I sit with Tamsen Webster, to discuss how to make your ideas stick and sell.

We start our conversation by talking about Covid and the polarization it has created and how best to approach it.

Then we move on to talking about Ideas, Branding, TEDx which has been a core area of work for Tamsen.

This episode is one that comes full circle, from humanity to ideas.

About Tamsen:

Part strategist, part storyteller, part English-to-English translator, Tamsen Webster helps experts drive action with their ideas. Tamsen honed her trademark Red Thread approach in and for major organizations like Johnson & Johnson, Harvard Medical School, and Intel, as well as with hundreds of individual founders, academics, and thought leaders. She's a former TEDx Executive Producer and current Idea Strategist. She's also author of Find Your Red Thread: Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible. 

Connecting with Tamsen:

https://tamsenwebster.com

Subscribing to her newsletter:

https://tamsenwebster.com/newsletter/

Buy her book - Find Your Red Thread

https://tamsenwebster.com/book/

Connecting with Manpreet

https://linktr.ee/themanpreetbawa

The biggest

thing about

building a story about your idea

that someone would tell themselves,

is it you?

I say there's two things

that are really important to

to anchor it on, and one is

how can you anchor your idea

in something that somebody already wants?

Of the two things,

that's probably the easier one.

I call that the goal in the book,

but this is the audience goal.

What is something

that they're already looking for?

The answer provides.

And this is not something

that you know, deep down,

they're looking for.

This is not a thing that you wish

they were looking for.

This is something that they're literally

looking for to confirm.

It's a it's an urgent issue,

the kind of thing that they are

being tasked to solve by their boss

or that they are,

you know,

they're searching on their own on Google

because it's, you know,

yeah , you know, it's an urgent issue

or it's a persistent irritant.

It's something that day in, day out.

It's just this thing

that they always have to work around.

It's a pain in the butt.

But what else can they do?

That's the kind of thing

that you want to.

But the more that your idea

can be anchored

in something that somebody already wants,

the more that they're going to be

automatically curious about it,

the more that it's already

going to be relevant to them,

the more that

you can start to say and make sure.

So just from an idea

validation standpoint

that your idea actually solves

an important and urgent

or persistent problem in the world

or something,

I saw a lot of the absence of.

And looking at FedEx applications

where I'm like,

This is a lovely idea,

but I don't care what it does.

Oh yeah.

The second thing is, and this is by far

much harder.

Hello.

Welcome everyone

to yet another episode of a song

with Manfred.

And I am so excited

to bring this guest ray, because not

because of only her background,

but because what she brings to the table.

She's an author.

She's part strategist,

message strategist.

She is part keynote speaker.

She has helped organizations like Johnson

and Johnson Harvard Medical School in

and their messaging strategies.

She has also worked

as executive producer for addicts.

So any of you wanting to know

how do you get into drugs and how

to make a,

you know,

keynote that goes well on FedEx?

She's the person you own a dog.

So welcome, Tamsin,

and thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much.

I'm great and I'm delighted to be here.

Thank you.

Amazing.

So let's start with where everybody

today is the COVID.

How are things with COVID and everything

that's going on in the world,

which is good for the first time?

Everybody is in the same boat, kind of.

Yeah, yeah.

It's been a really interesting.

It's really been an interesting time.

I joke that it feels like

we're in 2020 Part three, but oftentimes

the third movie in a trilogy

is the best, so let's hope.

Yeah,

it's been very interesting

because I live in Boston, Massachusetts,

on the eastern coast of the US,

and we were one of the places that

where we got it early here and

and got hit pretty hard.

Like one of the biggest

one of the first super spreader events

before we knew that it was

a superspreader event was at a

a Biogen conference

here in downtown Boston. And

that's been both good and

bad because it means

that that combined with

we have enormous numbers of our hospitals

and colleges here

meant that we closed down and shut down

really early and have been tracking

with the science

pretty much from the get go.

But that means that our experience

here up in the Northeast

has been very different

than some from other areas

in the U.S.

And so there have been times

where it feels like

in addition

to all sorts of other reasons,

we're just absolutely living

in a different plane of reality

than, for instance,

some of my friends who live in Florida

or in Texas,

where the where the just the reactions

and sensibilities around it

have just been very, very different.

So it's been interesting to see.

I'm most fascinated

by just

looking at how differently

different groups of people

have experienced and interpreted

and reacted to all of this, and

I try to remain curious about it.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing.

And in your area of work being,

you know, keen on speaking and do

see a shift that

hasn't happened in the last maybe five,

ten years,

you see any shift coming in

that industry.

I don't mostly.

Yet, mostly

because there just isn't a lot.

I mean,

from the speaking standpoint,

obviously, everything

just kind of shut down, at least.

I chose to shut everything down

because I had kids

that were vaccinated at home,

they now are, but it was just it was.

I didn't want to be the reason why

my family got sick.

So I made a decision very early in 2020

to pivot away

from the speaking aspect of things

is much, much more on on writing.

So, you know, got the book finished

on consulting and coaching, which is that

which is the lion's

share of my work anyway

and what I really enjoy.

I can say what I wish is would happen.

As with as far as the mess,

the kinds of messages that are

people are putting out there in the world

and, you know,

they're the ones that you would expect.

I think there's a lot of people who are

doing well with messages

about resilience right now

and that are dealing with hurt.

A good friend of mine,

Mitch Joel, talk

about how he was seeing a trend towards

how to

activate curiosity in people.

And if I were to add another topic

to the list of what I

hope people will start

to become more interested in

is in a response to all the increasing

polarization and tribalism

that's happening

kind of everywhere

from what I can see,

not just here in the U.S.,

but everywhere in Canada and the U.K.

and Eastern Europe

and in European

Union in general, actually,

that I I would love to see a rise in

genuine seeking to understand

how other people see the world

and getting a better

understanding of that,

not from a us versus them standpoint,

but from a.

Listen,

we go got to live in this place together.

Yes.

How can we how can we find middle ground?

I mean, I think that's a

that's the kind of thing

that I would love to see more. Yeah.

And that's so true that polarization

is, you know,

it's just I think it was there.

But of course,

it has just propelled

it is just

brought it to the center stage.

You cannot ignore it anymore.

That's true.

You know,

there was

there was a time early in my career,

very early in my career

where I was kind of the bottom rung

and I was a management consultant.

And it was interesting

because the company at the time hadn't.

It was great

as I was making like

a ridiculous amount of money

as management consultants do sometimes.

But the problem was

the company had added

a had added this consulting arm

without really having any clients

for the consulting arm.

And so we had this

phalanx of consultants

with nothing to do.

I think it was one of my earliest

exposures to the fact that in the absence

of something to do,

people will find something to do.

And a lot of times

in the absence of something to do,

people will find something

to be outraged about.

And so,

you know, in this example, like

for for us,

it was people got really worked up about

what time people

were arriving in the office

and just

it was like,

but that person's arriving at this time

at this point,

and I just remember

one of the more experienced consultants

just sitting with me and maybe one or two

other things over lunch,

he was like,

You know what,

if we were busy,

this wouldn't be an issue.

And so I think

you're totally right, Manpreet,

that is is that in the absence of.

So it's not just, you know, COVID

shutting things down

and those kinds of things,

I think it's an intersection of the fact

that we've had this cessation

of normal activity,

cessation of interaction

with people and all but the most

difficult ways

to interact in a way that's that's

that has dimensionality

or interacting with people.

Asynchronously on social sites

and where we can be

kind of

hiding behind screens,

we're not actually seeing people

face to face

that's intersecting with

I think there's been

a general degradation

generally about us having as humans

shared experiences,

shared things as just as entertainment

and all these other things

become more and more fragmented.

Just you take these two things.

You put them together where

people already weren't

really interacting much

and then you make them bored.

They're going to find things

to get outraged about.

And it's not that

those things aren't outrageous,

you know, particularly here in the U.S.

I think the the upheavals of 2020 around

the the killing of multiple

black men and women

in the hands of police custody

and others.

That stuff is outrageous.

Yes.

But I think there's other things

that that have.

What's sad to me is that.

I don't

I don't see that level of passion

around those big issues right now

here in the U.S.,

I see that level of outrage around stuff

that's just not as important.

And so

that's kind of the thing that I again,

I try to hold curiosity for those things

rather than judgment, because

judgment only leads to more outrage

and more polarization.

And and I'd love to be able to model

the things that I

that I wish more people did,

which is like, Aha,

I wonder why they are acting that way?

Or I wonder why they believe that,

or I wonder

how this perspective makes sense to them.

Not Oh my gosh, they must be X in order

to think, behave or act

that you know or believe that way.

But huh, that's different

than what I see

and how I think or believe or act.

I I wonder what makes them that way.

And I think that

the more that

you can ask that of yourself

and other of other people,

even why am I acting this way

in a particular moment?

I think you have to me, it's

a path towards

finding that shared experience

because it doesn't take much

of doing that before you start to realize

that people are very much driven

by fundamentally the same things

that we're

all going to agree about things,

but we're driven by

fundamentally the same things.

And when we can see

start to see the world

through other people's eyes,

I think it starts to sharpen the edges.

Excuse me,

I think it starts to soften the edges

with which we.

Interact with them,

and I think that that's only good

because I think we've all gotten

a little sharp and brittle.

Yeah, we have,

and I think that's for sure.

Like,

you cannot hide anymore

that everybody was just,

you know, sort of putting it down.

Maybe it's not important at work.

I think I am seeing the same thing

with the great resignation.

Now people are leaving jobs

and I've been consulting all my life

and I've been in both sides with

working for the customer and working

as a,

you know, person

who is managing the customer.

So and I see it.

You know,

this thing about when you are curious,

when you're open

to entertain

that somebody else may have a different

idea or opinion

to something,

it just opens the doors very differently.

So thank you.

I mean that

because I think

I think fundamentally

we all humans, we want to be seen.

We want to be heard.

We want to be validated.

We want to feel like

we have some worth and.

You know,

it can be

difficult, but the the path to getting

someone to do that for you

is to extend it to them first, right?

Like that?

That's the way it like.

That's the way it happens.

Like, you know,

you say, No, no,

you must listen to me,

but it's like, Well,

if I do that, I don't have,

you know, either

the human nature

is such that I don't have.

I don't know that you're going

to respond to that,

but you know, the work of Robert Chow

Dini, for instance,

beautiful stuff

on the idea of reciprocity

before I extend to you first,

this genuine

curiosity,

this genuine seeking to understand

kind of peace, then generally not always,

but generally that's

going to activate in other people the

oh well, you do.

You just listen to me.

You heard me, you gave me my space.

You saw me.

All right,

I'll do the same thing for you.

And.

It's just

I think there's this perpetual tension

that I see,

just do

all the work that I've done

and this has been true for years

and the work that I've done around

communications and change

communications and brand strategy

and message strategy

is that.

I think

ultimately you're faced with a choice,

do you want to be?

Do you want to speak

or do you want to actually be heard and.

I think there are people

for various reasons,

we're just getting it out

for them is what they need.

I definitely put myself

and somebody who was like, Well,

I don't want to speak for speaking sake,

even if it's raining or whatever.

Like I if I have,

if I'm going to put something out there

for me, it's

because I actually wanted to be heard.

So what can I do to help

make sure that that that

what I've you know,

that it's not just hitting

their eardrums, okay,

but that

but actual communication happens because,

you know,

the communication

is not about the sending

out of something,

only it's about the receiving

of that information.

And I just feel like.

Myself included, we can do a lot more

to make sure that what we send

send is actually received.

And yes,

I think those would be important

steps for all of us to take.

Yeah.

That you

touched on a very beautiful point

that can go into multiple dimensions,

especially the communication

and sending and receiving like,

you know, it's important value

the messages that his centers received.

Well,

and you are open to receive

what is being sent to you.

But also, I mean,

when you send their word

that he really just took me

to a little bit

on the spiritual side of the things

like so many times because you had.

Closed in, whatever we're

doing, we're not even receiving

what God is trying to send.

Whatever universe you might call it,

universe God, faith, whatever it is.

But I just

thought that was such a beautiful thing

to come out of the discussion of this.

I mean, yeah,

I think in it,

I think it circles

back to the conversation

about COVID and all of this.

And one of the things that you know, I

I don't know.

I I love what you're saying about that.

I'm afraid that some time

that we just were closed off to

whatever could be coming our way

that made me think of was

the work of Victor Frankl and search

for meaning.

And what I what

struck me

so powerfully about Franco's work

is that, you know,

particularly in this age

where there's a lot of people saying,

I find your passion,

find your purpose as if there's one.

I don't believe there's just one.

And I know that

that could probably be mistaken

when I say, I find your red thread.

But to me, that's a

that's a different thing for me.

For me, that your red thread

is your operating system.

It is, yes,

why you do what you do,

the way that you do it.

And that is what ties together

all the things

that you have purpose

for and passion about.

But I think that you know what, what

Franco said

that really stuck with me is that.

You know,

I think a lot of times

we can get trapped in saying,

what does this mean? What is this?

What does all this mean,

even if we're even that curious about it?

Yes.

And there's a slight shift

that he talks about that

I find so powerful,

which is

I'm not going to assume

that there's a plan

or a purpose out there, but

I can always choose

what meaning I will draw from it.

Like, take that ownership from it

and say, I'm in this situation.

What is the meaning that

I can draw from this?

Because really, that's the

only thing I can control.

I don't know

if there's a purpose in a plan.

I'm not the kind of person who's wired

to just leave it up to somebody else

and abdicate that responsibility

for my own behavior.

I like, you know.

But I love this idea of.

What meaning can I draw from this,

and for me, this whole situation

with with COVID

and all the things

that have been happening

from political standpoint

with, you know, here in the U.S.

and around the world,

I think it's a time for,

you know, that's

that's a time for self-directed

curiosity, right?

So await us

if they want

to be curious about other people,

but to be able to find our own path

when we're bored.

But and and the life seems like

we're just on rerun over and over again.

Is this

it is to self direct

and ask those questions over what meaning

what meaning can I draw?

What lessons can I learn? What, what?

What can I do in this situation so that

this?

Adds more meaning to

me and for me

and who I want to be

and how I want to move about the world.

Mm hmm.

And I think

since you brought Victor Frankl, we can,

you know,

his called that,

you know, in the between

stimulus and response,

there is a space

and that space has our power

to choose our response.

And in our in our response lies

our growth and our freedom.

I think that just beautifully sums it up.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Viktor Frankl. Yes.

I wonder sometimes how, you know,

when I look at people like Viktor

Frankl who could have that depth in

so little to be spoken.

And I think that's it's

beautifully intersects with our Tarquin

importance of message your ideas and,

you know, finding your red thread,

which you touched upon.

So

how about you just briefly

give a little bit about your journey

and then we'll get into

what is right

and why is it a ball around and how?

Sure, sure. Yeah.

So yeah, my I've lived.

I feel like I've lived most of my life

straddling worlds

and oftentimes opposite ones like,

you know, anywhere from when I was in

high school,

I was both in the arts

community and manage the varsity boys

baseball team.

And then when I went to college,

I was in the business.

It took, you've got a business degree

and I got a degree in liberal arts

and American studies in art history.

Same thing. I did the same thing.

So there's always this time

where I've been in non-profits

and studying

for profits

at the same time in grad school.

And then even when I was

in organizations,

my job was to bridge the gap

so that in my very brief

but enduring turn as a

change management consultant

and we were doing

mergers and acquisitions.

So it was about

how do you bridge the gap

between two organizations

and two cultures?

And when I worked in organizations,

I was often in the role that had it

because I was often in marketing

communications roles.

I was often in the role

that had to bridge

between an organization's audience

and the organization itself.

Like,

How do we get the organization's strategy

out to the audience

and how do we make sure

that the audience,

the customers, clients,

students, depending

on where I was working,

that their voice was heard back?

And I've just been.

Endlessly fascinated by how how to make

you know what being a US us-based person,

what I refer

to as English to English translation

work better,

how is it that we can improve how we

understand each other?

Oftentimes, you know,

when I was message

and brands doing

message advanced brand strategy,

which I still do

so that you know the the power of a brand

or an organization could come across.

And then about eight, eight

and a half nine years ago

now, I got involved in the Ted

X organization here

at Ted Cambridge in Massachusetts.

And that really started to hone

further my real interest

in, OK, it's not just about,

you know,

what organization

I really fell in love with.

How do we help?

How do I help

these experts get these amazing, world

changing ideas?

How do we how do we bridge that gap?

Because how do we bridge the gap

between academia and every day?

How do we bridge the gap between,

you know, expertize and implementation?

You know,

how do we bridge the gap between an idea

which is what Ted is all about

and actually making it work?

Like, how do you operationalize the idea?

So the work that I've been doing

for the last

eight, ten years,

more specifically around

ideas, has really been

about trying to answer that question

how how do we how is it possible?

What's the method

by which

we can make our ideas irresistible

to people

and to the people for whom

they they would have the most impact ?

And so

the book is a product of

that is product of all that.

You know that 25 years

and brand and message

strategy, those,

you know, 89 years and Ted X and 13 years

moonlighting as a as a weight

loss coach as well.

It's a whole other story.

But those three things

of those three lines together

really just intersected with,

you know what, there's

there actually is a way to do this.

There is a way to decode how we

come up with idea and process an idea

and make a decision to change.

And that's what I wanted to figure out.

I wanted to figure out

how how could I do that?

How could I help other people

move their ideas forward by improving

how it is that they talk about?

Yeah,

and that's what this book

excellent book comes in,

and I'll put that in like anybody was,

you know,

learn more without investing a lot.

Oh, without investing into

or committing to the, you know,

more and broader ideas that Tamsin works

in, if you just want to feel

what it feels like

finding and working with your ideas.

I think this book is great.

It's very simple.

As the first thing I realized

when I picked up the book,

the hardest thing was to

just put it down,

like flipped the pages and I had to work.

I thought that, you know,

like other books

I read, I get the keynote.

But this one,

if you really want to get things

all you have to work like,

you have to play with that idea.

And for the first couple of

four or five days, I'm just

having a hard time

sticking to one ideas like,

Oh, I can work on this, I can work on.

So yeah, but it's a great book.

It has all the tools that you need.

So getting into the right side,

what is the red thread

definition I can give a red thread

is it is.

It is a story that you tell yourself

to explain

why the world

or you works the way that you wave it.

It does.

We all do this.

We all, oftentimes unconsciously,

we all build these rationalizations,

these justifications for ourselves

about why

you know, that person

is behaving that way

while we're behaving this way,

why what we did was right,

why what they did was wrong.

So you see how this ties in

earlier conversation

and what I discovered?

Well, my hypothesis was that this

these stories that we built ourselves

and tell ourselves

follow the same structure

as the stories that we tell other people.

And so my hypothesis was,

well, what if

we found the elements of that story

that we told ourselves about an idea?

Would that help us articulate the idea

to other people?

And I can tell you now

after testing it for

eight years, yeah, it does actually is.

My fondest wish is to somehow,

you know,

partner with somebody in academia

to actually test this

so that it's more than

just kind of

ethnographic research at this point.

But that's that's what I discovered,

and that's

what what I was able to to prove out,

which is that

there are these elements of story

like Once Upon a Time stories that

when you can identify

those elements in your own idea

and your own messages

in your own content,

a couple of things happen

and it's pretty exciting.

one is you understand your idea better.

Our brains

take shortcuts around our ideas,

we kind of assume, you know, we

because our

because they are our ideas,

we don't actually sometimes listen

to all the steps of the story.

We just say,

Well, this is the right answer. Not.

And we kind of forget the path

that we got there.

The second thing is

because those elements

follow a structure of story.

When you find them for your idea,

you're able to very easily

explain it

to somebody else

in language

and in elements

that their brains understand

instinctively.

So that what happens

is that you're able to transfer the

I your idea from your brain

into somebody else's

with just the minimum amount of loss,

the amount of loss of meaning

, a loss of understanding.

And because

and this is the big thing about the book

you're building,

not just the story

you tell about your idea,

but the story

your audience will tell themselves

about the idea.

The third thing about doing this

that really does

a lot of what we were talking about

before, really,

it really forces you

to look at your own ideas

from the eyes of somebody

who isn't yet convinced

that it's the right one.

And so it makes your idea stronger

because you have to put it through

the eyes of a skeptic.

And

we don't usually look at our ideas

with our own ideas, with skeptics eyes,

but we sure as heck

look at everybody else's that way.

So this is just,

you know, flipping

flipping that script

around a little bit

and really building it up from there.

Yes.

And, you know,

one of the things

that I think this book does nicely

is that it

is for it's

not a level for just one person

like anybody can do it.

People in sales,

everybody is doing something right.

They are selling their ideas, people.

I think people, technical technicians

going in into interviews,

going in the project, presentations,

everybody is selling some idea.

But.

Not everybody understands the

structure behind that Adobe the skeleton

of that idea,

which this will really nicely does.

Thank you.

And in your book when I read, there

were different components of that idea,

and I don't want you to say

all the components,

but give one or two components that

you know, people can know about.

Yeah, I mean, I think so.

I think

picking up on this idea

of looking at your idea

through skeptical eyes.

So somebody who isn't already convinced

it's the right answer.

The biggest thing about building a story

about your idea

that someone will tell themselves

is that you?

I say there's two things

that are really important to

to anchor it on.

And one is

how can you anchor your idea

in something that somebody already wants?

Of the two things,

that's probably the easier one.

I call that the goal in the book,

but this is the audience goal.

What is something

that they're already looking for?

The answer provides.

And this is not something

that you know, deep down,

they're looking for.

This is not a thing that you wish

they were looking for.

This is something that they're literally

looking for to confirm.

It's a it's an urgent issue,

the kind of thing that they are

being tasked to solve by their boss

or that they are,

you know,

they're searching on their own on Google

because it's,

you know, it's,

you know, it's an urgent issue

or it's a persistent irritant.

It's something that day in, day out.

It's just this thing

that they always have to work around.

It's a pain in the butt.

But what else can they do?

That's the kind of thing

that you want to.

But the more that your idea

can be anchored

in something that somebody already wants,

the more

that they're going to be

automatically curious about it,

the more that it's already

going to be relevant to them,

the more that

you can start to say and make sure.

So just from idea validation standpoint

that your idea actually solves

an important and urgent

or persistent problem in the world

or something, I saw a lot

or the absence of.

And looking at FedEx applications

where I'm like,

this is a lovely idea,

but I don't sure what it does.

Oh yeah.

The second thing is, and this is

by far much harder,

but it's critical is

how does your idea align

with something

that your audience

already believes to be true

about the world? Hmm.

This piece is super important

because that's

how you get someone

to convince themselves

that this is the right idea,

because even your idea is mimicking

something else that they know

to be true someplace else.

So the example I used throughout

the book is the De Beers

Diamond tagline A diamond is forever.

Because when that tagline

was first introduced in 1947,

people believed that it was true.

Not as a diamond ring is forever, but

is why the tagline so,

so powerful it's a diamond is forever.

But most people would say to themselves,

Well, it's true.

You know,

it's it's a it's a yeah, I believe that.

And if I'm looking for,

you know, the thing that I want,

right, align with something

somebody already wants, as well

as what they already believe.

If I want the best symbol

of my commitment to somebody else

and I believe that a diamond is forever,

it becomes really hard for me

to stick with

whatever my approach was before

if it didn't already include Diamond.

So I'd say,

you know, have those,

you know, those pieces,

you know, there's a third in there

that's important as well. But

I think the just

to be consistent

with what

we've been talking about, Manpreet,

the more that you can figure out

how your idea

again anchors with something

somebody already wants and anchors

with something they already believe,

the stronger

your idea is going to be

in, the more successful

your message around is going to be.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, the diamond story.

That diamond example is

again an idea that everybody understands,

knows and is able to relate.

And you know, I didn't.

I have forgotten

the parts of the books,

the the melody with the diamonds,

just everything came back.

And that's the beauty of that red thread

that it's just

keeping that thing together.

You mentioned Ted talks, and you know,

it's it's a stage that a lot of people,

especially in the research and

even now

in marketing

and people

who are coming with new businesses

want to be on.

And in your experience with.

You know, more than 3000 presentations

that you have worked with

or the messages that you've worked there

and probably a lot more that didn't

go through all.

So what has been

common?

Think about the ones that really stick

and the ones where they do well,

even after forget

getting the direct stage,

they then

sort of

got a similar response

from the audience and said, Yeah,

well, first clarification,

the 3000 presentations

that I've done

are kind of my own personal object

all the years,

but I would say from a

TEDTalk standpoint,

you know, we you know,

I've I've had a direct hand in probably

about 60 of them with Telex

Cambridge at this point.

And then my own with my own clients,

I'd probably add another 20 or 30 or 40

or more.

So probably close to hundreds.

Yeah.

So what works and what doesn't?

So it's seven of the talks

that I've worked on with Cambridge

and with others

have been promoted to TED.com.

And that's a pretty high number

ratio of the, you know, out of like, say,

out of 67 of them

have have gone forward to taken.

So I think that there's.

The ones that really stick with people,

I mean,

Ted is a black box, I have to tell you.

So some of the things that you know,

I think sometimes

talks resonate with people

because it's

it's it's the right message

at the right time.

It's the thing that people

are thinking about.

It's a thing that

that sometimes they tie into

to persistent.

Topics of human nature.

But the the real

the trick, I think, and it's one

I talk about in the book as well,

is that the idea

at the core of the talk combines

something people want,

which we've heard talked about

with some

via means they don't expect, right?

It gives them something that they want

via a means they don't expect.

So, for instance,

didn't work on this talk,

but Amy Curry's power poles talk

combines something people want.

That means they don't expect it.

If I were to say that her talk combines

how you can use body language,

that's the unexpected part

to overcome imposter syndrome .

That's the thing that people want.

So if you're somebody who suffers

from imposter syndrome

or just wants to feel more confident,

maybe you don't fully

suffer from imposter syndrome.

The idea that your body language

could be a path to doing

that was unexpected.

It just wasn't something

that people had heard before.

And I think that the most.

You know,

even if we talk

about, you know,

kind of epically famous ones like,

you know,

how the schools kill creativity,

that's that's again,

like something people want.

I want to do the best thing for my child.

What's the best,

you know, unexpected thing.

Oh my gosh.

This thing that I'm doing that

I think is good for my child

may actually be doing

something really awful to them.

So I think that.

I think it's always something like that

there's just.

And that's why I think it's

getting increasingly hard to find

and and to generate really good

Ted and Ted ideas because

it's not that there's

a shortage of ideas in the world.

Not at all.

Yeah, it's that.

The

you know, in a way, TED acts,

which if people aren't

aware of the difference

between Ted and Ted, Ted acts

as kind of like a franchise of TED.

It's a, you know, they're they

they have to sign on and go through

training and and subscribe

to and get a license from TED.

But essentially,

within certain boundaries, they

they can do what they want with,

you know, choosing the speakers and,

you know, all of those kinds of things.

There's

just so many of them now

that.

Unless you are somebody

who is actually in the business

of creating knowledge,

not just synthesizing knowledge,

not just applying it,

unless you're in the business

of actually creating knowledge,

which

you know for us it takes,

Cambridge is essentially academics

and a large and a large way,

not exclusively, but close.

It's really hard

to actually say that you've got something

genuinely new

and unexpected out

there in the world and.

But those are the ones that,

you know, it's

just it's that intersection.

I mean,

I think one of my personal favorites

of the last five years is Suzanne Somers.

Talk on on how trees talk to each other

and.

You know, it's one of those things where,

you know,

if I were to put my own process

on, it was like, Oh,

how does how does her idea,

which is proven out?

She's created

this knowledge in the world that trees

talk to each other

through a substrate of

of essentially mushroom connections

that's oversimplifying it?

How does it get something

that people want?

It ties in to

for those people who are interested

in, like, how do we?

How do we preserve the natural world

that's important to us?

If you're interested in that,

then all of a sudden

she's indicating

like she's brought

in this new piece of information

that trees

talk to each other

through the fungal layer

that's underneath them.

It's like,

Oh, holy cow,

we have not looked at that like at all.

We haven't even thought about that.

What does that mean?

And so I think as I'm talking through it,

I think there's this third piece

that really takes something over the top.

I think a great idea can give it

something people.

They want vitamins they don't expect.

But you know what, I think

the best Ted and Ted talks

do is they make people feel

a little bit smarter about something.

You know,

they just give them this,

this this like,

Oh, I've got this thing

that I can go tell other people about.

And that's how Jonah Berger's

work on contagious.

You know, and how ideas spread.

I think that's

that's a real piece of it is that,

you know,

the social currency

that can come from idea.

When you get to say to someone, Hey,

did you know

trees talk to each other?

Did you know

to use one of our examples from Telex

Cambridge, Dheeraj Roy?

Did you know that we can restore

the pathways to early memory

to memories and early stage

Alzheimer's mice?

Did you know that we can do that?

Because that kind of did you know,

not in a condescending, like,

Oh, I know a thing

that you dealt with this

in this helpful like way?

There might be an answer like that

we didn't know about before.

I think that's where there's

this magical combination.

I would say even Djibouti.

Taylor's talking. My stroke of insight

is that to write, like her

talk is all about answering

Why is it that,

you know, certain people are, are

you know, she frames it is, you know,

how does

why does she process the world

in one way and her brother, who's

schizophrenic, process

the world in another way?

And her answer is that.

For, you know,

after she's gone

through this experience of a stroke, that

it's the people who can kind of tap

into both sides of the brain

is going to consciously or not,

that are the ones that able to do that.

Well, that's it.

Cuckoo, bananas like idea.

If you think about it

from the get go, you're like,

what I would say.

And it's part of the reason

why her talk is so brilliant,

because by the end of it,

you're like, Yes.

Absolutely. Yeah.

But this kind of

I know, for instance, that like her talk

is what you know in my mind.

It links up

with all the

more recent conversations

about psychedelics

and like Michael Pollan's new book

and you know, just this,

I think people are starting

to appreciate this.

Oh, there's a

there's a layer of something

that we haven't seen before,

and I think that's

that's a very long answer.

But I

think that

that's really

what makes something really good

is not just that

you've got a new take on something,

but you've actually you're creating.

I can just come back to that phrase.

It comes from my

friend, and I don't know if she realizes

that mentor

Ruth Godin, who

who talks about like, that's,

you know, that's

a creation of knowledge.

And I think that's.

When you create

knowledge that

you're able to do all of those things,

you're able to answer a question

that people

why are able to find a way

that people don't expect

and because you're creating knowledge

and sharing it,

you are helping people to feel

just a little bit smarter

about themselves of the world.

And I think most people

want to feel that. Yes, that

is beautiful.

And I only

know the last documents and their boys.

That's the one I've seen.

I think

one of the beauty of that is a brought

people from different worlds

also together

like not only the Kadhimiya,

not only the science,

but also people who are a little bit more

on the spiritual side of the things

just connects those intersects.

Those thoughts allows.

Yeah, it's such a I like.

I just I also appreciate that talk

from a construction standpoint

because it is

it's a very technical talk.

If you go back and look,

you know, read it or listen to it

like she used a lot of technical

stuff in it.

But I love how she slowly

moves from a question

that people that are,

you know, willing to ask, Yeah, why?

You know,

why is it that her brother,

she and her brother experience

the world differently to this answer?

That is just

if she started there,

I don't like

people wouldn't have gone with her.

So the structure of that talk,

I think, you know, that's

another thing that plays into it is

kind of understanding the.

Baseline level of readiness

of an audience

to hear an idea in a certain way.

And there's lots of examples

of different ways

that different speakers do this, but

I think she knew consciously

or intuitively

that she couldn't

come right out with the answer.

Yes.

Hey, we're

we are

just absolutely not tapping

into both sides of our brain.

There's the whole other world out there

and experience out there

and this other brain

that a is possible

for us to tap into a B.

We'd all be a lot better off if we could.

I mean, I think she started there.

People are like, No, no way.

Yeah,

but just

the evolution

that she takes over that

talk is just it's it's masterful.

Yeah.

Thank you for pointing out Newstalk's.

I'll make sure put in the North.

So people

who are curious can go

and listen to the list of

these are beautiful dogs.

And when you mentioned, you know,

having a component

in your talk or message

that says

that makes you feel smarter or ask

you, Hey, did you know that I remember

this couple of days ago?

My son is out.

It's almost five

as it turns five in March,

and I was picking up from the school

and he's Who is that?

That I did?

You know who created this world?

And I was like, who was like God?

And he had that lesson in the school

and I was like, OK.

He was just amazing

to have that interaction.

And you know, that curiosity

that I could see

in the eyes that he learned something new

and that

day in the school,

and he was just so

curious to share it for, you know?

Yeah, I love that.

And I think

and kids are such a beautiful window

into that, into that eye

that you know

what your son brings to mind

is the fact that I think all of us

and you really see it

and kids are trying to make sense

of what we see all the time .

Yes, stories of the way that we do that.

But when you get a new piece

of information like that,

I think the reason why it's so powerful

is that all of a sudden, like

you may not even realize

there was a piece missing in the story,

but all of a sudden

when your son heard that for him

, it's just like something clicked in.

Yeah, something was like, Oh,

oh, this thing?

Like,

Oh, now now

there's a character in the story

of this world

that I see

that now helps me make it

make a little bit more sense.

And I think these pieces of information

that I think people who are very talented

at creating information, creating

knowledge are putting out in the world

or doing exactly that.

You're adding a piece of information

that helps

things make a little bit

more sense, either

you know why something happens

the way it does or,

you know, just, oh , now I, you know,

what do I do next?

Like what?

OK, I

maybe I have a belief about,

you know,