AI transcript
0:00:02 (upbeat music)
0:00:11 – Thank you very much for being on Remarkable People.
0:00:15 How about you just give yourself a short little introduction?
0:00:17 – Sure, so I am Monique Ruffbell.
0:00:21 I am the chief program and strategy officer for TED.
0:00:23 And if you love a good TED talk,
0:00:26 this is what I get to do every day
0:00:29 and participate in bringing these magical experiences
0:00:32 to our community and to the global audience.
0:00:33 – I love that.
0:00:35 I love TED, I have to tell you.
0:00:38 So you worked at Ringling Brothers
0:00:41 and we had another guest named Derek Sivers
0:00:43 who also was a ringmaster.
0:00:45 So am I seeing a pattern here?
0:00:49 Are these like great presenters and great speakers?
0:00:51 They have a background in the circus?
0:00:53 – You gotta have experience
0:00:55 with a little bit of crazy and chaos
0:00:58 and there you go with the circus is just a part of that.
0:01:01 So I think it just makes you a stronger people person,
0:01:05 a people lover, if the stronger entertainer.
0:01:10 – And what exactly did you do for Ringling Brothers?
0:01:12 – So I was the promotion manager for Ringling Brothers.
0:01:14 So I like to say I ran away with the circus.
0:01:18 So people don’t know there’s actually two circuses
0:01:21 one on each side of the country and then they switch.
0:01:24 And so whenever the circus came to the East Coast,
0:01:28 I would go with the circus across the different cities
0:01:30 and basically help do PR events
0:01:32 and just get the community excited
0:01:34 about the circus coming to town.
0:01:37 And after about two years, a year or two years
0:01:38 that you get kind of burnt out
0:01:40 with walking with the elephants and the tigers
0:01:42 and the crazy and all the other good stuff.
0:01:45 So then I had to not run away with the circus anymore.
0:01:49 – Now tell me when you are with the circus,
0:01:52 isn’t it like all of you are on a train
0:01:54 and you’re just all traveling together
0:01:56 and it’s one big dysfunctional family?
0:02:01 – Those are the actual performers that live on the train.
0:02:02 I do not.
0:02:04 So we actually work out of our offices
0:02:08 and we have little micro offices all around the country.
0:02:11 And I was one of those people that worked out in New York.
0:02:12 And then when it came to the East Coast,
0:02:15 you just worked and traveled with the circus.
0:02:16 And wherever it showed up,
0:02:19 whether it’s Connecticut, New York, Boston or whatever,
0:02:20 that’s where you went.
0:02:23 And our office was actually in the animal pen.
0:02:26 So you smelt a lot of things
0:02:28 and you were with the circus.
0:02:32 – So when you were on duty,
0:02:34 you were actually traveling in the train.
0:02:36 You were part of the family.
0:02:38 – I was part of the family.
0:02:41 What another cute story is
0:02:43 the elephants can’t ride on trucks.
0:02:44 They are too heavy.
0:02:47 How you get the animals from the train to the venue,
0:02:49 they have to walk.
0:02:52 And so you have to close down the streets at night.
0:02:54 It’s like 2 a.m.
0:02:57 And we were like the security guards for the elephants.
0:02:59 So we had to walk the elephants
0:03:02 from the train station to the venue.
0:03:05 And I’m like, how am I supposed to protect the elephants?
0:03:07 But that’s what we did.
0:03:09 It’s a story to tell.
0:03:11 – Wait, but what if the train depot
0:03:14 is like 10 miles from where the circus is?
0:03:16 You walk 10 miles.
0:03:18 – You had to walk it.
0:03:20 There’s no other way to get them to the venue.
0:03:22 You can’t put them on any type of truck
0:03:24 or anything you have to walk.
0:03:26 (laughing)
0:03:33 – Okay, enough of your checkered pass
0:03:35 about being in the circus.
0:03:37 So I have a question for you.
0:03:39 Now I’m gonna have to ask you some questions
0:03:40 that I know the answer,
0:03:43 but what exactly is Ted today?
0:03:45 Because some people think that Ted is like
0:03:46 the one main conference.
0:03:50 And other people, Ted in their mind is Ted X.
0:03:53 So can you just define Ted for us right now?
0:03:58 – Sure, Ted stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.
0:04:00 And it started in 1984.
0:04:02 And it literally was this one conference
0:04:04 that happened every single year.
0:04:08 And now it is a generalist conference
0:04:12 and it is multiple conferences that happen globally.
0:04:16 And so you have what we call Ted flagship conferences.
0:04:19 And then you have Ted X conferences.
0:04:21 And so there are two different things for us.
0:04:24 And as a flagship, I oversee all of the flagships.
0:04:28 And now recently, now I oversee all of the Ted X programming.
0:04:31 But the flagships are ran by the corporate organization.
0:04:34 And Ted X are 100% volunteer ran.
0:04:37 So if you have a love for Ted or Ted Talks,
0:04:40 you would apply to get a license from us
0:04:43 to host a Ted event in your city.
0:04:45 You have to follow certain rules and parameters.
0:04:48 But outside of that, you are 100% a volunteer
0:04:51 who are putting on a lovely one day Ted X event.
0:04:55 Our Ted flagships are usually longer, three to five days.
0:04:57 They happen in currently in Vancouver
0:04:59 and another in Atlanta.
0:05:01 And this is for thousands of people.
0:05:05 It’s multiple experiences that happen within a Ted event.
0:05:10 But all of the talks usually get platformed from a Ted event.
0:05:12 And for Ted X, certain talks get platformed
0:05:14 from a Ted X event.
0:05:17 – And what is Ted next then?
0:05:18 – So that’s our new flagship.
0:05:21 So that’s the one that was recently launched
0:05:22 and based in Atlanta.
0:05:26 And so we wanted to create an ecosystem of experiences
0:05:28 for people who love Ted.
0:05:30 And so you first start out probably in school
0:05:33 hearing from Ted education.
0:05:35 You learned about our animations
0:05:37 and how we explain certain things
0:05:38 that happen within society.
0:05:41 Then you probably in your city, you hear about Ted X
0:05:43 and you go to a one day Ted X event.
0:05:45 And then you automatically,
0:05:48 the next thing was the big Ted in Vancouver,
0:05:52 which is a premium ticket price is five days long.
0:05:54 And it’s a little bit harder for people
0:05:57 to kind of the everyday person to have access to.
0:05:59 And so it was about the future of what is happening
0:06:03 in technology, society, entertainment, healthcare
0:06:04 and all of those things.
0:06:08 But we didn’t have a conference that talked to the builder.
0:06:09 How do you become the builder
0:06:12 so you can plug into the future of?
0:06:16 So what does that next version of yourself look like?
0:06:18 Not just from a professional standpoint,
0:06:19 but from a personal standpoint,
0:06:22 you might wanna evolve and do something completely different
0:06:23 than what you’re doing now.
0:06:26 Where is a place where you can find that community,
0:06:29 that information and be inspired and motivated
0:06:31 for your own next evolution.
0:06:33 So that’s where Ted next came from
0:06:35 and we launched that this year.
0:06:39 – So how many flagship conferences are there?
0:06:41 – So it could be two to three a year.
0:06:43 You have what we call Big Ted, which is the Vancouver.
0:06:46 You have Ted next, which is the new flagship.
0:06:48 And then we have something called Countdown,
0:06:51 which is every other year annually.
0:06:54 And that is our climate change sustainability conference.
0:06:57 And we have that all over the globe every other year.
0:06:59 – Now, push comes to shove,
0:07:03 what is the global mission or goal of Ted in general?
0:07:05 The whole thing.
0:07:07 – It’s all about where storytelling platform.
0:07:10 And we really believe that ideas change everything.
0:07:12 That’s our new slogan.
0:07:15 And so when we talk about Ted,
0:07:17 we talk about how do we get more ideas
0:07:20 so it could be inspiring and motivational
0:07:22 for others to either think different,
0:07:23 challenge their thinking,
0:07:27 be inspired to create a different path for themselves
0:07:29 to help make society better.
0:07:32 Our mission is to give you the ideas
0:07:34 and then you take it and run with it
0:07:37 in whatever you need to grow
0:07:39 within your own personal development.
0:07:42 – Now, this may be a strange, difficult question,
0:07:44 but where do you draw the line?
0:07:48 If Steve Bannon said I want to speak at a Ted flagship
0:07:51 or Steven Miller or Rudy Giuliani
0:07:55 or God help you, Donald Trump or the president of Hungary,
0:08:00 do you say, okay, we want to present diverse views?
0:08:02 Or do you say, man, we don’t have fascism.
0:08:04 We don’t have Ted fascism.
0:08:05 – A really good question.
0:08:10 So our tagline used to be ideas that matter.
0:08:14 And now we recently change it to ideas change everything.
0:08:17 And so the reason why we’ve changed
0:08:19 and had that evolution with our tagline,
0:08:23 because all ideas don’t really matter
0:08:26 in the same way in our new polarized society.
0:08:28 And so it is all about,
0:08:31 we have no problem platforming people
0:08:34 who might not necessarily be progressive or liberal
0:08:36 or they might be more conservative or anything like that.
0:08:38 That’s not a problem for us,
0:08:40 but we want to make sure you’re coming to the table
0:08:42 as a solution-oriented person.
0:08:46 And you are talking about something where it inspires people
0:08:50 to think about how to be better at doing something differently.
0:08:52 So even this past year,
0:08:55 we had some controversial speakers that I would say
0:08:59 who’ve been in the news from time to time about their opinions.
0:09:02 But what they brought to the Ted stage was it was like,
0:09:06 we wanted to explain where our thinking is
0:09:09 and why we’ve, and how we’ve gotten to that conclusion
0:09:13 instead of just platforming an idea that might be controversial.
0:09:18 – Just hypothetically, if you were to give a Ted flagship talk,
0:09:19 what would be your topic?
0:09:21 You as the speaker.
0:09:25 – How to have a wonderful, robust vacation.
0:09:27 And let me tell you why.
0:09:31 I just literally came back from Bora Bora
0:09:34 and I put this little video together
0:09:36 to show my colleagues and my work people.
0:09:41 And they were like, you look so happy, so refreshed.
0:09:44 You are glowing and usually a vacation.
0:09:47 Sometimes people need vacations from their vacations.
0:09:49 And I was like, nope, this is what I did
0:09:52 to make sure I completely plugged into this vacation.
0:09:56 So this is the only reason why it’s top of mind
0:09:58 because I literally just came back from this
0:10:00 and I feel like a whole new person.
0:10:02 And I would love to just give a Ted talk
0:10:06 on how to really enjoy a real vacation.
0:10:13 – And is 18 minutes long enough for you to cover that topic?
0:10:14 – I would make it fit.
0:10:17 I really, this was just, this was magical,
0:10:19 what I just experienced.
0:10:20 So I would share with the world.
0:10:21 – Okay.
0:10:31 So can you, for those of us who are not familiar,
0:10:33 what are the parameters of a Ted talk?
0:10:35 The length and can you use notes?
0:10:37 Are there teleprompters?
0:10:40 How does the whole thing work logistically?
0:10:42 – What makes us a different type of platform
0:10:45 from other events or conferences
0:10:49 is that we actually have a full-time curation team.
0:10:54 It is their 100% their job to go find speakers
0:10:57 who are just inspirational and motivational.
0:11:02 And then to train them on how to give a proper Ted talk.
0:11:05 So you could go through a couple of months of training
0:11:07 on how to really perfect your story.
0:11:11 It doesn’t matter if you’ve been speaking for 10, 20, 30 years,
0:11:14 giving a Ted talk can be really, really difficult.
0:11:18 For the simple fact, you’re only allowed to share one idea.
0:11:21 And people like to go on tangents and talk about other things
0:11:24 and splash extra things into their story
0:11:28 instead of just sticking with that one idea.
0:11:31 A Ted talk can be, we’ve had as little as five minutes,
0:11:35 seven minutes, 12 minutes, up to 18 minutes of a Ted talk.
0:11:37 But it’s really taking that person on a journey
0:11:39 who’s sitting in that audience
0:11:41 who might have never been interested in this topic
0:11:44 and you have sparked some interest from them
0:11:47 because you started with your own personal story,
0:11:51 which then segued into what is it that you’re trying to change
0:11:53 or what were you inspired by
0:11:55 or what was the actions you took
0:11:57 from your personal story and development.
0:11:59 And then wrapping that with a nice bow
0:12:01 to make it entertaining or engaging,
0:12:03 captivating or motivating.
0:12:06 And that’s not always easy for a lot of speakers,
0:12:08 no matter how long you’ve been doing this for.
0:12:10 So it’s training that comes into that.
0:12:13 – Okay, so the length is 18 minutes.
0:12:15 Can I use a teleprompter?
0:12:16 – No teleprompters.
0:12:17 – Can I use notes?
0:12:21 – But we do allow people sometimes to use notes.
0:12:25 And what you see on YouTube is an edited version of a Ted talk.
0:12:26 These are all filmed at conferences.
0:12:28 People think these are filmed in studios.
0:12:32 This is at a live conference and people mess up.
0:12:34 Sometimes you don’t always,
0:12:37 you could have that straight 18 minute flow
0:12:40 and the audience cheers you on and tells you,
0:12:43 it’s okay, keep going and all of this good stuff.
0:12:45 It’s really an emotional rollercoaster
0:12:46 when you’re sitting in that theater
0:12:50 to see these people pour out their hearts and their ideas.
0:12:52 And sometimes they’re so nervous
0:12:55 because that Ted circle can make you a little bit nervous
0:12:57 and they come through like a champ.
0:12:59 And so sometimes they have to pull out their notes
0:13:01 because they forgot a word or two.
0:13:04 You just don’t happen to see that on YouTube.
0:13:09 – And who is in the Monique Ted Talk Hall of Fame?
0:13:11 – Reshma Sujani.
0:13:13 I don’t know if you are familiar with her,
0:13:17 but her Ted talk is Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection.
0:13:21 And the reason why that resonates a lot with me personally
0:13:24 is because we are taught as women and girls usually
0:13:28 to be nice and to always think about the nice way
0:13:30 of how you deliver things.
0:13:33 And niceness comes with perfectionism,
0:13:34 not all the time, but a lot of the time.
0:13:36 I was like, I’m not gonna go for something
0:13:40 unless I’m 100% buttoned up together and perfect at it.
0:13:43 And we lose out on a lot of opportunities,
0:13:45 but boys are taught to be brave.
0:13:47 They are taught to take risks.
0:13:50 They are taught to try different things.
0:13:53 And she was like, we need to teach our girls
0:13:56 that same thing for us to move through society,
0:13:59 this new way of society by bravery
0:14:01 because it is a lot of risk taking.
0:14:03 It is a lot of intentionality and choices
0:14:05 and to make sure that you’re making the right decision.
0:14:08 But when you don’t necessarily make the right decision,
0:14:10 how can you bounce back quickly?
0:14:12 And that’s what I love about her talk.
0:14:13 – Okay.
0:14:16 Now, you say you have these people
0:14:20 who are coaches and teachers and they select speakers.
0:14:24 So are you telling me that this is like a MacArthur Fellowship?
0:14:26 You don’t apply for a MacArthur Fellowship.
0:14:29 You don’t apply for a Nobel Prize.
0:14:30 You just hope the phone rings.
0:14:33 So is that how it works for you?
0:14:35 – So three ways really, our curation team goes out
0:14:38 and looks for speakers that they might come across
0:14:39 through reading about them,
0:14:42 hearing about them, referrals or what have you.
0:14:45 Then we actually have past alumni speakers
0:14:48 who will suggest other speakers to us
0:14:50 and that we should explore and think about.
0:14:53 And then the third way is we actually have a speaker form.
0:14:57 You can nominate yourself for TedTalk at Ted.com
0:14:59 at our speaker nomination form.
0:15:00 But this is the kicker.
0:15:02 The thing that people don’t do
0:15:06 when they do the speaker nomination form is do your research.
0:15:08 Has that talk already happened?
0:15:11 We have thousands and thousands of talks
0:15:13 on thousands of different topics.
0:15:16 And it is up to that person to research
0:15:18 and look at our archives, look at past YouTube
0:15:21 to see if someone already spoke about that topic.
0:15:24 If they have and you’re gonna speak in a similar way,
0:15:25 you’re not gonna be platform.
0:15:27 We’re not gonna repeat it.
0:15:29 It has to be something that’s different and unique.
0:15:31 And so you might think you have the greatest idea
0:15:33 and you’re the greatest speaker.
0:15:35 But believe me, there might have already been someone
0:15:37 who thought they had the greatest idea
0:15:39 and the same idea that you had.
0:15:43 And so it’s really important that if you apply to speak,
0:15:45 that you really talk about the idea.
0:15:47 This is not about your PR campaign.
0:15:49 This is not about how many talks you’ve given.
0:15:52 It is all about the idea you wanna present
0:15:55 and why that is different and special and unique
0:15:58 than what has ever been seen on a Ted stage.
0:16:02 – And are you therefore saying that TedX
0:16:06 is not the farm system for Ted flagship?
0:16:07 If you gave a TedX talk,
0:16:11 you cannot give it as a Ted flagship talk.
0:16:12 – You would probably have to give it.
0:16:17 Now, Brene Brown was discovered from a TedX talk.
0:16:20 She wasn’t on a Ted flagship talk.
0:16:22 And we’ve had her for Ted talk.
0:16:24 So it’s for a flagship talk.
0:16:27 So it doesn’t mean that you are completely out of the running
0:16:31 for a Ted flagship opportunity.
0:16:33 You might have to come with something different,
0:16:35 but that doesn’t mean there,
0:16:38 we’ve discovered plenty of people out of the TedX platform
0:16:41 many, many times, but it’s about the idea.
0:16:43 So you can be one person
0:16:45 that has several different amazing ideas.
0:16:48 And so like you said, you’ve given multiple TedX talks.
0:16:51 I’m sure they were on various topics.
0:16:55 And it’s the same way here as in we like fresh ideas.
0:16:58 It could come from the same person multiple times.
0:16:59 It’s all about the idea.
0:17:03 – And for the people who apply,
0:17:06 what percentage actually make it?
0:17:11 – We do about 80 TedTalks at our Vancouver conference
0:17:16 and we do about 40 to 45 TedTalks at our TedNext conference.
0:17:19 So that’s 120.
0:17:23 So we have 20,000 people who have submitted
0:17:27 for TedTalks through our online form.
0:17:32 And it’s only 100 plus speakers, maybe 200 speakers
0:17:33 that we do every year.
0:17:35 So it’s extremely competitive.
0:17:39 So we always say like you have to really have a tight idea
0:17:41 for the flagship opportunity,
0:17:45 but it’s a little bit easier to go through the TedX route
0:17:46 because there’s more of them.
0:17:49 There’s 3000 TedX events around the globe.
0:17:54 And it’s basically based on that particular city or region.
0:17:56 And you probably would have more access that way,
0:17:59 but don’t give up trying to get to the flagship.
0:18:02 Just keep applying and coming up with new ideas.
0:18:07 – And what happens if, I don’t know, take an extreme,
0:18:12 if Michelle Obama or Steve Jobs or, I don’t know, Elon Musk
0:18:15 or Bill Gates, they don’t apply.
0:18:17 They’re people’s people tell you,
0:18:19 would you like Steve Jobs at Ted?
0:18:21 Would you like Elon Musk?
0:18:22 Would you like Michelle Obama?
0:18:25 Would you like Malala?
0:18:26 Do you get those kind of calls?
0:18:28 Do you turn them down sometimes?
0:18:32 – Elon spoke in 2022
0:18:35 and he spoke previously before there.
0:18:40 So we get that level of people speaking at our conferences.
0:18:42 No, we do not turn them down.
0:18:45 We figure out how to make it work,
0:18:48 especially if they have something really interesting
0:18:49 to share and to say.
0:18:52 So like I said, our curation team goes out
0:18:55 and finds these speakers or they’re connected
0:18:56 to these speakers.
0:18:58 And as long as the idea is strong
0:19:01 and it makes sense for the theme of that conference,
0:19:03 we invite them in.
0:19:06 – Okay, now this is, I have spoken many, many times.
0:19:10 So I’m very familiar with how the circuit works.
0:19:15 And lots of speakers have, I think just outlandish writers.
0:19:18 I heard a story that when Barbara Streisand
0:19:20 spoke at the San Jose Shark Tank,
0:19:22 she wanted a straight shot from her dressing room
0:19:23 to the stage.
0:19:26 So they had to bust open a wall.
0:19:28 When Prince spoke there,
0:19:33 he wanted all the background rooms and all the green rooms,
0:19:36 all, everything had to be painted purple.
0:19:39 And Steve Jobs, he wants a special stool
0:19:42 made by Tibetan monks and he wants water from,
0:19:45 I don’t know, some special spring in Nicaragua.
0:19:48 So do you get those kinds of things?
0:19:49 Do you just shake your head and you say,
0:19:51 you know, we are freaking Ted.
0:19:53 We don’t do bullshit like that.
0:19:55 – I’ve only been at Ted going on three years
0:19:59 and I have never seen any writer like that.
0:20:01 So I’m sure there might be a story or two
0:20:04 that someone from the curation team could tell,
0:20:07 but we’re pretty basic with backstage.
0:20:09 I haven’t seen anything crazy like that.
0:20:12 And Ted is not that type of platform.
0:20:14 So I don’t think we even get anything like that,
0:20:15 but I could be wrong.
0:20:17 Like I said, I’m only three years in.
0:20:22 – Don’t get me wrong.
0:20:25 I find it just amazing that if Barbara Streisand said,
0:20:28 “Yeah, I’ll speak at Ted, but this is what I need.”
0:20:30 I can see her doing that.
0:20:32 Anyway, okay, we don’t want to, we don’t want to,
0:20:34 I get the message, I get the message.
0:20:34 – Let’s get Barbara.
0:20:36 I want to get Barbara on our stage.
0:20:38 So I don’t want to stop anything.
0:20:40 Let’s see how we could work something out with Barbara.
0:20:43 – Well, I can’t tell you that I’m her BFF.
0:20:45 So I can’t help you.
0:20:48 I knew the editor of her book and let’s just say,
0:20:50 that was a, that was an interesting job.
0:20:52 She’s a very interesting person to put it mildly.
0:20:54 – You can hear some stories to tell.
0:20:55 I can tell.
0:20:55 – Yeah, I bet, yeah.
0:20:59 Okay, so now are you telling me that, like seriously,
0:21:01 if Donald Trump said, “I want to be on Ted,”
0:21:02 I have a lot to say.
0:21:04 I have very different ideas.
0:21:05 What do you say?
0:21:10 – Oh, you are asking the tough questions, Kai.
0:21:11 I don’t know about that one.
0:21:16 So, you know, Chris Anderson is the chairman of Ted.
0:21:21 He is the one that took over Ted in the early 2000s.
0:21:26 He was all about sharing ideas that were really impactful.
0:21:28 And so it would go all the way up to him.
0:21:33 I wouldn’t have anything to say or do in this situation.
0:21:36 It would go all the way up to what he wants to do here.
0:21:39 So I can’t even give you my own personal opinion
0:21:40 because it would never come to me.
0:21:44 – I had to try, I had to try.
0:21:46 – I understand.
0:21:49 Listen, I’ve never been asked to speak at Ted flagships.
0:21:52 I’m trying to figure out like, I’m going to be 20,001.
0:21:55 – And we got to get this together.
0:21:57 I got to approve on that one.
0:21:58 I’m surprised at that.
0:21:59 – I’m surprised too.
0:22:01 Don’t get me wrong.
0:22:03 – You got to work on that.
0:22:05 – Yeah, we’ll follow up with that.
0:22:07 I figured when I was early in my career,
0:22:10 I figured, okay, this is how you know you’re a baller
0:22:12 and you’ve got it made.
0:22:14 You spoke at Davos and you spoke at Ted.
0:22:16 And after that, you can die.
0:22:19 The rest of your life is anticlimactic.
0:22:21 – Mission accomplished, mission accomplished.
0:22:22 – Yeah, so I’m 50% there.
0:22:24 I’ve spoken at Davos twice,
0:22:28 but I have not yet spoken at Ted in Vancouver.
0:22:30 And Canadians love me.
0:22:32 I never met a Canadian I didn’t like.
0:22:33 And I love hockey.
0:22:37 I can talk hockey all day long for your Vancouver audience.
0:22:40 – I’m sure more than the Canadians love you guys.
0:22:42 We would have to just work on that one.
0:22:44 (upbeat music)
0:22:54 – This is more of a serious question.
0:22:59 So do you view being a Ted flagship speaker
0:23:03 as a reward or part of the journey?
0:23:06 – Part of the journey.
0:23:11 What is the special sauce of Ted is platforming people
0:23:13 that people don’t know about?
0:23:16 The people who are up and coming, the builders,
0:23:18 the people that you discover,
0:23:21 and then you absolutely get to elevate
0:23:23 and amplify some amazing things.
0:23:26 And so we love being that type of platform.
0:23:30 Yes, we love to showcase those that have household names,
0:23:33 but I’m telling you, when you sit through 80 Ted Talks,
0:23:35 you are really thinking about,
0:23:37 okay, I think I’m gonna like this,
0:23:38 but when you’re sitting in the audience
0:23:40 and you listen to someone you never heard about,
0:23:42 you are so inspired and blown away
0:23:47 about what people accomplish as a standard human being
0:23:49 who might not have all the resources
0:23:52 that everyone else has who are popular
0:23:55 and to know how they accomplish some of these wonderful things.
0:23:57 It’s just so amazing to sit in that audience.
0:24:00 You go through these roller coasters of emotions.
0:24:01 There’s laughter, then there’s crying,
0:24:04 then there’s anger, then there’s thinking and pondering.
0:24:05 It’s a lot.
0:24:07 We have something called a Ted Ake
0:24:10 that happens after you leave Vancouver.
0:24:12 Because you are just so overwhelmed
0:24:15 by all of these amazing speakers,
0:24:16 and then they come off the stage
0:24:17 and they sit right next to you.
0:24:19 They literally stay for the entire conference.
0:24:20 You get to talk to them.
0:24:22 It’s absolutely amazing.
0:24:25 – I have not even been to the Vancouver Ted.
0:24:28 – We’re discovering a lot about this guy.
0:24:29 We gotta work on this.
0:24:30 – Yeah.
0:24:31 – We gotta get you there.
0:24:33 – I need to come out of my shell.
0:24:36 Listen, dead serious now.
0:24:39 My podcast is called Remarkable People
0:24:42 and it’s not rich people and it’s not famous people.
0:24:44 It’s remarkable people.
0:24:45 So we have people like,
0:24:48 I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, Haleem Flowers.
0:24:52 At 16, he was sentenced to 40 something years
0:24:53 for accessory to murder.
0:24:55 He got out after 22 years.
0:25:00 And now he’s predicted to be the next Jean-Michel Basquiat.
0:25:01 So we have people like that.
0:25:04 We have people who have become very successful,
0:25:07 overcoming prison and all kinds of stuff.
0:25:09 People that you wouldn’t have heard of.
0:25:12 So tell your creation team to listen to my podcast.
0:25:14 We do a lot of filtering.
0:25:17 We reject about 2,500 people a year to get 50.
0:25:19 So we’re not as selective as you,
0:25:22 but we’re up there in terms of selectivity.
0:25:26 We can act as a kind of first pass filter for you.
0:25:27 – That’s amazing.
0:25:30 And absolutely, now I’m gonna be a listener too
0:25:33 to help make sure I refer some things.
0:25:35 And I appreciate even being on the podcast myself.
0:25:39 But yeah, it’s those that the remarkable people,
0:25:41 the day-to-day of humanity
0:25:44 and things that people accomplish really,
0:25:45 and you sitting there hearing their story,
0:25:47 it really blows you away.
0:25:50 So I love the undiscovered talent
0:25:53 that comes across the TED stages.
0:25:56 – You know, in a sense, I love TED
0:25:58 and I also love the moth, right?
0:26:00 So you must listen to the moth, right?
0:26:04 That’s also an interesting source of edutainment,
0:26:05 shall I say.
0:26:07 So now I would like to know
0:26:12 what separates a good TED flagship speaker
0:26:14 from a remarkable one.
0:26:18 – Oh, it is how they start their story.
0:26:22 So if you can grab people in the first 10 seconds
0:26:24 of your talk where someone is leaning in,
0:26:28 not because they can’t hear, they’re just so engaged.
0:26:31 And I’ve seen this live and in person.
0:26:36 And then I’m like, oh, she or he or they or they got ’em
0:26:38 because everyone in that audience
0:26:39 is pretty much just leaning in
0:26:43 because the first 10 seconds just grabbed their attention.
0:26:46 And what always grabs their attention
0:26:48 is how you personalize your story.
0:26:53 You being a human and you weaving in your human aspect
0:26:56 of what you personally were motivated and inspired by,
0:26:58 saw, conquered or whatever.
0:27:01 And really grasping that right at the beginning
0:27:03 takes people on a wonderful ride.
0:27:05 They are all in after that.
0:27:09 – So tell me some of your favorite first 10 seconds.
0:27:12 – I would think about someone who’s the unexpected,
0:27:14 like saying I was trapped in a well.
0:27:18 And then I figured out that while I was pondering
0:27:20 and all this in this trapped place
0:27:21 that I needed to think differently
0:27:25 or was sitting by the bedside, the death doula.
0:27:28 This was another TED talk that is up on YouTube.
0:27:31 So I never even knew that existed,
0:27:34 that there’s someone that walks you through death and grief
0:27:37 before your loved one passes away.
0:27:39 And how she started her story was that
0:27:41 how she sits in that with someone.
0:27:44 And we’ve all experienced, most of us,
0:27:46 if not all of us have experienced grief.
0:27:49 And for her, this is her day to day job
0:27:52 and that this actually exists makes me think about,
0:27:54 okay, I think I might need a death doula
0:27:56 if I ever go through something like this.
0:27:59 Like I’ve just discovered so many things
0:28:03 about how do you create beautiful, wonderful art
0:28:06 with the most mundane things
0:28:09 and how it just moved and challenged people.
0:28:13 It’s just amazing how resourceful
0:28:16 so many people are with just a little bit
0:28:20 of creativity or thought or resources
0:28:22 and how big of an impact they can make
0:28:23 on society and in humanity.
0:28:28 – The best TEDx talk that I gave in my humble opinion,
0:28:31 and I have given, as I said, eight,
0:28:35 my opening line was when I die,
0:28:38 I want you to say that I helped you make a difference,
0:28:40 that you made the world a better place.
0:28:43 That was my first five seconds or so.
0:28:44 So.
0:28:47 – And I bet a lot of people leaned into that too.
0:28:50 – Well, what are you gonna say?
0:28:51 No guy, you suck.
0:28:53 That’s why you’re not on a flagship speaker.
0:28:57 – I’m telling you guys, we’re gonna work on that.
0:29:00 (laughing)
0:29:02 I’ll give you my phone number.
0:29:05 Okay, so now next question.
0:29:09 How has the audience experience evolved
0:29:13 in the last 20, 30 years of TEDx?
0:29:16 – TEDx was basically a standard conference
0:29:18 of just pure TEDx talks.
0:29:21 So you went there, you had about four days
0:29:24 of about 12 sessions of people
0:29:26 just talking about amazing things.
0:29:31 And now we create this full-on experiential experience
0:29:32 for our events.
0:29:34 So when you come to the conference,
0:29:37 you never queue in a line, we don’t have lines,
0:29:38 and we have thousands of people that come.
0:29:41 It is a very unique concierge experience.
0:29:44 You’re met at the door with someone who asks you your name,
0:29:46 and as soon as you ride up the escalator,
0:29:48 there’s someone there waiting with your badge,
0:29:49 and you go right in.
0:29:53 So we’ve created and perfected the intrigue
0:29:55 and entrance experience for our conferences.
0:29:57 And then when you go there,
0:30:00 there is opportunities for you to participate
0:30:04 in discovery sessions where you get to do something unique
0:30:05 that you’ve never gotten to do before.
0:30:07 We’ve had welding classes.
0:30:10 We have tree doctors that take you out into the forest
0:30:12 so you can listen to trees breathe.
0:30:15 We’ve had how you make your own sneakers.
0:30:19 So we’ve had these very unique action-based discovery sessions.
0:30:21 We have something called brain dates.
0:30:25 So you can put in an app that you wanna talk about this,
0:30:27 and people will say, “I wanna talk about that with you too,”
0:30:29 and they come and meet you for a brain date,
0:30:31 and you have a wonderful conversation
0:30:33 with someone you’ve never met on a topic
0:30:37 you never even thought would be present within TED.
0:30:39 We have dinners.
0:30:41 And so you’ll go and you’ll have a hosted dinner
0:30:45 with 25, 30, 40 people of your best friends.
0:30:47 We have game nights that happen within the conference,
0:30:50 so you get to do some fun activities as well.
0:30:53 We have you scale buildings outside,
0:30:56 so you can scale a building in Vancouver as an activity.
0:31:00 Then we have reflection rooms, and we have rest spots,
0:31:02 and then we have experiential activations
0:31:05 where you’ll engage with something from robotics
0:31:08 or someone has created this new product
0:31:11 or new idea that hasn’t even come out yet.
0:31:13 So it’s just this, like I said, the TED-AIC happens
0:31:16 because you are just overwhelmed
0:31:19 from this very five-day experience of 80-plus TED talks
0:31:22 and 100 other activities.
0:31:25 – And how many people go through this every year?
0:31:27 – About 1,800 to 2,000.
0:31:30 – And there must be more than 2,000 people who want to attend.
0:31:33 How do you pick the attendees?
0:31:35 – Yeah, you have to go through our application process.
0:31:39 So the thing is, but anyone can apply, that’s the thing.
0:31:42 People think this is very hush-hush exclusive.
0:31:47 No, anyone can apply to attend a TED flagship event.
0:31:49 You have a little bit more of a robust application
0:31:52 for Vancouver, but our TED Atlanta one,
0:31:55 much more easy for you to get access to,
0:31:59 but anyone can apply to any of our flagship conferences.
0:32:02 And it’s more about making sure we keep the right people out
0:32:04 than it is letting the right people in.
0:32:05 (laughing)
0:32:07 – And how much does it cost
0:32:10 if you’ve gone for rid, but you get accepted?
0:32:13 – Yeah, so the flagship is a premium conference.
0:32:18 So our average ticket price is $12,500 for that one,
0:32:23 but our TED Atlanta comp flagship is $2,800.
0:32:27 And so it is a pared-down version of the Vancouver,
0:32:29 but it still gives you the discovery sessions,
0:32:33 the brain days, the activities, the 45 plus TED talks.
0:32:36 So like I said, we were creating an ecosystem of events,
0:32:39 and you couldn’t just go from TEDx all the way to Vancouver.
0:32:40 We needed to meet you in the middle
0:32:42 to get you really acclimated and excited
0:32:45 about the in-person experience,
0:32:47 and that’s why TED Next was created.
0:32:51 At TED in Vancouver, you could have just a,
0:32:54 you know, very, very interesting breakout,
0:32:57 and you could take people surfing in Tofino
0:33:02 because it’s about, I think a 30-minute little jog away
0:33:07 and on a little seaplane, you could do that.
0:33:10 I’ll do that for you, or I could do a session
0:33:12 about how to be a podcaster if you wanna–
0:33:13 – Oh, we gotta get–
0:33:16 – I mean, if you can do welding, I can do podcasting.
0:33:17 How’s that?
0:33:20 – We have so many fun and unique things,
0:33:23 but we have our own podcast initiative as well,
0:33:26 and so a lot of our podcasters come
0:33:28 and they might do a live podcast recording
0:33:33 from our flagships, but people walk away, blown away.
0:33:35 It’s literally, I’ve been in the conferences
0:33:37 and events industry my entire career,
0:33:41 and when I joined TED, I’ve never seen any event like that.
0:33:45 That is a true connective tissue
0:33:49 that you feel so immersed in something so special
0:33:50 that you just wanna keep having that feeling
0:33:51 over and over again.
0:33:55 – Well, I can tell you that from what you described,
0:34:00 it’s much more interesting to go to TED than Dovels
0:34:03 because I gotta tell you, Dovels is just,
0:34:06 in my humble opinion, it’s just bullshit.
0:34:08 There’s so many eagles there,
0:34:11 and now it is true that you could go into the men’s room
0:34:13 and you look over and you’re taking a piss
0:34:15 next to the president of Uruguay or something.
0:34:19 That is true, but I mean, that only goes so far.
0:34:21 Wow, what a great experience.
0:34:25 I’m gonna save up my shackles so I can come over here.
0:34:28 – You have to come, and we have people who have,
0:34:30 one of the things for our first timers
0:34:33 is we have something called our first timers talk
0:34:35 because people come and they have
0:34:36 a little bit of an imposter syndrome
0:34:39 because you literally have these amazing people
0:34:42 who you see on the stage who stick around
0:34:46 and I hosted a dinner one time and I had an astronaut,
0:34:48 a guy that puts data on the moon,
0:34:52 an army psychologist, a comedian, and then myself.
0:34:56 And we had some of the most funniest conversations
0:34:59 you can imagine, but you have those type of people
0:35:02 in the room and you might think you don’t belong there,
0:35:05 but if you’re there, you belong there.
0:35:06 And that’s one of the things
0:35:09 that we like to explain to people.
0:35:10 – Well, Monique, I can tell you,
0:35:13 and Madison will confirm this,
0:35:15 that I have many faults,
0:35:19 but one of them is not having the imposter syndrome.
0:35:22 – You’re like, I belong here in this room.
0:35:27 – Why wasn’t I here before?
0:35:29 – There you go, you have the opposite.
0:35:33 – I have the entitlement syndrome
0:35:36 more than the imposter syndrome, yeah.
0:35:40 – Okay, so my last question for you is that,
0:35:41 I look at your career,
0:35:43 you’ve done so many interesting things,
0:35:46 you have been exposed to so many remarkable people
0:35:50 and people listening to this is like,
0:35:51 how can I be like her?
0:35:53 How can I have such an interesting job?
0:35:56 How can I have such joy in my voice
0:35:58 as I describe what I do?
0:36:00 So pretend that there’s somebody who’s,
0:36:03 I don’t know, in high school listening to this and saying,
0:36:06 “Shit, I wanna be like her, man, what do I need to do?”
0:36:10 So what do they need to do besides join the circus?
0:36:11 – Let me tell you guys,
0:36:16 I remember I was such a hard worker in my early career
0:36:18 and I sat down one day and I was like,
0:36:21 damn, all of this hard work is doing nothing
0:36:24 but getting me more work, what am I doing wrong?
0:36:28 And I decided to have intentionality.
0:36:30 And I think that was a real game changer for me.
0:36:33 It was more about I need to start mapping out
0:36:37 what I want my life, my professional development
0:36:39 to look like, not worry about the titles,
0:36:42 but worry about what do I need to get from a skill set
0:36:44 that’s gonna attract things to me?
0:36:48 Ted came to me from a recruitment standpoint.
0:36:51 And so when I was thinking about how do I build
0:36:55 that breath of work that people will come to find me,
0:36:57 it was, okay, I need to become better
0:37:00 at understanding revenue generating.
0:37:04 And I need to become better at how I communicate my story.
0:37:07 And I need to become better at building my own personal brand
0:37:09 and being a go-to for solutions.
0:37:13 And I would do things within each of these organizations
0:37:15 to feed into those four buckets.
0:37:19 And people would start noticing me for those four key things.
0:37:21 And then I would just move on to another job
0:37:24 and it’s, okay, now I wanna be known as a P&L owner here.
0:37:26 I would set out my intention
0:37:28 about what I want people to know me for.
0:37:31 And then I would put smoke signals out
0:37:34 to let people know that they should know me for this.
0:37:36 And it actually worked.
0:37:39 And then each job that I was going to,
0:37:40 I just wanted to grow more and more and more.
0:37:42 There’s still more growth in me.
0:37:46 There’s still more growth in me within Ted and without Ted.
0:37:49 And so I just think once you set the intention about,
0:37:52 I’m not just gonna flap my wings around and just exist,
0:37:54 I’m gonna live.
0:37:55 And what does living look like for me,
0:37:58 whether it’s in my professional or my personal life.
0:38:00 And I’m gonna do it and put action behind it.
0:38:01 And so far, so good.
0:38:02 It’s worked for me.
0:38:06 – Man, Monique, I gotta tell you something, man.
0:38:09 If we could bottle your attitude, man, we would just,
0:38:12 oh my God, we’d sell so much of that.
0:38:13 We gotta put you in a bottle.
0:38:15 We gotta get the Monique formula.
0:38:19 My God, listen, Madison and I,
0:38:23 we interviewed 250 people, 52 people a year.
0:38:26 When I tell you something like that, that’s not bullshit.
0:38:27 I don’t say that to everybody.
0:38:28 My God.
0:38:30 – Oh man, I appreciate that.
0:38:31 – We gotta bottle you.
0:38:35 If I ran Ted, I would put you in my flagship for sure.
0:38:37 – Ah, I appreciate it.
0:38:39 I’m gonna give my Ted talk at Guy’s Ted.
0:38:43 – I would break the wall so you can walk straight to the stage.
0:38:45 I would paint it all purple for you.
0:38:47 I would get you Tibetan water.
0:38:52 I would get you handmade German stool for you to sit on.
0:38:53 I give you more than 18 minutes.
0:38:56 I would do whatever it took to get you.
0:38:58 – Oh, I appreciate that.
0:39:00 This is the best day right now, I hear that.
0:39:04 – All right Monique, we gotta let you go
0:39:06 because we don’t wanna make too high a bar
0:39:09 for all the other episodes that’s gonna follow you
0:39:10 on Remarkable People.
0:39:11 All right.
0:39:13 – Oh, thank you so much for having me.
0:39:19 – This is Remarkable People.
0:00:11 – Thank you very much for being on Remarkable People.
0:00:15 How about you just give yourself a short little introduction?
0:00:17 – Sure, so I am Monique Ruffbell.
0:00:21 I am the chief program and strategy officer for TED.
0:00:23 And if you love a good TED talk,
0:00:26 this is what I get to do every day
0:00:29 and participate in bringing these magical experiences
0:00:32 to our community and to the global audience.
0:00:33 – I love that.
0:00:35 I love TED, I have to tell you.
0:00:38 So you worked at Ringling Brothers
0:00:41 and we had another guest named Derek Sivers
0:00:43 who also was a ringmaster.
0:00:45 So am I seeing a pattern here?
0:00:49 Are these like great presenters and great speakers?
0:00:51 They have a background in the circus?
0:00:53 – You gotta have experience
0:00:55 with a little bit of crazy and chaos
0:00:58 and there you go with the circus is just a part of that.
0:01:01 So I think it just makes you a stronger people person,
0:01:05 a people lover, if the stronger entertainer.
0:01:10 – And what exactly did you do for Ringling Brothers?
0:01:12 – So I was the promotion manager for Ringling Brothers.
0:01:14 So I like to say I ran away with the circus.
0:01:18 So people don’t know there’s actually two circuses
0:01:21 one on each side of the country and then they switch.
0:01:24 And so whenever the circus came to the East Coast,
0:01:28 I would go with the circus across the different cities
0:01:30 and basically help do PR events
0:01:32 and just get the community excited
0:01:34 about the circus coming to town.
0:01:37 And after about two years, a year or two years
0:01:38 that you get kind of burnt out
0:01:40 with walking with the elephants and the tigers
0:01:42 and the crazy and all the other good stuff.
0:01:45 So then I had to not run away with the circus anymore.
0:01:49 – Now tell me when you are with the circus,
0:01:52 isn’t it like all of you are on a train
0:01:54 and you’re just all traveling together
0:01:56 and it’s one big dysfunctional family?
0:02:01 – Those are the actual performers that live on the train.
0:02:02 I do not.
0:02:04 So we actually work out of our offices
0:02:08 and we have little micro offices all around the country.
0:02:11 And I was one of those people that worked out in New York.
0:02:12 And then when it came to the East Coast,
0:02:15 you just worked and traveled with the circus.
0:02:16 And wherever it showed up,
0:02:19 whether it’s Connecticut, New York, Boston or whatever,
0:02:20 that’s where you went.
0:02:23 And our office was actually in the animal pen.
0:02:26 So you smelt a lot of things
0:02:28 and you were with the circus.
0:02:32 – So when you were on duty,
0:02:34 you were actually traveling in the train.
0:02:36 You were part of the family.
0:02:38 – I was part of the family.
0:02:41 What another cute story is
0:02:43 the elephants can’t ride on trucks.
0:02:44 They are too heavy.
0:02:47 How you get the animals from the train to the venue,
0:02:49 they have to walk.
0:02:52 And so you have to close down the streets at night.
0:02:54 It’s like 2 a.m.
0:02:57 And we were like the security guards for the elephants.
0:02:59 So we had to walk the elephants
0:03:02 from the train station to the venue.
0:03:05 And I’m like, how am I supposed to protect the elephants?
0:03:07 But that’s what we did.
0:03:09 It’s a story to tell.
0:03:11 – Wait, but what if the train depot
0:03:14 is like 10 miles from where the circus is?
0:03:16 You walk 10 miles.
0:03:18 – You had to walk it.
0:03:20 There’s no other way to get them to the venue.
0:03:22 You can’t put them on any type of truck
0:03:24 or anything you have to walk.
0:03:26 (laughing)
0:03:33 – Okay, enough of your checkered pass
0:03:35 about being in the circus.
0:03:37 So I have a question for you.
0:03:39 Now I’m gonna have to ask you some questions
0:03:40 that I know the answer,
0:03:43 but what exactly is Ted today?
0:03:45 Because some people think that Ted is like
0:03:46 the one main conference.
0:03:50 And other people, Ted in their mind is Ted X.
0:03:53 So can you just define Ted for us right now?
0:03:58 – Sure, Ted stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.
0:04:00 And it started in 1984.
0:04:02 And it literally was this one conference
0:04:04 that happened every single year.
0:04:08 And now it is a generalist conference
0:04:12 and it is multiple conferences that happen globally.
0:04:16 And so you have what we call Ted flagship conferences.
0:04:19 And then you have Ted X conferences.
0:04:21 And so there are two different things for us.
0:04:24 And as a flagship, I oversee all of the flagships.
0:04:28 And now recently, now I oversee all of the Ted X programming.
0:04:31 But the flagships are ran by the corporate organization.
0:04:34 And Ted X are 100% volunteer ran.
0:04:37 So if you have a love for Ted or Ted Talks,
0:04:40 you would apply to get a license from us
0:04:43 to host a Ted event in your city.
0:04:45 You have to follow certain rules and parameters.
0:04:48 But outside of that, you are 100% a volunteer
0:04:51 who are putting on a lovely one day Ted X event.
0:04:55 Our Ted flagships are usually longer, three to five days.
0:04:57 They happen in currently in Vancouver
0:04:59 and another in Atlanta.
0:05:01 And this is for thousands of people.
0:05:05 It’s multiple experiences that happen within a Ted event.
0:05:10 But all of the talks usually get platformed from a Ted event.
0:05:12 And for Ted X, certain talks get platformed
0:05:14 from a Ted X event.
0:05:17 – And what is Ted next then?
0:05:18 – So that’s our new flagship.
0:05:21 So that’s the one that was recently launched
0:05:22 and based in Atlanta.
0:05:26 And so we wanted to create an ecosystem of experiences
0:05:28 for people who love Ted.
0:05:30 And so you first start out probably in school
0:05:33 hearing from Ted education.
0:05:35 You learned about our animations
0:05:37 and how we explain certain things
0:05:38 that happen within society.
0:05:41 Then you probably in your city, you hear about Ted X
0:05:43 and you go to a one day Ted X event.
0:05:45 And then you automatically,
0:05:48 the next thing was the big Ted in Vancouver,
0:05:52 which is a premium ticket price is five days long.
0:05:54 And it’s a little bit harder for people
0:05:57 to kind of the everyday person to have access to.
0:05:59 And so it was about the future of what is happening
0:06:03 in technology, society, entertainment, healthcare
0:06:04 and all of those things.
0:06:08 But we didn’t have a conference that talked to the builder.
0:06:09 How do you become the builder
0:06:12 so you can plug into the future of?
0:06:16 So what does that next version of yourself look like?
0:06:18 Not just from a professional standpoint,
0:06:19 but from a personal standpoint,
0:06:22 you might wanna evolve and do something completely different
0:06:23 than what you’re doing now.
0:06:26 Where is a place where you can find that community,
0:06:29 that information and be inspired and motivated
0:06:31 for your own next evolution.
0:06:33 So that’s where Ted next came from
0:06:35 and we launched that this year.
0:06:39 – So how many flagship conferences are there?
0:06:41 – So it could be two to three a year.
0:06:43 You have what we call Big Ted, which is the Vancouver.
0:06:46 You have Ted next, which is the new flagship.
0:06:48 And then we have something called Countdown,
0:06:51 which is every other year annually.
0:06:54 And that is our climate change sustainability conference.
0:06:57 And we have that all over the globe every other year.
0:06:59 – Now, push comes to shove,
0:07:03 what is the global mission or goal of Ted in general?
0:07:05 The whole thing.
0:07:07 – It’s all about where storytelling platform.
0:07:10 And we really believe that ideas change everything.
0:07:12 That’s our new slogan.
0:07:15 And so when we talk about Ted,
0:07:17 we talk about how do we get more ideas
0:07:20 so it could be inspiring and motivational
0:07:22 for others to either think different,
0:07:23 challenge their thinking,
0:07:27 be inspired to create a different path for themselves
0:07:29 to help make society better.
0:07:32 Our mission is to give you the ideas
0:07:34 and then you take it and run with it
0:07:37 in whatever you need to grow
0:07:39 within your own personal development.
0:07:42 – Now, this may be a strange, difficult question,
0:07:44 but where do you draw the line?
0:07:48 If Steve Bannon said I want to speak at a Ted flagship
0:07:51 or Steven Miller or Rudy Giuliani
0:07:55 or God help you, Donald Trump or the president of Hungary,
0:08:00 do you say, okay, we want to present diverse views?
0:08:02 Or do you say, man, we don’t have fascism.
0:08:04 We don’t have Ted fascism.
0:08:05 – A really good question.
0:08:10 So our tagline used to be ideas that matter.
0:08:14 And now we recently change it to ideas change everything.
0:08:17 And so the reason why we’ve changed
0:08:19 and had that evolution with our tagline,
0:08:23 because all ideas don’t really matter
0:08:26 in the same way in our new polarized society.
0:08:28 And so it is all about,
0:08:31 we have no problem platforming people
0:08:34 who might not necessarily be progressive or liberal
0:08:36 or they might be more conservative or anything like that.
0:08:38 That’s not a problem for us,
0:08:40 but we want to make sure you’re coming to the table
0:08:42 as a solution-oriented person.
0:08:46 And you are talking about something where it inspires people
0:08:50 to think about how to be better at doing something differently.
0:08:52 So even this past year,
0:08:55 we had some controversial speakers that I would say
0:08:59 who’ve been in the news from time to time about their opinions.
0:09:02 But what they brought to the Ted stage was it was like,
0:09:06 we wanted to explain where our thinking is
0:09:09 and why we’ve, and how we’ve gotten to that conclusion
0:09:13 instead of just platforming an idea that might be controversial.
0:09:18 – Just hypothetically, if you were to give a Ted flagship talk,
0:09:19 what would be your topic?
0:09:21 You as the speaker.
0:09:25 – How to have a wonderful, robust vacation.
0:09:27 And let me tell you why.
0:09:31 I just literally came back from Bora Bora
0:09:34 and I put this little video together
0:09:36 to show my colleagues and my work people.
0:09:41 And they were like, you look so happy, so refreshed.
0:09:44 You are glowing and usually a vacation.
0:09:47 Sometimes people need vacations from their vacations.
0:09:49 And I was like, nope, this is what I did
0:09:52 to make sure I completely plugged into this vacation.
0:09:56 So this is the only reason why it’s top of mind
0:09:58 because I literally just came back from this
0:10:00 and I feel like a whole new person.
0:10:02 And I would love to just give a Ted talk
0:10:06 on how to really enjoy a real vacation.
0:10:13 – And is 18 minutes long enough for you to cover that topic?
0:10:14 – I would make it fit.
0:10:17 I really, this was just, this was magical,
0:10:19 what I just experienced.
0:10:20 So I would share with the world.
0:10:21 – Okay.
0:10:31 So can you, for those of us who are not familiar,
0:10:33 what are the parameters of a Ted talk?
0:10:35 The length and can you use notes?
0:10:37 Are there teleprompters?
0:10:40 How does the whole thing work logistically?
0:10:42 – What makes us a different type of platform
0:10:45 from other events or conferences
0:10:49 is that we actually have a full-time curation team.
0:10:54 It is their 100% their job to go find speakers
0:10:57 who are just inspirational and motivational.
0:11:02 And then to train them on how to give a proper Ted talk.
0:11:05 So you could go through a couple of months of training
0:11:07 on how to really perfect your story.
0:11:11 It doesn’t matter if you’ve been speaking for 10, 20, 30 years,
0:11:14 giving a Ted talk can be really, really difficult.
0:11:18 For the simple fact, you’re only allowed to share one idea.
0:11:21 And people like to go on tangents and talk about other things
0:11:24 and splash extra things into their story
0:11:28 instead of just sticking with that one idea.
0:11:31 A Ted talk can be, we’ve had as little as five minutes,
0:11:35 seven minutes, 12 minutes, up to 18 minutes of a Ted talk.
0:11:37 But it’s really taking that person on a journey
0:11:39 who’s sitting in that audience
0:11:41 who might have never been interested in this topic
0:11:44 and you have sparked some interest from them
0:11:47 because you started with your own personal story,
0:11:51 which then segued into what is it that you’re trying to change
0:11:53 or what were you inspired by
0:11:55 or what was the actions you took
0:11:57 from your personal story and development.
0:11:59 And then wrapping that with a nice bow
0:12:01 to make it entertaining or engaging,
0:12:03 captivating or motivating.
0:12:06 And that’s not always easy for a lot of speakers,
0:12:08 no matter how long you’ve been doing this for.
0:12:10 So it’s training that comes into that.
0:12:13 – Okay, so the length is 18 minutes.
0:12:15 Can I use a teleprompter?
0:12:16 – No teleprompters.
0:12:17 – Can I use notes?
0:12:21 – But we do allow people sometimes to use notes.
0:12:25 And what you see on YouTube is an edited version of a Ted talk.
0:12:26 These are all filmed at conferences.
0:12:28 People think these are filmed in studios.
0:12:32 This is at a live conference and people mess up.
0:12:34 Sometimes you don’t always,
0:12:37 you could have that straight 18 minute flow
0:12:40 and the audience cheers you on and tells you,
0:12:43 it’s okay, keep going and all of this good stuff.
0:12:45 It’s really an emotional rollercoaster
0:12:46 when you’re sitting in that theater
0:12:50 to see these people pour out their hearts and their ideas.
0:12:52 And sometimes they’re so nervous
0:12:55 because that Ted circle can make you a little bit nervous
0:12:57 and they come through like a champ.
0:12:59 And so sometimes they have to pull out their notes
0:13:01 because they forgot a word or two.
0:13:04 You just don’t happen to see that on YouTube.
0:13:09 – And who is in the Monique Ted Talk Hall of Fame?
0:13:11 – Reshma Sujani.
0:13:13 I don’t know if you are familiar with her,
0:13:17 but her Ted talk is Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection.
0:13:21 And the reason why that resonates a lot with me personally
0:13:24 is because we are taught as women and girls usually
0:13:28 to be nice and to always think about the nice way
0:13:30 of how you deliver things.
0:13:33 And niceness comes with perfectionism,
0:13:34 not all the time, but a lot of the time.
0:13:36 I was like, I’m not gonna go for something
0:13:40 unless I’m 100% buttoned up together and perfect at it.
0:13:43 And we lose out on a lot of opportunities,
0:13:45 but boys are taught to be brave.
0:13:47 They are taught to take risks.
0:13:50 They are taught to try different things.
0:13:53 And she was like, we need to teach our girls
0:13:56 that same thing for us to move through society,
0:13:59 this new way of society by bravery
0:14:01 because it is a lot of risk taking.
0:14:03 It is a lot of intentionality and choices
0:14:05 and to make sure that you’re making the right decision.
0:14:08 But when you don’t necessarily make the right decision,
0:14:10 how can you bounce back quickly?
0:14:12 And that’s what I love about her talk.
0:14:13 – Okay.
0:14:16 Now, you say you have these people
0:14:20 who are coaches and teachers and they select speakers.
0:14:24 So are you telling me that this is like a MacArthur Fellowship?
0:14:26 You don’t apply for a MacArthur Fellowship.
0:14:29 You don’t apply for a Nobel Prize.
0:14:30 You just hope the phone rings.
0:14:33 So is that how it works for you?
0:14:35 – So three ways really, our curation team goes out
0:14:38 and looks for speakers that they might come across
0:14:39 through reading about them,
0:14:42 hearing about them, referrals or what have you.
0:14:45 Then we actually have past alumni speakers
0:14:48 who will suggest other speakers to us
0:14:50 and that we should explore and think about.
0:14:53 And then the third way is we actually have a speaker form.
0:14:57 You can nominate yourself for TedTalk at Ted.com
0:14:59 at our speaker nomination form.
0:15:00 But this is the kicker.
0:15:02 The thing that people don’t do
0:15:06 when they do the speaker nomination form is do your research.
0:15:08 Has that talk already happened?
0:15:11 We have thousands and thousands of talks
0:15:13 on thousands of different topics.
0:15:16 And it is up to that person to research
0:15:18 and look at our archives, look at past YouTube
0:15:21 to see if someone already spoke about that topic.
0:15:24 If they have and you’re gonna speak in a similar way,
0:15:25 you’re not gonna be platform.
0:15:27 We’re not gonna repeat it.
0:15:29 It has to be something that’s different and unique.
0:15:31 And so you might think you have the greatest idea
0:15:33 and you’re the greatest speaker.
0:15:35 But believe me, there might have already been someone
0:15:37 who thought they had the greatest idea
0:15:39 and the same idea that you had.
0:15:43 And so it’s really important that if you apply to speak,
0:15:45 that you really talk about the idea.
0:15:47 This is not about your PR campaign.
0:15:49 This is not about how many talks you’ve given.
0:15:52 It is all about the idea you wanna present
0:15:55 and why that is different and special and unique
0:15:58 than what has ever been seen on a Ted stage.
0:16:02 – And are you therefore saying that TedX
0:16:06 is not the farm system for Ted flagship?
0:16:07 If you gave a TedX talk,
0:16:11 you cannot give it as a Ted flagship talk.
0:16:12 – You would probably have to give it.
0:16:17 Now, Brene Brown was discovered from a TedX talk.
0:16:20 She wasn’t on a Ted flagship talk.
0:16:22 And we’ve had her for Ted talk.
0:16:24 So it’s for a flagship talk.
0:16:27 So it doesn’t mean that you are completely out of the running
0:16:31 for a Ted flagship opportunity.
0:16:33 You might have to come with something different,
0:16:35 but that doesn’t mean there,
0:16:38 we’ve discovered plenty of people out of the TedX platform
0:16:41 many, many times, but it’s about the idea.
0:16:43 So you can be one person
0:16:45 that has several different amazing ideas.
0:16:48 And so like you said, you’ve given multiple TedX talks.
0:16:51 I’m sure they were on various topics.
0:16:55 And it’s the same way here as in we like fresh ideas.
0:16:58 It could come from the same person multiple times.
0:16:59 It’s all about the idea.
0:17:03 – And for the people who apply,
0:17:06 what percentage actually make it?
0:17:11 – We do about 80 TedTalks at our Vancouver conference
0:17:16 and we do about 40 to 45 TedTalks at our TedNext conference.
0:17:19 So that’s 120.
0:17:23 So we have 20,000 people who have submitted
0:17:27 for TedTalks through our online form.
0:17:32 And it’s only 100 plus speakers, maybe 200 speakers
0:17:33 that we do every year.
0:17:35 So it’s extremely competitive.
0:17:39 So we always say like you have to really have a tight idea
0:17:41 for the flagship opportunity,
0:17:45 but it’s a little bit easier to go through the TedX route
0:17:46 because there’s more of them.
0:17:49 There’s 3000 TedX events around the globe.
0:17:54 And it’s basically based on that particular city or region.
0:17:56 And you probably would have more access that way,
0:17:59 but don’t give up trying to get to the flagship.
0:18:02 Just keep applying and coming up with new ideas.
0:18:07 – And what happens if, I don’t know, take an extreme,
0:18:12 if Michelle Obama or Steve Jobs or, I don’t know, Elon Musk
0:18:15 or Bill Gates, they don’t apply.
0:18:17 They’re people’s people tell you,
0:18:19 would you like Steve Jobs at Ted?
0:18:21 Would you like Elon Musk?
0:18:22 Would you like Michelle Obama?
0:18:25 Would you like Malala?
0:18:26 Do you get those kind of calls?
0:18:28 Do you turn them down sometimes?
0:18:32 – Elon spoke in 2022
0:18:35 and he spoke previously before there.
0:18:40 So we get that level of people speaking at our conferences.
0:18:42 No, we do not turn them down.
0:18:45 We figure out how to make it work,
0:18:48 especially if they have something really interesting
0:18:49 to share and to say.
0:18:52 So like I said, our curation team goes out
0:18:55 and finds these speakers or they’re connected
0:18:56 to these speakers.
0:18:58 And as long as the idea is strong
0:19:01 and it makes sense for the theme of that conference,
0:19:03 we invite them in.
0:19:06 – Okay, now this is, I have spoken many, many times.
0:19:10 So I’m very familiar with how the circuit works.
0:19:15 And lots of speakers have, I think just outlandish writers.
0:19:18 I heard a story that when Barbara Streisand
0:19:20 spoke at the San Jose Shark Tank,
0:19:22 she wanted a straight shot from her dressing room
0:19:23 to the stage.
0:19:26 So they had to bust open a wall.
0:19:28 When Prince spoke there,
0:19:33 he wanted all the background rooms and all the green rooms,
0:19:36 all, everything had to be painted purple.
0:19:39 And Steve Jobs, he wants a special stool
0:19:42 made by Tibetan monks and he wants water from,
0:19:45 I don’t know, some special spring in Nicaragua.
0:19:48 So do you get those kinds of things?
0:19:49 Do you just shake your head and you say,
0:19:51 you know, we are freaking Ted.
0:19:53 We don’t do bullshit like that.
0:19:55 – I’ve only been at Ted going on three years
0:19:59 and I have never seen any writer like that.
0:20:01 So I’m sure there might be a story or two
0:20:04 that someone from the curation team could tell,
0:20:07 but we’re pretty basic with backstage.
0:20:09 I haven’t seen anything crazy like that.
0:20:12 And Ted is not that type of platform.
0:20:14 So I don’t think we even get anything like that,
0:20:15 but I could be wrong.
0:20:17 Like I said, I’m only three years in.
0:20:22 – Don’t get me wrong.
0:20:25 I find it just amazing that if Barbara Streisand said,
0:20:28 “Yeah, I’ll speak at Ted, but this is what I need.”
0:20:30 I can see her doing that.
0:20:32 Anyway, okay, we don’t want to, we don’t want to,
0:20:34 I get the message, I get the message.
0:20:34 – Let’s get Barbara.
0:20:36 I want to get Barbara on our stage.
0:20:38 So I don’t want to stop anything.
0:20:40 Let’s see how we could work something out with Barbara.
0:20:43 – Well, I can’t tell you that I’m her BFF.
0:20:45 So I can’t help you.
0:20:48 I knew the editor of her book and let’s just say,
0:20:50 that was a, that was an interesting job.
0:20:52 She’s a very interesting person to put it mildly.
0:20:54 – You can hear some stories to tell.
0:20:55 I can tell.
0:20:55 – Yeah, I bet, yeah.
0:20:59 Okay, so now are you telling me that, like seriously,
0:21:01 if Donald Trump said, “I want to be on Ted,”
0:21:02 I have a lot to say.
0:21:04 I have very different ideas.
0:21:05 What do you say?
0:21:10 – Oh, you are asking the tough questions, Kai.
0:21:11 I don’t know about that one.
0:21:16 So, you know, Chris Anderson is the chairman of Ted.
0:21:21 He is the one that took over Ted in the early 2000s.
0:21:26 He was all about sharing ideas that were really impactful.
0:21:28 And so it would go all the way up to him.
0:21:33 I wouldn’t have anything to say or do in this situation.
0:21:36 It would go all the way up to what he wants to do here.
0:21:39 So I can’t even give you my own personal opinion
0:21:40 because it would never come to me.
0:21:44 – I had to try, I had to try.
0:21:46 – I understand.
0:21:49 Listen, I’ve never been asked to speak at Ted flagships.
0:21:52 I’m trying to figure out like, I’m going to be 20,001.
0:21:55 – And we got to get this together.
0:21:57 I got to approve on that one.
0:21:58 I’m surprised at that.
0:21:59 – I’m surprised too.
0:22:01 Don’t get me wrong.
0:22:03 – You got to work on that.
0:22:05 – Yeah, we’ll follow up with that.
0:22:07 I figured when I was early in my career,
0:22:10 I figured, okay, this is how you know you’re a baller
0:22:12 and you’ve got it made.
0:22:14 You spoke at Davos and you spoke at Ted.
0:22:16 And after that, you can die.
0:22:19 The rest of your life is anticlimactic.
0:22:21 – Mission accomplished, mission accomplished.
0:22:22 – Yeah, so I’m 50% there.
0:22:24 I’ve spoken at Davos twice,
0:22:28 but I have not yet spoken at Ted in Vancouver.
0:22:30 And Canadians love me.
0:22:32 I never met a Canadian I didn’t like.
0:22:33 And I love hockey.
0:22:37 I can talk hockey all day long for your Vancouver audience.
0:22:40 – I’m sure more than the Canadians love you guys.
0:22:42 We would have to just work on that one.
0:22:44 (upbeat music)
0:22:54 – This is more of a serious question.
0:22:59 So do you view being a Ted flagship speaker
0:23:03 as a reward or part of the journey?
0:23:06 – Part of the journey.
0:23:11 What is the special sauce of Ted is platforming people
0:23:13 that people don’t know about?
0:23:16 The people who are up and coming, the builders,
0:23:18 the people that you discover,
0:23:21 and then you absolutely get to elevate
0:23:23 and amplify some amazing things.
0:23:26 And so we love being that type of platform.
0:23:30 Yes, we love to showcase those that have household names,
0:23:33 but I’m telling you, when you sit through 80 Ted Talks,
0:23:35 you are really thinking about,
0:23:37 okay, I think I’m gonna like this,
0:23:38 but when you’re sitting in the audience
0:23:40 and you listen to someone you never heard about,
0:23:42 you are so inspired and blown away
0:23:47 about what people accomplish as a standard human being
0:23:49 who might not have all the resources
0:23:52 that everyone else has who are popular
0:23:55 and to know how they accomplish some of these wonderful things.
0:23:57 It’s just so amazing to sit in that audience.
0:24:00 You go through these roller coasters of emotions.
0:24:01 There’s laughter, then there’s crying,
0:24:04 then there’s anger, then there’s thinking and pondering.
0:24:05 It’s a lot.
0:24:07 We have something called a Ted Ake
0:24:10 that happens after you leave Vancouver.
0:24:12 Because you are just so overwhelmed
0:24:15 by all of these amazing speakers,
0:24:16 and then they come off the stage
0:24:17 and they sit right next to you.
0:24:19 They literally stay for the entire conference.
0:24:20 You get to talk to them.
0:24:22 It’s absolutely amazing.
0:24:25 – I have not even been to the Vancouver Ted.
0:24:28 – We’re discovering a lot about this guy.
0:24:29 We gotta work on this.
0:24:30 – Yeah.
0:24:31 – We gotta get you there.
0:24:33 – I need to come out of my shell.
0:24:36 Listen, dead serious now.
0:24:39 My podcast is called Remarkable People
0:24:42 and it’s not rich people and it’s not famous people.
0:24:44 It’s remarkable people.
0:24:45 So we have people like,
0:24:48 I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, Haleem Flowers.
0:24:52 At 16, he was sentenced to 40 something years
0:24:53 for accessory to murder.
0:24:55 He got out after 22 years.
0:25:00 And now he’s predicted to be the next Jean-Michel Basquiat.
0:25:01 So we have people like that.
0:25:04 We have people who have become very successful,
0:25:07 overcoming prison and all kinds of stuff.
0:25:09 People that you wouldn’t have heard of.
0:25:12 So tell your creation team to listen to my podcast.
0:25:14 We do a lot of filtering.
0:25:17 We reject about 2,500 people a year to get 50.
0:25:19 So we’re not as selective as you,
0:25:22 but we’re up there in terms of selectivity.
0:25:26 We can act as a kind of first pass filter for you.
0:25:27 – That’s amazing.
0:25:30 And absolutely, now I’m gonna be a listener too
0:25:33 to help make sure I refer some things.
0:25:35 And I appreciate even being on the podcast myself.
0:25:39 But yeah, it’s those that the remarkable people,
0:25:41 the day-to-day of humanity
0:25:44 and things that people accomplish really,
0:25:45 and you sitting there hearing their story,
0:25:47 it really blows you away.
0:25:50 So I love the undiscovered talent
0:25:53 that comes across the TED stages.
0:25:56 – You know, in a sense, I love TED
0:25:58 and I also love the moth, right?
0:26:00 So you must listen to the moth, right?
0:26:04 That’s also an interesting source of edutainment,
0:26:05 shall I say.
0:26:07 So now I would like to know
0:26:12 what separates a good TED flagship speaker
0:26:14 from a remarkable one.
0:26:18 – Oh, it is how they start their story.
0:26:22 So if you can grab people in the first 10 seconds
0:26:24 of your talk where someone is leaning in,
0:26:28 not because they can’t hear, they’re just so engaged.
0:26:31 And I’ve seen this live and in person.
0:26:36 And then I’m like, oh, she or he or they or they got ’em
0:26:38 because everyone in that audience
0:26:39 is pretty much just leaning in
0:26:43 because the first 10 seconds just grabbed their attention.
0:26:46 And what always grabs their attention
0:26:48 is how you personalize your story.
0:26:53 You being a human and you weaving in your human aspect
0:26:56 of what you personally were motivated and inspired by,
0:26:58 saw, conquered or whatever.
0:27:01 And really grasping that right at the beginning
0:27:03 takes people on a wonderful ride.
0:27:05 They are all in after that.
0:27:09 – So tell me some of your favorite first 10 seconds.
0:27:12 – I would think about someone who’s the unexpected,
0:27:14 like saying I was trapped in a well.
0:27:18 And then I figured out that while I was pondering
0:27:20 and all this in this trapped place
0:27:21 that I needed to think differently
0:27:25 or was sitting by the bedside, the death doula.
0:27:28 This was another TED talk that is up on YouTube.
0:27:31 So I never even knew that existed,
0:27:34 that there’s someone that walks you through death and grief
0:27:37 before your loved one passes away.
0:27:39 And how she started her story was that
0:27:41 how she sits in that with someone.
0:27:44 And we’ve all experienced, most of us,
0:27:46 if not all of us have experienced grief.
0:27:49 And for her, this is her day to day job
0:27:52 and that this actually exists makes me think about,
0:27:54 okay, I think I might need a death doula
0:27:56 if I ever go through something like this.
0:27:59 Like I’ve just discovered so many things
0:28:03 about how do you create beautiful, wonderful art
0:28:06 with the most mundane things
0:28:09 and how it just moved and challenged people.
0:28:13 It’s just amazing how resourceful
0:28:16 so many people are with just a little bit
0:28:20 of creativity or thought or resources
0:28:22 and how big of an impact they can make
0:28:23 on society and in humanity.
0:28:28 – The best TEDx talk that I gave in my humble opinion,
0:28:31 and I have given, as I said, eight,
0:28:35 my opening line was when I die,
0:28:38 I want you to say that I helped you make a difference,
0:28:40 that you made the world a better place.
0:28:43 That was my first five seconds or so.
0:28:44 So.
0:28:47 – And I bet a lot of people leaned into that too.
0:28:50 – Well, what are you gonna say?
0:28:51 No guy, you suck.
0:28:53 That’s why you’re not on a flagship speaker.
0:28:57 – I’m telling you guys, we’re gonna work on that.
0:29:00 (laughing)
0:29:02 I’ll give you my phone number.
0:29:05 Okay, so now next question.
0:29:09 How has the audience experience evolved
0:29:13 in the last 20, 30 years of TEDx?
0:29:16 – TEDx was basically a standard conference
0:29:18 of just pure TEDx talks.
0:29:21 So you went there, you had about four days
0:29:24 of about 12 sessions of people
0:29:26 just talking about amazing things.
0:29:31 And now we create this full-on experiential experience
0:29:32 for our events.
0:29:34 So when you come to the conference,
0:29:37 you never queue in a line, we don’t have lines,
0:29:38 and we have thousands of people that come.
0:29:41 It is a very unique concierge experience.
0:29:44 You’re met at the door with someone who asks you your name,
0:29:46 and as soon as you ride up the escalator,
0:29:48 there’s someone there waiting with your badge,
0:29:49 and you go right in.
0:29:53 So we’ve created and perfected the intrigue
0:29:55 and entrance experience for our conferences.
0:29:57 And then when you go there,
0:30:00 there is opportunities for you to participate
0:30:04 in discovery sessions where you get to do something unique
0:30:05 that you’ve never gotten to do before.
0:30:07 We’ve had welding classes.
0:30:10 We have tree doctors that take you out into the forest
0:30:12 so you can listen to trees breathe.
0:30:15 We’ve had how you make your own sneakers.
0:30:19 So we’ve had these very unique action-based discovery sessions.
0:30:21 We have something called brain dates.
0:30:25 So you can put in an app that you wanna talk about this,
0:30:27 and people will say, “I wanna talk about that with you too,”
0:30:29 and they come and meet you for a brain date,
0:30:31 and you have a wonderful conversation
0:30:33 with someone you’ve never met on a topic
0:30:37 you never even thought would be present within TED.
0:30:39 We have dinners.
0:30:41 And so you’ll go and you’ll have a hosted dinner
0:30:45 with 25, 30, 40 people of your best friends.
0:30:47 We have game nights that happen within the conference,
0:30:50 so you get to do some fun activities as well.
0:30:53 We have you scale buildings outside,
0:30:56 so you can scale a building in Vancouver as an activity.
0:31:00 Then we have reflection rooms, and we have rest spots,
0:31:02 and then we have experiential activations
0:31:05 where you’ll engage with something from robotics
0:31:08 or someone has created this new product
0:31:11 or new idea that hasn’t even come out yet.
0:31:13 So it’s just this, like I said, the TED-AIC happens
0:31:16 because you are just overwhelmed
0:31:19 from this very five-day experience of 80-plus TED talks
0:31:22 and 100 other activities.
0:31:25 – And how many people go through this every year?
0:31:27 – About 1,800 to 2,000.
0:31:30 – And there must be more than 2,000 people who want to attend.
0:31:33 How do you pick the attendees?
0:31:35 – Yeah, you have to go through our application process.
0:31:39 So the thing is, but anyone can apply, that’s the thing.
0:31:42 People think this is very hush-hush exclusive.
0:31:47 No, anyone can apply to attend a TED flagship event.
0:31:49 You have a little bit more of a robust application
0:31:52 for Vancouver, but our TED Atlanta one,
0:31:55 much more easy for you to get access to,
0:31:59 but anyone can apply to any of our flagship conferences.
0:32:02 And it’s more about making sure we keep the right people out
0:32:04 than it is letting the right people in.
0:32:05 (laughing)
0:32:07 – And how much does it cost
0:32:10 if you’ve gone for rid, but you get accepted?
0:32:13 – Yeah, so the flagship is a premium conference.
0:32:18 So our average ticket price is $12,500 for that one,
0:32:23 but our TED Atlanta comp flagship is $2,800.
0:32:27 And so it is a pared-down version of the Vancouver,
0:32:29 but it still gives you the discovery sessions,
0:32:33 the brain days, the activities, the 45 plus TED talks.
0:32:36 So like I said, we were creating an ecosystem of events,
0:32:39 and you couldn’t just go from TEDx all the way to Vancouver.
0:32:40 We needed to meet you in the middle
0:32:42 to get you really acclimated and excited
0:32:45 about the in-person experience,
0:32:47 and that’s why TED Next was created.
0:32:51 At TED in Vancouver, you could have just a,
0:32:54 you know, very, very interesting breakout,
0:32:57 and you could take people surfing in Tofino
0:33:02 because it’s about, I think a 30-minute little jog away
0:33:07 and on a little seaplane, you could do that.
0:33:10 I’ll do that for you, or I could do a session
0:33:12 about how to be a podcaster if you wanna–
0:33:13 – Oh, we gotta get–
0:33:16 – I mean, if you can do welding, I can do podcasting.
0:33:17 How’s that?
0:33:20 – We have so many fun and unique things,
0:33:23 but we have our own podcast initiative as well,
0:33:26 and so a lot of our podcasters come
0:33:28 and they might do a live podcast recording
0:33:33 from our flagships, but people walk away, blown away.
0:33:35 It’s literally, I’ve been in the conferences
0:33:37 and events industry my entire career,
0:33:41 and when I joined TED, I’ve never seen any event like that.
0:33:45 That is a true connective tissue
0:33:49 that you feel so immersed in something so special
0:33:50 that you just wanna keep having that feeling
0:33:51 over and over again.
0:33:55 – Well, I can tell you that from what you described,
0:34:00 it’s much more interesting to go to TED than Dovels
0:34:03 because I gotta tell you, Dovels is just,
0:34:06 in my humble opinion, it’s just bullshit.
0:34:08 There’s so many eagles there,
0:34:11 and now it is true that you could go into the men’s room
0:34:13 and you look over and you’re taking a piss
0:34:15 next to the president of Uruguay or something.
0:34:19 That is true, but I mean, that only goes so far.
0:34:21 Wow, what a great experience.
0:34:25 I’m gonna save up my shackles so I can come over here.
0:34:28 – You have to come, and we have people who have,
0:34:30 one of the things for our first timers
0:34:33 is we have something called our first timers talk
0:34:35 because people come and they have
0:34:36 a little bit of an imposter syndrome
0:34:39 because you literally have these amazing people
0:34:42 who you see on the stage who stick around
0:34:46 and I hosted a dinner one time and I had an astronaut,
0:34:48 a guy that puts data on the moon,
0:34:52 an army psychologist, a comedian, and then myself.
0:34:56 And we had some of the most funniest conversations
0:34:59 you can imagine, but you have those type of people
0:35:02 in the room and you might think you don’t belong there,
0:35:05 but if you’re there, you belong there.
0:35:06 And that’s one of the things
0:35:09 that we like to explain to people.
0:35:10 – Well, Monique, I can tell you,
0:35:13 and Madison will confirm this,
0:35:15 that I have many faults,
0:35:19 but one of them is not having the imposter syndrome.
0:35:22 – You’re like, I belong here in this room.
0:35:27 – Why wasn’t I here before?
0:35:29 – There you go, you have the opposite.
0:35:33 – I have the entitlement syndrome
0:35:36 more than the imposter syndrome, yeah.
0:35:40 – Okay, so my last question for you is that,
0:35:41 I look at your career,
0:35:43 you’ve done so many interesting things,
0:35:46 you have been exposed to so many remarkable people
0:35:50 and people listening to this is like,
0:35:51 how can I be like her?
0:35:53 How can I have such an interesting job?
0:35:56 How can I have such joy in my voice
0:35:58 as I describe what I do?
0:36:00 So pretend that there’s somebody who’s,
0:36:03 I don’t know, in high school listening to this and saying,
0:36:06 “Shit, I wanna be like her, man, what do I need to do?”
0:36:10 So what do they need to do besides join the circus?
0:36:11 – Let me tell you guys,
0:36:16 I remember I was such a hard worker in my early career
0:36:18 and I sat down one day and I was like,
0:36:21 damn, all of this hard work is doing nothing
0:36:24 but getting me more work, what am I doing wrong?
0:36:28 And I decided to have intentionality.
0:36:30 And I think that was a real game changer for me.
0:36:33 It was more about I need to start mapping out
0:36:37 what I want my life, my professional development
0:36:39 to look like, not worry about the titles,
0:36:42 but worry about what do I need to get from a skill set
0:36:44 that’s gonna attract things to me?
0:36:48 Ted came to me from a recruitment standpoint.
0:36:51 And so when I was thinking about how do I build
0:36:55 that breath of work that people will come to find me,
0:36:57 it was, okay, I need to become better
0:37:00 at understanding revenue generating.
0:37:04 And I need to become better at how I communicate my story.
0:37:07 And I need to become better at building my own personal brand
0:37:09 and being a go-to for solutions.
0:37:13 And I would do things within each of these organizations
0:37:15 to feed into those four buckets.
0:37:19 And people would start noticing me for those four key things.
0:37:21 And then I would just move on to another job
0:37:24 and it’s, okay, now I wanna be known as a P&L owner here.
0:37:26 I would set out my intention
0:37:28 about what I want people to know me for.
0:37:31 And then I would put smoke signals out
0:37:34 to let people know that they should know me for this.
0:37:36 And it actually worked.
0:37:39 And then each job that I was going to,
0:37:40 I just wanted to grow more and more and more.
0:37:42 There’s still more growth in me.
0:37:46 There’s still more growth in me within Ted and without Ted.
0:37:49 And so I just think once you set the intention about,
0:37:52 I’m not just gonna flap my wings around and just exist,
0:37:54 I’m gonna live.
0:37:55 And what does living look like for me,
0:37:58 whether it’s in my professional or my personal life.
0:38:00 And I’m gonna do it and put action behind it.
0:38:01 And so far, so good.
0:38:02 It’s worked for me.
0:38:06 – Man, Monique, I gotta tell you something, man.
0:38:09 If we could bottle your attitude, man, we would just,
0:38:12 oh my God, we’d sell so much of that.
0:38:13 We gotta put you in a bottle.
0:38:15 We gotta get the Monique formula.
0:38:19 My God, listen, Madison and I,
0:38:23 we interviewed 250 people, 52 people a year.
0:38:26 When I tell you something like that, that’s not bullshit.
0:38:27 I don’t say that to everybody.
0:38:28 My God.
0:38:30 – Oh man, I appreciate that.
0:38:31 – We gotta bottle you.
0:38:35 If I ran Ted, I would put you in my flagship for sure.
0:38:37 – Ah, I appreciate it.
0:38:39 I’m gonna give my Ted talk at Guy’s Ted.
0:38:43 – I would break the wall so you can walk straight to the stage.
0:38:45 I would paint it all purple for you.
0:38:47 I would get you Tibetan water.
0:38:52 I would get you handmade German stool for you to sit on.
0:38:53 I give you more than 18 minutes.
0:38:56 I would do whatever it took to get you.
0:38:58 – Oh, I appreciate that.
0:39:00 This is the best day right now, I hear that.
0:39:04 – All right Monique, we gotta let you go
0:39:06 because we don’t wanna make too high a bar
0:39:09 for all the other episodes that’s gonna follow you
0:39:10 on Remarkable People.
0:39:11 All right.
0:39:13 – Oh, thank you so much for having me.
0:39:19 – This is Remarkable People.
In this episode of Remarkable People, join Guy Kawasaki for an inspiring conversation with Monique Ruff-Bell, Chief Program and Strategy Officer at TED. From her early days ‘running away with the circus’ at Ringling Brothers to orchestrating TED’s world-renowned conferences, Monique shares insights on curating ideas that change the world. Discover how TED evolved from a single conference to a global movement and learn what makes a talk truly remarkable. Her infectious energy and strategic vision for platforming transformative ideas will leave you inspired to share your own story.
Guy Kawasaki is on a mission to make you remarkable. His Remarkable People podcast features interviews with remarkable people such as Jane Goodall, Marc Benioff, Woz, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bob Cialdini. Every episode will make you more remarkable.
With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley as a Venture Capitalist and advisor to the top entrepreneurs in the world, Guy’s questions come from a place of curiosity and passion for technology, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and marketing. If you love society and culture, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow Remarkable People.
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Listeners of the Remarkable People podcast will learn from some of the most successful people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will help you be more remarkable.
Episodes of Remarkable People organized by topic: https://bit.ly/rptopology
Listen to Remarkable People here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guy-kawasakis-remarkable-people/id1483081827
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