TED

Galloway picked his thesis first, then had analysts gather data. He wrote a Google Doc skeleton stating the core message, for example that wealth is being purposefully transferred from young to old. Analysts then spent 6 to 10 weeks assembling 150 slides.

He asks what the core message is and which medium carries it before drafting. The thesis gives all the data a direction. TED pays nothing, but he treats the talk like a six-figure, hour-long engagement.

How I Write▶ 29:30

Galloway spent two extra weeks choreographing the order of finished slides. After all 150 slides were ready, he spent about two weeks on chunking, pacing and sequence. The whole talk took roughly 8 to 12 weeks of labor, mostly cutting and fact-checking, including two weeks of fact-checking at the end.

He asks which slide comes before which, where the pause and the reveal go, and how each point segues into the next. He says this is why the pace feels fast but not rushed: "it's 2 weeks of choreography. It's chunking, it's pacing."

How I Write▶ 59:37

He opened with a provocative question and returned to it at the end. The talk began with "Do we love our children?", which sounds obvious at first. By the close it meant asking whether our actions show that we do.

He ties the structure to Reagan's advice: "Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them."

How I Write▶ 46:52

He opened with an unrelated joke, then paused to let it land. The talk started with a telenovela joke that had nothing to do with the topic. He holds that humor softens people so they accept ideas they would otherwise resist.

His routine in talks is to show an unrelated funny slide, hold the silence, then say it has no relevance: "I just like this slide. It has no context or relevance." The pause builds tension, and the audience grants him permission to change their minds.

How I Write▶ 34:10

Urban paced and spoke his talk aloud before writing it. He wrote bullets, spoke them, found the result too long and rambling, then wrote more detailed bullets to cut redundancy. He kept moving between speech and page until the text sounded like a person.

He paced around speaking to an imagined group, captured what he said, revised it, then said it again to catch what sounded weird. He memorized the talk word for word and wishes he had memorized it even better. He calls TED the Super Bowl of talks: exact length, one take, and it lives online forever.

How I Write▶ 33:40

Urban built his best joke from something true that he actually did. His line about scrolling Google Earth through India to get a feel for it first appeared in a blog post, then went into the talk word for word. He used what really happened, down to zooming out and finding himself still in the southern third.

The host calls it his favorite part of the talk. Urban confirms every example in the talk and the blog post is true: "Every single thing in that talk and in the blog post is true."

How I Write▶ 36:14

TED is a merchant of inspiration, a brand with one feeling to sell. A personal-branding consultant told Shaan Puri to think of himself as a shop with one SKU: how people feel after consuming his content. TED sells inspiration, comedy podcasts sell camaraderie, Twitch sells the rush of playing.

The advice is to pick the feeling first, then ask which story, framework or nugget will deliver it today. Quote: "Your only SKU is basically how somebody feels after they consume your content."

How I Write▶ 1:25:04