TED Talks have a secret sauce. You’ve probably watched a talk that captivated you from the first sentence, made you laugh, left you in awe, or even changed your perspective in under 18 minutes. But what makes these talks so engaging?
It’s not just the speakers, the ideas, or the production quality. It’s the storytelling. And a crucial part of it is the attention hooks that reel you in. The most memorable TED speakers have mastered a set of powerful attention hooks that grab your interest from the very first moment and keep you engaged throughout their presentation. The six most common attention hooks are called TED’s QUIRKS.
It’s an acronym that stands for Question, Unexpected, Irony, Relatable, Knowledge, and Secret. Six attention-grabbing techniques that can start a presentation with everyone’s attention on board and keep them engaged.
Let’s break them down.
Question: The Art of Sparking Curiosity
We humans are curious creatures by nature. When someone poses a thought-provoking question, our brains immediately start searching for answers.
When Simon Sinek opened his talk with „How do you explain, when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain, when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions?“ he wasn't just introducing his topic, he was creating what psychologists call a "curiosity gap." Your brain suddenly realizes there's something it doesn't know but wants to, and this knowledge gap makes you pay attention.
Questions activate a psychological trigger that makes us hungry for resolution. They're particularly effective when they challenge our assumptions or make us reflect on our own experiences.
Start with why - How great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek
How to use it:
The best questions for opening a talk are open-ended and thought-provoking, not easily answered with a simple yes or no. Start with a question that sparks curiosity:
🎤 “What do the best leaders do differently, something that textbooks never teach?”
🎤 “Why do some of the best ideas in history come from accidents?”
🎤 “If failure is such a great teacher, why do we avoid it at all costs?“
Unexpected: The Brain Loves Surprises
Our brains are pattern-recognition machines that are constantly predicting what will happen next. When something disrupts those expectations, we immediately snap to attention.
Take, for example, when Hans Rosling (one of my favorite storytellers of all time, great guy) swallowed a sword (yes) during his statistics presentation. That unexpected moment didn't just wake up the audience, it perfectly illustrated his point about challenging assumptions while creating a memorable moment that anchored his entire talk in the audience's memory. The video of this killer talk is further below under the „Knowledge“.
Another memorable unexpected moment was the time when Bill Gates released mosquitoes during his malaria talk, stating „There's no reason only poor people should experience this.“. This created a powerful moment that audience would remember long after the talk ended.
The unexpected doesn't always have to be dramatic though. It could be a surprising statistic, an unconventional perspective, or even a startling personal revelation. The key is that it breaks the pattern of what the audience is expecting.
Mosquitos, malaria and education | Bill Gates
How to use it:
Challenge assumptions or introduce an idea that feels counterintuitive.
🎤 “The best marketers of the future might not be human.”
🎤 “You’d think top athletes train harder than everyone else. But the best ones actually rest more.“
🎤 “90% of startups fail. But here’s what no one tells you: the ones that succeed don’t have the best ideas.“
Irony: The Hidden Twist That Makes Us Smile
Irony adds a layer of wit and intelligence to a talk. It creates a cognitive tension that demands resolution. And that's exactly what keeps an audience engaged.
When Brené Brown revealed that embracing vulnerability actually makes us stronger, this seemingly paradoxical idea challenged conventional wisdom. The irony of finding strength in weakness created a compelling foundation for her entire talk.
Ken Robinsons famous Talk „Do Schools kill creativity?“ makes us think something is not right just by looking at the name of the speech. And we immediately want this to be cleared.
Irony works because it forces us to reconcile competing ideas, which makes us active participants in the speaker's journey rather than passive listeners.
Do Schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson
How to use it:
Find contradictions in your topic that highlight a surprising truth:
🎤 ”We have more productivity apps than ever—yet we’ve never been more distracted.”
🎤 “The most expensive mistake companies make? Trying to save money.”
🎤 ”The best way to get more done? Work less.“
Relatable: Make It Personal
The best speakers make their big ideas feel small, intimate, and personal. They use micro-stories, tiny relatable moments, to bridge the gap between speaker and audience.
By sharing her experience of being misunderstood as a Nigerian and as a feminist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie transformed abstract concepts like bias and stereotyping into tangible realities we could feel and understand. Her personal narrative created an emotional bridge that made her message stick.
Relatability creates emotional investment. When a speaker shares something authentic from their own experience – especially moments of vulnerability or transformation – it invites the audience to connect on a human level.
We should all be feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
How to use it:
Use a real-life moment or personal anecdote to make your topic instantly connect with the audience.
🎤 “I once had a boss who changed my entire career with just one sentence.”
🎤 “I still remember my first day at work. I had no idea what I was doing.”
🎤 “Last week, my five-year-old asked me a question I couldn’t answer. It made me rethink everything.”
Knowledge: The ‘Wait, What?’ Moment
TED Talks thrive on the “aha!” moment. The moment a speaker drops a fact that makes you rethink what you thought you knew.
Take Hans Rosling’s talk "The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen". He shows that most people, no matter their background, hold outdated, incorrect views about global development. That single insight makes you question everything you assumed. The sword swallowing, that I mentioned earlier happens also at the end of this talk, by the way. What an anchorage.
Hans Rosling - New insights on poverty
How to use it:
Surprise your audience with a fact that flips their perspective.
🎤 “Your brain processes an image 60,000 times faster than text.”
🎤 “Only 8% of New Year’s resolutions succeed. Here’s what the 8% do differently.”
🎤 “The human body contains 37 trillion cells. And every one of them listens to your thoughts.”
Secret: The Whisper That Hooks You
There's something irresistible about being let in on a secret or insider information. It creates a sense of privileged access and makes the audience feel special.
When Amy Cuddy revealed that "power posing" for just two minutes could biochemically boost confidence, the audience felt like they were receiving valuable secret information – a "hack" that could improve their lives immediately. She starts her speech with the promise of giving that hack and this perception of exclusive knowledge creates both attention and retention.
Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are | Amy Cuddy
How to use it:
Make your audience feel like they’re about to uncover a hidden insight.
🎤 “Most leadership books will tell you that great leaders have a vision. But here’s what they won’t tell you.“
🎤 “Most people think the best negotiators talk the most. But the real secret? They listen more than they speak.“
🎤 “Most productivity hacks are a waste of time. The real secret to getting more done is something no one talks about.“
Combine QUIRKS for Maximum Impact
The magic of this method is that these elements can be used individually or in combination. The best TED talks often combine several QUIRKS elements. Sir Ken Robinson's legendary talk on how schools kill creativity used relatable humor (R), Irony (I), and the secret (S) that our education system might actually be undermining the very creativity it claims to foster.
Here are some examples of combined QUIRKS:
👉 Question + Knowledge
"What’s the secret to getting people to remember your ideas? It turns out, our brains are wired to forget 90% of what we hear—but there’s a way to hack that."👉 Unexpected + Relatable
"I used to think multitasking made me more productive. Then one day, I tried focusing on just one task—and got more done in one hour than in my entire day."
The Curse of Knowledge vs. QUIRKS
In my article Answering the Million-Dollar Question, I discussed "the curse of knowledge" – that psychological bias where you know so much about a subject that you can't imagine what it's like not to know it.
QUIRKS is the perfect antidote to this curse. By using these attention hooks, you're creating points of entry for your audience, regardless of their familiarity with your topic. Questions invite curiosity, unexpected elements create interest, irony challenges thinking, relatable stories build connection, knowledge offers value, and secrets generate excitement.
So the next time you're preparing to present, remember: it's not just what you say, but how you hook your audience that determines whether your message will stick. And with QUIRKS in your presentation toolkit, you'll have six powerful ways to make sure it does.