Ep. 160 / How to Land and Deliver a TEDx or Keynote Speech: Cesar Cervantes
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In this episode, I sit down with Cesar Cervantes – an expert speaker coach, TEDx mentor, and former stand-up comedian – to dive into the real behind-the-scenes of landing, writing, and delivering a TEDx talk that actually makes an impact. 🎯
You will learn:
Cesar’s origin story from comedy clubs to the TEDx stage
The key difference between TEDx talks and keynote speeches
How to pitch your TEDx idea and what organizers actually look for
Why structure is everything — and how to make your message stick
Smart ways to practice (and avoid common mistakes)
How humor can be integrated naturally, even if you’re not “funny”
Tips for building a keynote that books more speaking gigs
A sneak peek into Cesar’s new book Great Speech
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TRANSCRIPT:
(00:01) i am super excited to bring in Cesar Cervantes and I'll explain why I'm so excited to have him here but he is a speaker coach and speech writer based in Houston Texas he started his journey as a stand-up comedian he was featured on Comedy Central and appeared in several Hollywood movies he then taught comedy classes in the theater department at Colorado College before becoming a professional speaker teaching people how to develop deeper connections using humor Cesar has served as a speaker coach at multiple TEDx locations across three continents he now leads Top Talks
(00:30) and his speaker mentorship program he's an avid tennis player and loves being a dad even more than he loves tacos Cesar thank you so much for being here thanks for having me i get to chuckle at my own bio that's nice uh I I too love tacos i will say I am a I am a taco fiend um well what's your favorite type of taco oh that you can't pick to me tacos are food you know it's not as though like oh you know here's one that's the most special but I would say any tacos that my mom make uh yeah those are top of my list well now she'll have
(01:05) to listen to this episode because she got a compliment right off the bat um and so for the listeners here so I'm really excited to have Cesar on because I worked with Cesar to get my TEDx talk and actually I'll share a little bit more about the process as we get into that but I was so excited to share because I feel like I learned a lot from going through the process of applying for TEDx Talks getting writing the script training for the speech and you know as listeners know I do paid keynotes but it's very different a TEDx talk is totally different and so it was really a big learning process for me
(01:35) throughout and I thought Cesar was I only have people on if I work with someone I have them on my show it's because I like them but uh I thought Cesar really brought so much expertise and is very supportive but also really straightforward and was incredibly helpful and I got off the stage at the TEDx and was like I crushed that so and you did thank you and Cesar actually happened to be the MC of my TEDx talk also so anyway that's a little context for people so Cesar first I just want to jump into how did you get into becoming uh a speech writer someone who
(02:06) trains people for TEDx like how did how did you get there yeah so you know we got a little taste of that in the bio but basically I was uh I always wanted to be performing in some kind of way i think you know growing up my parents recognized very early that this is a very extroverted kid he needs to go to like theater camp away from us and get that out um and yeah I was in commercials and the theater very early on and for whatever reason whenever I hit the stage I just always found myself wanting to make people laugh that's kind of you know it came naturally to me it's
(02:43) how I connected with my dad and that eventually translated into a career in stand-up comedy which kind of you know ran its course and for whatever reason after you know 10 years or so of doing that professionally I started to feel disconnected from you know feeling like I was giving something i wanted to go deeper and so that then led to me getting my master's degree in creative writing and then I ended up teaching comedy and from those courses and I I developed a keynote speech that sort of made me a full-time speaker by accident
(03:21) um I love that and Cesar and I have one thing in common where I think that we've both kind of have our own businesses that are very fulfilling that we get to help people and I think we have that in common where we got to take things that we liked and enjoyed and we're good at and are building it in this other way which is very exciting and challenging sometimes um I have a question for you what do you say when people come to you and you know they want to be out there more but they feel they're not a good
(03:44) speaker or they're not good on stage yeah I would say that uh sometimes well first of all I would say you're probably being overly critical of yourself that's just something that we do naturally but we all we all also want to get better and and you want to get training and understand like how do I get better it's something that's a skill that you can develop and a lot of times folks that are maybe overly confident on stage are doing a lot of things that aren't helping them up there but they don't ask for help or they don't have that voice
(04:15) that says you know h how do I get better so it's a good thing I would say first um the second is to recognize the way that you can make the biggest jump in your speaking and the the power and impact of your speaking is by understanding the form of it the structure of it um so that's where we see like a dramatic shift in folks from when they get up there and they're like "Okay I have a bunch of information to share with you to a structure that actually leads their audience to transformation." Um then you can start you know kind of
(04:49) getting into the nuances of delivery and all of that kind of good stuff but that's what I would say initially awesome i want to get into landing a TEDx and delivering a TEDx so before we even get into the tips of that when people want to get a TEDx what how does how does it help their career right so for someone who's interested in a TEDx how does it help their larger career or their speaking career yeah it depends on what your goals are but I would say first of all if you know it's a it's an amazing platform and it carries a lot of
(05:19) credibility and weight with it and if you deliver uh an amazing talk on that platform it's a short form video that can go viral that you can use the assets from for a lot of different things right the photos the the video you can chop that up you can use at the social media post you can use it in your speaker reel you can use it on your website you put it in your email signature it sort of makes its own gravy you know and uh I think it's I have a book i love books but a book isn't going to move the way that a link can can move and people
(05:56) frankly are more likely to watch your short TEDx talk than they are to read your whole book that doesn't mean you shouldn't do both but um that's kind of the power of the talk the other thing that can happen is that TEDx can elevate and choose to promote your talk and that happens to a lot of my clients where they're selected as a TEDx editor's pick or they're elevated to like full TEDx status where they're like the TEDx talk of the day and it goes up on their podcast into their whole email list um and so you have to leverage it at the end of the day but the beauty of it is that it has it has a platform and a
(06:34) community already built in i love that so what are your biggest tips for landing a TEDx talk yeah so this is this is uh the difficult part for a lot of folks because one is that they don't quite understand what how TEDx is different from other kinds of speaking uh and it's not the same thing as the talk itself right the process of getting selected is is more of a pitch than it is sort of like here's the fullness of my idea and my entire life's work right um and and the language is kind of different so what
(07:14) you want to focus on is really the problem that you're solving and lean into your primary credibility like what is truly your expertise um what TEDx doesn't want uh is like motivational style speaking and it's not to say that there's you know anything wrong with motivational speaking i mean that's it's that's usually the biggest kind of pocket that people are getting paid to speak in is motivational but TEDx differentiates themselves as you know uh as idea the better way to think of that because idea can start to get like you know oh gosh what does that even mean think
(07:57) think about a problem that you can help people solve in in 10 minutes and truly create some transformation and an aha moment uh and so that's that's what I would say is that that's where most people get get it wrong um and you need to be able to distill your idea down into a single sentence if you can't do that yet then it's you're not ready um and so that's what I would say get ready i like your idea of I do agree with you that the the big idea feels weighty and I think the corollary the sim the metaphor to what I do is when I say building a personal brand a personal brand feels very overwhelming it's like
(08:39) a brand is a Nike shoe a brand is Domino sugar and it feels very heavy but if I say no put your opinions out there put out your professional perspective someone's like oh I I have that so I like the idea of it's the problem and here's the solution And here's the one thread which I love and talk to me about one thing that I did not realize about the TEDx is you competitive you have to apply a lot to get it so take take us a little bit through what it looks like for someone going through it yeah so I think the
(09:11) idea you know with so TEDx is sort of the parent company and TEDx is the accessible way in which you can apply right and the idea from TEDx is that they wanted to be able to um spread their um their network and the way in which ideas can get out there and to do that they have to empower other people they have to give away um their power so to speak to and license people to host events uh that uh are then you know kind of more local-based it doesn't mean that you can't apply to anyone anywhere some of them will say
(09:52) "Oh we're only looking for local speakers." And then some open it up to to everyone but the idea is that whatever you're speaking about is applicable to the community and can help the community um and so when you think about it in that way you want to think all right what is it that I'm giving um what is it that I can share in to this particular location as well that will align and so you want to focus you know of course on the ones that are local to you but then you can expand and apply out and most most people just kind of you
(10:30) know submit a few applications here or there and then they'll say well I didn't get it so I must not be TEDx worthy uh but the truth is there's so many variables involved and at the end of the day because they're independently run they're also very subjective and so to take any you know those rejections as any sign of like uh you know I I don't align or it's me or whatever I is a mistake and it's really just like anything else you you need to be persistent and communicate your idea effectively so we talked about okay the value of
(11:06) getting a TEDx how to land a TEDx talk to me a little bit about how to deliver a TEDx talk and I know we'll talk about keynotes after because I do think TEDx and keynotes are different so talk to me about landing and delivering a TEDx talk that is awesome yeah so once you've once you've landed it right there's usually there's usually a process that they go through and they're like "Hey you either you've been selected now you've got a couple of months to pull it together." Uh and then some some offer support you know some don't uh and once
(11:38) you've got it then you have to create the talk and get it ready hopefully you've already got some things in the work you've got a draft you you know you've communicated the idea so you you you're at least that far along the next thing you want to do is create uh a really strong outline so that you can see and know exactly what you're communicating and where how you're going to help people arrive uh when I write a speech you know it's not typical to you know write start at the beginning and uh what what you want to do is start in the heart of it the the the body of the talk which is really where you're sharing the
(12:19) arrival of your solution and how you came to your solution and you want to know that what you're providing has great foundation and then you can start piecing together how do I want to come into this and how do I want to close and that closing should bring us back to the beginning in some way or that's that's a really um it's a good tool to have because it there's an intentional thread that runs through the whole talk and and I happen to believe those are the most powerful so that's that's how you begin now there's a lot of work on the delivery and all that kind of good stuff that we
(12:55) could get into because it is different than when you go to present at you know at a job or maybe you've got a speaking gig coming up you may not be memorizing that you know verbatim and you probably you you probably shouldn't in some ways um but a TEDx talk is uh recorded right and you have to submit a script and uh you really have to nail the lines that you want to nail so the way that I like to communicate that is that you need to be beyond memorized you need to own it so that you can be fully present in that moment I have been sharing this story which is
(13:36) both flattering to you and unflattering just kidding but it that I felt I had been working on my TEDx this season and then like a week before I've been like okay like I'm memorizing it and I'm a fast talker so I was like slowing it down because I was memorizing it but also I'm always told that I'm a New York fast talker so I slow it down and this is like the Monday and my speech is on a Saturday and I do and I practice it for Cesar Memorize and he's like yeah this is good like if think if you delivered it it'd be good but like you know I think you're still trying remember some
(14:09) of the things i was like yeah and Cesar tells me okay you know just keep practicing and I said specifically Cesar I need exactly how many more times I need to practice and he goes I would do two chunks a day every day until the thing I'm like okay so like you know one time in the morning one time at night and Cesar goes no like three times in each chunk I'm like Cesar you want me to do my TEDx speech six times a day every day this week and he goes you could take off Friday I'm like okay so I was like "Holy
(14:39) crap what am I going to do?" I literally practiced it in the street in my house for my mom for my brother six times a day for the four days leading up to it I practiced it literally 24 times that work week but it was great advice it was so great because when I was up there I really was focused on making eye contact with people feeling the words and actually just like talking being talk like conversational being conversational in my speech and I was not at all thinking do I know the next line do I know the next line I knew the next line so I found it to be very it was a
(15:12) different experience because I give keynotes but truly I generally have not notes not a prompter but like a bullet point or a note on a there's something guiding me a slide maybe and this was totally memorized so I felt like that was a good and interesting challenge and your your advice was spot on because I do feel like that helped me really crush it on the stage because I wasn't reaching for words and I felt like I could just be in the moment yeah I mean 100% you really can't get to the nuances of the
(15:42) delivery either until the words aren't the is aren't an issue anymore right and so even if you're doing a keynote my you know what eventually happens is that you own it you know it so well that again it's beyond memorized and so but but for most of us that are doing keynotes etc you know there are these we might adapt it for different audiences but we probably have been doing that keynote for years right if you're if you've been a speaker for a while so what you're trying to do is condense the um the experience of of owning a talk
(16:23) into um a TEDx you know journey and it that that's just every every time I work with someone you know that I've seen it I've seen both where it's like oh no no I'm extemporaneous I need freedom to I just want to speak from the heart and and uh of course I'm going to you know that may be true for some folks and they may feel that they they per they deliver better in that way but I'm always going to nudge them to say let's speak from the heart and then put it onto the the page and then let's see what it is uh and if that's really what we want to say um
(17:09) because a lot of times it's just a way that we've done it and so we're we want to go into our comfort zone of how we've done it before it would be a mistake to try and uh memorize something but then not give the full time into actually memorizing it so that it's owned and it's beyond memorized that is trick that is tough right because then you're on stage you're nervous and you're trying to remember the words you're not present uh that would be a mistake and that's why you hear in the speaking world especially at Toastmasters let's say never memorize your speech right that's
(17:55) that's why they say that is that you it it would prevent you from being yourself or it would make you get stuck and that kind of thing but again TEDx different love that right it's like memorize it and live in it so much so that you're past memorizing or have a guide and be extemporaneous which I like um and so that was about TEDx so let's talk a little bit about keynotes what are your top three tips to landing more keynote speeches yeah so uh well first let's define a keynote right keynote is kind of you're the big deal at the event right at the
(18:34) conference or whatever it is there could be you know 50 speakers at an event but they might have like four keynotes over a weekend or something like that so and maybe you're one of the keynotes um so when I you know when I work with folks that's the goal you want to be the big deal um but also you want to get speaking gigs and and re that the goal is really to book more gigs and the way that you do that is uh and there's there's a lot of tools out there these days that you can use to kind of like game the system of like you know spamming a bunch of organizers and
(19:10) getting lists and you know leads and that that can work in some way but I'm going to just tell you like every I'll tell you the way I did it I'll tell you the way all my speaker friends who've been in the game a decade or more have did it and still do it and it goes like this you pick you pick one signature keynote that you do that you're known for a problem that you solve it probably has to do with your primary expertise for me I knew that my audience would be in higher education because I taught and
(19:47) was an administrator in higher ed um and I also knew that it would uh combine humor because I was a stand-up comedian as well right so those were my primary uh my primary credibility but then it was also my audience I know I knew how to speak to them I already had a network so the first thing you do is you lean into your network you send them an email and you go let's say you just landed your TEDx or you just delivered it so Kim you're starting out right guess what everybody my TEDx is coming out or here it is I'd love for you to watch it it's
(20:21) about on video and I'd also like to let you know that I speak on these topics and would love it if you all would refer me to any folks that um could benefit from my speaking and from there you you you'll probably book a few gigs depending on how big your network is or how enthusiastic they are you'll get those referrals then every gig that you speak at should produce another gig it should produce a client and if it's not then you need to focus on your message and your the actual um content and delivery and the
(21:05) way that you connect with people but every gig needs to lead to the next gig and you need to be showing people that you're speaking and building uh giving value all the time so that you're top of mind when they need you to speak on that topic there's no secrets there that's really it um and once you have that running and you have a referral system built in then you can also start branching out into different topics and different problems that you solve because now people just want to go to you not just that you
(21:44) solve a particular problem love that well I feel like some audiences the people in the audience are um I want to say like recipients of messages but not necessarily event bookers but you feel like in the audience there's always someone who can bring you in for a workshop for their corporate training they in some way it should always lead to something else yes yeah and you want to know what that is uh but also when you're first starting you want to build your assets and you want to take the gigs you know that you can get and you want to get photos and
(22:16) video and build your speaker reel and all of that good stuff and know that that's going to be changing and improving all the time but the quality of your assets are a big part of why you get booked and so you have to have something to show people um testimonials matter you need to think uh you need to think about who's booking you and why they're booking you right and so you can also do some market research um so your audience might be let's say you're in higher education and it might be let's say faculty uh but the person who's booking you might actually be HR right
(22:53) and so you need to understand why what a HR is trying to solve what box are they trying to tick uh what time of year are they trying to tick this box I mean all of those things are going to matter so that you're timing it appropriately so that they go like "Ah yes this person can solve my problem right now.
(23:17) " Great question for you about injecting humor into a speech which I love because that was in your bio what do you think is the key to injecting humor and I will give you I will get free coaching here no I'm just kidding but like I feel like I'm a person who generally like people think I'm funny like I'm engaging but I'm because I'm not a stand-up and I don't write punchlines when people laugh in a speech it's because like I'm speaking off the cuff or I'm really high energy and I'm saying something that's funny but I actually find it very challenging to like write jokes into my speech so what would you say and I think that's probably something that a lot of people
(23:49) feel if they're not a comedian they don't know how to like write jokes in their speech that will land so what do you recommend to inject humor into a speech yeah well first of all I wouldn't worry about about it until you've written the script right so you don't need to write the script and with the intention of being funny um what you do is overlap and look for those moments where you can add humor and you want them you know uh in appropriate places and hopefully a few throughout the talk right so that it breaks it up a
(24:20) little bit it also depends on your natural sense of what's funny and like who you are so Sean Akre for example has this amazing TEDx talk and he's very gifted as I mean I would call him a comedian even though he's not I mean if you go watch his TEDx talk there's a joke probably every 30 to 40 seconds um and it and it flows beautifully it's done really well but most people aren't going to be injecting that much humor and don't have that sort of you know natural way about doing it when we say like oh
(24:57) when people laugh it's sort of accidental all that means is that you don't know why something is funny and so there's a structure to create surprise and that's really what makes people laugh there there's two primary ingredients to humor it's surprise and superiority and by superiority I mean that that something is greater than another thing there's some kind of target even if it's a benign target you know and it probably should be in in a speech you're not like a you know an edgy stand-up comedian up there
(25:30) typically doing a keynote um so there are more benign targets but those are the two ingredients is surprise ah you didn't think I was going to go there right and superiority means that something is greater than another thing um there's this amazing book called Comedy Writing Secrets uh by Mel Helitzer and he used to teach at Ohio University and uh did a class similar to what I what I did in in my course which was teach people standup and how to write uh original standup comedy but what he does is he breaks down the
(26:07) there's essentially like five to seven different kinds of jokes like categories of jokes once you understand the mechanics then you can start writing jokes based on structure and not just on instinct i love that now I'm like writing those D comedy writing secrets um I love that that's super helpful tell me a little bit about your book Great Speech well since you asked here it is great speech it's actually matching it's actually matching the color of my shirt today I'm wearing I'm sure that was intentional uh yeah so uh Great Speech just came out i wrote it with um Stephen
(26:46) Hayward who's an English professor and buddy of mine and he works in the business he's our head writer um amazing amazing writer and friend and it is you know just about what I was saying is the structure of a great talk um it focuses on you know keynotes TEDx signature talks and what you're going to get is the exact structure that we've used to help hundreds of people you know build their keynotes and signature talks and what you'll find is you can read the book in three hours and by the end of it you can have a
(27:26) full-blown um a full-blown talk right the I give you a blueprint that's fill in the fill in the blank so it's going to walk you through like what do I want to do in the intro what's my problem statement how do I build the problem how do I reveal the solution what's that OMG uh story before I call folks to action and those are essentially the ingredients um and I thought about it when I said "Okay let's let's do the book.
(28:03) " I thought I'm going to do the book with the intention of helping my clients and if I think about it that way then I know it will help others yeah but it was an it was also an easy way to motivate myself into actually finishing it and that's one of the biggest you know challenges in in putting a book together is it's just like you have to maintain that motivation because woo it's a journey oh I love also that you you have the structure built in because I I started teaching people how to make videos and then I was like I know how to write a video script but I don't know how to teach you how to and it forced me to create templates to create a script
(28:40) formula for an educational video for a lifestyle video I'm like oh if I'm going to teach this it has to be uh rep what's the word I'm looking for replicable you know people need to be able to make one of them five of them 10 of them there has to be a formula but it is once you simplify it through your method it does become easier and I think everything becomes like I remember the first keynote I'm like uh I know what I want to say but how do I write it into 45 minutes you know and it can feel
(29:08) really weighty but when you're breaking it down like you said problem solution the intro the outro there should be some tie and so I think once there's a formula it just becomes a lot less weighty it's just scary like everything it's like the empty page is very stressful for everyone and I think once there's a formula it becomes a lot easier it does and also once you know and understand the structure then you can start to kind of play with it and maybe even break the rules a little bit um but it begins in understanding the
(29:38) form and there's a particular form that for example like if you were doing a wedding toast it might not be exactly the same form as a as a TEDx talk right um and so you want to understand what's going on in in the medium that you're in and that's going to drastically improve you know your delivery your performance all of it awesome um everybody should go out and read Great Speech I have mine signed um Cesar is there anything I didn't ask you today that you would like to share with the audience um I don't think so I think we went around the block i I'll
(30:15) say like you know I just love this work um so much one of the things that surprises me you know almost every time I work with a client and I hope it's true for you too Kim is that um when you really dedicate yourself to delivering a message that will help people um you also become changed by it you grow you discover something um maybe about yourself or about what you want to say that you didn't think that you would and that's the thing that really I guess gives me like that ultimate fulfillment is watching people arrive um
(30:54) and become better along the way I love that I feel like in my business I've had the same thing like I thought I was teaching people how to make videos but I'm not that's not what I'm doing actually I'm actually showing them that they're worthy of being a public facing person that they have the confidence to become the person that they would like to see themselves at and then make videos and I think that that's something that I didn't realize until a few years in my business and I'm like "Oh I'm helping people I'm not a social worker I'm not a doctor but I'm helping people
(31:23) you know I'm helping them step into their confidence own their own message and put their message out there." And actually I mean I am actually helping them make more money but the main thing is like I am actually helping them financially but it's been a really fun process because I didn't really think of that when I first got into it and I'm glad that you raised that point because it wasn't necessarily on my radar and it's been a really cool part of doing this work yeah there's a lot of overlap in in in who we help and what we do and so yeah Kim I'm so
(31:55) proud of you I can't wait to see your talk go live and just share it with the world you did so good oh thank you so much everyone's going to get a blast people go "Is it live when is it live yet?" I'm like "No you'll hear when it's live." Like I'll be sending like I'll be having pigeons around New York City dropping leaflets we're dropping leaflets with the QR code like watch my TEDx um Cesar how can people connect with you yeah so uh you can find me on my website cesarcervantes.tv
(32:22) I also have a public Facebook group that where we're celebrating people and just providing value all the time there's free events and we let people know about open applications to TEDx and keynotes in there um just go on Facebook and look up uh what is the URL of it oh so it's TEDx and keynote speakers and you can find it there um connected to me or it's just the like Facebook group slash I think it's speak TEDx yeah that's right great and I'll link them out and I'll link them out here as well
(32:55) sweet all right thank you so much Cesar what a great chat thanks so much Kim see you soon
Timestamps & Highlights:
23:47 – 23:56: How do you add humor to a speech?
23:56 – 24:10: Don’t try to be funny from the start — find the right moments to insert humor.
24:10 – 24:24: It depends on your natural sense of humor and personality.
24:56 – 25:12: There are two key ingredients to humor: surprise and superiority.
25:31 – 25:45: Surprise is when the audience didn’t expect that twist. Superiority is when something is better or smarter than something else.
25:45 – 26:03: A great book, Comedy Writing Secrets, breaks humor into 5–7 joke types.
26:03 – 26:05: Once you know the structure, you can write jokes intentionally — not just by instinct.
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Cesar’s Book GREAT SPEECH book