How I Prepared For My TED Talk

About one year ago, I had the opportunity to be on the TEDx stage. The process of getting there was methodical, stressful, and pushed me beyond my comfort zone. Here are a few tips on how to successfully prepare for your TED talk.

For those who don’t know me, I did my TEDx on how opportunities are everywhere. After my close family friend, Louis had passed, I wanted to honor him. I raised $40,000 for the National Alliance on Mental Illness to help other teens struggling with mental health and started the mental health online community, 18percent.

Before I came up with what I wanted to speak about for my TEDx, I followed a series of steps. I had an idea of my topic, but did not know the message I wanted to deliver to the audience. The process to speak on the red dot was a methodical one. Here are the 10 steps I used to prepare for my TEDx.

1. Write Your Ideas Down

You likely have an idea of what you would like to speak about, but before your topic is set in stone, start writing. Don’t think about organization, sentence structure, or much of anything. Just write down the thoughts that pass through your head. From there, you can create a loose outline, but it’s essential to write down all your ideas, stories, interactions, anything that comes to mind. Don’t be hard on yourself. The organization comes…