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We need to get the balance right among the desirable virtues of persuasion, information and decoration, as Aristotle termed them – or perhaps what we would call motivation, data, and fun. Be tough on yourself and pare your ideas down to their simplest possible form.Īnd so I think it’s time to complete the rehabilitation of motivational speeches and speakers. Former academics beware! Your praiseworthy desire to teach the audience something – a lot, actually – may lead to glazed eyes and a lack of repeat business. Audiences may even feel edified by such a speech, if it's done well, but they won’t jump to share it. I’ve been arguing for a long time that it’s public speaking death to treat a speech as if it’s a data dump – speakers need to resist the temptation to tell the audience everything they know. You want everyone else to hear it too – your co-workers, the other organizations you may know, your boss. It’s the sort of message that, if you hear it, you get it – and you want to share it. It’s actionable, and Simon’s conversational delivery and storytelling keep it fun. It’s motivational – and eminently shareable. Sign up here to get top career advice delivered straight to your inbox every week.
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Subscribe To The Forbes Careers Newsletter The only reason to give a speech is to change the world, and world-changing starts with the audience right in front of the speaker. The real purpose of a motivational speech, and in fact any speech, is to get you, the audience, to do something differently, because the speaker has got you to think differently. The translation only works partially, but it’s useful as a way of understanding what speakers need to be able to accomplish today. Today, we expect our speeches to be persuasive, informational and decorative – all three, if we can loosely translate Aristotle’s terms to mean motivational, actionable, and fun. Inspiring and Motivational Speeches and talks from. Aristotle distinguished among persuasive, informational, and decorative speeches and said that you had to choose one of the three to do well. Listen on Spotify: Motivational Speeches - The Best Motivation Speech & Music Mixes Playlist on spotify.
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It’s a complex set of demands, and one that speakers often struggle to meet. So a speaker that fails to provide some fun, a bit of a spark, or – better – the comic delivery and timing of Louis CK won’t be asked back very often. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. At the same time, TED has raised the bar on all speakers, and audiences demand more than a modicum of entertainment with their information. Transcript of football player Ray Lewis motivational speech.
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