Tiger Todd is an American “action philanthropist”, Human Education and Homelessness Prevention consultant and author of the Hero School® learning model.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Joined April 2009
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Where have all the real experts gone?
Ten million people have watched a comedian accidentally destroy the entire TED talk industry.
He filmed the talk once at TEDxNewYork in 2014 and openly admitted he had nothing to say.
Speaking coaches charge $5,000 to teach the exact tricks he used in 6 minutes to say nothing at all.
His name is Will Stephen. He is a comedian from Late Night with Seth Meyers who was invited to give a real TED talk and used it to prove the format is a costume anyone can wear.
Every TED speaker opens with a question, tells a personal story, cites a scientist, and shows a chart. Stephen did all four in six minutes with zero content.
His entire formula fits on a napkin.
Gesture with both hands. Ask the audience a question anyone can answer. Tell a mildly embarrassing story so they say aww. Point to a stranger on a slide and call them important. Flash a chart of random numbers. Wear glasses with no lenses. The audience will think you are brilliant.
That last trick alone has probably cost the public speaking coaching industry a hundred million dollars in sessions clients should have skipped.
"If you watched me on YouTube with the sound off, you would think I was a genius."
That is Will Stephen on the TED stage, three minutes into the talk he was paid to give. He wasn't lying.
Executives pay $15,000 for a keynote coach and still open with a joke the room never laughs at. Founders rehearse their pitch for weeks and still sound like Stephen at minute four, saying "wagga wah, gabba gabba" with authority.
The talk is free on YouTube. The method is written across every TED speaker's playbook for ten years.
Stephen still writes for Seth Meyers. Almost none of the ten million viewers have stopped nodding at empty slides since.
The formula is free. The willingness to actually say something before your next keynote, pitch, or townhall is the entire edge.
Tiger Todd retweeted
THIS KID RAN THE FULL FIELD CHASED THE PLAYER DOWN, STRIPPED THE BALL, AND THEN RAN THE FULL FIELD BACK FOR A TOUCHDOWN.
THE GREATEST PLAY OF ALL-TIME.
😱😱😱
Tiger Todd retweeted
No child chooses the family, circumstances or ZIP code they're born into.
But every child is born with potential.
Imagine what happens when we give more of them a chance to realize it. 🚀🇺🇸
Tiger Todd retweeted
We built this in 100 days.
But there are still so many statues to build.
Alexander the Great, Caesar, Augustus.
Galileo, Newton.
Napoleon, Washington, Benjamin Franklin.
The great men of the past will come back to haunt us and push us toward greatness.
Tiger Todd retweeted
A bank laundered money for terrorists and drug cartels and paid a fine. A restaurant gave me a job and sent me home with dinner.
Guess which one I think about more.
After I blew the whistle at @HSBC, every door in my industry closed. Not slowly. All at once. I had a degree, a record of being right, and no one who would return a call. I was sleeping on a camping cot in a studio apartment and I needed to eat.
@PFChangs hired me.
They did not ask about the bank. They did not treat me like a liability. They handed me an apron and a section and let me earn an honest dollar on a day when nobody else in America would. On the nights money was tightest, the kitchen sent me home with lo mein so I would have something to eat. Nobody made a speech about it. They just did it.
I rebuilt my life between shifts. Everything I have now traces back to a restaurant that decided a whistleblower was worth hiring.
Here is what I learned carrying plates that I never learned at a bank. Dignity does not come from the title on your badge. It comes from doing honest work well, every single shift, when nobody is watching and nobody is impressed. The people I reported kept their bonuses. I kept my self-respect. I would make that trade again.
So I have a small ask.
Eat at @PFChangs this week. Lunch, dinner, whatever works. And tip your server like they might be rebuilding their entire life between tables, because some of them are. I was.
To the @PFChangs team, past and present: you did not just feed me. You gave me a place to stand while I figured out how to fight back. I will never forget it.
Tiger Todd retweeted
250 years ago, our founders declared a promise: equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It's our turn to make that promise real for every American and keep it alive for the next 250 years. 🇺🇸
One of the coolest notifications I’ve received.
Got it three times. One for each of my three kids!
Not often an opportunity like this comes along.
Thank you @MichaelDell, and thank you to your wife, Susan.
You both are making a difference, and leading by example.
Tiger Todd retweeted
Dolly Parton somehow stayed 25 for 55 years, built an empire in rhinestones, loved God without weaponizing it, welcomed everybody, gave back endlessly and made being kind look powerful. ❤️
Ultra feminine. Business savvy. Inclusive. Faithful. Funny. Generous. Completely Dolly.
There will NEVER be another one. Rest beautifully, Dolly. 🕊️💎
Tiger Todd retweeted
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library was the best contribution to child literacy ever made by a celebrity. Our paths crossed once, in the 90s, backstage at a talk show, and I was completely tongue-tied and starstruck. RIP Dolly. You were a complete, irreplaceable one-off.
Tiger Todd retweeted
Reporter: “Do you have a message for your generation about service?”
Ryder: “I hope that everybody can take away from this to try to help more people. Try to look out for everybody around you.”
HERO ❤️
Amazing
The NSA kept 1 lecture in a vault for 40 years. In 2024 they released it. It's Grace Hopper explaining the future of computing in 1982.
The channel that posted it: the National Security Agency's own YouTube.
Hopper stands at a podium in Navy uniform, a captain, and talks to a room of NSA staff for 90 minutes across 2 reels.
The title: "Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People."
She compares the computer industry to the early automotive one, all custom parts and no standards, and argues software will become the hard problem, not hardware. She was right by decades.
She invented the first compiler and gave COBOL its shape. She kept a clock that ran backwards on her wall to prove rules can be questioned.
The tapes were too degraded for normal release, so the agency restored them before posting.
40 years in an NSA archive. 90 minutes. Now free.