Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth – The 7 Things I learnt from My First TEDx Talk

Learned Helplessness

You should have seen the preparation for my November 16, 2019 Talk at the “Everything Matters” themed TEDx Port Harcourt.

As a Co-licensee of TEDx Ogui Road, I am not a stranger to TEDx Talks. Fellow licensee, veteran TEDx curator and organizer Paddy Anigbo often reminds experienced public speakers that they should not assume that TEDx talks are regular talks that can be pulled off without being curated and undergoing several rehearsals.

So I very much knew what to expect.

The TEDx Port Harcourt team and I went over the draft of my talk several times, then I went over it again with a fine-comb, cutting out a word here, restructuring a sentence there, until I thought it was picture perfect. Then we worked on the presentation slides, diligently crafting a minds-eye image for the words I intended to deliver.

Because I have never really been good at failing, I tend to over prepare for everything. On this occasion, my Theatre (both acting and directing) experience came in handy. I broke the 18 minutes talk into several movements / train of thoughts, and weeks before D-Day, started rehearsing them in segments.

When I felt that I had held all the movements down, I had my first couple of run-throughs of the whole talk (just as we used to do for stage) coupled together by phrases that served as connectors. The connectors transit the talk from one train of thought to another, and a final connector wraps the individual trains of thought into the overarching idea worth sharing.

As November 16th approached, my confidence in my talk began to grow. By this time, I had videoed myself delivering the talk in my pyjamas, ‘blocking’ each movement, gesture and step. I did several audio recordings, then poured over all of them listening for the right cadence, the right pitch to words and re-recording with my preferred new delivery.

The plan was to keep at this relentlessly till the very day of the talk and then deliver what I hoped to be a mind blowing performance.

But then “everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth”. When asked about the origin of what has come to be one of his most famous quotes, this is what Mike Tyson had to say;

"People were asking me [before a fight], 'What’s going to happen?' ”

"They were talking about his style. 'He's going to give you a lot of lateral movement. He's going to move, he's going to dance. He's going to do this, do that.' I said, "Everybody has a plan until they get hit. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.' "

On November 13, 2019, 2 days to D-Day, I received news that my elder sister who had been in ICU all this while following a car collision, was in a much worse state than we were initially made to believe. I immediately reached out to my siblings and we initiated a family war council meeting. No rehearsals that day, as everybody was trying to see how best to resolve what we believed at the time could still be resolvable.

2 days to D-Day, we received the devastating news that my sister did not make it.

How best do I describe my reaction to the news?

I was inconsolable, verbalized in a gasping, raucous sobbing, that sounded as if all the oxygen around me had suddenly been sucked out, and replaced by scalding ashes. My wife Pat was away in Abuja for a golf tournament but my great friends Ken Agala, Tobe Anoliefo, Eze Wordu quickly congregated in my house to provide solace. The equanimity their presence brought quickly disappeared as soon as the left later in the day so I spent the next 48 hours deeply mourning someone who had meant so many precious things to me.

At this point, my TEDx Talk was the last thing on my mind, but then a commitment is a commitment and as the say in the Theatre, “the show must go on”.

On the eve of D-Day, I went to the TEDx Port Harcourt office for rehearsals but couldn’t get myself to rehearse. So I spent the evening playing back the recordings of my talk and hoping that this could somehow make up for rehearsals.

There are several things I mandatorily do before every talk or presentation, the main of which is what we call a full “dress and tech”.

A full dress and technical rehearsal tests out all the media (projector, presentation slides, clicker), technology (lighting, sound, automation, special effects) to see if they actually work and how they come together.

I also rehearse on site and “block” my movements on the floor or stage that I will make the presentation on.

Because this was not done prior to D-Day, the plan was to get to the event venue on time. Unfortunately, late set up meant that the facility was ready only just before the event began well behind schedule.

As I climbed the stage on D-Day, I was stressed. Already all nerves, once I struggled with the clicker and slides with my opening remarks, I became more stressed and discombobulated, started eating my words and making up for forgotten pieces with the “erm! erm!” filler.

I felt a sense of foreboding. Will I have the courage to watch the video when it is out?

But now the video is out, following feedback I have received from all, I have conducted a post-mortem myself. I also believe that there is always an element of failure in every success, and an element of success in every failure, so the trick is to always learn something new to improve upon from either your success or failures.

So these are the 7 Things I learnt from my first TEDx Talk.

1.      18 minutes is a long time for one person to talk non-stop – Especially without a teleprompter, you have to find ways to make this interesting for your audience. More importantly, if you can deliver your talk in less time, why not?

2.      You are actually performing for a video-viewing and not for a live audience - For those who are experienced public speakers, a TEDx Talk is different, I repeat, a TEDx Talk is different!

While in almost every regular talk you enjoy and encourage live audience participation (and the live audience play an important role at TEDx), the real intended audience for your talk are those who will view the video of your talk online. This means that a lot of the instant audience feedback; laughter, clapping, responses will end up on the editor’s cutting slab. For instance, while I designed my live talk to elicit an appreciable live audience participation and feedback, this is not evident in the video and thus leaves several troughs in the pitch of the talk once edited out.

3.      The Dress and Technical Rehearsal - Ensure you have a "dress and tech" before the talk to familiarize yourself with all the media and technology. The fact that you sorted out any potential glitch will boost your confidence and give additional bounce to your step.

I spent the early part of my talk fumbling with my clicker and slides and the consternation showed both on my face and body language. I only settled into the talk when I abandoned the clicker and allowed the technical team move the slides.

Besides, there is really no need to sweat this if it happens. As I noted earlier, the real audience is the video viewers so the editing team will position your slides appropriately in the video.

4.      Focus on a conversation about your idea and not necessarily conveying your talk in specific words – I often found myself grasping for specific words when I could have used synonyms. This led to verbalizing a lot of “erm, erm” fillers while I struggled to remember the exact words.

5.      The Connectors are very important – Rehearse the connectors if your talk has different compartmentalized flows like mine. A missed connector is like when a stand-up comic forgets the punch line to his joke. People will realize that you wanted to say, or that you said something, but they are not quite sure that they got it, leaving your talk open to misinterpretation.

6.      Rehearse! Rehearse! Rehearse! – Nothing beats over preparation. Rehearse until the last minute and it will be evident in your talk.

7.      What do you do when something goes wrong? – "Everybody has a plan until they get hit. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.' " Unless something happens that knocks you out cold, your intensive rehearsals will kick in and help you ad lib through if you have a glitch.

However, if it is a problem with the technology or media, do not hesitate to call the technical teams attention to it. Remember that this talk is designed for video viewing so you can start all over again once the problem has been fixed and the failed portion will be edited out.

I hope this helps.

This is me wishing that your first TEDx Talk will be better than mine.

Thank you.