TED Time!

I have just returned from a whirlwind trip to Nova Scotia where I was invited to be a TEDx talk speaker. After that presentation I then gave a three-hour workshop on “Understanding People from the Inside Out – the Biological  Basis of Personality.” I can’t tell you what a thrill it was to have a platform to share my theory with the TED world. It is such an honor. But, it was absolutely one of the most intense experiences of my life; especially as I learned, 2 hours before presenting, that the TED folks would not upload my presentation if it ran over 18 minutes.

Somehow, along the way, I thought the 18 minutes was a “guideline” (hmmm… Could that be the lens of my little “7 – cheater baby” perceiving the rules as a little more flexible than they actually were? – smile) My presentation was running about 19-20 minutes long (and sometimes I would hit 21 if I wasn’t careful) so I raced back to the hotel room and slashed my (already extremely condensed) presentation more than I thought I possibly could. I was actually reworking PowerPoint slides to match the even more abbreviated version in the taxi on the way to the University. With only minutes to go, I jumped out of the taxi, put my now open laptop under my raincoat (yes it was raining and cold!) and ran to the nearest outlet to charge my almost out of power laptop in order to be ready for the presentation. I felt like I was in a living ” Mission Impossible” movie scene! Because I had made last-minute changes, I hand wrote in large letters the keywords to my presentation and had someone hold the pages up as I spoke. Unfortunately, I was unable to read the words from that distance, but luckily, (or most likely due to over 10,000 hours of practice) as soon as I began I felt very “at home”. I had imagined countless times being on that platform and being overwhelmed with gratitude to have such an opportunity and feeling more relaxed than I possibly could have imagined.

Well, what do you know? Actually, there was no surprise – I felt extremely grateful and relaxed. In fact, I remember almost smiling to myself, when I realized I could not read my handwritten “cue cards”. I just KNEW “everything was juuust right”…smile. And then, as if to prove my point, when I completed my talk I looked at my timer and it said “18min 1 sec”! Whew! What a relief and an accomplishment! Now, my life has returned to just plain crazy (which is the way I like it! ) I will be letting everyone I know when the TED post is up. Well I better get back to putting the final touches on my next book, ” The Personality Puzzle… Solved!” The plan is to release the book at the same time that TED publishes my video. Fingers crossed; RAS in gear!