Book Review of TED TALKS: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson

The book starts beautifully by describing speeches given by a person to a large crowd as the syncing up of human brains like a magic spell causing everyone in the audience to empathize, gasp, laugh and weep together. There is a mirroring or mimicry of nerve patterns between the speaker and listener during any form of human communication and this communication reaches its most intense form at a public stage. There is an alignment of multiple minds into a shared consciousness as the writer points out. 

 (288 pgs., First published May 3, 2016)

Anderson goes on to encourage us by saying that one can talk well in public as long as one can talk to a group of friends over dinner. Rhetoric he says was a core element of an educated person even during the Greek Civilization and presentation literacy still is a skill to master and keep for the 21st century. Public Speaking is not confidence, stage presence or smooth talking the writer says, it is having something worth saying.

This is one of those books that come from a person who is passionate about public speaking and the power of sharing new ideas. Needless to say, it is a book that absorbed my attention, was written in a very easily readable format and was thought provoking.

There are many TED talks dissembled and analyzed to decipher the elements that made it awesome. It also criticizes elements of speeches that went wrong. Every speaker is different and various styles and methods of rehearsals are discussed. You come across many interesting facts about public speaking like how we must always over-stuff our speech preparation and then under deliver; how a speech is 7% language, 35% tone and 55% body language. About how it would take a seasoned speaker like Woodrow Wilson 2 weeks to prepare for 10 min talk, 1 week for a ½ hr. talk and no preparation at all if there was no time limit.

 This book has many of the unnoticed magic potion formula of public speaking. Consciously utilizing them during our speeches would help us very much. The various tools behind a speech such as your body language, outfit one wears, exercises that can ameliorate stage fright are nicely put across. Storytelling, anecdote quoting, persuasion strategies to change the audience outlook all find mention in the book. The timing, rehearsals, the slides, the transitions, the power of a pause, technical aids are discussed too. The only negative I could spot is the repetitiveness in some of the writer’s thoughts. The reiterations could have been reduced but the message from my side is clear. I give it 4.5 stars out of 5.

Go ahead and take a read if you haven't already. It will leave you feeling enriched!