29th November

My journey to TEDx

By Lisa Burbidge-Brown, lecturer in entrepreneurship and digital marketing

TED talks started when I was seven years old, before the birth of the world wide web, in California. The rise of the popularity of YouTube and video sharing sites made the format go viral and made TED talks the popular series they are today.

I watched my first TED talk video as an undergraduate student in the mid-noughties and the seed was sown. Maybe one day, I too could deliver a TED talk of my own.

As I graduated and started my teaching career, the thought remained a distant dream. Then a few years ago, after losing my mother-in-law when she was just 49 years old, I decided life was too short for distant dreams and I made a bucket list.

That bucket list had many seemingly unachievable items on it; fly a helicopter, buy a house, start a business, write a book and amongst other things …deliver a TED talk!

I set my goals, broke them down into more realistic steps and started working towards ticking them off.

I got a helicopter lesson for my 40th birthday and flew one and after saving for several years for a deposit, last year my husband and I finally bought our first house. I have started and ran a few successful businesses and I have been commissioned to co-author a book chapter. Things were going well, but the TED talk still seemed out of reach. It was the thing I was most scared of. Putting my ideas out into the world; on social media, in front of a live audience and onto a YouTube channel with over 33 million subscribers!

Then I saw it, a call for speakers in the city I was living and working in. TEDxWolverhampton were looking for speakers. There were a tough set of criteria to meet and I had watched some of the previous talks, they were amazing! I was full of doubt, but a little voice inside of me said “if you apply and don’t get selected, at least you will have tried”. I genuinely didn’t dream I would get shortlisted, but I sat down and wrote my proposal, emailed it off with a video and forgot about it.

Then in December 2019, I got the email to say that I had been shortlisted. I panicked! Did I really want to do this? I could pull out now and no-one would ever know. I went along to a meeting with the organisers to find out more about the process. I found out how tough the process is. Once you have written your ten-minute talk, meeting strict guidelines, the script needs to be approved by the curator and then by TED HQ. Once approved, you need to learn the script off by heart, rehearse it and perfect the performance like an actor and then deliver it in a theatre to a live audience, live streamed audience and have it recorded for TED.com and YouTube.

With trepidation, I decided to proceed and got through the initial hurdles. I was announced as a speaker on social media, posters were put up and tickets were sold. April 2020 would be my big moment!

Spoiler alert… it wasn’t!

The world changed in January 2020, the UK locked down in March 2020 and all events were cancelled indefinitely. I had built myself up, psyched myself for this moment and it was gone.

In November 2020, TEDxWolverhampton decided to put on a live streamed only event and I was invited to speak, but for me, I wanted the full experience. If this was going to be my big-ticket item on my bucket list, then I wanted to have the experience of delivering the talk on a stage in front of a live audience, not on a video recorded on my phone from my spare bedroom. I am so proud of my fellow speakers who did the live streamed event, we needed events like this to keep us going through the darkest days of the pandemic and they stepped up. It just wasn’t for me.

By December of 2020 when yet another lockdown was announced by the UK Government, I had lost hope that live events would ever be back and assumed I had missed my moment. I had learnt a lot from the experience and I had met some wonderful people, so it wasn’t all in vain.

Fast forward to May 2021, when the announcement came that restrictions were due to be lifted due to the success of the vaccine rollout in reducing pressure on hospitals, and I received a message from the production team asking if I was still happy to speak if they rearranged the event for July 2021.

The terror crept back in, I could pull out now and people would understand. My inner voice shouted at me “you’ve come this far” so I cautiously accepted. I suddenly had five weeks to memorise a 10-minute monologue, rehearse and prepare for the event. After spending months in lockdown not seeing anyone, this was a really daunting and emotional moment. Many of my friends and family who had purchased tickets for the original event didn’t feel comfortable coming to a theatre or were clinically vulnerable. However online tickets were available so they could still watch, and a couple of close friends and my husband were able to get in-person tickets.

I rehearsed every single day for those five weeks, learning a paragraph a day, delivering my talk in the shower, listening to a recording of my talk when lying in bed. I attended two dress rehearsals and didn’t sleep much.

The big day arrived, my new dress and shoes were hanging up, my long overdue hairdressers’ appointment had happened the night before and I arrived at the theatre at 8am. I felt so sick, this was the hardest thing I had done to date, facing all of my fears. I watched my fellow speakers go and deliver their talks, I paced around and sipped water. I was so full of adrenaline, I don’t really remember delivering the talk, it went by in such a blur. People clapped, I had lovely supportive messages on my phone and my mum called me to tell me she was so proud. I went out for dinner and drinks to celebrate and calm down.

Fast forward again to late November 2021, almost five months after the event. Up until now there was an embargo on the video until it was approved by TED HQ, so even I hadn’t ever seen my talk.

Until today.

I watched it, I cried. A lot! I still can’t really believe that was me. I am a TED speaker! I have done it. It was a much longer, more arduous journey than I ever expected or imagined and I am not sure I would ever put myself through it again, but if you ever get the opportunity, it is an amazing experience and one I would recommend.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk!

Here is the link:

https://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_burbidge_brown_change_the_curriculum_close_the_gap

Lisa Burbidge-Brown