TED Talk analysis

TED Talk analysis 

  This Ted Talk presented by Derek Sivers with the title of “Keep your goals to yourself” has a good impact on audiences in the less-than-four-minute presentation. His topic is something that people are puzzled at the first glance because generally, people want to share their dreams or goals with others around them and believe that it is better to do so to achieve the goals. Once they declare their goal to others, they most likely feel to work hard to achieve it, which is what most people believe.  Also when people tell others their goal, it is like a promise to their own heart. However, Derek Sivers tells that it is wrong. He says that it is better to keep it secret in order to achieve it. He carefully arranges the presentation with the good introduction and with interesting images in order to get the audience’s attention.  At the end of the presentation, the audiences are convinced and seemed to realize the importance of what he is telling, which proves that his presentation is clear and reaches the purpose. 

  The physical appearance of Sivers somewhat attracts audience’s attention first because he is bold and looks masculine. His voice is clear and has a good tone with the right pace of speaking. It sounds good for audience’s ears and hearts. Despite of his masculine appearance, he gives an impression of softness maybe because of the way he talks. He wears a casual blue shirts and jeans, so he looks comfortable on the stage and without any words delivers the comfort to the audience, which makes the audience relax to hear his voice. In order to fill all the information within the short time flame, his pace of talking is rather fast, but not too fast. With the clear voice, he moves his arms to appeal to the audience, but does not walk around the stage. He rather stays in the centre of the stage and keeps the good eye contacts with the audience most of the time. Importantly, he keeps little smile most of the time, which gives a positive impression on the audience along with the constant eye contacts. The positive impression on the audience is one of the important elements for the successful presentation. 

  The way to use images is important also for a good presentation. Within the four-minute time flame, eleven images are used including a text one and are used in the way that carefully arranged along with his words. So the presentation is visually interesting, especially because of some particular ones that make the audience laugh. For example, when he talks about the “social reality”, which the mind is tricked into feeling that the goal is already done when you tell others your goal and then actually becomes less motivated to make efforts, he uses an image of a running machine covered with laundries. The audience are laughing to see it because they can relate to it. Another interesting image is a picture of the Rolling Stones when he talks about “no satisfaction”. Even though the audience are not laughing much, they must be smiling to see it because their song of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” is so famous.  He uses these images to emphasize and to connect to the audience’s feeling and deeper understanding. When the 2009 study done by Peter Gollwitzer is introduced, the image of people’s faces appears, and the facial expressions of the people are changed to the exactly the same way with what he explains. It helps the audience to understand the study and to accept what he is trying to appeal easily because the facial expressions of the image directly appeal to the audience’s feelings. He uses the visual technique in a wise way here. However, he also uses the image to stir the audience’s imagination at one point. When he points out that people can resist the temptation to announce their goal, the Mona Lisa smile appears. At first, the audience may puzzle why it appears at the point, but then realize that the Mona Lisa smile is the way to resist the temptation to announce the goal: just keep the smile to shut the mouth. When the audience feel the temptation to talk about their dreams and goals to other people next time, they would remember this Mona Lisa smile and may be able to shut their mouth. 

  The component of the presentation is well considered. As the introduction, presenting the first image, Sivers asks the audience to imagine their biggest goal for real and to feel the emotion of satisfaction, which is a good start to get the immediate attention. Then he immediately tells that it is a wrong way to do it to achieve the goal and presents a proof.  He explains that psychologists have found the “social reality”, which people’s minds are tricked into feeling that by telling their goal to others, they feel the satisfaction of achieving it and skip the efforts to actually reach the goal. Then he continues showing some proofs why the conventional wisdom of talking to others about the dream is wrong, using studies of psychologists. After he explains the study of proof, then he tells the best way to achieve the goal, which is to understand the mind’s mistake and to try to be silent about the goal and dream to others. The structure is nice and clear for the audience to follow and to understand his talk.

  As a conclusion, this Ted Talk is one of the best as a short presentation using the right images and good attitude. It produces a positive outcome from the audience and ends with light laughs for both the presenter and the audience.