What Makes a TED Talk Stand Out with Helena Bowen

Helena Bowen previously worked at HBO on dozens of shows including Game of Thrones, Chernobyl, and Euphoria.  She pivoted her career to speaker coaching and producing for 150+ TED and TEDx clients.  Want to know the in between that led her to her calling and second act?  Tune in and let us know what you think by tagging us on instagram @girlgangthelabel.

To learn more about Helena Bowen head to helenabowen.com and @helenaspeaking on instagram.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Girl Gang the Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Will, and the founder of Girl Gang. This podcast is brought to you by Girl Gangthelabel.com. Head to our website after the show to browse our directory of female owned businesses and enjoy exclusive discounts from them. Read our online magazine, The Edit, for interviews with female creatives, plus tips, tools, and rituals to level up your own career. Shop our line of merchandise, including our signature support your local girl gang collection. For every item sold, we team up with a charity to support women's education, health, and empowerment. Shop today and use code Girl Gang to receive 20% off at GirlGangthelabel.com. Show us your listening by tagging us on Instagram at Girl Gang The Label. Thank you so much for tuning in.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Hi, I'm Helena Bowen. I'm a speaker coach and speechwriter. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Um, alrighty. So before we talk about um your current career path, if you could kind of take us through the twists and turns that led up to this point, um, that's a huge thing we want to focus on in Girl Gang is just the art of the pivot. And I think just from like researching you and seeing the twists and turns, if you can take us through that story in as much detail as you'd like, leading up to where you're at today.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah, I definitely think twist and turn is the right way to describe my entire career. Um, I started out in the world of film production. I had always intended to get into film. I went to film school. I immediately moved to Hollywood as soon as I graduated from college and started working on set. I originally thought that I would be eventually becoming like a cinematographer, director, something like that, at the top of the food chain in film production. Um, so I started out as a camera assistant in Hollywood. And that's essentially the person who sets the camera up, like pulls the focus. So everything's in focus at all times, like takes care of all the equipment. And I very quickly discovered that I hated it. Um, but I don't think I like was allowed myself to like admit that I hated it for at least a year. I kept trying, like, kind of forcing around Peg in a square hole, like, I'm gonna make it work. Maybe I just don't know enough. Like, if I just get a little bit better, maybe then I'll start loving it. And I just was not loving it, not loving it, not loving it, not loving it. I did love working on set. The energy working on a film set is incredible. There's like an aliveness to working on set that I've never found anywhere else. And it's something that I like still miss to this day because it's so great. Um, I had this kind of uh injury, I guess you could say, about I think it must have been like nine months into my career. I just like really messed up my back. I still don't know exactly what it was, but it kind of forced me to pause because part of being in a camera assistant is having to lift all this heavy gear everywhere, move it around, like lugging all these massive cases. And I would wake up in the morning and like literally could not stand up straight. Like I would be bent over, hunched, like I was 90 or something. Um, went to physical therapists and they were like, you can't lift anything for at least like 10 weeks, just stop, which was a problem, obviously, because my entire livelihood depended on me essentially lifting these giant cases everywhere. Um, and but in retrospect, that was such like a blessing in disguise because having that forced pause made me think of other alternatives. And so that is really what got me pivoting into being an assistant director. An assistant director is the person on a film set who basically breaks down the whole script. Obviously, you don't shoot a film in order. Um, so they break down the script, decide how to shoot it, create the schedule. And then when they're on set, they're essentially the stage manager. So they're in charge of everyone from like the camera people, the sound people, the actresses, hair makeup, wardrobe, everything. They kind of keep everyone marching in the same direction. And so when I had this pause when my back was super messed up, one of my friends who's an assistant director was like, Hey, why don't you just like help me out on this random like crap project that I have to do? Um, and I agreed to do it and I loved it. And so that was my pivot. But for a while, I was still, once I my back was recovered, I still was kind of trying to do both. And it was really a weird vibe for like six months because on you know, one week I'd be working as a camera assistant, doing like the super technical, nerdy photographic type work. And then the next week I would be working as an assistant director, which is way more like dealing with people and logistics and operations. And eventually I could kind of admit to myself that I didn't want to do camera stuff, which again was just super hard because I'd been saying for so long that I wanted to do it. All of my friends were doing it, like I was, and all my friends are loving it. So to be the one person who's not like obsessed with it was hard. Um, but anyway, switched into assistant directing, loved it. It's still one of my favorite jobs I've ever done. Um, I just loved working with every person on the film set and like getting to know what every different type of person is doing and just having this kind of feeling of being so connected with everyone. Like I really, it was one of those experiences where almost like you're at a high school and you can sit at any table in the high school because you fit in with all the clicks because you're working with them. Um, but the downside of being an assistant director was the lifestyle, and that was something that I loved it, loved it, loved it. But then over time I started to be like, hmm, because I would look at the people who were 10, 20, 30 years ahead of me in their career, and I was like, I do not want to become these people. Like most of them were pretty unhappy smokers, chain smoking all the damn day, like no family, no kids. If they did have family or kids, their relationship was not always that great. Um, and I just looked at them and I was like, oof, like I don't want to be that. Especially because I think it was the DGA, the director's guild, did something around like what's the lifespan of assistant director. And it was literally like 55 years old because it's such a hard, stressful position. And on top of that, the biggest issue for me was that the minimum working time on a film set is 12 hours. And if you're the like, if you're in charge of it, really that means more like minimum 14 plus travel time, and that's five to six days a week. And it's also unpredictable because some days you're like getting in at seven in the morning and shooting in Pasadena, and then maybe the next day you're getting in at 11 and you're shooting in West Hollywood. And so it really created the situation where as much as I loved working on film set, it you couldn't have a life. Like that was your life. Um, and that just eventually kind of wore me down. And I was like, do I really want to be like pouring my entire life into you know these films and TV and movies, whatever. Um, and so this was another pivot. I was working on, I got hired to work on uh TLC's sex sent me to the ER. And it was a massive order. They decided to shoot three seasons back to back, which is super uncommon. So it was almost an entire year of my life of working on this show. It was the first and last reality show that I worked on. Um, and I it broke me down. Like that, just working on that film set, I think was kind of the beginning and the end of my film career. Um, and it really made me question everything that I was doing, the entire industry. It made me feel super disillusioned with the industry. And I was kind of like, even though this is a really successful show, it got amazing ratings on TLC, millions of people watched it. But at the end of the day, I was like, I'm doing crappy recreations of like people's sex lives, and I'm pouring my entire life into it, like minimum 14 hours a day. Like, could not plan a birthday party or a wedding or whatever because my life was the show. Um, so after that show, I kind of like put the brakes a little bit on my film career. Like, I still accepted jobs, but I wasn't like as eagerly going for it. And I went home or I went back to Boston where I went to school and I hung out with a lot of my college friends, and I realized that I had just completely for the last several years neglected this side of me, which was like the kind of rigorous academic, intellectual, nerdy side. I ran in very nerdy circles in high school and in college. Both my parents are scientists. Like that had been my life. And then I moved to Hollywood, and Hollywood is the opposite of that. Um, and so I was having all these amazing conversations with my friends at bars in Boston, and I was like, holy crap, like this is what's missing. Um, and so one thing that I'd just kind of been interested in passively was Ted. I'd been following Ted since they first started putting the videos online for free and had loved kind of consuming them in my free time. Um, so I decided, you know what, why don't I go to a TEDx event? I found one in LA, got all dressed up, was totally stoked to like have my world rocked, and it was terrible. And so um I walked away just being like, oh my gosh, like maybe I can do it better. I don't know, maybe like I should try to do this. And so I started looking into it all the while still working on like commercials and stuff, and um decided on a whim to go to Ted's TEDx training in Vancouver at their main conference. So I literally like emptied my bank account to go to this conference. In retrospect, it was a terrible decision, but I ended up completely changing my life. So I went to this conference, met all the right people, got super jazzed about the Ted brand and just the opportunity that there is there. Um, because I really saw it as kind of like the perfect blend of my background. A, because Ted at the end of the day, for better or worse, is entertainment. Like I guess you could call it infotainment. Um, but it's also that super nerdy, rigorous academic side. So I saw how like my two sides were kind of blended together in TED. Um immediately after TED, I was still working in the film industry, but I started volunteering for TED Translators. Basically, if you see a TED talk online, that TED Talk has to be transcribed in its original language first, and then it can be translated into like 155 languages or something like that. So, and it's all volunteers who do that, which is incredible. So I immediately started volunteering with TED Translators because it was something that I could do at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday or like 7 a.m. on a Saturday, or fit it into my super bizarre film lifestyle. And it ended up being such a great opportunity in retrospect because just through the process of having to write down every word, comma, and period of all of these TED talks, ranging from brilliant, amazing, love it, life-changing to like crap. Um, it really taught me what makes a great talk and what doesn't. And that happened like very kind of intuitively or inorganically. And so soon thereafter, this opportunity came available to work for TEDx Smile High again as a volunteer. TEDx Smile High is the largest TEDx organization in North America. It's in Denver. Um, and they put on these huge conferences. So I started working for them, producing TEDx talks as again, still like a side hustle. Um, meanwhile, I got a job at HBO, so that was amazing because it was more like a normal nine to six kind of a lifestyle. And that nine to six lifestyle allowed me to have this massive side hustle. So I would say that I was working for TEDx and HBO almost equally at the same time for years. And then eventually it was one of those things, and again, this was such a hard decision because I'd poured my entire life into working in the film industry. And to think that I wouldn't keep working in the film industry was super bizarre. Like it just kind of like didn't jive with my identity. It didn't make sense, but also just doing all this work with Ted and TEDx made so much sense that eventually I decided to leave HBO. And then since then I've been working full-time doing speaker coaching and speech writing.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

So exciting. A big takeaway from your story, and I'd love to know your process with this, I think is the self-work and self-awareness. What's your process when you're having those like tough conversations with yourself? Are you leaning on friends and family? Are you journaling? Are you just like kind of spending time in your mind? Are you like seeing signs from the universe? What does that process of self-work look like for you? Because I think a big uh, a big takeaway that listeners can uh go home with from your path is just like checking in with yourself regularly and if you're really getting what you want out of life, uh let alone from what it's perceived as, what is like the day in the life. So if you could walk us through your process for um going through that, that'd be amazing. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah, I think um for me, it's I've gotten way better at checking in with myself and being like, am I still good with this? Am I still aligned with whatever I'm doing? Is this working for me? Is it not? What's working, what's not? I think I've gotten so much better over time at checking in with myself and making those decisions. In my early 20s, I think really in retrospect, the biggest problem was that I was so still in this mentality kind of of like people pleasing and like wanting to fit in with the crowd and whatever, that it took me so long to really recognize what wasn't working for me, and then even longer to say so because most of my friends were in the film industry, and that's still the case, and you know, they were all doing the same thing as me. And so to say that that wasn't something that I wanted to do was like a huge break in belonging with them. And now I've recognized that that's totally fine, and like I'm still friends with all these people who work at all these production companies and studios, and it's not a barrier in a relationship at all, and they don't care at all that I'm not doing what they're doing, it doesn't matter. But in my early 20s, it really did feel like it did matter. Um, and so I think a big turning point for me was going into therapy and like talking with a therapist about this every single week and journaling on it and just really kind of getting into way more of a habit of stopping and thinking more often because pre-therapy in my life, I didn't really have that kind of ritual of pausing in my week and thinking like what's working, what's not, how am I reacting to these things, what could be better?

SPEAKER_00 15:41

And I think sometimes, yeah, we don't allow time to be alone with our thoughts, and that's where a lot of the answers lie. But if you're go, go, go, especially masking something that's like draining you or something about it isn't making you happy, it can be detrimental and bring you to zero miles an hour. You know, literally just like I feel like that 10 week span you talked about with your back and just pausing, that was like the first chapter in these being open to what else life has. For sure. Um, and so now fast forwarding to today, what is uh what is the process like in the coaching? What if you could kind of break down what this role really entails? I mean, I'm sure all of the listeners know what TED and TEDx are. I've watched so many and been so inspired. You know, what's the behind the scenes working with people to get to that point on the stage, um, you know, talking about this uh project that they're so passionate about.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

For sure. Yeah. So depending on the organization um and depending on whether or not it's TED or TED X, the coaching process looks completely different. But generally speaking, with most of the people that I'm working with, I will start working on their speech with them somewhere between eight to 12 weeks in advance. And we're going through several different iterations of the script together, and then we reach a point where we lock it, so no more changes. And then for Ted and TEDx, everything is memorized. So they have to go through a process of memorizing their entire script. And then eventually we switch into kind of like more of a delivery mode and rehearsals. Um, so the process itself is super labor intensive, um, but it's so rewarding for the speakers. I think they all come away with the sense that they just gave the best talk that they've ever given. And a lot of times it almost has this kind of like reverse engineering effect where they will come up with all the perfect language and ways of describing what they're doing in the process of writing the talk, and then they go back and like redo all their marketing and their website and stuff because they've found this great way of expressing their ideas. But what I think what is really important for people to recognize about the TED and TEDx brands, which is still not widely known at all, is just how much coaching goes into it. So a lot of people look at a TED speaker and they're like, oh my God, those people are brilliant. I could never do that. And there's this very obnoxious cultural thing around public speaking being quote unquote scary, which it is, but we talk about that so much in our culture that it really turns people off from the idea that they can do it. And I think what's worth recognizing is that the people that you see on stage on TED.com who are just brilliant and amazing, they didn't just like pop up on stage and give that talk right in the moment. Like there were weeks or months of effort that went into that talk and went into them sounding so brilliant and so articulate. And so there's a lot of people who could really recognize that and then say, okay, you know what, this is something that I could do if I just have the right amount of time and coaching. Maybe it's not something that I'll step on stage today and be brilliant, but like if I actually put the same amount of work into it, I could probably do it too.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

That's so exciting. Thank you for sharing that too, because I think a lot of different touch points in our society right now, things just don't seem approachable or attainable. And it's something that's like very prestigious and looked up to. And so just another lesson in life, just if you really work towards a goal you want, you're not, you could, you could become that. It's not completely, you don't have to have the same exact path of someone that you watched. It's really the work, not necessarily the end goal of what makes these amazing speeches that we love watching online and at conferences. Um, if you could go back to the point where you're transcribing um these speeches, at that point, did you know? Did you ever think you'd be where you're at now with the brand? No. Can you walk us through like these speeches? You're just like, you know, I see this formula that works better. And now you've really, I feel like done such a good job on your website right away. You understand what you're doing, what your goals are, what your purpose is. Um, what was the process like from that? Um just creating your personal mission statement, I guess, from the moment you said, wait, I think I can help with this to where you're at today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

So I definitely think my entire career has been a lesson in following your curiosity. When I first started working with TED and TEDx, I really saw it as just like, oh, this thing that I was sort of interested in, and like I'm gonna see where that takes me. And, you know, that kind of curiosity kept happening for years and years, and I for the longest time thought it was something that I would just kind of like lose interest in, or like my, you know, I would kind of stop doing it eventually. But but that time when I lost interest never came. I mean, there were definitely ups and downs of like me being loving it versus being like, oh God, this is a drag. Um, but but I think being willing to kind of follow it through and see where it goes was key. Um, because that is really how I have this amazing career now and this lifestyle that's a thousand times better than I ever could have imagined.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Um, and then so let's go to current day. What is a day in the life like? And what's how do you kind of like time manage and schedule um coaching people? Because it sounds very intensive, and you've done how many have you done now? So many. Hundreds. Yeah. I don't even know. And so um, what are your um what are your tips for time management and what does like a day in the life of like a full day of working in your current role look like?

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Um, so one thing I love about having my own business is that I can have total control over my time, which has been huge. And the thing that's really completely changed my life is blocking. So I as much as possible try to spend like an entire day working on one thing so that I'm not, you know, shifting back and forth between things all throughout the entire day because I've really found that that's where I make the best progress. So just for myself, as much as possible, I try to set it up so that I'm actually seeing clients on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are more the day for me to like be by myself, reading through their script, taking really intense notes, doing revisions. Doing kind of all of those like um very super focused, attentive work on those days. And then that helps me prepare for the actual client meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Amazing. I think um that's I go back to as well. All I would say on my most successful days, I do that. It brings me back to just like an academic frame of mind where it's like different classes have different hours, and so like on my on my runs where I'm the most productive, it really is it's like three hours is for this or one day is for that. And I feel like when you're running your own business or even doing anything like freelancing or working in a startup, anything that doesn't have that consistent control, you really do kind of need to be like your own boss, really, and like set it up. And I feel like that's how because I like what you're doing now, I'm sure to some people seems like, oh, I could never do that coach like hundreds of people, like maybe one person over a couple months. But it sounds like you just need like grit time management and really to focus on the schedule and not budge away from that.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

For sure. Yeah, and something else that's really changed my life in addition to um batching everything. I read this book called When, uh, that I would highly recommend to anyone. But basically it goes through it's they I think he calls it, it's not a how-to book, it's a when-to book. And so it talks about kind of like our natural energy cycles in the day and like when you should be doing X tasks versus Y tasks. And so what he talks about is I think it's Steven Pinker. He talks about how most people, whether you're a night owl or like an early bird, is what he calls them, um, have kind of a trough in the middle of the day, right after lunch, where your brain is just not at its best. In fact, he said all of these terrifying things, which have made me stop ever taking uh doctor's appointments right after lunch because he's basically like most of the medical errors that happen happen right after lunch when people are in the so-called trough. Um, but I've I've started recognizing my own energy patterns throughout the day and recognizing that like there are some parts of the day where my brain just sucks and there's nothing I can do about it. And so now I actually the way I kind of structure my to-do lists and everything is more around like what my energy and focus is rather than like what needs to get done when, because I know that if I'm in the trough and my energy sucks and I just like nothing is working, that that's a better time for me to be doing these kind of, you know, routine logistical tasks, like responding to emails and setting up scheduling and like things that don't require a lot of brain power. Whereas like in the morning, when I'm feeling like great and fresh, that's when I should be reading through scripts and like making all sorts of revisions and notes and kind of like the tasks that take the most brain power for me. I should be doing those at different times of the day.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Through the process of identifying, like really honing in on your purpose and then helping with time management and excelling your career at such a rapid pace at this. I feel like you've already had like two very successful careers. Are there any other uh books, podcasts, things that you kind of go to to keep you on track?

SPEAKER_01 25:05

I mean, I think in my uh as an entrepreneur, listening to, you know, Marie TV, Amy Porterfield's marketing podcast, um, Jenna Kutcher's podcast, a lot of those have been so useful because again, everyone in my life in LA is in the industry. Like no one has their own business. And so one of the biggest things for me when I became an entrepreneur is it's it was just hard because I've if it felt lonely-ish, but more than anything, I just was not surrounded by those ideas and I didn't have anyone to bounce anything off of. So starting out listening to all those business podcasts and business books was huge. And then eventually I found my like girl gang, so to speak, and had all these other people in my life that I could talk to and mentors and coaches and whatever that I could bounce ideas off of. Um, but until then, podcasts were like a great stopgap until I had that circle of people.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

What does it feel like now when you coach someone and watching them get on the stage? Yeah. What was that like? And then fast forward to today, do you still get that same feeling, or is it more mechanical at this point?

SPEAKER_01 26:14

That's a great question. I mean, I think the the energy around it has changed. The first TEDx event that I did was like probably the most alive I've ever felt in my life. Like I was like so amped up and nervous for the speakers and excited for the speakers and like excited for myself, excited for the audience. It was like all the emotions. Whereas now, you know, when I do an event or when I coach people, it's so calm. Um, and I think that's it's interesting. I recognize that working on film sets too, that when I was working on the more kind of amateur film sets, it was loud and there was all this stuff going around and it felt chaotic. And then when I started working on more professional union sets, it was like calm, like silence. And everyone just does their job and there's not around a lot of drama around it. Like things just get done. And that's, I think, how it's felt for me. I mean, I definitely miss the thrill a little bit. It's still exciting, but I feel like the kind of calm that's replaced it is ultimately so much better for my sanity and for everyone around me. Like that's I think one of the reasons why I've succeeded, honestly, is not even just talent, but just demeanor. Um, because I can kind of stay calm in these high stress situations. Most of that training obviously came from working on a film set. Um, but being able to maintain my calm when a lot of these speakers are freaking out because they're just about to do the biggest talk of their entire life has been huge.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Um, when you're reading them, because I personally all go and watch um Ted and TEDx speeches for personal inspiration. When you're reading these speeches, especially fine-tuning them, do you ever like catch that wave of inspiration or do you kind of need to set aside the audience member version of yourself to get the job done? Has there been moments where you put it down like, okay, my world's about to get rocked?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Yeah, for sure. Um, I think you know, that's not the case with most most of the speeches that I work on, but there are some speeches that even when I've read it a hundred times, I'm still like, oh my God. Like I worked on this one uh talk last year, which is just so brilliant and so needed for this time, um, by this journalist named Chuck Plunkett. Um and it's it's really his his kind of whistleblower story of standing up to his own paper and then going viral, and then kind of his thoughts around journalism and democracy. And literally every time I read that speech, I would be like in tears by the end of it, even though I'd read it so many times. And then when he went on stage, it was just the energy from the audience was crazy. Like he got a standing ovation immediately. Like it was just it was wild. I loved it. Um, but yeah, I've I definitely find that with there's there are some speeches, maybe five to ten percent of them, that like thrill me just as much on the 15th time as on the first time.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

I like that uh part of your purpose sounds like is breaking down this narrative of fear of public speaking, which I have to admit, I've been a part of that narrative as well, starting to do panels and speeches definitely getting in my own head and society's a pressure around speaking in front of an audience. Um, someone that wants to get into it either do aspires one day to do a TED or TEDx talk or is just like looking to do a speech at their college. Um, I know you have a lot of resources on your website as well. Um, can you kind of walk them through maybe um, I don't know, any tips or tools and resources they can use to like start to break down that narrative in their own head and get ready to maybe like step into what might be their calling? For sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yeah, I mean, I think first things first is to really question that fear narrative. Uh it's been something that's frustrated me so much since the when I first started working on this because I meet all these people, I tell them what I do, and then they're like, oh my God, public speaking is so scary. Like, how does anyone do it? There's so much anxiety. And I think it's just recognizing that, yeah, there's anxiety. Yeah, it's scary. I mean, I teach this for a living, and yet every time I step on stage, I'm still anxious. And when you talk to most speakers who do this for a living or speak a lot, they'll still tell you that they're anxious. Um, but recognizing the fact that there's a million and a half things in our lives that are anxiety provoking, you know, it's scary to start a business. It's scary to start a newsletter, it's scary to create a website. Like all of these things are scary, but for some reason we've just created this narrative around public speaking that it's scary. Um, so recognizing the fact that public speaking is just one of many things in your life that is, you know, stressful and anxiety provoking, but it can be stressful and anxiety provoking in a good way. I think one other thing in addition to that around mindset is just to recognize the fact that anxiety can actually be a really good thing in terms of motivation, in terms of trying really hard, in terms of having great energy on stage. Like for a lot of speakers, that little bit of anxiety actually serves as kind of a way to pump them up right before they go on stage. So anxiety isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can motivate you to do amazing things and it can motivate you to have enough energy to really excite a crowd. Um, but more so than that, I think the the thing if you're interested in doing a TED or TEDx talk is really just to recognize the million and a half speaking opportunities that already exist in your life, right? Um, so everyone always kind of gets so um, I don't know, what's the word? Like they obsess over public speaking on the stage, but they don't recognize the fact that there are so many opportunities every day, even when you're just talking with a coworker, when you're doing like a little informal presentation at work, when you're talking on a podcast. All of these things are opportunities to practice your public speaking and to get better. And then the other thing to recognize is that the biggest skill that I use actually as a speaker coach has nothing to do with speaking. It's writing. Um, so the more you can improve your writing, becoming a better writer helps you become a better speaker too. So if you're already a great writer, like bravo, you're probably gonna have a leg up on speaking too. Most of what I'm doing day in and day out as a speaker coach is actually helping people with their writing.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

That's amazing. Um, two things. One, I love that you just how you brought up really so many things make us anxious. The visualization I'm getting right now is I use MailChimp for our email marketing, and it has like when you're about to press send, it has like the sweating nervous hand. Like, are you sure you want to press send? I'm like, whoever came up with this is genius because that's how I feel every time before I hit submit. Yeah, all these things in our everyday life, and I think it can stem from something that's not a negative tone.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

One of the biggest eye-opening things for me was looking at some of you know, if you look at the top 20 most watched TED Talks of all time, those people are by no means perfect at all. And it's really that their content is amazing. And so if you can deliver amazing content, even if you have, you know, not the most perfect posture or you have an accent or whatever, that's really what's gonna move people is your content. It's not being perfect on stage. In fact, I'd actually say we're kind of moving away from this kind of old-fashioned Toastmaster sort of mentality of perfection on stage and more towards authenticity, thanks in part to things like YouTube. Like the, I think the culture of YouTube and influencers on IGTV and everything like that is really influencing the way people show up on stage. I think the perfect example of that actually is Gary Vee. Like you see him on stage, and any traditional public speaker trainer would be like, oh, he's horrible, but he is amazing and he like has such a following because he's really speaking from the heart and speaking authentically about what he cares about, and that content is changing people's lives, even though he's like slouchy and always has his hands in his pockets and like is kind of all over the place, but it doesn't matter because you don't have to be perfect, you just have to have a really great message to share.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Um, uh that is that is so good to hear. And I like the narrative moving away too from this like heightened perfectionism, and I feel like it's gonna bring a lot more people forward to talk about topics that are just like a nice, diverse, wide variety of them. Yeah. Um, for someone that hasn't watched any TED or TEDx talks and has really fired up to kind of dive into it, are there a handful you'd recommend either of people that you've coached or ones you go to for inspiration for them to start with and get excited about?

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Yeah. Well, I haven't worked with him, but the the one that immediately comes to mind for everyone is Ken Robinson's first TED Talk. That's the most watched TED Talk of all time, and it's absolutely brilliant. It's definitely one that kind of roped me into TED. He's very, very funny. He talks about, you know, this content that's just so true. It's about how kind of schools train kids out of being creative and point them more in the direction of kind of like more traditional subjects like math. Um, he's amazing. Uh, let's see, people that I've loved off the top of my head. Um, I absolutely love Paula Stone Williams. She's a speaker that I worked with on her first TEDx talk. She's now done three, including a talk at TED Women, but she was a 55-year-old uh evangelical mega church pastor who transitioned and lost all of her jobs. She was this like white male CEO and then came out as transgender. And so hearing her story and her insights on gender are fascinating. Just like her insights on living as a man for 55 years and then becoming a woman, and then kind of everything around like the religious aspect of it is super fascinating. Um, I mentioned Chuck Plunkett earlier, but I think his message around journalism and democracy is probably the most important TED talk that I've ever worked on. He was such a joy to work with, too, because he was like the perfect example of someone who was kind of a little bit nervous and uninsecure. Like he was a journalist. He's always used to writing, um, never being on stage. And so going through this process with him of like writing this beautiful, brilliant talk, and then him really coming alive as a confident, confident speaker, it was night and day. Like the Chuck that I met and the Chuck that ended up on stage, crazy difference. So I definitely would recommend his too.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Thank you so much. And then for listeners that want to learn more about you, tap into your resources, um, and your website is amazing as well. Can you let them know where to find you and um learn the tips and tools that you have beyond what we've talked about today?

SPEAKER_01 36:53

For sure. Yeah. So my website is helinabowen.com. So that's just my first and last name.com, helenabowen.com. And you can find me on social channels at the handle Helena Speaking. So Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook at Helena Speaking.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

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