It’s the morning after my first ever TEDx speech — delivered virtually over Zoom — and I’m feeling a mix of emotions: a tinge of pride, a dose of relief, and to be very honest, a huge helping of dissonance.
This whole journey has spanned five months — from the moment I received the invitation letter from TEDxMonashUniversityMalaysia, all the way to 1:15PM on September 12th, 2020, when I brushed my hair, shared my screen, and proceeded to deliver the 12-minute speech I’d spent (nearly) every waking moment perfecting over the past few weeks.
Then, after the whole thing was done, I muted myself, turned off my camera, and ate chicken rice.
It doesn’t get any more surreal than that.
The theme of the TEDx conference was “Defining The Decade”, and I wonder if the word that will come to define our online world is simply ‘anticlimactic’. If I was giving a TEDx speech “in real life”, I would’ve felt the rush of adrenaline, the energy from the crowd, the teary hugs from family and friends.
Instead, I was sitting in my room, staring into my computer, wondering who was in the audience (the conference was held on Zoom Webinar, so nobody could turn their videos on).
Did they laugh at my jokes? Did my points resonate with them…?
I’ll never know.
Maybe the real question is: WHY?
Why do I care so goddamn much?
I can give you the “socially acceptable” answer: the story about how I got my start in TEDxKL. How Daniel Cerventus took me under his wing and gave me my first taste of the TEDx magic as Marketing Director for TEDxKL 2014.
How it felt to sit in the auditorium, feeling the buzz of 2,500 people around me, and watch the speakers’ talks come to life on that little red circle.
“Hi, I’m Gwen, and welcome to my TED talk.”
I made it my mission there and then that I’d one day speak those words.
But the real reason is… Because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. As a former TEDx-er, I know it’s a lot easier to become a speaker today than it was a few years ago — TEDx as a movement has officially reached ‘mainstream status’ in the market — but that also meant that if I were to deliver a speech, it had to be really f*cking good.
So when the opportunity came around — albeit virtually — I thought, why not? I’ve dreamed of this for so long. The big day was five months away. I’ve been doing public speaking since I was 9 years old. I can do this… right?
Well, I can now well and truly empathize with artists and authors and anyone who says “the creative process is a b!tch” — because for the first time ever, I well and truly struggled with bringing something to life. TED Talks aren’t like any speech I’d ever given before; after all, they stand the possibility of being consumed by millions of people, and the thought of it was paralyzing.
For two months, I was an absolute wreck, wracked by the agony of giving birth to this speech. I mean, who writes six different speech drafts — all decent, none The One — in three days?
I now look back on that time as a kind of writer’s purgatory. I imagine the Devil himself sitting at a giant mahogany desk, peering down at my script through his bifocals as I watch on with trembling fingers.
“Not good enough,” he would intone, and I would burst into tears at the thought of having to dig into the recesses of my soul for another idea to process, polish, and present in a series of beautifully-written prose.
(Yes, I like alliteration. Sue me.)
When I finally arrived on The Idea — at 6pm on a Wednesday evening, hot on the heels of two failed drafts — I was so relieved I could cry. It was a brief but necessary respite before the ordeal of the following weeks:
Soliciting feedback from friends. Hoping on calls with them. Hoping on calls with the organizers. Hoping on calls with my team. Making little tweaks until everything could roll off my tongue, because I had the additional misfortune of not writing the way I speak. Drawing 45 slides by hand, and then exporting them one-by-one into Google Slides (thanks Shawn). Memorizing the damn thing word-for-word, whispering it into my pillow late at night (sorry Shawn).
All leading up to the Big Day. I rose at 8am, even though I was only due on at 1pm. Brushed my teeth, padded downstairs, and tried to journal my nerves away (semi-kinda worked). Messed with the lighting (it was a cloudy, drizzly day — of all times!— so I had to compensate for the lack of natural sunlight). Messed with the sound (figured out how to tie up my hair so that it wouldn’t scrape against the mic; closing the sliding window so that it would cancel out sounds from the street). Did a final run-through with poor Shawn, who was helping me out with the slides and had been an absolute soldier all week.
I thought I was 100% ready. Anything more and I would be over-prepared, and I definitely didn’t want to sound like a robot for my speech.
The last thing I wrote in my journal was: “time to surrender and have fun”.
And surrender I did…
… Because in all of my pain and preparation, there was one horror I never could’ve anticipated: A technical breakdown.
My speech got off to an awkward start. I wasn’t sure how much banter I could do — so after a jokey “Hi, I’m Gwen, and welcome to my TED talk. I’ve always wanted to say that!”, I dove right into it.
We were about halfway through my speech when it happened. I was still a bit thrown on not being able to interact with the audience in any way — anyone else hate that feeling of speaking into a void? — but I was getting into the groove of things when suddenly… KA-BLAM.
My screen stopped moving.
My eyes found Shawn’s, my lips opened in a little ‘o’ of terror. “Is it you?” we both asked at the same time, then laughed, then shut up. Shawn ran off to get his laptop, while I immediately dove for my phone — why on Earth did I turn it off?! — and opened my WhatsApp. There were already two messages waiting from the organizers:
Oh my God. So my worst nightmare did come true.
The biggest virtual speech of my life was interrupted by a technology malfunction. Could the irony of the situation get any worse?!
I immediately re-started my computer, praying that it would solve the issue. As I was waiting for the screen to boot up, I was struck by a strange sense of… ease. Lightness, almost. I remember thinking: “Well, guess I don’t have to focus on making this speech perfect anymore after this.”
I took this blunder as a sign — as an opportunity — to just let loose, and enjoy myself. And sure enough, the moment I signed back on to Zoom, I was met with messages of love and support from the audience:
That calmed me enough to throw in a TEDx theme-related joke — “I guess this is what truly defines our decade: Zoom malfunctions” — and that got me right back into flow. I pulled up my slides, found the spot I left off, and continued as though I’d never been forcefully booted from the virtual room.
When I reached the last sentence, I was already in a trance-like state; maybe from the shock of the whole situation. I bumbled through Q&A, my red lips turned up in a permanent smile, and didn’t stop smiling until they called the next speaker.
And that was it. It was over. My first TEDx speech.
Then I ate my chicken rice.
I didn’t think too much about it when it was happening, but the comments I received really helped give me an alternate perspective on the whole ‘calm-under-pressure’ matter. I suppose, if the Universe had to give me a reason for going ape-sh*t preparing for my speech, it’s this.
Because there was no way I could’ve predicted this technical malfunction… and yet, in a very odd way, I was ready for it.
If I hadn’t written six drafts in 3 days, if I hadn’t watched recordings of myself and asked for feedback and whispered the whole speech into my pillow the night before, I would have been even more flustered when my laptop froze and my perfectionist dreams came crashing down.
I was dealt a bad hand, but because I was prepared, I went through it with a smile on my face.
That’s gotta count for something.
Looking back, would I go through this whole experience again?
Yes! I never would’ve described giving a TEDx talk as “character building”, but that’s exactly what it felt like.
For something to mean so much to me… and for it to blow up in my face so massively, so spectacularly, and not being able to do a damn thing about it…
… Man, ain’t that life in a nutshell?
If there’s anything I’m taking away from this, it’s that nothing in life can be planned for… but you sure as hell can prepare for it. I’m so tremendously grateful I had this experience of pouring my heart and soul into a process — and having it pay off in the most unexpected way possible. ❤️
Thank you to Shawn, Sim, Gwen Lyne, and my friends & family for being such a strong support system throughout this entire ordeal. I couldn’t have done it without you.
But if I ever have the chance to do another TED Talk…
It’ll be on a little red circle — far, far away from Zoom. ♦︎
Gwen Yi is a fledgling public speaker and founder of Tribeless, an empathy training company that teaches empathy skills through group conversations. Sign up for our monthly newsletter here.
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UPDATE (22/12/2020): My TEDx talk is finally LIVE! You can watch it here.
UPDATE (12/3/2021): The TED Gods have smiled benevolently down upon me, because they’ve turned said TEDx talk into both an IDEAS article and an Instagram post. It doesn’t get any crazier than this. Thank you, team. 🥺
