Completed: 2014
Skill Set: Public Speaking
Client: TEDxPlano
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DESCRIPTION
I’m gonna be honest. Someone on the planning committee for the very first TEDxPlano event saw the eulogy I delivered at my dad’s funeral, and decided I had the speaking chops to fill a slot on their roster. So I did.
CRITIQUE
In the words of my friend Rose Cooper, I hit all the stylistic points—it was a model example of the form of a TED Talk. Am I proud of the actual content? Nah. And I wasn’t when I gave this talk. The gig fell in my lap and I definitely treated it the way you’d expect a privileged person to treat something he didn’t work to earn: I threw it away.
If I could do this again, I’d take it seriously, dig for something meaningful, and actually prepare. I know, groundbreaking.