Ben Tylecote

After making multiple speeches to hundreds of people and winning a few competitions I found a formula that now allows me to write a good speech in as little as 5 minutes. Here are the simple steps Writing: Start off with something interesting like an anecdote, statistic, joke and try to use a prop if you are allowed. Do something that grabs the audience’s attention - the first 5 seconds are by far the most important- evoke some powerful emotion or reaction in them. Once you have their attention then introduce yourself and explain what questions or curiosities you’re going to answer. Following this get into the depth of your topic - include stats and facts but try to make everything a story or an anecdote. Doing this makes your speech 10x as interesting, at the end of the day a story is the most interesting thing you can tell people - so attempt to include your content, whatever it is, in some form of story. Once you have explained your idea you want to come to a simpl...

Ben eltons rip off of dan browns wildly successful book style I was reading to kill a president -the first, of a now trilogy, of books - by Ben Elton when I was struck by the fact they used a writing style becoming ever more popular these days. Interlinking multiple characters stories lines is a technique popularised by hugely successful author Dan brown in the majority of his thrillers. Principally it allows him to end virtually every chapter with a cliff a hanger, keeping you hooked.  The structure goes: one chapter- end on cliffhanger, second chapter- keep reading to reach the point of the initial cliff hanger- end this chapter on another cliff hanger. Then repeat.  By the time the cliff hanger is solved the new one has already made you forget that the reason you read on in the first place is to get an answer to the cliff hanger of the first chapter. Ok so this seems like a great technique to keep readers interested.  The good thing about this is ...

The new age of fame ǀ the power of the individuals TikTok – you’ve probably heard of it by now. If you haven’t then know your children or grandchildren almost certainly have. In the last few decades social media has evolved rapidly: from myspace to Facebook to Instagram and snapchat, Tiktok appears to be the next phase in that evolution. With 800m active users and a company valuation of over 100 billion dollars, the app by technology behemoth ByteDance is seemingly unstoppable, you wouldn’t be stupid to believe that this rocket ship is bound for the stars. Therefore, it might be surprising to hear that over the course of just a few days the application went from an average review score of 4.5/5 down to just 1 star in India. Who on earth has the power to change the course of such a huge company? That is the question many people were wondering. As it turns out this was all sparked by a feud between two popular Indian creators, a tiktoker and a youtuber. India today explained ...

How common do you think it is that someone less skilled gets the job, or someone less talented wins the competition? For me I realised just how readily this happens in the summer break last year.  It was a sailing national championship, I won’t bore you with details. All you need to know is that I’m a good competitive sailor who is defiantly better than my brother. Ha. This competition is set to last two days, its windy and I’m fit, feeling good. The first race goes, and I capsize after being in the top 5 and end up finishing dead last. It’s fine, I say to myself,  your going to do way better than that in the next races.  Long story short that day went terribly, after that I don’t think I got a single other top ten result. What’s funny is this isn’t the first time this happened – and if I hadn’t figured out what I’m about to tell you it certainly wouldn’t have been the last. What happened on the second day was that I used the technique I'm about to tell yo...

A research project to understand how past experiences and upbringing impact on the character trait known as ambition, and what the individual can do to access this behaviour to achieve perceived success. Introduction Throughout history ambition has been lauded as a ‘secret formula’ that, once gained, can lead anyone along the path the “success “. The definition of ambition is a strong desire to do something, and whilst it is commonly thought of as an emotion, it is more correctly recognised as a personality trait, meaning it is consistent over time. By its definition then, it is a driver for action; whether this is good for society will be dependent on the action itself, but without ambition we are unlikely to get progress. This has led me to look further into the questions:  “Is ambition what it seems?”,  “what drives people to be ambitious?” and “can people motivate themselves to become ambitious?” Methodology For my research I looked over the internet and ...

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. If I was allowed a prop tonight I would have a banana and if I bit into that banana, without unwrapping it, I think you would say that isn’t right...  Well that is how most of the population views happiness, as something they cannot reach. However, if they took the time to unwrap it they may discover something far tastier on the inside… The other day, I was brushing my teeth, and questions started popping in to my head: like what’s for dinner, when am I going to do that last-minute homework, ….and what makes people happy?  You know, the ordinary things. I then asked myself that last question - How to enjoy the most boring of tasks and be happy. That is the question I want to answer today. When was the last time you felt unhappy or just plain bored recently?  Probably not that long ago, and you're not alone. According to a recent study, 1 in 3 of us, here in the UK, are unhappy most of the tim...