Talk Like Ted

Talk Like TED has analyzed over 500 of the most popular TED talks to help you integrate the three most common features of them, novelty, emotions, and being memorable, into your own presentations and make you a better speaker.

After learning a lot about what influences and persuades people yesterday, today we’re taking it to the next level. Gallo says that communicating in a persuasive way can be traced back all the way to Aristotle.

Back in ancient Greece he established 3 modes of persuasion: ethos, logos and pathos.

Ethos is about who the speaker is, and how much of a credible source he or she is to talk about the topic.

For example a college professor for health psychology has a much easier time talking about willpower than a high school student – you’d simply trust the professor more because of their authority.

But you can also just demonstrate that you have mastered the topic of your TED talk by showing statistics, or benefit from being introduced by another authority in your field.

Logos is how convincing you can make your argument by backing it up with data. Statistics, facts, research findings, credible sources, all of these will help you make your point, and further enhance your ethos as well.

Pathos is the last, but most important of the 3. It is about establishing an emotional connection between you and your audience.

Sympathy and empathy are both words, which have been derived from the word pathos, and they are 2 great places to start. But the strongest emotions always come from stories, which is why storytelling should be a substantial part of all of your presentations.

Whether you share personal stories, stories from friends or how a big brand did something really cool for their customers, keep bringing those metaphors.

Gallo says the perfect talk consists of 65% pathos, 25% logos and 10% ethos.

People have bad memory these days, so it’s your job to make your talk unforgettable and help them remember it. Sharing extreme moments in your story can help achieve that. For example Scott Dinsmore told a story about an open water swim, where he thought a child was drowning, only to find out that the kid was disabled and had still mastered the challenge. Similarly, Bill Gates unleashing a bunch of potentially deadly mosquitos stuck in people’s heads for quite some time. Another factor that helps us remember things is when the information is new. But it doesn’t have to be actually new information, it’s enough if you present information in a new light. For example, it’s often hard to grasp how fast things really grow, when we talk about exponential growth, but a really…