March 28, 2025 • 26 mins
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In this episode, Aimee Bucher explains why you should apply to give a TEDx talk. Hear from a TEDx organizer on the benefits of sharing your ideas on this global platform.
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/aimeebucher
Harrison Latham: harrisonlatham.com
Lesmon Experience: lesmonexperience.com
TEDxFaurotPark:tedxfaurotpark.org
Matrizuri: matrizuri.com
In this episode, Aimee Bucher explains why you should apply to give a TEDx talk. Hear from a TEDx organizer on the benefits of sharing your ideas on this global platform.
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/aimeebucher
Harrison Latham: harrisonlatham.com
Lesmon Experience: lesmonexperience.com
TEDxFaurotPark:tedxfaurotpark.org
Matrizuri: matrizuri.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So for us, because part of the vision is to
bring ideas into this small community, so we encourage applications
from all over when we get applications from all over
the world. In our latest round, we had ninety three
applications from I don't remember how many countries. So we
get local people as well as international people.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And let's jump right into it.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Amy, So tell me a little bit about how you
ended up becoming a techex organizer.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
What led you down that path.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's kind of an interesting story. I was involved in
ted and going to some different community events online and
I discovered the process for applying for a Techex license
was simply to literally just one person goes in and
applies for the license. And I thought this would be
an amazing thing for my community. I am born and
(00:54):
raised in Lima, Ohio. We're a pretty small community, and
I thought, how amazas and would it be to have
a TEDx group or to have a teed x in
this community. And so I didn't tell anyone I was
doing it. I just did it. I went and I
did all the work for the application, and it's a
lengthy application if you're a producer, you know, And so
it took a long time and going back and forth,
(01:16):
and then and then we got the license. I like, oh, well,
I guess, I guess now I have to do this.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And what does that look like for applications.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Is it something where you guys only accept people from
the area, because I know some TX organizations do that,
or is it something that's open to people all over
the world.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
How does the application process look so for us?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Because part of the vision is to bring ideas into
this small community, so we encourage applications from all over
When we get applications from all over the world. In
our latest round, we had ninety three applications from I
don't remember how many countries, So we get local people
as well as international people.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Very nice. And how many years have you guys been
doing it now?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
This is our third year, non consecutive third year got it?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So talk to me maybe about some of the challenges
that you face because I know it's a volunteer led
you know, organization.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
People aren't getting.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Paid and it's also like you have to like get
donors to like keep the lights on, get the video production.
Talk to me about some of the challenges for folks
who are thinking about pursuing a tech x license.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
So those that you just listed all the big challenges
right there. It is volunteer led. Nobody's making any money,
and it can be depending on your role within the organization,
it can be a large chunk of time that you're donating,
a large amount of energy that you're donating. So you
have to find people who are passionate about it, who
are excited about the concept of TEDx talks because it's
(02:53):
something very different. It's ted and ted X doesn't really
exist in any other form in the world. So once
so once people learn about what it is exactly, if
they don't already know, they are excited, and you can
find those volunteers. You can find those people, and then
getting the funds is actually a little bit easier because
organizations typically tend to like to have their name out there.
(03:13):
So as long as you offer good promotion packages for
your partners, you can you can get those funds and
you have the right people asking and all of those things.
But those are the two, you know, the volunteers and
the money. Any kind of nonprofit organization doing anything, those
are the challenges.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
And what kind of tips would you have for folks
who are struggling to secure sponsorships in the area. Maybe
there's like a new ted X chapter their first year
and they're like, I don't even know where to start.
If you could give them a mini playbook, what would
that look like.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So they're different ways to raise funds. So one is
just the general fundraising plea. You go to an organization
or a company and say, hey, we have this event.
Here's why you should sponsor it. Another thing is you
can have people sponsor specific parts of the event. You
can say, okay, so we're going to have eight speakers,
and this speaker is talking about this particular topic which
I know your company is passionate about, or there's you know,
(04:08):
make that connection for them. Here's how much it would
cost to sponsor a speaker, which they're not really sponsoring
speakers are paying for the event, but it gives them
a thing that we're the sponsor for the speaker. Or
you can say you can have people sponsor the refreshments
or buy a seat or do you know you can
package those sponsorships in different ways so that people are
(04:28):
excited to connect in that way.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
That is an absolute nugget that is so good because
I'm thinking about because my first year here in the
Atlanta area, I was a volunteer on the team and
that was one of the things that we were working on.
I was taking lead on social media strategy, but I
was helping out all around.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And that's something that's really good.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Identifying a topic from one of your speakers that maybe
is adjacent or directly aligned with a potential sponsor and
just like creating a unique like promotion package for them
is such a nugget. So I hope folks who are
organizing events write that one down.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
That's good. Amy. I know we have a bunch of
people who.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Listen who are aspiring speakers, and one of the things
is that you know they apply to all of thesex
events and they never gets selected. Some people don't get
selected ever, some get selected after years of applying to
multiple multiple events. Talk to me about some best practices
for people to let their applications stand out. What can
(05:35):
people do at home as they're applying to these techex events.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
What can they do to stand out?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So the thing that stands so I can speak from
our speaker selection process, the thing that stands out when
we're looking through speaker applications is the idea. When we
approach an application, we literally don't care about your previous
speaking experience. We don't care how many followers you have.
And this might be different for other techex producers. You know,
(06:04):
we're looking for a really unique idea. We want to
get people in the audience thinking and talking and excited
about this idea, whether it's a new idea or a
new way of thinking about an old idea, whatever that is.
It's it's all about the idea. We have a lot
of speaker applications to come. They want to they want
to motivate the audience, they want the audience to feel good,
(06:24):
and they want the audience to you know, to experience
some kind of personal growth. And that's fantastic. I'm that
kind of speaker. It's great, but it's not a teed
X talk in our world. The TEDx talk is all
about the idea. So figuring out what is your idea
and how do you make that idea shine? How do
you explain it in such a way in your application
(06:47):
that this that the committee goes, oh, yeah, we want
to hear this fleshed out. We want to hear more
about this particular idea and how this impacts the world.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
We had a guest on a few weeks ago, a
gentleman named Brian Miller, and he had a quote where
he said, TED ex organizers don't.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Book speakers, they book ideas.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Love that.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
That's perfect, And that's exactly what I'm hearing from you.
So how can speakers you know, because many speakers come with.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Their field of expertise.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
For example, I know one of your feels like is
emotional intelligence, and I want to talk a little bit
about that before we.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Finish up this episode.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
But let's say I have a topic minus social media,
and I'm like, okay, I want to do a TED
talk like I want to do it on my expertise. Actually,
I want to do it on my story and my expertise.
I feel like that's the approach that many people have
when they are creating their pitch for their application.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Talk to me about how.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Maybe they can fine tune that to create an application
that would actually turn those two things, your expertise and
maybe a story into an idea.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So typically what you want is you want your speaker
and the audience to have an emotional connection. You want
the speaker to be able to share something that the
audience connects with and goes, oh yeah, like that really
moves me in some way either either I see myself
or I see someone else that I know and love
in that talk, or that's such a different, unusual experience
(08:25):
that I'm drawn in emotionally. And that's where someone's story
really comes in. Is that emotional connection to the topic,
and then the expertise is where the idea really comes from.
So and I think an ideal talk is where someone
can talk about how their personal story led them to
this area of expertise and to this new idea, because
(08:48):
then the audience is emotionally invested as well as intellectually invested,
and that's where the magic happens in a TED or
a TEDx talk.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Here's a topic that comes up a lot, and I
love to get your take on it. So many of
the speakers who've come on the show TEDAX speakers who've
come on this show, we have this discussion around memorization
versus bullet points. I had one guy tell me that
he just kind of went up there and was just
winging it, you know, with a few ideas after he
(09:21):
submitted something. But then he just kind of winged it.
It wasn't what he submitted, So talk to me about that.
And if you have any experience with maybe a speaker,
you know, maybe presenting what they're going to speak on
and then maybe it looks it feels a little different,
because I'm trying to give people some guidance around how
(09:44):
much grace they should give themselves if they struggle with memorization.
So I'd love to hear your opinion on bullet point
versus full memorization and your take on it.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Okay, I am full memorization, hardcore full memorization. I don't
want anyone winging it on my ted X stage. There
are places where you can wing it in front of
an audience and it's fantastic. But because the content guidelines
are really strict with TEDx, and if you're winging it
and you say something that hasn't been fact checked, your
(10:19):
talk doesn't get uploaded to the ted channel unless we
go in and we edit things out and we do
that later. And I want, I really want my speakers
want to have an amazing experience on stage two to
deliver the best talk that they know how to deliver,
and to get uploaded to the channel, to make sure
they can reach that global audience. So I make that
(10:42):
demand of my speakers that you have to have it memorized,
like every word, and you have to practice it so
that it sounds natural, so it doesn't sound like you've
memorized a talking So as they're writing their talks, we
encourage them, you know, read it out loud all the time,
because your writing style and your your speaking style are
probably different for most people they are, so practice it
(11:04):
out loud, and then I give lots of ideas for
how to memorize. So I'm a classically trained pianist, I've
been memorizing music since I was four, and I'm also
i do a lot of community theater and so I've
been memorizing scripts and plays and things. So I have
a lot of tips and tricks that I give my speakers.
The favorite tip that I give them and and my
(11:26):
other performance coaches also give the same one, is to
break your talk into chunks, into into chunks that make
sense to you. Give each chunk a title, write those
titles down on index cards, and memorize each chunk at
a time, and then pull out random index cards and
like pull that chunk out so you're doing it from
memory out of order, and then practice it obviously in order.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And there are lots of ways to continue to practice.
Practice while you're driving, practice while you're running or working out,
while you're washing the dishes, you know, practice pieces and
the whole thing. For your friends, your family, anyone that
you can get to listen to, you just continually practice it.
You can also use sensory clues like light a particular
(12:10):
scented candle every time you practice, because then your brain
will connect that scent with the memorization yeah yeah, or
like suck on a spear, mint droppers or something like that.
When you can make a sensory connection, it locks into
your brain that much better. Because when you get on stage,
you're gonna be nervous. It's just a given you're gonna
be nervous. Your brain is gonna go blank, and if
(12:31):
you have something you can latch onto, and if you've
broken into chunks, you can just jump to the next section.
Or I always tell my speakers, you know you'll have
water out there, take a drink of water. Let your
brain re engage. The audience thinks it's a dramatic pause,
but really out in reality, your brain's going, Oh, what's next,
what's next, What's next? That's what's next? Okay, here we go.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That is an absolute gem because we've had a lot
of you know, tips around memories memorization, Like it comes
up a lot here, right, as you can imagine, right,
But never never in the history of landed talk has
someone mentioned sensory cues. That is huge for me in
(13:15):
my experience. For my talk, I memorized. But for me,
like you, I have a background in music. I did
hip hop music, so I would have to like remember
rhymes and go on stage and do like ninety minutes
worth of rhymes that I would have to memorize, right,
So like I can do that stuff. But for me,
(13:36):
I think what really helped, like you said, was being
in the car and washing dishes, all of the little
moments that you have for yourself to kind of just
run it in your.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Mind, and that helped me a lot.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And honestly, when the talk was over, Amy, I still
found myself doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You keep practicing, You're like, oh, I don't have to
do this anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
What do I do now? Like, now, what am I
gonna do? When I watch the dishes? I gotta think about,
like what do I think about the dishes. There's definitely
a gaping hole in my life right now because I'm
not prepping for a TEDx dog.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Just know that, Oh that's good.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So Amy, I wanted to make sure while I had
you to kind of switch gears a little bit and
talk about emotional intelligence. This is a topic that in
my career, you know, has come up a lot, especially
from some of those really good mentors and leaders that
I've had. One of my favorite ones is when emotions
(14:36):
are high, intelligence is low. I got that from one
of my old supervisors, and she would tell me that
when people would get frustrated and stuff, she would just
be like, all right, guys, why don't we just pick
up later because people were getting emotional. So talk to
me about maybe some basic tips for folks to be
aware of emotional intelligence, because like, mastering emotional intelligence is hard,
(14:58):
it takes years of just routine practice and experience. But
just being aware, I think is the baseline. How can
people know when maybe they're overstepping their boundaries in terms
of emotional intelligence, especially in a professional setting.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
That's a great question. So emotional intelligence, the way I've
been trained and the way I teach it to other
people is it's four basic areas self awareness, social awareness,
self management, and social management. They're different terminology for those
four areas, but those are the terms that I use.
But the most important of those four is self awareness
(15:35):
because the other three build on self awareness. So working
on your self awareness is the key and the way
you start if you've never done it at all, The
way you start is to reflect on situate recent situations
and go, Okay, what was really happening inside of me
during that situation where when I was feeling a little angry,
like my kids spilled something and I was upset about it,
(15:57):
Like why was I upset about the spill? Or was
I upset about something else? And it was coming out
in that moment because the spill was the trigger for
the other thing that I was upset about. And so
you start with that kind of reflection, and the more
you do that, then the more you become aware in
the moment of being able to do that reflection right
in the moment, like Oh, my kid just spilled something
(16:18):
and like, oh, that's a mess, let's clean it up.
I know I'm upset about this other thing, but I'm
going to hold that for a moment and help my
kid with this thing. And eventually, as you learn to
get better in that in the moment of being aware
of what's happening inside, eventually you can be in front
of the moment and you can manage yourself before something happens.
(16:41):
You give yourself some margin to know, Oh, I am
upset about this thing, and then ten minutes later your
kid spills something. You're like, Yeah, I'm not going to
get upset about this. This is not going to bother me.
I know what I'm really thinking about is that and
the same thing. I'm using an example of a kid
because that's easy because we all if you have kids,
you know there are frustrations that come with that. But
the same thing happened in an office setting, and it's
(17:02):
the same process. Start with reflection, start seeing what's really happening.
And sometimes it can take if you haven't done any
of this work, that reflection is hard to really look
and to really evaluate and think what actually happened in
that moment, what was I actually feeling, And then getting
to where you're doing it more in the moment, and
(17:23):
then to where you're anticipating and understanding I'm upset. Right now,
I need to bring myself down before I go into
any social situation because I'm not going to show up
as the person I want to be in this state
that I'm in right now.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I want to unpack that for the for the digital
space specifically, So I think in person, for me at least,
like I can only go from my experience from people
I've managed, but also myself. Right, I feel like in person,
in person, folks have a little more control than.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
They do in the digital space.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So what I mean is sometimes the thing that might
upset you in person, maybe you don't have the courage
or the you know, the outspoken nature to speak up
on it. You might just let it fester, walk away
with it, and maybe forget about it. But something happens
when people get behind a.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Keyboard and they get an email.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
It makes the feel like they're being attacked, targeted, their
work quality is being questioned, whatever the situation is, and
then they they.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Go yes, the true or happy.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Talk to me about emotional intelligence in the digital space
and maybe some ways that people can like practice drafting
that email, put it in drafts and read it later,
Like you have any tips for people to be self
aware when they're online or in the business setting with emails.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
So email in particular, so any written communication, but email
in particular, because it comes right to us in our inbox,
can feel like such an attack because we don't have
body language, we don't really have tone, we don't have
all of those other cues that we pick up on
in real life and face to face conversations, and we
(19:10):
don't have the face of the person right there in
front of us. So our empathy tends to go out
the window. Our compassion tends to go out the window,
especially when we feel attacked, if we feel like, oh,
this is a passive, aggressive email, and ugh, it's always
helpful to take a step back if you're triggered by
an email, especially if you're not required to respond right away,
(19:34):
and most emails were not. Some we are, and so
then we got a manage. That's a whole different situation.
But when you have the chance to take a step back,
take a step back, go for a walk, calm yourself down,
and then go back and revisit it. And a lot
of times just calming that initial trigger can help us
get a different perspective and we can look and we
(19:55):
can go this person's not attacking me, they're upset because
they have this situation and they're getting heat from above,
or yeah, this person is attacking me, and now I
need to come up with a way to deal with
this professionally because I don't want to go on. I
don't want to be that level of the person in
front of me. I want to be a little level,
a little level higher, because that's not who I am,
(20:18):
or that is who I am. And Yep, I am
going to choose to attack in this moment, but it's
a matter of intention. So when you show up with intention,
when you do it intentionally, this is who I want
to be in this moment, then go for it. I'm
willing to lose my job over this.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
All right, Yep, yep, that's that's that's good. I think
one thing that's helped me over the years is using
my draft but also writing the email outside of the email,
because I think you leave a little room for like.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Oops, that's in the unedited version, you know, like I
would rather like bring it over to a memo or
something or document, write it out, but then write how
I feel, then step away for a certain amount of
time depending on how long I have right, like you said,
maybe take a walk and when I come back, I'll
read it with a fresh perspective and I'll end up
(21:12):
just like editing, and by the time i'm done, it's concise.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
It's to the message, to the point of the message,
and there's no like emotions involved more than anything. Yes,
trying to be kind and understanding in my tone, which,
like you said, it's hard to kind of figure out
sometimes on email.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
But that's that's really good advice there.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, I think the key in that is to not
do it in the reply. If you're doing it in
your email, make sure there's nothing in the two or
the carbon copy or the beast nothing. Or do it
over in your notes where you don't accidentally send that unedited,
raw version of your emotions.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yep, yeap.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Have you ever had any emails go out that weren't
supposed to go out? Well, because I have a quick
story for you.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Oh, I had lots. I can't think of any specific stories.
I can. I could feel it though in.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Lind I got one.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
So I got a promotion at one of my previous employers.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It's just brand new promotion.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I was hyped, new office everything and I was organizing
an event and we had a special performer come. It
was a guy that named himself the One Man Funk Band.
So I'm like, this is cool. So I email like
the executive director, her assistant, all of the players, right,
all of the stakeholders, and I'm like, the One Man
(22:37):
Funk Band will be performing. Send get a call. It's
her admin, Robin. Did you proofread your email? I'm like,
what do you mean. She's like, you got a typo.
I went back and looked. It wasn't one band Funk band.
The end was a C I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I'm like, oh, that will be an easy typhon. Man,
it was so bad.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I was horrified. I was like, no, my life lashed
before my eyes. But my boss, who was the exact
at the time, she was super kind about it. She
laughed it off. She said, don't worry about it. But
I was mortified.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
That's a fantastic type of.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'll never forget it.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
So listen, Amy, I want to make sure we take
some time to talk about any projects you're working on
the next Tedex event. How people can apply the floor
is yours to just talk about whatever projects you're working
on right now?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
All right, I got a lot of projects I'm working on.
So TEDx for Park twenty twenty five is in less
than a month. It's Saturday, April twelfth here in Lima, Ohio.
We've got six speakers. They are fantastic, and we made
a change this year. In the past, we've just had
speaker speaker, speaker, speaker, just with very minimal breaks in between,
(23:57):
and this year we're taking time for audience discussion after
each speaker. The speakers have given us discussion questions and
our MC's will get the audience going in their conversations,
because what do you want to do more after you
hear some amazing idea, like, you want to talk about it? Right,
So I'm excited for that change this year. So we
have we've sold a lot of tickets. They're not all
(24:19):
sold yet. They're twenty dollars apiece VIP tickets which include
front row and lunch with the speakers after those are
one hundred and twenty dollars and it will sell out.
We sell out every year, so that's exciting. Another project
I'm working on that you're the first person to hear
about this. I am launching yes, I know you got
an exclusive here. You didn't know this was coming. I
(24:40):
am launching an online community for women, for powerful women,
women who want to be change makers, who already are
change makers, who are looking for supportive community to surround
themselves with. It's called Matrasuri. Matri is from the root
of the Latin word for mother or matriarch, powerful women leaders.
And then Zuri is a Swahili words for beautiful, so
(25:02):
it is beautiful feminine power in this community that's gonna
be launching May First, we're a little ways gratulations. Thank you.
I am like on fire about this. It's gonna be
really great. So those two big events happening. And then
of course my company, Harrison Latham, my wife's company, Lesmon Experience,
(25:23):
and so things are exciting this spring.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And how can people get in contact with you? Amy?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Easiest way is to google my name. I'm the only
Amy Booker in the world spelled a I M E
E b U c h e R. You can find
me on LinkedIn. There was one other Amy Booker, she
was in Chicago. We connected on LinkedIn because we had
the same name. But she got married like a year
or so ago, so she's not Amy. I don't remember
her new last name. Anyway, I'm the only Amy Booker,
so just google my name and you'll find me. You
(25:51):
can connect with me on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest way.
Don't send me a spam message in my inboxes. I'll
ignore you, but if you send me a connection message,
I'll respond.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Well, Amy, it has been an absolute pleasure having you
on the show today and I look forward to having
you on in the future.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
This has been an amazing ride.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Robin
So for us, because part of the vision is to
bring ideas into this small community, so we encourage applications
from all over when we get applications from all over
the world. In our latest round, we had ninety three
applications from I don't remember how many countries. So we
get local people as well as international people.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And let's jump right into it.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Amy, So tell me a little bit about how you
ended up becoming a techex organizer.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
What led you down that path.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's kind of an interesting story. I was involved in
ted and going to some different community events online and
I discovered the process for applying for a Techex license
was simply to literally just one person goes in and
applies for the license. And I thought this would be
an amazing thing for my community. I am born and
(00:54):
raised in Lima, Ohio. We're a pretty small community, and
I thought, how amazas and would it be to have
a TEDx group or to have a teed x in
this community. And so I didn't tell anyone I was
doing it. I just did it. I went and I
did all the work for the application, and it's a
lengthy application if you're a producer, you know, And so
it took a long time and going back and forth,
(01:16):
and then and then we got the license. I like, oh, well,
I guess, I guess now I have to do this.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
And what does that look like for applications.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Is it something where you guys only accept people from
the area, because I know some TX organizations do that,
or is it something that's open to people all over
the world.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
How does the application process look so for us?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Because part of the vision is to bring ideas into
this small community, so we encourage applications from all over
When we get applications from all over the world. In
our latest round, we had ninety three applications from I
don't remember how many countries, So we get local people
as well as international people.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Very nice. And how many years have you guys been
doing it now?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
This is our third year, non consecutive third year got it?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So talk to me maybe about some of the challenges
that you face because I know it's a volunteer led
you know, organization.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
People aren't getting.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Paid and it's also like you have to like get
donors to like keep the lights on, get the video production.
Talk to me about some of the challenges for folks
who are thinking about pursuing a tech x license.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
So those that you just listed all the big challenges
right there. It is volunteer led. Nobody's making any money,
and it can be depending on your role within the organization,
it can be a large chunk of time that you're donating,
a large amount of energy that you're donating. So you
have to find people who are passionate about it, who
are excited about the concept of TEDx talks because it's
(02:53):
something very different. It's ted and ted X doesn't really
exist in any other form in the world. So once
so once people learn about what it is exactly, if
they don't already know, they are excited, and you can
find those volunteers. You can find those people, and then
getting the funds is actually a little bit easier because
organizations typically tend to like to have their name out there.
(03:13):
So as long as you offer good promotion packages for
your partners, you can you can get those funds and
you have the right people asking and all of those things.
But those are the two, you know, the volunteers and
the money. Any kind of nonprofit organization doing anything, those
are the challenges.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
And what kind of tips would you have for folks
who are struggling to secure sponsorships in the area. Maybe
there's like a new ted X chapter their first year
and they're like, I don't even know where to start.
If you could give them a mini playbook, what would
that look like.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So they're different ways to raise funds. So one is
just the general fundraising plea. You go to an organization
or a company and say, hey, we have this event.
Here's why you should sponsor it. Another thing is you
can have people sponsor specific parts of the event. You
can say, okay, so we're going to have eight speakers,
and this speaker is talking about this particular topic which
I know your company is passionate about, or there's you know,
(04:08):
make that connection for them. Here's how much it would
cost to sponsor a speaker, which they're not really sponsoring
speakers are paying for the event, but it gives them
a thing that we're the sponsor for the speaker. Or
you can say you can have people sponsor the refreshments
or buy a seat or do you know you can
package those sponsorships in different ways so that people are
(04:28):
excited to connect in that way.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
That is an absolute nugget that is so good because
I'm thinking about because my first year here in the
Atlanta area, I was a volunteer on the team and
that was one of the things that we were working on.
I was taking lead on social media strategy, but I
was helping out all around.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And that's something that's really good.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Identifying a topic from one of your speakers that maybe
is adjacent or directly aligned with a potential sponsor and
just like creating a unique like promotion package for them
is such a nugget. So I hope folks who are
organizing events write that one down.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
That's good. Amy. I know we have a bunch of
people who.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Listen who are aspiring speakers, and one of the things
is that you know they apply to all of thesex
events and they never gets selected. Some people don't get
selected ever, some get selected after years of applying to
multiple multiple events. Talk to me about some best practices
for people to let their applications stand out. What can
(05:35):
people do at home as they're applying to these techex events.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
What can they do to stand out?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So the thing that stands so I can speak from
our speaker selection process, the thing that stands out when
we're looking through speaker applications is the idea. When we
approach an application, we literally don't care about your previous
speaking experience. We don't care how many followers you have.
And this might be different for other techex producers. You know,
(06:04):
we're looking for a really unique idea. We want to
get people in the audience thinking and talking and excited
about this idea, whether it's a new idea or a
new way of thinking about an old idea, whatever that is.
It's it's all about the idea. We have a lot
of speaker applications to come. They want to they want
to motivate the audience, they want the audience to feel good,
(06:24):
and they want the audience to you know, to experience
some kind of personal growth. And that's fantastic. I'm that
kind of speaker. It's great, but it's not a teed
X talk in our world. The TEDx talk is all
about the idea. So figuring out what is your idea
and how do you make that idea shine? How do
you explain it in such a way in your application
(06:47):
that this that the committee goes, oh, yeah, we want
to hear this fleshed out. We want to hear more
about this particular idea and how this impacts the world.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
We had a guest on a few weeks ago, a
gentleman named Brian Miller, and he had a quote where
he said, TED ex organizers don't.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Book speakers, they book ideas.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Love that.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
That's perfect, And that's exactly what I'm hearing from you.
So how can speakers you know, because many speakers come with.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Their field of expertise.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
For example, I know one of your feels like is
emotional intelligence, and I want to talk a little bit
about that before we.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Finish up this episode.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
But let's say I have a topic minus social media,
and I'm like, okay, I want to do a TED
talk like I want to do it on my expertise. Actually,
I want to do it on my story and my expertise.
I feel like that's the approach that many people have
when they are creating their pitch for their application.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Talk to me about how.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Maybe they can fine tune that to create an application
that would actually turn those two things, your expertise and
maybe a story into an idea.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So typically what you want is you want your speaker
and the audience to have an emotional connection. You want
the speaker to be able to share something that the
audience connects with and goes, oh yeah, like that really
moves me in some way either either I see myself
or I see someone else that I know and love
in that talk, or that's such a different, unusual experience
(08:25):
that I'm drawn in emotionally. And that's where someone's story
really comes in. Is that emotional connection to the topic,
and then the expertise is where the idea really comes from.
So and I think an ideal talk is where someone
can talk about how their personal story led them to
this area of expertise and to this new idea, because
(08:48):
then the audience is emotionally invested as well as intellectually invested,
and that's where the magic happens in a TED or
a TEDx talk.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Here's a topic that comes up a lot, and I
love to get your take on it. So many of
the speakers who've come on the show TEDAX speakers who've
come on this show, we have this discussion around memorization
versus bullet points. I had one guy tell me that
he just kind of went up there and was just
winging it, you know, with a few ideas after he
(09:21):
submitted something. But then he just kind of winged it.
It wasn't what he submitted, So talk to me about that.
And if you have any experience with maybe a speaker,
you know, maybe presenting what they're going to speak on
and then maybe it looks it feels a little different,
because I'm trying to give people some guidance around how
(09:44):
much grace they should give themselves if they struggle with memorization.
So I'd love to hear your opinion on bullet point
versus full memorization and your take on it.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Okay, I am full memorization, hardcore full memorization. I don't
want anyone winging it on my ted X stage. There
are places where you can wing it in front of
an audience and it's fantastic. But because the content guidelines
are really strict with TEDx, and if you're winging it
and you say something that hasn't been fact checked, your
(10:19):
talk doesn't get uploaded to the ted channel unless we
go in and we edit things out and we do
that later. And I want, I really want my speakers
want to have an amazing experience on stage two to
deliver the best talk that they know how to deliver,
and to get uploaded to the channel, to make sure
they can reach that global audience. So I make that
(10:42):
demand of my speakers that you have to have it memorized,
like every word, and you have to practice it so
that it sounds natural, so it doesn't sound like you've
memorized a talking So as they're writing their talks, we
encourage them, you know, read it out loud all the time,
because your writing style and your your speaking style are
probably different for most people they are, so practice it
(11:04):
out loud, and then I give lots of ideas for
how to memorize. So I'm a classically trained pianist, I've
been memorizing music since I was four, and I'm also
i do a lot of community theater and so I've
been memorizing scripts and plays and things. So I have
a lot of tips and tricks that I give my speakers.
The favorite tip that I give them and and my
(11:26):
other performance coaches also give the same one, is to
break your talk into chunks, into into chunks that make
sense to you. Give each chunk a title, write those
titles down on index cards, and memorize each chunk at
a time, and then pull out random index cards and
like pull that chunk out so you're doing it from
memory out of order, and then practice it obviously in order.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And there are lots of ways to continue to practice.
Practice while you're driving, practice while you're running or working out,
while you're washing the dishes, you know, practice pieces and
the whole thing. For your friends, your family, anyone that
you can get to listen to, you just continually practice it.
You can also use sensory clues like light a particular
(12:10):
scented candle every time you practice, because then your brain
will connect that scent with the memorization yeah yeah, or
like suck on a spear, mint droppers or something like that.
When you can make a sensory connection, it locks into
your brain that much better. Because when you get on stage,
you're gonna be nervous. It's just a given you're gonna
be nervous. Your brain is gonna go blank, and if
(12:31):
you have something you can latch onto, and if you've
broken into chunks, you can just jump to the next section.
Or I always tell my speakers, you know you'll have
water out there, take a drink of water. Let your
brain re engage. The audience thinks it's a dramatic pause,
but really out in reality, your brain's going, Oh, what's next,
what's next, What's next? That's what's next? Okay, here we go.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That is an absolute gem because we've had a lot
of you know, tips around memories memorization, Like it comes
up a lot here, right, as you can imagine, right,
But never never in the history of landed talk has
someone mentioned sensory cues. That is huge for me in
(13:15):
my experience. For my talk, I memorized. But for me,
like you, I have a background in music. I did
hip hop music, so I would have to like remember
rhymes and go on stage and do like ninety minutes
worth of rhymes that I would have to memorize, right,
So like I can do that stuff. But for me,
(13:36):
I think what really helped, like you said, was being
in the car and washing dishes, all of the little
moments that you have for yourself to kind of just
run it in your.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Mind, and that helped me a lot.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And honestly, when the talk was over, Amy, I still
found myself doing it.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You keep practicing, You're like, oh, I don't have to
do this anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
What do I do now? Like, now, what am I
gonna do? When I watch the dishes? I gotta think about,
like what do I think about the dishes. There's definitely
a gaping hole in my life right now because I'm
not prepping for a TEDx dog.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Just know that, Oh that's good.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So Amy, I wanted to make sure while I had
you to kind of switch gears a little bit and
talk about emotional intelligence. This is a topic that in
my career, you know, has come up a lot, especially
from some of those really good mentors and leaders that
I've had. One of my favorite ones is when emotions
(14:36):
are high, intelligence is low. I got that from one
of my old supervisors, and she would tell me that
when people would get frustrated and stuff, she would just
be like, all right, guys, why don't we just pick
up later because people were getting emotional. So talk to
me about maybe some basic tips for folks to be
aware of emotional intelligence, because like, mastering emotional intelligence is hard,
(14:58):
it takes years of just routine practice and experience. But
just being aware, I think is the baseline. How can
people know when maybe they're overstepping their boundaries in terms
of emotional intelligence, especially in a professional setting.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
That's a great question. So emotional intelligence, the way I've
been trained and the way I teach it to other
people is it's four basic areas self awareness, social awareness,
self management, and social management. They're different terminology for those
four areas, but those are the terms that I use.
But the most important of those four is self awareness
(15:35):
because the other three build on self awareness. So working
on your self awareness is the key and the way
you start if you've never done it at all, The
way you start is to reflect on situate recent situations
and go, Okay, what was really happening inside of me
during that situation where when I was feeling a little angry,
like my kids spilled something and I was upset about it,
(15:57):
Like why was I upset about the spill? Or was
I upset about something else? And it was coming out
in that moment because the spill was the trigger for
the other thing that I was upset about. And so
you start with that kind of reflection, and the more
you do that, then the more you become aware in
the moment of being able to do that reflection right
in the moment, like Oh, my kid just spilled something
(16:18):
and like, oh, that's a mess, let's clean it up.
I know I'm upset about this other thing, but I'm
going to hold that for a moment and help my
kid with this thing. And eventually, as you learn to
get better in that in the moment of being aware
of what's happening inside, eventually you can be in front
of the moment and you can manage yourself before something happens.
(16:41):
You give yourself some margin to know, Oh, I am
upset about this thing, and then ten minutes later your
kid spills something. You're like, Yeah, I'm not going to
get upset about this. This is not going to bother me.
I know what I'm really thinking about is that and
the same thing. I'm using an example of a kid
because that's easy because we all if you have kids,
you know there are frustrations that come with that. But
the same thing happened in an office setting, and it's
(17:02):
the same process. Start with reflection, start seeing what's really happening.
And sometimes it can take if you haven't done any
of this work, that reflection is hard to really look
and to really evaluate and think what actually happened in
that moment, what was I actually feeling, And then getting
to where you're doing it more in the moment, and
(17:23):
then to where you're anticipating and understanding I'm upset. Right now,
I need to bring myself down before I go into
any social situation because I'm not going to show up
as the person I want to be in this state
that I'm in right now.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I want to unpack that for the for the digital
space specifically, So I think in person, for me at least,
like I can only go from my experience from people
I've managed, but also myself. Right, I feel like in person,
in person, folks have a little more control than.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
They do in the digital space.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So what I mean is sometimes the thing that might
upset you in person, maybe you don't have the courage
or the you know, the outspoken nature to speak up
on it. You might just let it fester, walk away
with it, and maybe forget about it. But something happens
when people get behind a.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Keyboard and they get an email.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
It makes the feel like they're being attacked, targeted, their
work quality is being questioned, whatever the situation is, and
then they they.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Go yes, the true or happy.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Talk to me about emotional intelligence in the digital space
and maybe some ways that people can like practice drafting
that email, put it in drafts and read it later,
Like you have any tips for people to be self
aware when they're online or in the business setting with emails.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
So email in particular, so any written communication, but email
in particular, because it comes right to us in our inbox,
can feel like such an attack because we don't have
body language, we don't really have tone, we don't have
all of those other cues that we pick up on
in real life and face to face conversations, and we
(19:10):
don't have the face of the person right there in
front of us. So our empathy tends to go out
the window. Our compassion tends to go out the window,
especially when we feel attacked, if we feel like, oh,
this is a passive, aggressive email, and ugh, it's always
helpful to take a step back if you're triggered by
an email, especially if you're not required to respond right away,
(19:34):
and most emails were not. Some we are, and so
then we got a manage. That's a whole different situation.
But when you have the chance to take a step back,
take a step back, go for a walk, calm yourself down,
and then go back and revisit it. And a lot
of times just calming that initial trigger can help us
get a different perspective and we can look and we
(19:55):
can go this person's not attacking me, they're upset because
they have this situation and they're getting heat from above,
or yeah, this person is attacking me, and now I
need to come up with a way to deal with
this professionally because I don't want to go on. I
don't want to be that level of the person in
front of me. I want to be a little level,
a little level higher, because that's not who I am,
(20:18):
or that is who I am. And Yep, I am
going to choose to attack in this moment, but it's
a matter of intention. So when you show up with intention,
when you do it intentionally, this is who I want
to be in this moment, then go for it. I'm
willing to lose my job over this.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
All right, Yep, yep, that's that's that's good. I think
one thing that's helped me over the years is using
my draft but also writing the email outside of the email,
because I think you leave a little room for like.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Oops, that's in the unedited version, you know, like I
would rather like bring it over to a memo or
something or document, write it out, but then write how
I feel, then step away for a certain amount of
time depending on how long I have right, like you said,
maybe take a walk and when I come back, I'll
read it with a fresh perspective and I'll end up
(21:12):
just like editing, and by the time i'm done, it's concise.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
It's to the message, to the point of the message,
and there's no like emotions involved more than anything. Yes,
trying to be kind and understanding in my tone, which,
like you said, it's hard to kind of figure out
sometimes on email.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
But that's that's really good advice there.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, I think the key in that is to not
do it in the reply. If you're doing it in
your email, make sure there's nothing in the two or
the carbon copy or the beast nothing. Or do it
over in your notes where you don't accidentally send that unedited,
raw version of your emotions.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yep, yeap.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Have you ever had any emails go out that weren't
supposed to go out? Well, because I have a quick
story for you.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Oh, I had lots. I can't think of any specific stories.
I can. I could feel it though in.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Lind I got one.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
So I got a promotion at one of my previous employers.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It's just brand new promotion.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I was hyped, new office everything and I was organizing
an event and we had a special performer come. It
was a guy that named himself the One Man Funk Band.
So I'm like, this is cool. So I email like
the executive director, her assistant, all of the players, right,
all of the stakeholders, and I'm like, the One Man
(22:37):
Funk Band will be performing. Send get a call. It's
her admin, Robin. Did you proofread your email? I'm like,
what do you mean. She's like, you got a typo.
I went back and looked. It wasn't one band Funk band.
The end was a C I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I'm like, oh, that will be an easy typhon. Man,
it was so bad.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I was horrified. I was like, no, my life lashed
before my eyes. But my boss, who was the exact
at the time, she was super kind about it. She
laughed it off. She said, don't worry about it. But
I was mortified.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
That's a fantastic type of.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'll never forget it.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
So listen, Amy, I want to make sure we take
some time to talk about any projects you're working on
the next Tedex event. How people can apply the floor
is yours to just talk about whatever projects you're working
on right now?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
All right, I got a lot of projects I'm working on.
So TEDx for Park twenty twenty five is in less
than a month. It's Saturday, April twelfth here in Lima, Ohio.
We've got six speakers. They are fantastic, and we made
a change this year. In the past, we've just had
speaker speaker, speaker, speaker, just with very minimal breaks in between,
(23:57):
and this year we're taking time for audience discussion after
each speaker. The speakers have given us discussion questions and
our MC's will get the audience going in their conversations,
because what do you want to do more after you
hear some amazing idea, like, you want to talk about it? Right,
So I'm excited for that change this year. So we
have we've sold a lot of tickets. They're not all
(24:19):
sold yet. They're twenty dollars apiece VIP tickets which include
front row and lunch with the speakers after those are
one hundred and twenty dollars and it will sell out.
We sell out every year, so that's exciting. Another project
I'm working on that you're the first person to hear
about this. I am launching yes, I know you got
an exclusive here. You didn't know this was coming. I
(24:40):
am launching an online community for women, for powerful women,
women who want to be change makers, who already are
change makers, who are looking for supportive community to surround
themselves with. It's called Matrasuri. Matri is from the root
of the Latin word for mother or matriarch, powerful women leaders.
And then Zuri is a Swahili words for beautiful, so
(25:02):
it is beautiful feminine power in this community that's gonna
be launching May First, we're a little ways gratulations. Thank you.
I am like on fire about this. It's gonna be
really great. So those two big events happening. And then
of course my company, Harrison Latham, my wife's company, Lesmon Experience,
(25:23):
and so things are exciting this spring.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And how can people get in contact with you? Amy?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Easiest way is to google my name. I'm the only
Amy Booker in the world spelled a I M E
E b U c h e R. You can find
me on LinkedIn. There was one other Amy Booker, she
was in Chicago. We connected on LinkedIn because we had
the same name. But she got married like a year
or so ago, so she's not Amy. I don't remember
her new last name. Anyway, I'm the only Amy Booker,
so just google my name and you'll find me. You
(25:51):
can connect with me on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest way.
Don't send me a spam message in my inboxes. I'll
ignore you, but if you send me a connection message,
I'll respond.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Well, Amy, it has been an absolute pleasure having you
on the show today and I look forward to having
you on in the future.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
This has been an amazing ride.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Robin
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com