I want to be famous.

A few weeks ago, I submitted an audition video for a TEDx event.

Speaking at TEDx has been calling to me for a few years now. The idea of getting the opportunity (and the public speaking coaching) to share a powerful, resonant idea with a room full of people sounds scary to me in a good way—the kind of scary that calls me into a greater version of myself.

I zeroed in on my idea, workshopped the three-minute audition with my brother and sister-in-law, figured out how to setup a YouTube channel, uploaded my video, submitted the application, and crossed my fingers 🤞🏼.

A week later, I got a callback (the last time I had one of those was when I auditioned to be in my college a cappella group almost 20 years ago!).

They narrowed down the pool from 150+ applicants to 24 finalists. Once again, I had three minutes to share my idea, this time on a live zoom.

It was exciting and sweaty and over in five minutes. And then five days later a highly impersonal email came:

We regret to inform you that you were not selected as a speaker this year.

In other words: thanks, but no thanks.

I didn't get it, and it stung.

I felt embarrassed. In preparing for and getting excited about the opportunity, I told some people about it. Maybe too many people, because now I had to go and report back that I didn’t get it.

[My coaching clients come to me feeling this way all too often in job searches these days, where even hearing back in the form of an impersonal email feels like a blessing—too often, employers are ghosting applicants in the hiring process—even after rounds of interviews. It’s dehumanizing behavior and has got to stop. 🙏 Please, if you’re hiring, do better.]

Before my callback audition was over, one of the judges asked me: “Why do you want to give a TED Talk?”

I said that as a coach, I get to work with people one-on-one who feel trapped, uncertain, or fearful about their career paths, but giving a TED Talk would allow me to share a model that can bring a greater sense of hope, agency, and excitement to many.

In the days that followed my rejection, when my ego was bruised, I thought about this a lot. There are certainly other reasons I want to give a TED Talk:

• I want to have an image/video of myself standing on a stage in that red circle.

• I want to write a book, and giving a talk might help test the idea and gain traction for a book deal.

• Being chosen would signal that I’m smart enough, that my ideas are actually important (and therefore, I'm important.)

Did I actually want to do it for vanity? Because I want to be famous?

I wondered about this a lot.

It reminded me of a thought leader I follow, Marie Forleo, who shares insightful and entertaining ideas for female business owners—but when she’s on stage, it seems to me that she’s on stage for the sake of being on stage. Even though I like what she has to say, to me she always seems to be screaming: "Look at me! Aren't I fabulous?! If you buy what I'm selling you, you'll be fabulous like me, too!"

Contrast this with my favorite TED Talk of all time: Brené Brown’s first TEDx event, where she talks about vulnerability and shame. She actually looks like she’d really rather not be on stage at all, but her ideas are so resonant and transformational that audiences (🙋🏽‍♀️) are hungry for her perspective ever since. She doesn’t speak on stages because she loves being on stage—she speaks because she loves helping people, and she has ideas that truly resonate with audiences.

That's how I want to be. I want to share ideas that are resonant, clear, and practical.

All this sent me on a dig for a poem my friend Alice shared with me several years ago. I couldn’t remember the wording, but the message has stuck with me:

Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

So I guess my best answer to “Why do you want to give a Ted Talk?” is:
I want to be famous. Famous like a buttonhole.

I’ll keep trying to land my opportunity to stand in the center of a red circle. But until then, you can listen to what would have been my 5.5 minute talk here. I hope it makes me famous.