The Press Formula

I’ll be humble enough to admit that I’ve been blessed with the privilege to be on stage at global conferences, tech giants, and prestigious universities such as MIT.

As a freshman at New York University, over a decade before stepping onto global stages, I discovered Plato’s Symposium through the pursuit of a humanities degree.

Two things stood out to me.

Plato’s Theory of Forms speaks of three kinds of love: the love of bodies (desire), the love of the mind (intellectual), and the love of the soul: the highest form of pure love. This highest form is boundless of form, gender, or physical attributes such as color.

Then there was the idea that we leave our legacy in two ways:

Impregnation of the body: when we pass our DNA through offspring. This was considered mortal, as a person’s life has a beginning and an end.

Impregnation of the mind: when we pass on our ideas, and therefore, immortality.

Two thousand years later, here we are still talking about Plato and his ideas, despite his body having been deceased for over two millennia.

At 18 years old, I found an important direction in life: ideas matter.

Fast forward 15 years later, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I am preparing for my TED Talk in the Berkshires this fall. 🍂🍁🇺🇸

“This isn’t your first rodeo,” Andrew Wilson, the U.S. Correspondent to the Obama Administration, told me as we concluded an interview at Davos in January 2023.

“Actually, it is my first rodeo,” I told Andrew as I began laughing. I had successfully delivered the interview in one take.

I have a quote I live by:

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

It had been an intensive ten-week preparation during a Boston winter.

The Birth of the Press Recipe:

The draft for Davos passed through mentors at IBM, leading figures in the Boston tech scene, and, of course, legal.

That is when the recipe for all future interviews and keynote events was born.

Except for one moment: when a Washington Post reporter went off script and threw hard-hitting questions about the ethical implications and most pressing issues surrounding the emergence of artificial intelligence.

“This wasn’t on the interview questions provided. Think, Stephanie. Be smart. Be diplomatic.”

Anyways, back to the recipe.

First, a draft is created. Then it is passed to mentors and advisors. This process is repeated for two to three drafts.

Approval: The iterated draft is submitted to partner companies or organizations for approval, then passed to legal counsel for press clearance.

Then the fun part begins.

Here is my formula.

I record each paragraph on voice memos, one by one. Sometimes it’s 23 paragraphs, like Davos. MIT was 37 paragraphs. South American Business Forum was 28 paragraphs. TEDx? Still a work in progress.

Then, while working out (yes, there is a diet and workout regimen involved in preparation), I do what I like to call “Memorizing Script”.

For example, for Davos, during what I used to call the Juilliard Run along the Charles River in Boston, I would memorize the script. I’d play the first paragraph nine to ten times, then move on to the second for nine to ten times. Then I’d play the first and second together five to six times. This process repeats. By the time paragraph 17 was memorized, paragraphs 1 through 17 had been thoroughly ingrained.

And yes I was frozen. The Julliard Run was done at night, while snowing, with 10-20 degree weather. Why? Because it was also the mindset power gym.

It worked.

And here’s the interesting part.

I live in my own world (Lorde, circa 2015, A World Alone) and don’t really pay attention to competition. Just like Simone Biles: she competes against herself. She competes against her own records.

Because of this, I tend to create systems and formulas through innovation. The press formula is one example.

But here’s the intriguing part: in the beginning, I would shake to my core. Yet once I stepped on stage, I entered what I can only describe as a stream of consciousness. It felt as if I was taken over by an energy; my movements became automatic, the pauses between words intentional. It was, I assume, what true public speaking feels like.

I’ve never had formal press training. After SABF, however, I found myself sitting awkwardly on the Q&A couch. “Maybe it’s time to get a press coach.”

Still, I observe mannerisms closely:

💠 how speakers raise or lower their voices to emphasize a sentence,

💠 how pauses create suspense before a mic-drop moment,

💠 how movement across the stage captivates an audience,

💠 how you avoid locking eyes directly and instead gaze just above their heads.

“And the most important thing, Elsa,” I once told a student I homeschooled, the daughter of the 1%, “Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy were such powerful speakers because of ethos, pathos, and logos.”

(Pathos is the appeal to emotion.)

“And this one is the most important,” I continued while teaching World History. “Emotion. People are influenced most when you touch something deep inside them with your ideas.”

“Martin Luther King Jr.” I continued, “is another extraordinary example. He did not convey anger or frustration like Che Guevara; he spoke from love, understanding, and awareness, leading toward peace.”

So, through observing renowned speakers, studying and teaching history’s greatest orators, and remaining very observant, I replicated these lessons.

Also, it is not what we say, but how we say it.

Effective communication is a pillar of influence: but, most importantly, it begins with believing in your ideas and touching the hearts of those in the room. Inspiring humanity.

At South American Business Forum: 🎤

“Let’s make a world that makes us proud to be human. Let’s remember that we are both the programmers living in the program we created with our choices. We are the source code of creation. Our source of light has always been with us, ready to be remembered and ignited to create a better future for humanity, and beyond.”

A few paragraphs back, I embraced the stage. Stared at the floor, took my hand side by side. Looked at the audience straight down the center,

“How many times did I hear “that’s impossible. The technology is not there yet.”

“What did I respond?”

Pause. Suspense.

“Then we will be the ones to do it”

That’s mindset. That’s leadership. That’s the power of the spread of ideas.