Avoid Overwhelm and Ride The Edge of Simplicity in Your Signature Talk
Pop quiz! What is my least favorite TED Talk ever?
If you've been hanging around these Rebel parts, you probably know the answer. If not, the answer might surprise you.
My least favorite TED Talk of all time is Tony Robbins.
Why? Why do I hate Tony Robbins' TED Talk so much? Well, let me count the ways.
Number one, he walked out on stage and said, “Hey, I normally do this talk in five days, and they're asking me to do it in 18 minutes, so this is going to be hard for me.”
Really, Tony? You're at TED speaking in front of Al Gore, and you couldn't take the time to find one idea worth spreading instead of spewing all of your ideas?
Number two, his talk had so much information. It was three steps to this, and fourteen levels of that, and seven levels of this other thing, and he's trying to cram it all into this 18-minute talk.
It was too much, it was too overwhelming, and I couldn't process what he was saying or understand what he wanted me to get out of it.
Finally, the final reason I despise this TED Talk is that when it started getting good at the end, he was telling this beautiful story of being in Hawaii at an event on 9/11, the talk was over. He was out of time, and that was the story he should have opened with if he would've taken time to actually structure the talk.
So that TED talk, I hate it. It's overwhelming.
But I think there's something that you and I can learn here because as experts, we tend to overwhelm our audience with the information that we want to give during our signature talks.
I see this over and over again with my clients where we're working on their keynote speech, the talk that they want to be known for, and they're like, “But I need to talk about this, and I need to talk about that because they're all really important to me.”
When we're writing a talk, it's not about what's important to you as the speaker, what's important to build your brand; it's about what's important to your audience.
So today we are going to talk about why we overwhelm and what we can do about it to make for a more effective signature talk and a better audience experience.
One of my areas of expertise, when I'm working with a speaker, is finding that one nugget of an idea that will be so valuable to the audience and also to the person that hires my speakers to speak at events.
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Table of Contents
Why Do Speakers Overwhelm their Audience with Too Much Info?
So why do we overwhelm? I think there are two major reasons speakers do this.
The first comes from the imposter complex. It is the feeling that we shouldn't be on that stage, that we're not expert enough. So in order to prove that we are an expert who really deserves to be speaking on that stage, we tend to over give. We think more information proves that we're an expert on this topic.
Honestly, your audience isn't thinking about how expert you are when they're sitting in the audience. Not at all. The fact that you're on the stage makes you the de facto expert in their mind.
They just want a transformation from you. They want something useful that they can take back to their lives. They're not looking for more than that or for you to prove yourself and your level of expertise.
The second reason we overwhelm is that it's hard to simplify your body of work into one transformation that you can give in a 30-minute, 45-minute, or 60-minute speech.
Rachel Alexandria over at rachelalexandria.com and a client in the recent round of The Rebel Speaker Accelerator is a great example. She is an amazing thought leader who has this body of work around conflict.
When we were working on her signature talk, she wanted to give so much of her entire model to the audience because she knows it's going to change lives. Her model is complex: it's something that should be taught in at least a half a day if not a whole-day workshop on conflict.
The challenge was to help her see that she could give one small transformation, and that would be a complete enough experience for the audience so that they would get something out of it even if they didn't take her longer course or hire her for a workshop.
That one small transformation can make a big difference.
So it's your job as the speaker to simplify your body of work into that one transformation.
[Tweet “Your audience isn't thinking about how expert you are. Why are you?”]
What Flavor of Transformation Do You Want to Create In Your Signature Talk
So the solution to overwhelm is to ride the edge of simplicity in your signature talk. When you're thinking about a transformation that you want to give to your audience, there are three types of transformations that you as a speaker can give, and your job is to pick one.
Mindset Shift
You can give them a mindset shift. For instance, I just did a webinar today where I told people that the only thing I wanted them to remember is that they are expert enough to be a speaker. That's a mindset shift.
Opportunity
You can give your audience a new opportunity. Maybe it's a new way to make money in their business or something that they've never thought about that could open up new doors for them in their lives.
New Behavior
Finally, you can give them a new behavior. I always think of Amy Cuddy's TED Talk with her power pose. That's a TED Talk I actually liked. The power pose is a great example of a behavior that is sticky and memorable.
With my client Rachel, we found a behavior was most effective. How do you disrupt conflict in its path with one sentence? That ends up being the transformation for her speech.
[Tweet “The solution to overwhelm is to ride the edge of simplicity in your signature talk”]
Bask in the Discomfort of Riding the Edge of Simplicity in Your Signature Talk
Then second, when you're avoiding overwhelm, you want to feel uncomfortable with how much you're giving to the audience. You want to ride that edge of simplicity, that edge of “Am I actually giving them enough information to make this valuable?”
For instance, I was invited to do a workshop at Missouri State University for non-profits, and I was helping them with their messaging and their campaigns. It was about a two-and-a-half-hour-long workshop. Usually, with workshops of that length, you can offer two or three transformations.
One transformation that I wanted to give them was the rule of one.
The whole time I'm doing this workshop, I'm thinking “Oh my gosh. This stuff is so simple. I can't believe it … They're not going to get anything out of this workshop.”
When I got the evaluations back, I was amazed. The rule of one, of asking for just one thing, like if you're running a campaign, just ask for money, or ask for donations of food or clothing, or ask for volunteers, but don't ask for all three, that blew them away. That was something that they will always remember and be able to use in every campaign going forward.
It's such a simple transformation. It's so simple and easy, and yet I felt really uncomfortable that I wasn't giving them ENOUGH value.
When you feel that bit of unease that you're not giving as much value, you are in the sweet spot of giving a concrete and valuable transformation to your audience.
The moral of the story is don't overwhelm the audience with your signature talk by giving them your whole body of work in one speech, or you'll end up like Tony Robbins' TED Talk and people won't know what they should do with the information or even what they should take away.
Instead, ride the edge of simplicity, and simplicity isn't necessarily easy to find, but once you do, you become that valuable expert who gets booked to speak.
If you need to cut out the overwhelm and find that one transformation that serves your audience and lands you speaking gigs, then sign up for a complimentary 30-minute Speak for Impact Strategy Session. We can sort out your message, put an end to the overwhelm, and talk about how we can collaborate to get you booked to speak. You can do that at drmichellemazur.com/speak.
Until next time, ride the edge of simplicity.
Your audience will thank you for the actionable information that they can use in their life right away, and the people who hire you will love you for creating such value for their organization.
