BEHIND THE RED DOT
The talk was 13 minutes… The journey to it was anything but
What it Really Took to Get Here
By the time I stepped onto that red dot, I had rehearsed those 13 minutes more times than I could count. But the story of getting there started long before I ever knew what I would say on a TEDx stage.
TEDx wasn't simply another speaking engagement for me. It was an opportunity to put words to something I hadn’t been able to. Years of lived experience, advocacy, research, and work with audiences across the country had taught me:
We cannot truly experience belonging until we first experience safety.
I Wanted That Red Dot
I wish I could tell you TEDx simply found me.
It didn't.
I wanted this. And I wanted it badly.
For years, speaking on a TEDx stage was one of my biggest professional goals. And if I'm being completely transparent, there was a time when I believed landing a TEDx talk would be the thing that finally made people take me seriously as a professional speaker. I didn’t have a college degree, or initials behind my name, or fancy certifications to give me credibility. All I had (or so I thought) was my story. So I searched for opportunities. I submitted applications. I looked far beyond my own backyard for a stage and a theme that felt right.
And I got rejected.
More than once.
And looking back, I think I finally understand why.
I Was Pitching a Keynote. TEDx Was Looking For an Idea
My keynotes are built around storytelling. I often use pieces of my own life as somewhat of a case study to help audiences understand bigger ideas about survival, resilience, safety, leadership, and what happens after adversity.
So naturally, that's how I approached my early TEDx applications.
I thought it was brilliant. A shoo-in, even. My keynotes were well received, and I was able to create incredible connections with people in the audience, so why wouldn't that translate to a TEDx stage?
The problem?
A TEDx talk isn't a keynote.
I repeat: a TEDx talk is NOT a keynote presentation.
Yes, it needs to be said twice, because I know there are so many other speakers wanting to check this goal off their bucket list and undoubtedly, some of them are approaching it in the same upside-down, backwards way I was, wondering what on earth they are doing wrong.
TED wasn't looking for the most compelling version of my story. Honestly, they weren’t looking for my story at all. They were looking for an idea worth spreading. Those aren't even my words. TED literally tells you that's what they're looking for.
Apparently, I just wasn't hearing them at first.
Once I understood that distinction, everything changed.
The Idea That Finally Got Me in the Room
In early 2026, I came across the application for TEDxFranklin. This time, I approached it totally differently.
Instead of asking, What parts of my story should I tell? I started with a different question:
What do I believe, and what have I learned, that might help someone understand what it really means to belong?
So, I propped up my phone in my bedroom, sat behind my messy desk with a room divider strategically placed behind my chair to hide the chaos behind me, and recorded my audition.
P.S. — If you've seen my TEDx talk, you'll recognize pretty quickly that this is NOT the idea that ultimately made it to the stage. But it was the beginning.
That audition “got me through the door.” But getting selected wasn't the end of developing the idea. In a lot of ways, it was the beginning. The concept I auditioned with centered around belonging, the idea that belonging isn't necessarily something we find in the right room, community, job, or relationship.
I think I forgot to tell you that each TEDx event typically has its own theme, so your idea needs to fit or align with that chosen theme. The theme for TEDxFranklin was based on a book written by Ray Oldenburg called “The Great Good Place,” which introduced the concept of the “third place.”
Essentially, home is our first place. Work or school is our second. But what is our third place? And furthermore, how do we find it? So whatever “idea” I pitched for that TEDx stage needed to support this theme and explore those questions. Which may make my original video submission, belonging isn't just found, it's built, make a little more sense.
But as I started developing the talk, I kept coming back to one question:
Why can someone be surrounded by people who welcome them, want them, and genuinely make space for them and still not feel like they belong?
That's when I realized I had been looking at belonging one layer too high.
Before we can experience belonging, we have to experience safety.
And suddenly, the idea became much bigger than belonging. It became a conversation about what happens inside us. How our nervous system interprets safety, how our past experiences shape what feels safe in the present, and why sometimes the very thing keeping us from belonging isn't the room we're standing in.
It's what our body believes about the room.
That became the idea I ultimately took to the TEDxFranklin stage:
Belonging Begins With Safety
The Parts You Don’t See on YouTube
Getting selected didn't suddenly make me confident or overly ready for this moment to finally happen. Trust me. There were rewrites. Rehearsals. Coaching calls. Practicing in my bedroom. Practicing in the car. Practicing for anyone who would listen and probably a few people who didn't want to. There were moments when I was convinced the talk was brilliant and others when I was equally convinced I had absolutely no business giving it and everyone in that audience would walk out mid talk.
Because that's the part we don't see when we watch a beautifully lit, perfectly crafted TEDx talk on YouTube.
We see the red dot. The lights. The twelve or so polished minutes.
But we don't see everything it took to get there...
We don’t see the strategic announcements and studying shoved into the minutes we have left in our day
We don’t see the shopping and outfit planning because hello, that’s important
I could have posted like 100 screenshots of outfit options and shoes honestly haha I did not leave one crevice of the internet unturned. I searched everywhere for everything.
We don’t see the endless hours spent rehearsing, re-writing, and then practicing over and over and over again
And Then, It Was Time.
March 28, 2026. Franklin, Tennessee
I spent years wanting to give a TEDx talk. I thought about what it might mean for my career. I imagined the credibility that would come with those four little letters next to my name. I wondered what doors it might open and whether, finally, I would feel like I had earned my place among the speakers I admired. What I couldn't have known was how much the journey itself would come to mean to me.
Less than two years before I stepped onto that red dot, I had a stroke.
There was a period when walking across a room required more concentration than walking across a stage ever had. I had to relearn things my body once knew without thinking. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, while I was working toward simply becoming myself again, I remember dreaming about getting back onstage.
So when March 28, 2026 finally came, I wasn't just walking onto a TEDx stage.
I was walking onto a stage I wasn't always certain I'd physically be able to stand on again.
And maybe that's why, looking back, the red dot means something different to me now than I thought it would when I first started chasing it. Yes, TEDx has brought opportunities. It has introduced me to people I might never have met, strengthened my work as a speaker, and given an idea I deeply believe in a platform far bigger than that room in Franklin. But the greatest thing it gave me wasn't a credential.
It gave me a marker in my own story.
A before and an after.
A reminder that sometimes the dreams we chase because we think they'll prove something to everyone else end up proving something entirely different to ourselves. I wanted that red dot because I thought it might make people take me more seriously. I walked away from it realizing I didn't need it to prove I belonged there.
And maybe that's the most fitting ending possible for a talk called Belonging Begins With Safety.
I will always be grateful for that stage, for the people who trusted me with it, for the people I got to share it with, for every rejection that came before it, for every rewrite, every rehearsal in my pajamas, every meltdown that it went terribly, every moment I wanted to quit, and for the version of me who kept going anyway.
Turns out, the red dot was worth chasing.
Just not for the reasons I originally thought.