The following evaluation of Anne Lamott’s TED Talk “12 Truths I Learned From Life and Writing” was an assignment for the Creative Presentation course at Full Sail University. The goal was to find a TED Talk and write about the speaker’s approach and communication skills.
I searched for Christianity and found this talk by Anne Lamott. Although the title did match the search, I figured she would somehow tie faith into this story about life and writing. Additionally, I thought it might be easier to understand her point of view since we are in the same age group. She told this story sometime after her 61st birthday, just a few years younger than I am today.
Lamott barely held my interest during the first 40 seconds of her talk, but her body language and gentle voice were enough to continue to listen to/watch the story unwind. She finally caught my attention once I sensed her vulnerability and power. The speaker invited me into her world. I felt empathy and sisterhood; her story resonated with me. She stood behind a podium, sought eye contact, and welcomed everyone. At times, it felt like she was speaking directly to me.
Before getting to her list, Lamott drew me closer when she gently declared, “There’s so little truth in the popular culture, and it’s good to be sure of a few things.”
She gave an example about no longer being 47 years old, even though she feels that age and likes to think of herself as a younger woman. Note: Again, the similarity — our ages — comforts me and leaves me eager to hear more.
Then, she introduced another thought on age, which elicited laughter, “My friend Paul used to say in his late 70s that he felt like a young man with something wrong with him.” Here is where I believe she told the men in the audience the story was for them too. They responded affirmatively. At that moment, Lamott had informed every listener that she wanted them to feel what she felt. As a result, I would say she fulfilled what Peter Guber calls the “spirit that motivates most great storytellers.”
Lamott gave them time to stop laughing and started talking when they were finished so smoothly that it seemed she and the audience were in sync. Every laugh seemed perfectly timed.
I watched the video several times to determine if her body language prompted the well-timed laughter. She would tilt her chin ever so slightly before her “punch line.”
While I wondered if that was true or if tilting her chin was something she did once, I noticed there was satisfaction, even pride shining in her eyes.
Perhaps I experienced frisson while listening to her gentle even-toned presentation. The level of connection I experienced listening to the speaker surprised and excited me. She never stumbled over her words, and her clever content about life’s quirks and twists engaged my imagination. Her jokes were uncomfortable yet funny.
Lamott’s story became my story; I saw myself in her monologue. In point number four, she shared her authentic caring for humankind by sharing facts, giving reassurance, and, finally, making a tender suggestion.
She said, “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it most together.”
The speaker continued by reassuring viewers other people “are much more like you than you would believe, so try not to compare your insides to other people’s outsides. It will only make you worse than you already are.”
Then she revealed how she found sobriety referencing the catastrophe that caused her to ask sober friends for help. She also turned to a power greater than herself, God. Lamott told everyone that “one acronym for God is the ‘gift of desperation,’ G-O-D.”
After listening to Lamott’s almost 16-minute talk, there is no way that I would have enjoyed reading the story. When I read the transcript before choosing the quotes to reference, my mind recalled the audience’s laughter, and I felt a chuckle rise in my throat. I would not feel the same emotions while reading her story. Nonetheless, our “conversation” prompted me to order her book “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.”
Written by Cathy Milne-Ware
Sources:
TED Talks: “12 Truths I Learned From Life and Writing [Video]; by Anne Lamott
John Wiley and Sons: “Resonate” by Nancy Duarte (2010)
Productivity Press: “The GuruBook” by Jonathan Loe (2018)
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (1995)
Featured and Top Image by Dario Valenzuela Courtesy of Unsplash
First Inset Image by Windows Courtesy of Unsplash
Second Inset Image by Becca Tapert Courtesy of Unsplash
Third Inset Image by Marianna Smiley Courtesy of Unsplash
