Welcome to another episode of Unlocking Lily.
It’s always been my dream to be a speaker,
which led me to quit my day job to work
and mentor under Evan full time
and all of you are coming along for the ride with me.
In every episode I take on a different challenge
to really help me grow as a speaker.
In this video I’m gunna be taking on
the biggest challenge yet.
I’m gunna be doing my first TEDx Talk
and all of you are coming on the road trip with me.
Matter of fact, I’m leaving right now
so I’m gunna see you guys on the road very, very soon.
(upbeat music)
We just arrived in Michigan.
It’s about 11:30 at night.
We’re gunna go check into the hotel.
The lovely people at TEDx actually offered
to pay for our hotel stay which was really nice of them
and surprising since it’s a non profit organization,
so super nice coming out of their pockets.
We’ll go check out this hotel and catch you soon.
(upbeat music)
I’ve checked in, this is our room.
It’s quite nice and comfy.
Tomorrow’s a big day.
We’re gunna have a dress rehearsal.
It’s getting kind of late so we’re gunna change
and go to sleep.
(light piano music)
– We’re just getting, honestly,
I’m gunna find this place by using the sun.
– We’re trying to figure out how to get to the TEDx place
because we have no GPS, and…
– We have no GPS
– None of our internet connection is working
so we’re going to try to get there by following the sun.
– By following the sun.
– Yes, yes.
– Sun dial.
– Yes.
Hopefully we get there soon,
before my dress rehearsal starts
but it’s gunna be interesting.
– We have no idea what road we’re on.
– We’ll see.
We’ll see.
Ah, TEDx.
Here we go.
(upbeat music)
So we finally made it to the Livonia Civic Center Library
where the TEDx event is gunna be taking place.
I’m feeling good.
I’m not feeling nervous quite yet.
Maybe cause it feels…
Surreal.
It doesn’t feel like it’s real.
So we’re gunna go in and maybe the nerves will kick in
or maybe I might not get nervous at all.
(upbeat music)
Hey everyone, I just finished my dress rehearsal.
I was so nervous.
Oh my God.
I was speaking really fast and I couldn’t figure out
the clicker thing, oh my goodness, and I’m so glad
that I had this rehearsal cause I feel like I got
all my nerves out of the way and now I know
how I’m gunna do things differently.
Yeah, I just didn’t expect it.
I was just kind of sitting back there thinking
that I got this, I practiced it about two hundred times
and it’s so different when you’re up there.
Gosh.
I think it’s gunna be a lot better tomorrow tho.
I think so but people are super supportive.
They were so nice and they did the exercises
I asked them to do.
It was all good,
but tomorrow’s gunna be a lot better than today.
(uplifting piano music)
So today is the day.
I’m just getting ready to leave.
I’m really excited.
I’m really, really excited.
I’m not nervous.
I am excited and this morning I was just listening
to some music that made me feel in a pumped
and a ready to go and feeling extraordinary
and I’m just thinking about when I’m gunna be on stage
and how it’s gunna be
and I really don’t want it to end at all.
I feel like they have to pry me off the stage
at the 18 minute mark.
We’ll see, we’ll see.
I’ll try to linger as long as possible.
It’s, you know, it’s something that I’ve been working on
for such a long time and it’s finally here.
I don’t want it to be over so quickly.
Well, I’ll catch you guys soon when I do my speech.
(uplifting music)
So it’s nine minutes before showtime.
I’m gunna be taking on the stage very, very soon.
I have to be quiet because it’s quiet here.
(uplifting music)
Hello, everyone, so it’s about 8 o’clock.
We’re wrapped up TEDx Talk.
The first TEDx Talk ever that I have done which was amazing.
It went really well.
It went better that I thought which was quite amazing
cause I thought I would be pretty awesome
and it actually went better than I thought.
I’m gunna try to digest everything that has happened today.
I’m gunna think about it tonight,
think about it tomorrow morning on our way home
and we’re gunna go back to the hotel, catch some snooze
and we’re gunna be heading back to Toronto very soon.
Oh, this is Evan.
Believe.
(upbeat music)
So I am back from my TEDx Talk.
I’m just thinking about all the great things
that happened during the conference.
The organizers working so hard, tirelessly around the clock
to make sure everything ran smoothly.
The speaker’s were awesome.
They had such great things to share
and I feel like I learned a lot from them
and we also made a connection so we’re gunna
keep in contact with each other for a while,
and the audience.
The audience, they were so supportive and they came up to me
after my talk and we had conversations
and I made some connections there as well
so I’m super grateful in all the things
that happened during the talk
and now, thinking back to my own talk, I thought I’d share
three things that went really well for me
and three things that I could improve on.
So I’m gunna start off by telling you three things
that I did really well.
Number one, is I maintained within the time limit.
As a speaker, you’re always gunna be given a certain amount
of time that your speech is supposed to be.
So in the TEDx world, your speech cannot be longer
than 18 minutes.
So for me, I was particularly nervous
because weeks leading up to my talk,
my speech was still about 20 minutes long or so,
so it took me a lot of practice and editing it down
and cutting it back and back and back
and practice, practice, practice
to finally get it down to 18 minutes.
Number two, is engaging the audience.
I wanted to create a talk that was more conversational
and more interactive so I got them to do stuff
like hugging each other.
I got them to raise their hands when I asked a question.
I even got them to answer one question for me.
It was really high risk because the potential
of it going wrong was highly likely.
There could have been a complete dead silence
and nobody answering my questions or everyone reluctant
to raise their hands but I went in with so much conviction
because it’s something that I really wanted to do
to kind of draw the audience in to kind of
be part of my talk rather than just observing
that it ended up working out really well for me.
Number three is my emotional commitment.
Whether it was sadness, frustration, happiness, all of that,
I committed myself fully into it.
This is the part I struggle with the most
when I was going through the practice sessions.
I was telling the stories, I wasn’t feeling it
and I’m so glad I put in the extra time to really practice
over and over again that I was really able
to get the emotions out as well.
Now the three areas of improvement.
Number one, PowerPoint.
Oh my goodness, I totally underestimated the power
of PowerPoints.
It really captivates the audience if you have
a nice visual presentation
to go along with your voice as well.
I didn’t spend nearly enough time as I should have
practicing with a PowerPoint as well as
investing into making the PowerPoints visually stunning.
So definitely next time around, practice, practice, practice
with a PowerPoint, for sure, for sure, for sure.
Number two is my voice.
I didn’t realize how quiet I was being on stage until I saw
the video of myself speaking.
I could have definitely projected my voice a lot further
than I did and also the variation of my voice,
I could have played around with the speed
and the tempo of it, which could have made it
more interesting for people to hear
so lots and lots of vocal lessons for me
to get my voice up there for my next talk.
Number three is a stronger ending.
There wasn’t anything wrong with the words that I used,
but I could have brought way more conviction that I did
for the call to action in the end.
The whole reason why I want to be a speaker
is to spark a change in people and for people to take action
after hearing my talk so if I brought way more confidence
and way more conviction in the end I feel like
more people will be willing to go out there and take action.
So I had quite a few people ask me how I got my TEDx Talk.
So for my next challenge, I’m going to share with all of you
how I landed my first TEDx talk.
So the question of the day is:
what is your one big goal that you’re working on right now?
Write in the comments below
and I’ll join in on the discussion.
I have a special shout out for Donna Osborn.
Donna Osborn wrote “you’re Amazing, Lily! You inspire me
to work on making my own Magic happen
and move away from playing it safe.”
Yes, Donna, thank you so much for writing
that beautiful comment and that’s what we want.
We want you to make more magic happen.
Thanks again, Donna.
So thank you so much for watching, and more importantly
being on this journey with me.
Some of you have been with me since day one.
It’s crazy and I really hope that I get to meet you
in person one day so I get to give you a big giant hug
to thank you for all the love and support you’ve been
giving me so far and I will see you very, very soon.
”
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