Become a Motivational Speaker
Many people wonder how Tiger Woods got to be the best golfer in the world at
such a young age. Perhaps his secret lies partially in a decision he made very early in
his career to study and learn from the best in his sport. He chose to learn from both
those playing against him and those who played before him. Tiger’s strategy was to pick
fifty golfers, fifty of the greatest, study them and try to
extract the very best parts of each of their games, and incorporate them into his own.
His goal was to create one super player…and for all intents and purposes,
he’s done just that!
In my motivational speaking career, I have tried to do the same to become a motivational speaker.
This process began about thirty years ago. I began seriously listening to other motivational speakers by whom I was
captivated. I studied what I thought each did exceptionally well, picked out parts of their
“games,” and incorporated them into my own professional speaking skills. I strongly urge everyone who is trying to
take their speaking career to the next level to do the same. Let me give you five examples of my “case studies” and what, in my opinion, each did best:
1) Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is a Grammy Award-winning poet, writer, and speaker who is also
currently a professor at my alma mater, Wake Forest. (I’m throwing in this plug for my
Demon Deacons. Fight on!) Very few speakers have Maya Angelou’s flair and
creativity in speaking. The way that she captures an audience, even in her
introductions, is just fabulous. And her mastery of pauses…powerful! Study her
techniques and your captivating powers will indeed “Rise”!
2) Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon, whom I discussed in the introduction, is my mentor not only in
the field of passion, but also of humor. Spurgeon often used levity in his sermons,
which was very controversial in his time—and to a lesser extent, remains so in churches
today— because the idea of using the pulpit to make people laugh was considered
rather sacrilegious. When Charles was once asked why he used humor, his response
was, “I wait until I open a man’s mouth wide with laughter, then I pour a dose of truth
down it.” This lesson is the basis of all the humor I use in my speeches.
3) Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.…As I write his name down and gaze at it, I ask myself, “Is
any explanation necessary?” He is my hands-down favorite speaker of all time. His
soul, his spirit, his song, his use of parallel phraseology was spectacular! (Unlike any
before or since his time) At the end of the nineties, Martin Luther King, Jr. was voted as
one of the best two speakers of the twentieth century, second only to Churchill.
4) Richard Rogers
Richard Rogers was a preacher who lived in Lubbock, Texas. I first heard him
speak in 1977, and he’s certainly one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. There’s no
doubt that his “best game” is his story-telling prowess. Absolutely no one, in my
opinion, could breathe life into a story like Richard. To this day, my wife, Tanya,
mentions that she remembers us on our dates riding around in my old VW van. She
recalls me listening to her with one ear, but listening to speeches from Richard Rogers
on a portable cassette recorder held up near my other ear. (You can plainly see what a
patient and forgiving woman Tanya has been.) I’ve collected and purchased every single audio tape available.
Now more than 500! Many of them I’ve listened to more than once, and one time joked with Richard that if he ever needed a stand-
in, I could step up and recite his messages, with his stories included.
My ability to tell a story was revolutionized by Richard Rogers. I called Richard
one time while I was living in Boston, and asked him if I could possibly fly into Lubbock,
Texas, just to spend some time with him to learn a little bit about how to tell a story. It
would have been worthwhile for me to make the trip for one hour of his time. He agreed
and invited me to his home. I flew in on a Friday and shadowed Richard for much of the weekend. I
returned to Boston on Sunday evening with some newly hatched skills for one part of my professional speaking
that would forever be changed. Tiger had learned from Watson the secrets of putting, and Richard had just
taught me the secrets of captivating stories!
5) Winston Churchill
An interesting dilemma for me is that Churchill is generally not my cup of tea.
And yet, how can I leave him off of my list of fifty to be studied, when he was voted the
most powerful orator of the twentieth century? Here’s a man whose voice was not only
as necessary as troops and armaments were to the British war effort, but also a man
who won a Nobel Prize for Literature and his oratory. So much a “man of the hour” was
Churchill, that he was the first non-U.S. citizen who was granted honorary citizenship in
the United States. In fact, in his honor we have the battleship USS Churchill. I also
had to include Churchill on the list of fifty because he’s my “poster-boy” for speech
preparation. When once asked why his speeches were so popular and powerful, his
response set a new standard for masterful preparedness: “As a rule of thumb, I try to spend one hour of work and
preparation for every one minute of a speech that I give.”
These are but five of the speakers from whom I’ve learned. Tiger Woods knows
the importance of learning all he can from both those before him and those around him
to make himself better. What prevents us from doing that in our speaking careers? Many times it comes down
to just one word….Ego. Take your Speaking Career to the next level in 2009. Stay tuned for my
Motivational Speakers Training Course and become a motivational speaker in 2009. The doors will open in a few short weeks.