The Difference Between a Good Talk and a Great One
This week, I find the Red Thread in a TED talk by Brian Little: “Who Are You Really? The Puzzle of Personality.”
The presence of the Red Thread is often the difference between a good talk and a great one. Watch the video for yourself first. Then see if you can pick out the first four elements: the Goal, the Problem, the Idea, and the Change. Little doesn’t get into step five, the Action, but that’s because he’s so focused on laying out a compelling case for a big idea and a surprising path to change.
See if you can pick out the elements yourself. Then you can compare how I break it down to learn how to make the Red Thread work for you.
Resources
- “Who Are You, Really? The Puzzle of Personality” TED Talk
- TED Talk interactive transcript
- Me, Myself, and I: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being by Brian Little
- How to Find The Red Thread in Others’ Messages
Transcript
Let’s find the Red Thread in a TED talk. I like finding Red Threads in talks because often times the Red Thread, the presence of the Red Thread is the difference between a good talk and a great one.
In this case, let’s take a look a Brian Little’s recent TED talk, “Who Are You Really? The Puzzle of Personality.” Brian wrote a book that the puzzle personality is a bit of an excerpt from, it’s called “Me, Myself and I: The Science of Personality.” Read it, loved it, which is one of the reasons why I found his talk in the first place.
But here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go watch the TED talk or go read the TED talk in the transcripts, and see if you can find the elements of the Red Thread. Because what you’ll see is that four of the five elements are there and they’re in the order that I suggested they always go.
In other words, there is a statement of what this talk is about, what the goal of the audience is that he’s trying to help achieve. Second, what is the underlying problem that’s getting in the way of us achieving that goal? Third, a new idea, a core piece of information in this case that is something that we can’t unhear. That changes our understanding of the world as we saw it, and explains why the problem is such a problem. It also helps dictate the change that he’s asking for, a high-level change that he’s asking people to make.
Now, consistent with a lot of TED Talks, there isn’t a detailed explanation of the fifth piece, which are additional actions you can take. Mostly because it’s time-bound. And really what he’s doing is introducing this new idea up front, which means he wisely decided to use his time making the case for that rather than in giving you the how-to instructions to put the change in place. So go watch the talk, come back, or go pretend that you did and we’ll break it down.
Now I said up front that he does include a statement of the goal, and you can find it one minute in. He says, “And what we try to do in our own way is to make sense of how each of us, each of you, is in certain respects like all other people, like some other people, and like no other person.”
In other words, the goal of the audience that he is trying to help achieve is helping us answer this question. How can we make sense of how we are either like people or not like people around us?
He goes on and tells some other stories. He gives a wonderful acronym for thinking through the reliable basis of understanding personality. And then a third of the way through the talk, it’s good timing based on the fact that this is a 15-minute talk. So about five minutes, six minutes in, he states the real problem as he sees it.
“So here are the consequences,” he says, “that are really quite intriguing. We’re not always what we seem to be.” In other words, we have this goal — we want to see how are we like or not like other people. He’s introduced a framework that helps us understand what the basis of being like or not like other people is. And then he introduces something that we may not realize, that’s getting in the way of our goal: the fact that we’re not always who we appear to be to other people, or we’re not always consistent.
He goes through and explains that a little bit more. He tells a very funny story about Charles which I recommend you go watch. Then just about three-quarters of the way through he introduces a one-two punch of an idea followed by the change. So now that we’ve got this problem that we’re not always who we seem to be. Now he introduces a new concept of something called “free traits.” And he summarizes that section of the talk.
In other words, the second third of the talk. He summarizes it with the idea statement which reads this way: “What are these free traits? They’re where we enact a script in order to advance a core project in our lives. And they are what matters.”
In other words, he’s saying two-thirds of the way through the talk, one third articulating the problem, one third articulating this new idea is that he thing that we have to understand in order to solve a problem is that even though we’re not who we always appear to be, there is an answer to that. It’s something called free traits. In other words, there are certain things about us that are set in stone. But situationally, other things change and those are the free traits.
Right after he introduces the idea, he introduces the change. He says, “Don’t ask people what type they are,” what kind of person, what personality they are. Ask them, ‘What are your core projects in your life?’” And he uses that to start this final discussion of what are these core projects, how do they reveal these free traits? And ultimately he’s giving us the solution to achieving our goal.
If we ask people this question, what are the core projects in your life? We start to get a sense of how are they like us and not like us. And, ultimately as he promises, we get a better sense of ourselves. So that’s Brian Little’s Red Thread. Did you find it?
Hi Tamsen,
I am new to your world and very excited by it!
Thank you for this talk analysis. It’s a great one and entertaining too, and I identified with its thread. (especially since my about page is a description of my creative produce, reflecting my “core projects”). Aha! How is that for an action at the end?
Love me some inspiration in the form of confirmation!
The idea of a “theme” (big Pressfield fan here too) has always been the most challenging for me, as well as “what problem I solve”. I have been dancing around these for a while, with different words, but still unsure of what I got. Your examples, are making this easier to grasp, especially as they use other words to reveal them.
The 5 point structure, at that particular sequence is very powerful, and helps not only build a better talk but also to crack one’s work (and biz proposition) in general! #valuablefreebie
Not sure if Ariadne’s thread was red, but I love that yours is! Great choice of color for your field and this process.
Thank you! 🙂
Hello, Monicka! Thanks so much for watching and commenting. “Theme” was a tricky thing for to me figure out, too, and here’s where I landed: In books, the “theme” is the fundamental idea at the core of the book. To use a common Pressfield example, Rocky is all about “A bum can become a champ if he’s just given the chance.” The movie is set up to constantly pose and test that question.
Talks are very similar — the Red Thread (when taken as a summary of the five-point structure) IS the theme. It’s the answer to what is this talk really about?” For Brian Little, that’s “to find what makes the same or different, look at core projects.”
For people, well, we’re a bit more complicated, but the same approach still applies. Your Red Thread is the combination of your beliefs and assumptions (Ideas) plus the problems you solve and/or the way you do it. I’m drawn to problems of gaps between current reality and potential, which explains a lot about why much of my early career was in brand strategy — I want to figure out how to fulfill the promise I see in business, ideas, and people.
Some of the key beliefs and assumptions I have about that problem are that people (or businesses) already have all the resources they need — they just have to understand how to use them. I also believe, to borrow from electrical engineering, that energy sustained over time is power.
Given that, the way I solve the problems of “gaps” is to find the most “energy”-efficient way to fulfill potential. For me, that’s usually a framework or process, and almost always built around how someone thinks about it (because reframing thinking is the most sustainable way to create change).
Put those together and you get a Red Thread. Here’s the thing: you’ll likely have *multiple* ways you express that. I variously describe mine as “I help turn energy into power,” “I help people make things make sense,” “I help people/organizations find and tell their story,” “I help you find and refine your big idea.” They all say the same thing, and they all draw from those three critical central elements of Problem, Idea, and Change.
The only difference is who I’m talking to — I need to wrap my Red Thread around them. I need to shape it to what’s most likely to tie into something they care about.
So don’t worry if you don’t find “one” Red Thread (or one passion or one purpose). As long as you can comfortably say that what you come up with is consonant with you (no gaps!), you’re in great shape.