A 29 year-old woman from Croydon who drove solo from London to Lagos was invited to give a TED Talk following her journey due to be released this month.
Travel content creator Pelumi Nubi, received an invitation from TEDx after she successfully completed her drive in April of this year.
Nubi shared her experiences at TEDx with Eastlondonlines.
“This was something I wanted to do for almost a decade, like something you have on your vision board. It’s such a global stage that comes with incredible opportunities and an opportunity to reach a mass of people”, she said.
She told ELL: “Post my London to Lagos, I was actually approached by those in the TED community for me to do the speaking that I did a few weeks ago.
Nubi felt both honoured and excited upon receiving the invitation, saying she knew she had a message worth spreading and was excited by the opportunity to be given a platform to share it.
“It was something I wanted to do but it’s usually by invite. It was amazing when I got the email like, ‘oh wow, yeah, I would be honoured to do it’. I was excited”
“It’s not just the fact that you get to speak to hundreds of people, that’s already an impact, but once it’s uploaded to the official website, it has potential to go to hundreds and thousands, of millions of people”, she told ELL.
Nubi faced some challenges when preparing for the TED talk. The format requires speakers to deliver concise, impactful talks, typically under 18 minutes. She said it took time to “fine tune an idea in less than 18 minutes.”
Additionally, prompts are not allowed, so she needed to memorise her speech: “You do have a slide, but you have to mostly talk from memory”, she explained.
Despite having previous public speaking experience, Nubi described the TEDx stage as “a different kind of pressure (…) There was definitely an excitement mixed with nerves,” she said.
She told EastLondonLines that her TED Talk was roughly 12 minutes long and in preparation, and that she rehearsed it in front of family and friends to ensure it resonated with the audience. She said: “It really took intense work making sure it’s a body of work I could be proud of, you know, years down the line.”
Her TED Talk is titled The Magic is in the Doing, and is centred around the power of action. “I realised that except one move away from the thinking and pondering and questioning and strategising and everything to actually action, nothing happens.
“It was a message I wanted to spread that of every good thing that has come in my life by the grace, grace of God, also personal efforts, from London to Lagos, there was that, having an idea and then executing.
“It was just important to inspire the next generation, to inspire someone who is sitting on an idea that it’s almost the end of the year, it’s time to take action on it.”
Nubi’s talk was the last one at the event, which added to the pressure, but she felt it was a success. “ It was amazing. I felt like I held the audience attention.”
She shared a quote from her TED that holds special meaning to her: “The magic isn’t in the dreaming, is not in the planning, the magic is not in the wishing, wanting or waiting. Is not in the speculating, theorising or questioning. The magic is in the doing.”
Pelumi Nubi’s TED Talk will be available to the public within the next two weeks.
