Two years after my TEDx talk Two things I've learned

Last week I got an old-fashioned sms-text. The marketingteam of TEDx Venlo is preparing for the TEDx 2018 season and is shooting short videos about the experience of alumni-speakers. In this video they askes me to answer two questions: What was your TEDx-talk about? And what did you learn from your TEDx adventure?

First question - easy! My talk is about the fire-service, en more specific about recruiting volunteer firefighters to our organisation. The deeper meaning of my story is about being proud of your weakness and about re-connecting to your local community. I had a solution for a big problem. A solution relevant for all volunteer-bases organisations and associations.

Second question - something to think about. It was a rollercoaster. From start to finish it was one big learning experience. It's a privilege to work with so many cool people. They showed me the true art of storytelling and my coaches thought me how to build a speech and how to convey it. Even now I am still very thankful to the TEDxVenlo team. But this is what I learned two years ago. Back to the question; What did I get from my talk after almost two years, 25K views and hundreds of reactions? I believe it is all about Ideas worth spreading and being proud of your mistakes.

Idea worth spreading

2016.... November 18th... The red dot... Telling the story I truly believe in. This is the goal, the final destination after months of intense preparation. From now on everybody knows the solution to fix this problem. WRONG! Now, two years later I learned tot understand the true meaning of TED and the power of TEDxVenlo.

The day the video went online, fellow firefighters from all over the world started responding. But no one thanked me for sharing the solution. In general the reactions were like: ''thank you for sharing your view on this topic'' and ''I recognize the struggle in our country''. Nobody accepted my solution. To be honest I felt a little disappointed.

After a period of time reactions turned into: ''I want to let you know I heard your story a wile ago, your view on this topic really helped us. We found our own solution for the issue''.

I thought I shared a solution to a problem but I just shared my idea on a topic. After a period of time these ideas can turn into a solution in someone's brain. My idea turned out to be worth spreading. That's what TEDx is all about!

Proud of mistakes

A confession... despite the blazing reactions I don't feel proud when I see myself in the TEDx talk. It went wrong. I was extremely nervous and to busy with my performance.

As a firefighter and crisis manager you go trough a lot. I've seen things and made life-determining decisions in a split second. Always well prepared, ready for the job. It turns out that after years of training and practice, the dynamics of accidents, fires and crisis have become my comfort-zone. Doing a TEDx talk was way outside my comfort-zone.

If you don't make mistakes, you probably make nothing.

After all I may not be proud of my performance in my TEDx talk. I am proud I did step out of my comfort-zone. If I had the chance again I would tell a completely different story. It did not work out the way I expected, it went better than that.

My advise: do it. Tell your story and don't worry if your story is received different. Step out of your comfort-zone and be proud of your mistake!

Link to my talk: Peter Bloemers - A firefighter's approach to a future-proof community