Would you like to speak at four Ivy Leagues Colleges?
I just caught up with Emmy Award winning TEDx Speaker Dominique Luster.
She crushed the TEDxPittsburgh red carpet stage exactly one year ago and it’s been an amazing ride since.
She told me since TEDx, she’s spoken at four Ivy League colleges. Of course Harvard was first, and I saw her rocking a Penn hoodie backstage. Want to know how to pitch TEDx? I wrote a free eBook you can get here.
She is the endowed Charles “Teenie” Harris Archivist at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Her work strives to build a world-renown archive that is uniquely hyper-specialized on the life of African Americans in the mid 20th century.
The Teenie Harris Archive consists of almost 80,000 images dating from the 1930s to the 1970s; documenting what might be one of the most complete insights into African American urban life at that time.
So how does this happen?
How does someone do a TEDx Talk and it cascades into so many other things?
When I saw Dominique again over the weekend, we hadn’t spoken all year. I told her that I love to keep track of our speakers after their road to the red carpet. Generally what happens to speakers is that someone unexpected sees their talk, reaches out, and changes their life forever.
Something they had no clue would happen. A partnership, collaboration, business or career opportunity, a chance to work on a project abroad, etc. Something incredible.
Something like an invitation to speak at Harvard, which cascaded into opportunities to speak at half of the illustrious Ivy League Colleges in this country.
But let’s be honest here – Dominique was already doing everything she was doing far before TEDx. She already had an Emmy. She already was working within a renowned institution that is Carnegie Museum of Art, she was already a Fulbright Scholar, and worked at the Smithsonian Institute.
But why now? Why did all these things happen just after her TEDx Talk? As Dominique said herself, “This time last year, I feel like five people followed my work. Now I’ve spoken at four Ivy League’s, and it all happened because of my TEDx Talk.”
TEDx to many is the Olympic Gold Medal of speaking. To most event organizers, and certainly the greater public, TEDx has this “wow” factor that makes TEDx alumni speakers simply irresistible.
It gives speakers a credibility boost, even if they don’t need it, like Dominique – it makes you seem like an instant-invite. It opens doors for you, and we’ve seen this happen over and over and over.
I’ve help produce events with 248 speakers over two years and met hundreds of others travelling to 10+ regional events in DC, Pittsburgh, Asbury Park, and Boston – most speakers share this “hockey stick” moment in their career.
It’s always within just one year of their TEDx Talk. Can’t wait to see what will happen for you next Dominique!
What to improve your public speaking? Read the Speaker Angel blog.
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