehearsed while driving to work (where I’m sure my hand gestures triggered a few looks from other drivers).

And I recorded video in my home rehearsal space above the garage, which meant getting over the awkwardness of watching myself perform.

Today, I’m excited to share a bit of that video with you.

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How I Mentally Prepared for TEDx

I am excited to share that I recently delivered my first TEDx talk, “From Chaos to Control: Leading Through the First Moments of Crisis.” The video won’t be out for several weeks, but the journey to TEDx KULeuven was both challenging and rewarding—unlike any other presentation I’ve ever given.

And a lot of people have asked how I prepared for the talk.

I’ve got a TON of lessons that I look forward to sharing in a series of posts and perhaps a full guide…but for now, I’ll take a moment to focus on perhaps the most important aspect of preparation: the mental game.

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Negativity (Habit Series #8)

Some years ago, as a new company commander, I encountered a junior leader in my command who personified Marshall Goldsmith’s Habit #8 of the “Twenty Habits that Hold You Back From the Top.” Like many of the destructive habits, this one is a learned, not inherited. It can stifle momentum on any team and, paradoxically, it is easy to succumb to as leaders gain more authority and experience. Habit #8 is negativity.

Habit Series Negativity

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Malcolm Gladwell’s New Book

Years ago, Blink changed my entire perspective on leadership. I remember filling the book’s margins with insight sparked from #1 bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell’s fresh look at intuition, judgment, and decision making.

That book also sparked a personal interest in neuroscience, leading to a Military Review article on the brain in combat and eventually a Master’s thesis focused on helping leaders improve decision making by managing their emotional responses.

Since Blink, Gladwell has written five more books and launched the wildly popular Revisionist History podcast. He’s also embraced contrarian views, often inviting criticism—but he’s never afraid to be wrong.

Malcolm GladwellThis unique viewpoint is what you’ll find in his new book out today, Revenge of the Tipping Point.

Much like in Blink and Outliers, Gladwell reveals how the world is more interconnected—and sometimes more dangerous—than we realize. Through captivating stories, he offers new perspectives on how societal trends and tipping points can lead to unexpected and often troubling outcomes.

I invite you to grab an early copy and dive into the latest masterpiece from one of the most insightful thinkers of our time, Malcolm Gladwell.

Lead well,
Drew

Grab Your Copy

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Seasons of Development

In Seasons in Leadership, I wrote about the leader’s role in sensing the environment and guiding teams through change:

Regardless of the situation, the best leaders know that by their role and responsibility positions them to intuit transition and see opportunity. These leaders intentionally develop vision to sense impending seasons. Then they fulfill their responsibility to define reality for the team and empathetically guide their followers through the change. In doing so, they model how to lead through change with foresight and intention.

We often forget that the precursor to navigating change is the leader’s own development, the arc of personal growth that prepares them for the road ahead.

Development

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The 16 Laws of Communication

As a young leader, I was fortunate to discover two authors who set a lifelong foundation of influence for me as a leader: General Colin Powell and John C. Maxwell. I read My American Journey in high school, five years after General Powell led a 35-country coalition to victory in the Gulf War and mere months before my own leadership journey began as a cadet. Inspired by his real-world leadership lessons in and out of combat, I typed up four pages of quotes and carried them with me for years. I called My American Journey my leadership bible.

John C. Maxwell, who I came across a few years later, perfectly complemented Powell’s influence in my life. In case you haven’t read his books yet, John Maxwell is the #1 bestselling leadership author of all time. His most popular work is The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. He writes in stories and simple principles and his books perfectly weave together insight, inspiration, humor, and conviction.

Simply put, John Maxwell is the Michael Jordan of leadership coaching. And his new book, The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, dives into the most important skill a leader can have.

Development

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How to Build a Community of Leaders

As you continue to lead, your influence impacts more and more people. You look for opportunities to invest in them. Over the years, you may even build a community among those you mentor. They reach out to you when they approach significant career decisions. Maybe you share resources and thoughts with them through text, email, and on social media. You invest in them, but one at a time and in separate channels.

But…what if you had a way to bring them together? What if you had a way to build real community among those you lead?

Today, I want to share a leader development resource and offer some ideas about how you can build community for those you lead, whether that group is a part of a military unit, a business, or a distant group of leaders you have inspired in the past.

Community

Airmen join in a group huddle at the conclusion of the Police Week Memorial 5K Ruck March at Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 15, 2017. The airmen are assigned to the 374th Security Forces Squadron. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Donald Hudson.