"The small overlap between what we want to create in the world, and what is within our power to create, is the space that designers look for." Emilie Møllenbach, PhD, Product Design Lead at MobilePay, Denmark, finds meaning in the exploration of human behavior and looks at how insightful digital design can serve as a model for a more honest way to be human.
Insightful Design for Giving a Talk
At one point in our coaching process for TEDxOdenseWomen, I told Emilie that if I ever start a blog about speaker coaching, she would get her own chapter. So here it is.
Emilie, put very simply, flipped a switch in my head, with this one thing she said in one of our sessions: “We’re raised in a mindset of scarcity”, she said, “in the constant fear that there is not enough in the world for everyone, and that we are not enough. And it’s just not true.”
Emilie herself had started on her TEDx journey from a powerpoint of 52 slides, in which she had her ideas written down. During each of our sessions, almost every sentence was a new opportunity for a yet another talk. Yet another rabbit hole to go down.
Lots of explaining, an infinite supply of ideas and lots of trying to be clear enough, thorough enough, comprehensive enough and good enough for the audience. As I’m sure many of you know, having a mind bursting with ideas is both a blessing and a curse 🙂
By the end of her coaching process, Emilie had zero slides left, and one message that came shining through:
Wake up, on the morning of your talk, and know that you are enough. If you’ve been picked to give a talk on a particular subject, it must be for a reason. Do justice to this reason and stay true to who you are. You don’t really need your powerpoint slides, you don’t really need the perfect shirt, and you definitely don’t need to explain it to death.
You are enough.
What you stand for, your raison d’etre, is what your talk should be about, and how that can help others. And not much else.
Emilie’s pledge for a mindset of bounty rings in my head to this day, every time I talk to a speaker, a conference organizer, a session moderator, and really whenever the idea of giving is being discussed. There is infinite creativity in the world, so be generous with yours and share it with whoever is listening. More will flow.
You have enough. You are enough.
And that is the essence of insightful (talk) design.
Thank you, Emilie!
