My Ted talk was featured on TED.com!
Vinh on the TED stage
This year in 2014 I was invited to speak at Ted x Macquarie University in Sydney. I recall watching so many Ted speakers in the past 6 – 7 years and they have all been amazing. One in particular that really inspired me was a talk by Simon Sinek – Start with why. If you haven’t seen that yet you need to go to youtube and search that right now! Do it, right now!
Ever since watching these videos, I began to think about how I would be able to get onto the stages of Ted one day. It’s been a long journey but I finally made it. It was just such a surreal day, I had my friends and family come and support me in Sydney! It was just so exciting. I arrived the evening before and asked if I could jump on the stage to rehearse, you know just to get comfortable with the layout. I normally don’t get that nervous anymore before going on stage but wow when I walked onto the platform I felt so nervous! It reminded me of the first time I ever got up on a stage to speak. I was scared stiff! I think it had something to do with the fact that this talk could open up many doors for me.
The morning of the talk came faster than I thought. I didn’t sleep much that night, I was in the hotel rehearsing and rehearsing till about 3am in the morning. Once it was 8am I felt like I had only slept for like 1 hour! So much adrenalin was pumping through my body, I felt great! Long story short it was my turn to go on stage and the rest is just a blur. I remember walking off stage and asking my family and friends “What happened??! was it good?!?!”. I got into some kind of zone like state when I was one stage and the performer in me just took over and before I knew it, it was over.
3 weeks later the video was released and within a week of being released my Tedx video was picked up by the editors at ted.com as being one of their weekly favourites!!! This was amazing, I can’t believe the editors at ted.com picked my video! I took a screen shot of it to remind me of this little milestone. Thanks for putting up with my extremely boastful post.
This immediately opened up doors for me in the US, it’s amazing what happens when you start to put yourself out there in the world. In life it’s all about taking risks, people get so caught up in “What happens if this goes wrong?” or “What happens if that goes wrong?”. We get so consumed in these thoughts that we end up doing nothing, this is why I love the entrepreneurial world so much, I love taking risks it really makes me feel alive. As they say the greatest risk of all to me is to risk nothing at all!
“If you are not willing to risk the unusual you will have to settle for the ordinary.”