Learning – Mobiusman

How A Tedx Talk Almost Ate Me Alive

by David

David doing his TEDx talk Doing a TEDx talk was one of those extreme experiences for me. I hadn’t talked about my work in public for a good ten years before this.

Preparation, they say, is everything.

I’ve read that those who are selected for a TED talk could be practicing their presentations for up to six months before the big day. For some, that adds up to reciting it as much as four-hundred times!

But I had no such opportunity. It wasn’t till sometime in November that I got my acceptance notification from the event organizers. My stage time was slated for after lunch on Saturday February 27th, 2016. That’s less than four months, which wouldn’t have been that bad, except that I had volunteered my time to build out and maintain the TEDxChilliwack.com website. Of course, I still had to write my script and prepare the visuals for the slides.

Friday night at 8:30PM, before the big day, I was on my way home from the dress rehearsal. I decided to park under a street light and edit down my script even more than it was. I had to win back as many seconds as I could. It was the third major edit but was still a bit too long for me to remember it all and besides, they allotted me less delivery time on stage than I’d asked for.

Oh oh.

Going overtime is a big nono at a TEDx event.

Of course, with all these changes the flow of how it was supposed to be recited changed. So, tired as I was, I had to try to practice it right there alone in my car under the glare of a street light. I took out my script and began. It was raining outside. I’m not sure how long i was there but, after a while, I drove home and quickly ate something. Then I went into my home office to practice some more.

There is always a trade off between exhaustion and being able to perform. That last edit raised another level of difficulty in the final presentation itself. On the day of I had hoped to practice backstage until I’d be called up to go out. I didn’t have to speak till 1:30 pm so I had some wriggle room.

So, I sat in a chair and open my script which I had printed out with thumbnails of all the slides that went with it. Then suddenly and with a degree of panic one of the organizers came and got me.

“We need you NOW!” he said. There was a problem and they needed access to the website’s back office. As the volunteer webmaster for TEDxChilliwack.com I should have had that info but this day was important to me as far as my presentation was concerned and all else was put aside.

The plan of the tech team was to live-stream the event on YouTube. It went quite well for a time and then… it didn’t! YouTube shut us down because, between each group of 4 speakers, they planned to play a pre-recorded TED talk taken from the main TED Talk channel. Apparently, that’s in stark contrast to the laws of the YouTube algorithms. So, it shut us down for copyright infringement . The tech team scrambled to quickly set up another YouTube channel and then, once that was done, they wanted to switch out the embed code in the live feed page of the TEDxChilliwack.com site. That’s when they came to me to show them how to get into the site.

I tried to assist but my passwords are all kept in a password manager on my PC at my home office. Apparently, none of the organizers had theirs either. Finally Ray, the lead organizer, went home. as it was close by, and did it all from there. The feed was restored and from then on they turned it off during any of the other recorded TED talks. This prevented the banned notice that had popped up because YouYube had detected a violation of copyright. Everything seemed to work well after that.

But with all that running around I had burned up a my last chance to practice. Not long after I was called up. So, with my script still in hand, the audio guy fitted me with the cordless microphone. At the last second I dropped my script on the table, swallowed hard, and then went out on stage and stood in front of a hundred strangers. I was the only one of all nineteen speakers who’s presentation included both props and slides. My talk was about a mystery brain. A complicated subject no one had ever heard of before. So I wanted to make it as clear and simple as I possibly could. I’m a visual artist so I used lots of slides with images. Both actual physical models of both head and gut brains as well as images projected on the wall behind me.

But this setup raised the level of difficulty up a few more notches on top of the notches I had already collected. Having never done a complete dry run of my talk made it all the more difficult to manage in front of a live audience. That was probably my biggest shortfall.

In addition to that, I was a bit startled as I began to speak. I had never heard my voice amplified before. The big speakers were right behind me. One on the left and another off to my right.

I was taken aback enough that the very first few words out of my mouth were never a even part of my script. I don’t know where they came from but, once they were out, I couldn’t take them back.

Of course, all this was being recorded and then eventually uploaded to the TED Talk YouTube channel for all the world to see.

But, no pressure.

In the end I persisted to move a mountain that day… and I didn’t die doing it. When I finished it felt very relieving to say the least. It took me several days to recover from the output of the previous weeks of late nights and very early mornings.

The takeaway I got from all this is: In a live TEDx talk, as in life, you learn that you can’t wait for the storm to pass so you might as well dance in the rain.

More power to you my friend.

Mobiusman

What Do You Want?

by David

“The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.” – Ben Stein

To truly know what you want is not an easy question to answer correctly. Henry Ford once said that, in the beginning, if he had ever asked his prospects what they wanted they would have said “a faster horse”.

To know what you truly want is often tricky but it’s worth the effort to seek out an answer because it can reveal what you’re truly passionate about. That can set the path for how your entire life unfolds.

In my own experience my dad comes to mind. While just a teenager he saw a family member greatly relieved from excruciating pain by an osteopathic physician and he immediately knew what he wanted to do with his life from then on. After a successful 35-plus year career helping thousands of his patients get relief from pain he retired as doctor of osteopathy. Only one of two in our entire city.

He was one of the lucky ones.

Many wander through time “sheep-walking” as business blogger Seth Godin calls it, and never making the decision to end the cycle of getting a job, staying at it for a while, growing tired of it, then landing another, and then repeating. All the while never quite hitting that high note. Only to one day get past the point of no return. Always missing that point of critical realization and now too late to make a difference. Too late to ever know the answer to “What do I want?”.

I think that, like my dad, in a way I was one of the lucky ones too. I knew I wanted to become an entrepreneur. But I wanted to find something new and then offer it to the world. I did actually find something but, of course, I just never knew that it would take me to the age of retirement before I could finally see it being accomplished in any real degree of scale.

But now that it’s coming to fruition it’s my passion and my hope that it helps deliver many people to a place where a new self belief can thrive so that the great question is finally answered for them before too much time has passed.

That’s why I’m soon launching my next new project. I’m calling it “Human Potential 2.0”. It’s being positioned to re-tool what has become known as traditional self-help or personal growth. The original model, which began 100 years ago, was to help us realize our own human potential. But over the years it has lost it’s power to effect useful and lasting change that matters.

I intend to fix that by reassigning our focus to more authentic intrinsic elements. To foster a fundamental change that I’m convinced must come about in order to make better choices in how we view ourselves.

For example the fantastic but widely under-reported bio-medical discovery, now almost 20 years ago, that confirmed the fact that humans are dual-brained – one in the head which can think but not feel and a lesser known one in the gut that doesn’t think but feels everything.

With this project we’ll begin with another great quote, this time from Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Most of this instruction is not too difficult to grasp. The “Do what you can… where you are” parts are no great mystery. Most of us know how to work hard and most should know who they are. The tough part begs another great question…

What is it that you really have?

Answering that is in essence what Human Potential 2.0 is all about. Because if we can answer that question in a way that resonates with our own thinking/feeling dual-brained personage then that will lead us to refine what it means to know what our passion is. And knowing your true passion leads to a tremendous sense of hope for the future.

Watch this space for my upcoming posts on this subject and the accompanying video series that follows.

More power to you.

Head-brain On Overfill

by David

Mobius Monday Minute – June 13 , 2011

I was reading one of my favorite blogs the other day and Coleen, the blog’s author, had linked to a fine article on the problem of information oversupply.

Instantly some bells rang for me so I’m here writing about it. As I was typing this I was beginning to realize something about what I’m doing right now. I’m adding to the incredible bulk that our age has become known for: The out-of-control growth of the humongous information pile.

That article came to the sad conclusion of what we must now be prepared for. I can tell you, it doesn’t look good.

It turns out that – for me at least – hoping to be considered as “well read” by any known standard is now virtually unattainable. There is just too much to read, watch, listen to, taste, and touch in the world today. More boldly it seems, that to try to fit the requirements for being well read into our pathetically short little lives is just an impossible task for anyone. But thankfully we have two choices of responses to choose from: “culling or surrender”.

The former is for the focused and the latter for the time-maxed.

Personally, I love reading especially since the day my wife and I gave up the idiot box a few years ago. But now I’ve become more mindful that not only am I not going to get to see or hear it all, I’m going to miss almost all of it by default. Lac of time, added by my current snail’s pace of reading and comprehension, will see to that. And, even if by some chance miracle it didn’t, the rate of info overfill would continue on so relentlessly that I’d fall way behind it anyway.

Like looking at a car accident as you pass by it on the highway, it’s absurdly fascinating to see the scale and scope of this world-wide info head-brain overfill. It’s starkly summed up by the article’s author as she looks at the numbers: “Statistically speaking, you will die having missed almost everything.”

Ugh!

As an artist that statement alone is enough to give me visuals. At least it would have if she hadn’t beaten me to it. Her clever use of her literary skill allowed her to end the essay with the imagery that information today is like an ocean and all we are going to be able to get out of it is a paltry little cupful.

That’s another good reason why I recommend making a simple little tweak in your system of thinking. It’s a “brain tweak” that allows for a fundamental change in your focus. It’s now possible to go from information – that’s not only coming to you – but information that’s now coming through you. It’s something I talk about in my free Mobius Effect Webinars and you can learn more about it here

Trust me. All is not lost.

More power to you.

PS: Would you like to learn about a new way to discover what you are really meant to do? What is true and natural for you instead of taking direction from others? Check out my free Mobius Effect Webinar.

Photo: Copyright by stephamelon on Flickr

I Don’t Own You.

by David

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gx-mknOV54[/youtube]In 1964 a young Lesley Gore, who was just two years older than I was and still in high school, had a hit song on the charts. “You Don’t Own Me” musically presented a new idea about female autonomy for that particular era and helped to launch the woman’s lib movement which ten years later was in full flower. If The Beatles song “I Want To Hold Your Hand” hadn’t come out just a bit before Lesley’s song would have been #1 on the charts instead of the #2 position it held for many weeks.

But this is not about pop music it’s about personal development.

It’s about how much the biggest leaders in personal development love ‘owning’ a lot of people and teaching them to depend on their every spoken holy word.

In most businesses repeat customers are certainly a nice steady meal ticket. I usually buy my gas at the same gas station. That’s no problem. I burn up the stuff driving around in my car. It’s a consumable product.

But this industry is one with a reputation built on promises to fix you up for life. So why do you think their clients need constant repeat applications?

Maybe it’s like a lot like healthcare. A lot of doctors are not in the health business. They’re in the sickness business.

Sorry, I can’t play that game. With what I offer you just need it once and once only. Can’t even buy it a second time if you wanted to. That’s the beauty of having a new immunity.

Perhaps you should have heard Lesley’s message delivered 49 years ago. Here it is again.

More power to you.

Private Libraries

by David

When I was in high school I’d sometimes walk over to my dad’s office so I could catch a ride home with him. Often I’d have to wait at least an hour. To pass the time I’d go across the street to the building that was the main library. I loved going there because there was so much to look at.

I’d look at books on business ideas mostly because I wanted to have the mindset of an entrepreneur when I grew up.

I’d examine the great stories of past successful businessmen and marvel at how rich they became. I was fascinated to learn about their stories of how they struggled to overcome difficulty and hardship. Of course I did go on to become an entrepreneur myself and I too had to overcome many things in my efforts to get the job done.

My Private Library

But it wasn’t until I had stumbled upon what would become known as the H.E.R.O. eMachine, and used it myself, that I was to realize the importance of the hidden private libraries that people must be walking around with every day. Within these are the forgotten stories of successes gone by.

Through my work with H.E.R.O. I am well aware of the power that they possess. Power to transform an ordinary life into an extraordinary one.

I’ve seen it first hand.

Entering these private libraries and helping their owners to Uncover these stories are one of the things that H.E.R.O. is designed to do. The other is to form a connection to the root core energy that allowed them to form.

I am blessed indeed to now be able to help so many access their own private libraries. Help them to expose the hidden drive that all those stories link to and be a witnesses to the transformation that then occurs.

The shy become confident. The fearful daring. The directionless gain passion.

What libraries I’ve seen!

David