Episode Details

Our guest for this week is Jon Yeo, Speaker, Executive Coach and the Co-Founder of TEDx Melbourne.

About Jon

Jon is an executive coach who helps leaders share strategic messages in meaningful ways. He’s well-known for his ability to articulate the complex simply and he works with CEOs and senior leadership teams to build trust, empathy, and engagement in an increasingly distracted world.

He works with many famous national and international brands such as SAP, Princess Cruises, Auspost, MYOB, Deakin University, DHHS and DET. Jon is currently developing his training into the core curriculum for University MBA programs.

Jon is the past President of Professional Speakers Australia and is the current Licensee of TEDxMelbourne. He selects and preps all speakers personally for each conference in order to create a true spectacle of sharing and inspiration.

If Jon has any "spare" time, he works with Youth, Youth at Risk and Diversity and Inclusion programs of major international organizations.

Connect with Jon:

• LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/jonyeo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jontv

In This Episode We Canvas:

• Top Benefits from Attending a TEDx Conference

TEDx is a place for people who are doing some remarkable things in their area of expertise and are looking to share their ideas and visions with the rest of the world. Jon shares some insights regarding the vibes and the addictive quality of the support and the energy you get from exchanging ideas in a setting that’s proven to be highly stimulating.

“There is a genuine interest in helping each other! And so this is really… a strong sense of community - how do we support each other through these grand visions that we all hold” - Jon Yeo

• Creating a Ripple Effect by Doing Small Things

Jon is a huge believer in the fact that you can make a big difference in the world by doing accumulating small gestures you volunteer every day over an extended period of time. It is a belief that he acquired through his upbringing and there’s an entire TEDx talk that he made a while back centered around this idea.

“Small things can make a big difference.” - Jon Yeo

• Building Momentum Using First Principles

In our introduction, we’ve mentioned that Jon is well-known for being able to articulate complex things simply. But he’s often encountered a mindset that people feel there needs to be something more to the story. Like we somehow expect that complexity itself adds value. He reflects on the universal and effective nature of first principles and how we can use them to build momentum.

“If you think about first principles, none of those are complex. Yet they’re all universally and infinitely effective. I think people don’t want to think about first principles. Mostly because it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort and sometimes it’s confronting… And it’s that… resistance... that causes that momentum to be lost because we spend all our effort trying to break our inertia, rather than all our effort optimizing around that momentum.” - Jon Yeo

• How To Prepare a Good TEDx Talk

This was a unique experience for us to get valuable insight into what makes a strong TEDx Talk and Jon was very generous and honest in his response.

“Is that talk, first of all, somethi