Technology, entertainment, and design.

Independently organized to deliver community-driven, impactful conversation where ideas change everything.

Welcome to another hour of TEDxSt.

Louis, where we share local-driven content from innovators and leaders right here in our own community.

I'm Mich Hancock.

And I'm Sara Vaughan.

For over 40 years, TEDx has helped to facilitate a trusted and insightful purpose around the sharing of ideas and conversations, not only within our region, but truly around the world.

With over 40 million dedicated subscribers to the TED and TEDx platform, our content continues to inspire in areas that are diverse and varied, with origins that educate, inform, entertain, and captivate through hundreds of unique presentations on air and online.

Tonight, once again, we have this outstanding opportunity to showcase innovative and creative presenters that challenge and motivate us all.

These dynamic, powerful, and truly remarkable individuals that took to our stage recently at the TEDx St.

Louis Women's event at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

We welcome Lindsey Hermes, who is literally paving the road to a more sustainable future.

She's leading climate-focused efforts to reduce emissions and rethink how cities are built.

A former global supply chain leader and entrepreneur, Lindsey shows how everyday systems like the roads we drive on can be reimagined to meet global challenges.

What if the best answers to our biggest problems are small, quiet, and already working?

Just waiting for someone to notice them and scale them.

What does it mean to truly heal, not just individually, but as a community?

Dail Chambers has an answer that's both creative and radical.

A mother, artist, organizer, and healer/farmer, she weaves care with art, history, and intergenerational connection.

Her work pushes us to rethink health as something we build together.

What I would love to see in here is for folks to think about how you can engage in your community by getting to know your neighbors through direct questions, asking folks with a smile, of course, how do they feel?

For more than 50 years, Kris Kleindienst has shaped Left Bank Books, a beloved independent bookstore in St.

Louis, into a vibrant space for art, activism, visibility, and community conversation.

Bookstores aren't just places to buy books.

They're places to see yourself reflected.

From curating shelves to shaping civic conversations, she reveals how cultural spaces can evolve with and for the communities they serve.

- So it's now been 51 years, half a century, that I've been doing this cultural work that is so inadequately defined as book selling.

We together go forward and continue to show up and hold space for this huge, glorious, complicated, messy community.

I like to think and can only hope that Melissa, with her sweet, fierce determination to be part of this community, would be proud.

And to wrap up our hour, Volume Speaks brings more than music.

She brings movement, a multi-instrumentalist, audio engineer, and the only woman to win the champions battle with St.

Louis's Fresh Produces' Beat Battle.

Her performance at TEDx St.

Louis is a celebration of sound, story, and creative power.

♪♪♪ So from Sara and myself, thank you so much for being a large part of what makes this commitment work for our community, completely driven by nonprofit, volunteer-led, grassroots effort to highlight some of the best ideas local to our region.

We are so pleased to be able to bring you these specials as part of our enrichment of fostering ideas and making our community a much stronger and innovative partner along the way.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Did you know a soybean could fill a pothole?

I know.

Mind-blowing, right?

That is a small solution with big impact because we can grow soybeans over and over and over again.

That regenerative agriculture is the majority input into solutions like ours and many others in the bio-based category because the science is there and now the story is there.

My business sits at the intersection of sustainability and science and we are on a mission to make sustainable infrastructure a really big deal.

We spend a lot of money every year on infrastructure.

We could be spending it smarter.

It's definitely a topic that more people are thinking about in this day and age where there's a lot of uncertainty, but it makes good sense.

What I learned about the process of creating my TEDx talk is that I have a lot of ideas, and they are not small.

I learned that my process of figuring out how to present a TED talk was completely different from anything else that I have ever done.

When I honed in on my idea, I really came back to something that I could repeat over and over again, kind of like a refrain in a song.

And so I wanted to get that sticking in people's minds.

It's been a really amazing process.

It's been a really powerful experience.

And that's a group that you don't ever leave, I think.

So I plan on continuing to partner and collaborate and commiserate with all of the people that I've met in this journey.

My name is Lindsey Hermes.

My TEDx talk is called Not a Moonshot, a Mind Shift.

This talk is gonna motivate you to think about your world in a very different way, and I guarantee you, you're certainly not going to look at pavement in the same way after this talk.

(audience applauding) - So, we're at a TED Talk.

You're expecting something big.

We tend to think big problems require big solutions.

Admit it, you came here expecting a moonshot.

But what if we've been looking in the wrong direction?

What if the fix isn't out there, it's already here?

There's a bias in the way we tend to solve problems, especially existential ones like climate change.

We assume solutions have to be huge, expensive, shiny, but what if it doesn't?

What if the best answers to our biggest problems are small, quiet, and already working, just waiting for someone to notice them and scale them?

Let me take you back.

It's 1994, Main Street, Washington, Missouri, or Washington, Missouri, if you're a local.

A career scientist, my dad.

He's one year into his entrepreneurial biotech venture.

Working in his lab, he spills a glass flask that shatters on the floor.

Now, he's not in a fancy lab.

He's in the old office of a former car dealership, now his makeshift chemistry workshop and factory.

That day, he was working with soybean oil, trying to create a biodegradable detergent.

When that flask shatters and spills, something remarkable happens.

The asphalt tile on the ground starts to dissolve.

How unusual.

It dissolves not with acid, not with petroleum, with soybean oil.

That accident was a breakthrough.

A plant-based compound that could clean and break down petro-based grime better than petroleum itself without being toxic from a bean.

Over the next 30 years, my dad created a small but mighty line of products for sustainable infrastructure all based around soybean oil.

Think roads, airports, sidewalks.

Hey, even had your driveway covered.

His work product, the molecules.

He's a scientist.

And me, where he saw molecules, I saw meaning.

Where he built chemistry, I saw story and systems.

It's the overlooked fix.

These soy-based compounds preserve concrete.

They preserve asphalt.

Same chemistry, different surfaces, one system.

Let me repeat that because it's kind of a big deal.

The same plant-based chemistry can extend the life of concrete and asphalt.

Roads, runways, bridges, ports, highways, parking lots, and yes, your driveway too.

And here's something you might not know.

Asphalt is the most recycled material in the United States.

More than aluminum, more than paper.

We've quietly built one of the most circular systems in infrastructure and nobody talks about it.

So our solutions and others in the biobased category, they extend what we built but they don't fight the fossil fuel based system.

They actually work in symbiosis with it.

So we extend the life of what we build, we reduce material demand, delay repaving, stretch maintenance budgets, and lower emissions.

That's not disruption.

That's optimization.

Now I didn't always intend to follow in my dad's footsteps.

I had my own path.

But I did grow up in the factory, worked weekends and summer breaks in the lab.

I stayed close to home for university, but life eventually took me to Hong Kong.

There I spotted a gap in the market and started my own digital branding agency.

Eventually I exited and went on to build tech products for simplifying global trade and supply chain transparency.

I worked with some of the world's largest companies to map supply chains, cut carbon, and boost traceability.

I was drawn to complexity and obsessed with simplifying it.

I am a nerd.

And after 16 years abroad, I paused and I realized I had been chasing the next big thing when the real impact was in front of me all along.

So I moved my family halfway around the world back to the Midwest to play with soybeans because what my dad created wasn't just clever, it was scalable.

Small solution, big impact.

You know what this reminds me of?

Sometimes it's the simplest innovations, not sweeping overhauls, that have the power to change the way we live, move, and work.

We all know this one.

The Post-it Note.

Small solution, big impact.

Duct tape, small solution, big impact.

Velcro, small solution, big impact.

How about some infrastructure examples though?

Painted lines on roads.

In 1917, an undertaker in Michigan noticed a leaking trail of milk spilling from a truck.

He painted a line down the center of his road, and instantly it changed things.

Things got safer.

Traffic flowed better.

And now that small innovation is now universally on every road around the world.

Now, some of you need a reminder on how these things work, but small solution, big impact.

How about the roundabout?

Love 'em or hate 'em.

Replacing a traditional four-way intersection reduces injury crashes by 75% according to the Federal Highway Administration.

That's huge.

It's no new material, it's just a different design.

It's not a new road, it's a different design.

Small solution, big impact.

And curb cuts on sidewalks.

Originally created for wheelchairs, curb cuts help pretty much everybody, from workers with carts, parents with strollers, and travelers with luggage.

Small solution, big impact.

None of these were flashy, but they solved massive problems with elegant, scalable simplicity.

Small solution, big impact.

Let's talk numbers.

Every year, we pour enough concrete to build an eight-lane highway around the earth twice.

Cement accounts for 8% of CO2 emissions each year.

Parking lots, they average only seven years before they're repaved while they could last 30 with the right preservation.

Now this one gets me.

Globally, on infrastructure, we spend over $2 trillion a year.

That's a lot of money.

So every time we preserve a road with a plant-based chemistry, we delay repaving.

And we also save about 167 tons of carbon that we didn't have to drill or dig for that mile.

But it's not just about carbon.

It's economics.

When we choose to maintain and preserve what we build, public and private sector stretch their budgets.

Farmers grow additional feedstock.

Contractors reduce downtime.

Traffic and commerce continue to flow.

Employees find meaning with climate positive work.

Research points to the same thing time and time again.

Research from the National Center for Pavement Preservation, the Federal Highway Administration, and state and local agencies.

It all says that if we preserve our roads early on, we save big later.

Okay, the numbers are simple but staggering.

For every one dollar, just one single dollar that we spend on preservation today, we can save six, eight, sometimes up to $10 down the road on major repairs or full reconstruction.

That's like finding a leak in the roof and fixing it for five bucks instead of replacing the whole roof.

Now, I will take the duct tape option any day.

It's not just a good idea, it's a better business model.

So why isn't everybody doing this?

Well, a few reasons.

Firstly, maintenance is invisible.

When a road doesn't fail, nothing happens.

You don't win an award, it's not glamorous.

Second, budgets tend to reward replacement over preservation.

Budgets will prefer full reconstruction instead of a smart maintenance program, even though the latter is cheaper and greener.

And nobody shared the facts.

The science was there, the results were there, but nobody connected the dots.

And that's where I came in, not as a chemist, but as a builder of systems and stories.

I don't need to invent the solution, it's my job to scale it.

I'm a builder.

I didn't inherit a legacy.

I inherited a tool belt.

And builders don't wait for perfect.

They notice what works and they get moving.

So I started showing up, knocking on doors, asking, "Hey, what if we tried this here?"

And people said yes.

Something that started so small got much bigger.

Every time we preserve a mile, we save money and emissions.

Because this isn't a climate pitch.

This is a practical solution to a structural problem.

Every time we preserve something we build, we save money and emissions.

The answer we're waiting for isn't a moonshot.

It is a mind shift because the road that we're going on, it's leading us off a cliff.

So maybe the smartest thing that we can do isn't to build a new road.

It's to preserve the one that we're currently on.

Small solution, big impact.

I'm Lindsey Hermes.

Thank you.

[applause] ♪♪♪ I have been integrating my art with nature in a way that I'm able to grow food more often and frequently because it's as if my farm practice and my studio art practice finally gelled together to be able to support stories and narratives of folks around me.

It's been a very restorative and regenerative process of my own self-exploration to be a more intentional listener to the people around me.

And food has been the best topic because all of us have to consume it, unlike other things that we consume.

And it's healed a lot of my own biases within myself about what my work looks like to the public.

I feel affirmed and motivated by the people around me who does not have the time.

And resource of care has been the most moving thing in my practice with working with others in my community and trusting that generations of innovations and the people who created them have my back.

So the whole culture of our area has been dismantled in a way by how folks have responded to this collective trauma that impacts not only the people in my neighborhood but everyone in the region.

I feel that I'm able to deliver a more concise message.

As an artist, we always step away from the canvas and we never know if that last mark was too much or not enough.

That everyone has to find their healthy balance in their messaging and their mission and it has been inspiring to listen to the other speakers that have been a part of our TEDx experience together.

I'm Dail Chambers and my TEDx talk was Beautiful Healthy Resilience, Community Impact and Research.

♪♪♪ - Do you know your neighbors?

Do you know how they feel and see themselves?

Do you know what foods they like to eat?

Or what they consider to be wonderful in their environment?

At first I did not, but I had to ask some questions.

And now I think I do.

But first, take a journey with me.

Imagine a young five-year-old girl playing in her backyard with elders around her.

Then the elders ask her to stake a tomato or dig up the potatoes they previously planted.

This intergenerational experience is what feeds them.

They use the food to prepare Sunday dinner and also to feed themselves and meal plan for the week.

Hi, I'm Dail Chambers and that's my childhood story.

Thanks to my mother who is a declarated United States Marine Corps veteran, I had the opportunity yes, I had the opportunity to trust the relatives in my family as the community that instilled world values in me.

Now with that life experience I went out into the world and guess what I landed in the Greater Ville North St.

Louis.

In North St.

Louis we hear in the news often about the health disparities, the crime rates, the historic redlining, the vacancies, and it did not match what I see every day when I come out of my home.

When I come out of my home I see beautiful intergenerational families who have been residents for 30, 40, and 50 years.

So I had to ask myself, how are they having such a wonderful experience?

What has sustained them?

Then something major happened to all of us.

The COVID-19 pandemic.

We were all stuck in the house alone together.

(laughs) With that being the case, I decided to ask some questions in a formal way.

I created what I call an inquiry, but we'll say it's a survey.

Now, it's me, and I'm an artist researcher.

So, at first it didn't have a title.

Each time I represented or asked someone to participate in the inquiry, I had to read a very long description.

This description was North St.

Louis nutritional awareness cultural inquiry.

Now imagine someone knocking on your door asking you with that kind of long title.

The folks in my life had to be very patient and also open and willing.

From the survey, some of the things that I found were both fascinating and also familiar.

For instance, 87% of the participants that took the survey considered themselves to be beautiful.

87% of the people who took the survey also considered themselves to be healthy, despite any health disparity they've already experienced or are currently going through.

87% of the people who took the survey considered themselves as resilient.

Now to me, that is powerful.

And the information that I learned, and the knowledge that I learned from doing the work of door knocking and being on social media did not stop there.

64% of the people who took the survey already had backyard gardens.

They'd been growing food before I moved onto the block.

And for me, that's inspiring because I'm a homesteader.

So I had to take a step back and say, "Well, what am I doing here?"

With that being the case, I wanted to supplement and support the work that had already been done in the community that I entered.

And from there, I created five different farm sites.

It's a multi-site farm, and we have an educational site, and they're mostly food forests.

We picked food from this endeavor, from the information that I gained in the inquiry.

For instance, most of my neighbors and the supporters love collard greens.

They love corn.

We love okra, the same food, the cultural heritage food that has sustained us for generations.

So I supported that by growing those same foods in my sites, as well as apples, persimmons, pawpaws, and the likes.

Now what did I do with all this food?

I gave it to my neighbors.

I shared it with friends, supporters, people who were in need of additional fresh produce, and that's what I do today.

Now it's 2025.

On May 16th, a devastating storm, a tornado, has swept through my community.

Another trauma.

In this situation, it's adding more stress to an already complicated situation.

But the storytelling that has happened before my inquiry, through my inquiry, and even now, has helped us process and really represent what beautiful, healthy, resilient is.

After about a month of recuperation, we came together in a story circle and we checked in about our socio-emotional selves.

We also resource shared and we got to do that with a meal and some of the food came from the sites and ourselves and it's been very impactful.

Not only that, my neighbors have also expanded their grow practice.

We trade seeds, we trade crops, and sometimes I'm excited to get a cooked meal from some of the food that I've grown.

One of the greatest things about this journey that I've been on is that I've been able to say that the positive aspects of my community that I get to be surrounded in that work as well as express it to people in the public.

Before the tornado I was had the opportunity to create a billboard.

On the billboard it said the motto that came from the inquiry.

Beautiful, healthy, resilient.

To not only affirm the neighbors and the residents who live in my area but it was on Highway 70 so it affirmed everyone that drove through our community, passers-by, and folks who may or may not live in our area.

What I would love to see and hear is for folks to think about how you can engage in your community by getting to know your neighbors through direct questions.

Asking folks with a smile of course, how do they feel?

What do they think about whatever topic that you think that might connect you all and together come up with a healthy solution.

I'm so thankful that it is for our area we're in an urban agricultural hub of sorts so that I get to learn intergenerationally and hands-on just like in my childhood every day.

Thank you.

[applause] ♪♪♪ I came to this TEDx stage kind of circuitously because someone who's been very involved in making those happen thought of me.

We were old high school friends and that journey to finding the core and heart of my story was incredibly profound and rewarding.

So I think that what is at the heart of the talk that I wound up giving was the idea that we are, as a bookstore, an integral part of our community and we are in conversation with that community all the time.

And the experiences we have, what we learn from them, what their stories are, what they need, what they want, what's going on in the world, just causes us to be in a constant evolution.

And the way those stories overlap, those individuals or situations might never connect, but they've connected to us and they're part of our internal conversation and how we respond.

People come to us in all states of mind and emotion and need.

But those people come together organically and that creates new ripples in the community, new connections, new ways of thinking.

I thought when I agreed to do this, well I'm going to learn a new kind of storytelling.

And what it turned out to be was this excavation of everything my heart remembers.

And some of it was very hard, especially practicing it every day, and I really came away changed by this.

I'm Kris Kleindienst and this is my TEDxTalk.

Bookselling is a conversation with its community.

I almost didn't get hired when I applied for a job at my neighborhood bookstore because I was a lesbian.

It was 1974 and I was 21 years old.

The anti-war activists collective that started the store didn't yet understand where LGBTQ liberation fit into their revolution.

But they took a chance on me anyway, and right away I created a gay section and started filling it with all the books I could find.

I was hungry for queer stories and I knew other people would be too.

The section grew quickly so I added a lesbian section and made it two sections.

Now anyone who's ever worked in a bookstore will tell you that before long you will get your own regulars.

These are folks who come in to tell you what's up in their lives, find out what you're reading, and get personalized advice.

It's a bit like being a bartender without the booze, or a doctor.

Your prescription is usually, "Here, read this book and call me in the morning."

My first regular was Melissa.

Melissa was not that much younger than me, 16, and a lesbian.

She was short with shoulder-length honey brown hair and brown eyes, and she dressed simply in t-shirt and jeans, and she had a kind of fierceness about her.

She'd come striding in with a strong walk, back straight, arms at her side.

When she told me she was being bullied at school, and worse, her own parents were ashamed of her sexual orientation.

They were pressuring her to straighten up her act, literally.

She'd come in to see me for support.

Well, this is a first for me because I was still a baby lesbian myself.

But I told her, "Homophobia is wrong."

And I said, "I also had trouble when I came out because even though my mother was a lesbian, she felt the need to stay in the closet, even with me."

I gave Melissa "Ruby Fruit Jungle" to read.

That is Rita Mae Brown's classic bildungsroman about growing up as a lesbian.

It has a happy ending, I told her.

Well, some weeks went by and I realized I hadn't seen Melissa for a while.

So I checked with someone we both knew, and that's where I learned the terrible news.

Melissa took her own life.

I was devastated.

I couldn't imagine the pain she must have been in.

How had I not seen this coming?

What had I missed?

Processing Melissa's death was my first lesson in what bookselling was—that it wasn't just putting books I loved on the shelves and hoping other people would love them too, that talking to Melissa wasn't extra.

It was the job.

I knew I couldn't bring her back, but what could I do for the next gay person who came in looking for something they couldn't find anywhere else?

I made a promise to myself and Melissa that for as long as I was a bookseller, I would dedicate myself to creating a space where everyone could feel welcome and wanted.

A few years later, I became an owner of the store along with another bookseller, and being an owner broadened my perspective of who we served.

I knew that the gay community wasn't the only one whose voices were marginalized.

So I made a point of being sure we had strong representation of black, brown, indigenous, Asian, and Pacific Islander voices on our shelves as well.

I also learned something else around then, that sometimes it's our customers, our community, who's actually telling us what they need.

For example, for years there was no gay community center or gay hotline, so people would call the store, our store, to find out where the gay bars, the gay community center, gay support groups, and gay-friendly coffee houses were.

I would train our staff, even our straight staff, in how to take those calls.

And one of my favorite memories of that time was listening to a straight bookseller tell a caller where to find the leather bar.

Now, queer folks don't need us to tell them where the bars are anymore, but they definitely appreciate our reading groups and our author events.

And I've lost track over the years of how many LGBTQ folks have told me that coming in and browsing our queer section was a rite of passage for them, that it saved them.

And parents come in now too, looking for advice on how they can better support their gay child.

Digital can never replace that kind of human interaction.

I mean, when was the last time you had coffee with a chat bot who watched your child grow up?

At first, I actually thought that my social justice activism was something I was doing outside of the store.

It was folk singer songwriter Holly Neer who gave me the term for what we were doing in the store, and that was cultural work.

We were cultural workers, and the bookstore is that elusive third place, the place outside of home and work where folks can come together to affirm their own identities and also build empathy for the identities of others.

It happens all the time in our store informally, and it especially happens at our reading groups and our author events.

It's something that legislative reform, as important as it is, cannot do.

It can only support what we do.

I'd been a bookseller for over 25 years when September 11th, 2001 happened.

It was a Tuesday, a horrible, horrible Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning, I got busy researching books on the Middle East and Islam, and on grief for both adults and kids.

And then I started calling in those orders to the publishers in New York.

It felt so surreal and intrusive, but I knew people were going to need these books.

And then on Thursday, Deepak Chopra's people called.

He was stranded in Chicago on book tour because all the flights had been canceled that week.

So he had rented a car, and he would now be driving through St.

Louis where he had not been slated to speak originally.

Would we like to host him on Saturday morning?

[laughter] The day after tomorrow?

[laughter] Well, there was no email.

We hardly had any copies of his books.

Social media hadn't been invented yet.

But we made a few calls.

And on Saturday morning, it seemed like our entire town had turned out to our store.

It was so packed that I stepped outside to make more room.

And people would come to the door, and I would say, "I'm sorry you can't come in, it's too full."

And they would start to cry.

So I would say, "Do you see these butts pressed against the door?

If you can get past them, you can go in."

Somehow, everyone who needed to got inside our store that morning.

Deepak Chopra comforted them.

He led them in prayer and meditation.

I don't think we sold many books at all, but that wasn't the point.

It was these people who so gratefully smashed themselves in our store that morning that not only showed me what they needed, but also how much they trusted us to give them what they needed.

Fast forward to 2014.

In the weeks after Michael Brown was killed, we refined our sections yet again and added anti-racism and activism categories and some new reading groups as well.

And at a packed author event one night, a young white man in the audience raised his hand and asked the black author, "What can I do to make a difference?

I really want to, but I don't know where to start."

To which the young black man seated next to him replied, "You could start by talking to me."

You could have heard a pin drop.

The answer was so profoundly simple and true.

The two exchanged phone numbers and left together, and I don't know what happened after that, but I do know that what happened that night was a moment of real connection, and to me that was a moment of real change, one author event at a time.

Today it is my staff, who are young enough to be my children, even my grandchildren, who are fielding the needs of our neighbors, and being mostly Gen Z, they have refined their expectations of those neighbors.

They don't accept it when they are sometimes the objects of unintentional microaggressions, such as when a bookseller is misgendered, or a white customer can't tell the difference between two very different black booksellers.

So after they've had a moment to recover, I remind them that we are a very big tent.

To which they suggest a helpful pronoun chart at the counter.

To which I suggest that it needs to be a kind helpful pronoun chart because everyone needs to feel welcome in our store, even welcome to make mistakes.

That's how they'll stay, I say.

And they'll discover books they never knew existed.

They'll get to experience what an authentically diverse and inclusive space feels like.

They might even teach us a thing or two, I say.

We need them.

But my staff hardly needs that reminder because they've grown up in a world that elders like me have fought to make possible.

And they are the ones who are defining what cultural work looks like today.

They also remind me constantly to walk my talk.

Now every night at closing, a bookseller writes up notes of things that happened during the day, and I never go to bed before I've read it.

And often there are reports of special encounters with customers, encounters like this one, and I quote, "Today a lady came in after her final test for Alzheimer's at the hospital and she said she felt pulled to our store.

And although we didn't have any books that were comforting or encouraging on Alzheimer's, she did leave with a stack of books from our Eastern Philosophy section after our heartfelt talk.

She cried from the encounter and asked consent for a hug.

Oh sweet Jane, we really are changing people's lives sometimes in this special place.

So it's now been 51 years, half a century, that I've been doing this cultural work that is so inadequately defined as book selling.

And my staff is carrying that work forward as they develop and deepen their own relationships with their own regulars.

And as we together go forward and continue to show up and hold space for this huge, glorious, complicated, messy community, this community that I love, this community for which I am so protective, I like to think and can only hope that Melissa, with her sweet, fierce determination to be part of this community, would be proud.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) (audience cheering) ♪♪♪ (audience applauding) ♪♪♪ - Oh my gosh, it was absolutely unreal.

Being in a room with so many powerful women made me also realize how much of a powerful person I was as well.

Like it kind of solidified and made me feel very welcome and that there were other people there to help and support and also make me challenge my perspectives about certain things.

This experience absolutely changed how I approach my career now.

First of all, like I know that communication is very essential, time management is essential, and even just working with the team is essential.

And the fact that those people are in the room, it just kind of gave me the first lily pad to the rest of my journey, so I'm just excited.

I am a three-time Beat Battle Champion under Fresh Produce, so it's actually a battle beat.

And what a battle beat is, it is a battle.

It is about taking the other person out to the best of your musical ability.

So this musical scene in St.

Louis is a melting pot.

You can step out on any day of the week and find live music, poetry, dancers, production.

But the scene in St.

Louis, I can't even say that St.

Louis has a musical sound because it's literally a melting pot.

It's beautiful.

Hi, I'm Volume Speaks, the E in TEDx, bringing you the entertainment and sounds.

Please enjoy my future of expression.

Hello, hello.

Hello, hello.

Are you guys excited to be here?

My name is Volume Speaks.

Like she said, I'm a multi-instrumentalist and advocate in regards to music.

You guys, are you guys ready to dance?

I'm here to stretch, help you guys stretch out, get your excitement up.

You guys look amazing.

Come on, stand on up.

Come on.

And if you don't know the person next to you, go ahead and say hello right now.

But now is the time to go ahead and stretch it on out and meet your neighbor.

And go ahead and turn around to the people behind you too.

Say hello.

Yeah.

How I came to TEDx St.

Louis as an entertainer was trying to audition as a speaker.

I see you dancing down there too.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am, Ms.

Tina girl.

They were interested in what I did.

Nobody had heard about beat battling even though it is a very big culture here in St.

Louis.

And they were interested, so I said, "You know what?

I can show you better than I can tell you."

I am a three-time beat battle champion under Fresh Produce.

Shout out to Fresh Produce.

And it is actually based out of St.

Louis since I believe 2008.

♪♪♪ Shout out to the One Piece fan out here.

Oh yeah.

Let's switch it up, y'all.

Some people said I could dance to that.

I could dance to that.

So it's actually a battle beat.

Sync placement, mix, that's just a focus.

Like almost an auditory guillotine.

♪♪♪ So I'm not the first woman to win a beat battle.

I am the first woman to win the Champion of Champions battle.

I honor all of my sisters in sound before me, Katerra Bates, Lexxiii Beatz, that's two X's, three I's with a Z, and they have been definitely like paving the way for me.

If it wasn't for Lexxiii Beatz, I wouldn't even be in Fresh Produce.

I saw her do it, but being the first champion is amazing.

I feel like I have set the bar.

I feel like there are other people coming after it, which I think is beautiful because I don't necessarily want to stay in the hamster wheel of life.

"They've been having me sound great this whole time."

Oh, I have this position and only I can have it.

I understand that there's new people coming up and it is a whole life cycle.

"I think it's time to switch it up again.

One more.

This is the last one guys.

This is the last one.

I just need a little cha-cha from somebody.

A little cha-cha, a little.

I'm influenced by the music.

I like to listen to different types of music.

I like to hear different types of sounds and stuff and be influenced by that.

I'm influenced by producers that I've grown up with.

I'm influenced by producers in the city here.

But a lot of times it starts with a sound, a feeling, or an idea.

And I kind of build my beats like a sandwich.

Make some noise for TEDxSt.

Louis Women.

Yes!

We should be back in just a moment.

I see you, We Power, okay.

Yes, ma'am.

All right, y'all.

Y'all got about 30 seconds.

Make it right, make it well.

Okay, on the side, okay.

Samir in the building, what's up?

Okay, I guess I'm running out of time here.

I'm looking at my timer here.

Okay, no problem.

That is my time.

I am Volume Speaks.

Music is my native language, and thank you for my TED Talk.

I will turn it back over to the hands of Misha this time.

♪♪♪ - What an incredible hour.

And thank you for joining us.

I hope you had an opportunity to learn, enjoy, and maybe feel empowered to go out and make our region slightly more visible and connected through what you heard tonight.

Once again, TED and TEDx is all about technology, entertainment, and design.

Independently organized, that's the "X," to deliver community-driven, impactful conversation where ideas change everything.

We welcome you to be involved, not just with our organization, but with the many individuals and organizations they represent.

Ideas that truly motivate and influence our community and our world and with the overall purpose of building stronger relationships and partnerships each step of the way.

And of course, Nine PBS.

It's with these partnerships that we can provide engaging content through strong foundations that highlight the best ideas that represent our neighbors and our region.

Till next time, we'll see you at one of our events.

Thanks for watching!

♪♪♪ If you know anybody in the restroom, we better have 'em come back.

We 'bout to get back to it.

Make some noise if you guys have enjoyed the speaker so far.

Make some noise for TEDxSt.

Louis Women.

Yes!

We shall be back in just a moment.

Welcome to something special.

Welcome to TEDx.

This TEDx event is part of a global conversation that takes place every day in every corner of the world.

People gather to hear the best ideas bubbling up in their communities.

More than 3,000 TEDx events are held every year in 170 countries.

It's a remarkable thing.

TEDx events are self-organized under a license from TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to discovering and sharing powerful ideas in the form of TED Talks.

It's not TED itself, but your local TEDx team of volunteers that has done all the work to put on today's event, including booking all of the speakers.

It's this team's ideas, dedication, and time that have made this possible.

We really hope today's program sparks an exciting conversation.

This is a day for curiosity and for skepticism, for inspiration, and for action.

The more you enter into it, the more you will take out.

And now, On With The Show.

♪♪♪