Chris Anderson

You want to build a reputation as a generous person, bringing something wonderful to your audiences, not as a tedious self-promoter.

Everything changes, though, when you focus on the nature of the work that you’re doing, and the power of the ideas that infuse it, not on the org itself or its products.

Inspiration can’t be performed. It’s an audience response to authenticity, courage, selfless work, and genuine wisdom.

But if you, the speaker, want the audience to come with you, you probably need to give them a hint of where you’re going.

but if there’s no real takeaway, all the speaker has done—at best—is to entertain.

It is throughline, the connecting theme that ties together each narrative element.

Notice that there’s an unexpectedness incorporated into each of them.

More choice actually makes us less happy.

The key is to present just one idea—as thoroughly and completely as you can in the limited time period.

My advice to speakers would be to look for a single big idea that is larger than you or your organization, but at the same time to leverage your experience to show that it isn’t just empty speculation.