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The TEDx Process: Accepting Done
- battleaj
- 45 minutes ago
- 6 min read
On June 26th, 2026, I had the distinct honor of giving a TED talk to my local community, Johnson City, TN.
The finished video makes the process look deceptively clean: twelve minutes, one central idea, and a speaker who appears to know exactly what she came to say.
What it does not show is the incoherent audition, the thirty full-length drafts, the months spent circling the point, and the period when I could not answer the simplest question about the talk: what is it actually about?
Honestly, I started with no real idea of what I was doing or what I would say. But that's what the process is for: figuring it out along the way.
It didn’t even really begin with a dream to give a TED talk, it started at a community workshop where previous speakers shared their experience and made me believe I was capable of taking the first step, applying.
The workshop centered around the repeated notion that you did not need to have a finished talk, or even a fully defined thesis to apply. You just needed an idea worth sharing and the desire to work through the process to share it. There was really nothing to lose by applying, only an experience to be gained if accepted.
So, I started to investigate my topics of passion... What idea would I really want to share? As a rather excitable individual, this included a wide variety of topics, so I tried to squeeze everything and the kitchen sink into my first blurb of "What will your talk be about?" (My submissions can be found at the end of this post)
My application proposed a broad "design mindset" built around iteration, ambiguity, fear of beginning, and the difference between “done” and “finished.” The final talk kept some of that foundation, but abandoned the spiral metaphor about the design process and narrowed itself around a much simpler image: the eraser. I didn’t have any real idea where I was going but I allowed myself to submit an imperfect, unfinished idea, and to my surprise, the selection committee saw potential. To mimic my talk's rhetoric: because I allowed myself to accept my application as done, I was able to engage with this incredible opportunity.
With my extensive collection of topics ranging from Perfectionism, Creative work, the Fear of beginning, Design thinking, Identity, Done versus finished, Iteration, Mistakes, to Growth, I still didn’t have a coherent message. I did not struggle because I had nothing to say, I struggled because I was trying to say everything.
Simply put, a talk should revolve around a central sentence, and everything else should directly support your thesis. I struggled with figuring that part out for 2-3 months into the writing process. I had a solid idea of the personal narrative I wanted to share, so that acted as an anchor and helped me sift through the rest of my extra material.
I learned the hard way that having a subject and story is not the same thing as having a developed talk.
I saw my personal narrative as a way to connect with the audience and show them my credibility. Luckily, my coach read into my story way more than I had and caught a detail that I considered miniscule. She got stuck on the notion of the banned erasers. I didn’t latch onto it to begin with, it felt a little too metaphorical and I struggled to see the connection to the bigger message.
But, the detail that feels ordinary to the writer may be the part that makes the idea understandable to everyone else. My coach's feedback became essential, because good feedback does not simply tell you what is wrong it helps you see what you already have.
At first, I saw the eraser as a take-it-or-leave-it detail. My coach helped me see the eraser as the physical manifestation of my perfectionism. Eventually, the eraser transformed into the central metaphor for refusing to accepting reality and stunted personal growth.
It took me a while to get the recipe right, thirty full drafts to be exact; but each version brought me closer to the final script! The talk evolved through a few topics, some of which survived, most of which did not... That extensive process of revision was what helped me discover the idea.
To give you an idea of some of the versions I produced:
The design-mindset version - Broad, centered on iteration and fear of beginning.
The done-versus-finished version - Regurgitation of an idea already well shared online.
The identity version - Explored what imperfect work seemed to say about the person making it.
The no-eraser version - Shifted toward acceptance, consequences, and continuing forward.
The final version - One clear idea with research, examples, and practical application.
My saving grace throughout the six-month writing stage was the TEDx Coach, Donna Paulsen-Taylor; in every conversation she blew my mind, challenged me, and made me a better presenter. Her feedback on the earliest drafts repeatedly identified the same structural problems: the talk was too philosophical, too broad, too focused on identity, repetitive in places, and insufficiently connected to practical application. Her early feedback helped me determine what the talk actually was about. Later her feedback showed me how to keep the audience engaged and following my argument.
Once I had my final version, it felt like the hardest part was over. Memorization seemed straightforward because it rewarded discipline rather than conceptual uncertainty. Then accuracy created a new problem: the words were technically correct, but the talk lost its personality. While I had a fleshed out talk that accomplished what I wanted, I came to realize memorizing the words and communicating the idea are not the same achievement.
Donna's final feedback came in the week leading up to the performance, when she taught me how to make it sound alive and take those 12 minutes as my own. With her last words of wisdom (and 50+ hours of rehearsing), I felt fully prepared for the event. I had done the work, I believed in what I was saying, and I knew I would leave it all out there on the stage. Because of that confidence, the performance day was electric and SO much fun. The opportunity to see my colleagues share their work after months of being in the trenches together was truly incredible. I am proud to say, it was one of the most satisfying moments of my life to deliver that speech, just like I rehearsed it.
The best part of writing the talk was realizing that the process required exactly what the talk argued for: allowing imperfect work to exist long enough to learn from it.
I did not reach clarity and then begin writing, I wrote in order to reach clarity. I stopped treating the wrong directions as mistakes to erase and began carrying something useful forward from each of them.
If anything, the takeaway I want to share is: someone considering TEDx does not need to see themselves as a person who already has a polished talk. They just need an idea they care about enough to investigate and share, and a willingness to let that idea evolve.
With that being said, thanks for coming to my TED talk. ;)
Original Application Submission: The design mindset that can liberate anyone from the fear of starting.
I want to share the idea that adopting a design mindset, one that embraces iteration, ambiguity, and structured exploration, can liberate anyone from the fear of starting. As a designer, I’ve learned to separate the idea of “done” from “finished,” reframing projects not as straight lines toward a single end, but as spirals that loop, dead-end, and reconfigure along the way. This shift transformed how I work. Instead of hesitating at the blank page, I lean into the process, layering ideas and treating imperfection as essential friction that sharpens clarity.
I feel qualified to speak on this topic because this mindset has been the foundation of my work across architecture, community leadership, and creative practice. I’ve seen how applying this approach can unlock momentum in others too. Design thinking isn’t just for designers, it’s a framework anyone can use to get unstuck and move forward.
I envision opening my talk with a personal story: an early design project where I felt paralyzed by the blank page, convinced that my first idea needed to be perfect. I’ll introduce a quote from one of my engineering professors, “The value is in the search,” which became a turning point in how I think about creativity. From there, I’ll articulate the concept of “done” vs. “finished,”.
I’ll weave in highlights from The Manifesto of Done, which helped me overcome perfectionism, and explain how I adapted its principles into my own process.
Throughout the talk, I’ll connect design thinking to universal professional experiences: starting a business, writing a paper, launching an idea. The goal is to make this mindset tangible and actionable for anyone, not just designers. I would like to give a clear takeaway: stop chasing the finish line, and start spiraling.