As a professional keynote speaker for over 15 years, I have always wanted to deliver a TED Talk. TED is at the top of the mountain for professional speakers, and I’m thankful that years ago, TED launched TEDx local community conferences. I even had a cameo in my pal, Marcus Whitney’s TEDx Nashville talk a few eleven years ago.

I’ve waited years to deliver my talk

I know other speakers who have delivered multiple TEDx talks, some better than others. I’ve also seen talks that didn’t seem to fit the speakers or seemed unrehearsed or poorly planned. To me, TEDx is important, and I’ve waited years to deliver my talk because I wanted the topic to be my most important message, not just something on my mind or a trending topic of the day.

Earlier in my career as a speaker, I would deliver presentations on topics I was interested in at the time, but I made a rookie mistake: I gave those talks only once or twice before moving on to new topics. This might have had something to do with my undiagnosed ADHD at the time (and also my realization that Marcus’ TEDx talk was eleven freaking years ago).

There is a reason why Jerry Seinfeld is known for delivering practically the same set year after year, and your favorite bands primarily play their hits at concerts. Admit it, you want to hear the classics, right?

Performing for audiences isn’t about the artist; it’s about the audience.

My lightbulb moment might have been seeing the brilliant Guy Kawasaki speak many years back at Gnomedex, when he loaded up his laptop and asked the audience which presentation they wanted to see. Based on the show of hands, he loaded up his classic “Art of the Start” and delivered it like a pro.

Anyhoo…. here we are in 2026 on March 28th, I’ll be delivering my first and perhaps only TEDx talk in Franklin, Tennessee, and if you are in the area, I hope to see you there. It’s going to be an amazing event filled with brilliant speakers whom I’m sure you will enjoy.

GET YOUR TICKET

I hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it because of commitments or geography, no worries. I’ll share the recording when it’s live on TED’s YouTube Channel. Stay tuned.