How to Become A Motivational Speaker | Stop Trying to Sound "Inspirational"

March 28, 2016

Josh Sundquist

Paralympic ski racer and Cancer Survivor

Don’t try to be incredibly inspiring. Instead, try to be incredibly honest.

In other words, don’t say things merely because you think they sound inspirational. Say things because you believe they are true.

If your primary goal is to sound inspirational—which is what most motivational speakers, including myself, try to do at some point early on—you will instead sound cliché. Because if your only goal is to sound like what you think motivational speakers are supposed to sound like you are, by definition, imitating. And an imitation can’t be as good as the original because it’s just a copy, a replica, a forgery.

At best, the audience will think your speech is the same old stuff they’ve heard a hundred times. At worst, they’ll find your presentation phony and disingenuous.

The authentic version of you is a much more effective speaker than the best version of you imitating what you think a motivational speaker is supposed to sound like.

Seriously. There is nothing more inspirational as far as speeches go than a human being standing in front of a group of other human beings articulating in their own words the unique guiding principles they’ve learned from life. Not principles they read in a book. Not principles they heard another speaker say. Principles that have grown spontaneously through the pursuit of a challenging objective or in the midst of difficult circumstances. That is the stuff of truly motivational speeches, by which I literally mean speeches that are motivating.

Many people roll their eyes when they hear a “motivational speaker” is presenting at their meeting. Why? Because they’ve sat through too many speeches that are instead built on the shallow foundation of tired clichés.

Nothing will turn off an audience faster than reciting a list of cute phrases you read on an embroidered pillow.

Unless the phrase on that pillow changed your life. If so, then yes by all means put it in your speech. But don’t just recite the phrase for us. Tell us the story about whatever dark hour you were facing, about the moment you saw that pillow lying there on the couch, and about what you learned as a result of applying it’s cross-stitched advice to your situation.

Get it?

Don’t repeat what you’ve heard. Share what you’ve learned.

Which is not easy. But if you can clearly communicate the most profound lessons that life has engraved on your soul, honestly baring your past struggles and dilemmas, that is the most inspirational sort of speech you can give. In fact, it is the only kind of inspirational speech you can give, because anything less simply isn’t inspiring.

Source: Josh Sundquist

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