Image Credit:
Benjamin Pender
There are leaders, and then there are inspiring leaders. Leaders do an ok job of telling people to do what they need them to do, Inspiring leaders make people want to do what they tell them about. There is a very big difference. Inspiring leaders very clearly are completely passionate about what they are talking about. What this means for us as speakers is that we can’t hope to inspire our next audience by using the importance of public speaking if we are not inspired ourselves. So the big question for us is just exactly what does passion look like in a speaker?
Building Passion Is All About Getting Feedback
So before we spend a lot of time talking about this “passion” thing, perhaps we should take just a moment and make sure that we are all on the same page when it comes to understanding just exactly what passion really is. If we take a look in the dictionary, we’ll discover that passion is defined as being “…strong and barely controllable emotion.” It doesn’t take much for us to realize as speakers that if we can bring some passion to our next speech, we’ll be able to capture our audience.
One of the reasons that bringing passion to each of the speeches that we give is so very important is because I believe that the better a speaker you are, then the better a leader you will be. Taking the time to become better at this speaking and presenting stuff will pay off for everyone who puts the time and effort into it. The better that you do in communicating your message to your audience, the easier it is going to be for you to bring your audience along with you to where you want them to end up.
In order to become more passionate in our speeches, we need to have friends help us out. When we give a speech, we need our friends to be in the audience. We need them to listen to our presentation and when it is all over, we need their feedback. Yes, the content of our speech is important, but we also want them to give us feedback on our presentation – did we show our passion for what we were talking about?
What all of us need to understand is that we are living in a changing world. The world around us is undergoing so many changes each and every day that your ability to keep up requires a constant effort on your part. What you need to be doing is getting constant reinforcement and feedback from your audiences. Never give a speech where you wrap things up, walk off the stage and then just leave. Always stick around and get the feedback that you’ll need in order to make your next speech even better.
When You Speak, You Need To Let Your Passion Out
When it comes to presenting with passion, there is one shining example that I think that we can all agree on. Steve Jobs was a good presenter. Steve is no longer with us, but his speeches still live on via the internet. Despite the fact that he was delivering what is generally a fairly boring new product introduction speech, Steve had a real passion that he brought to what he was talking about. At different times during his presentations he was inspiring, humorous, charismatic, dramatic, engaging, and he was always polished. We’d all like to bring the same passion to our presentations that Steve always did.
How can we show passion during our next presentation? It all starts when we take the stage. How we enter the stage will tell our audience what they can expect to get out of our presentation. What this means is that we can’t just walk on to the stage. Instead, we need to confidently stride on to the stage. Feel free to throw a leap or two in there if your speech calls for it. You want to laugh during your speech because when you do, your audience will laugh with you.
Passion has to do with energy. This means that when you are making a presentation you need to ensure that your energy level is high. Your energy level has to be higher than that of your audience so that they will feel as though your energy is flowing from you to them. One of the most important tools that you’ll have during your presentation will be humor. It’s very easy to add humor to your speech if you are willing to poke fun at yourself. When we bring our passion to our presentations, we are then able to give our audience what they want: they want to be informed, educated, and most of all entertained.
What All Of This Means For You
We want every speech that we give to be an unforgettable speech. In order to make this happen we need to make sure that we show the benefits of public speaking by bringing passion to our speech. By doing this we have a real chance to inspire our next audience.
If you can bring passion to your next speech, then you will have found a way to capture your audience. Passion is how you are going to be able to bring your audience along with you as you move through your speech. In order to get good at including passion in your speech, you’ll need to have friends listen to your speech and give you feedback. One person who always spoke with passion was Steve Jobs. To be more like Steve Jobs, we need to make sure that we take the stage in a way that will tell our audience what they can expect to get out of our speech. During our speech we’ll need to keep our energy level high so that we can share that energy with our audience.
Every speaker wants to connect with their audience. The challenge that we face is that we don’t always know how to reach out to them and grab their attention. It turns out that if we really care about what we are talking about, then our passion will shine though. It will be our passion that will captivate our audience and will allow our message to be heard. Next time that you speak, be sure to bring your passion!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: Do you think that it is ever possible for a speaker’s passion to get in the way of their message?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
When we give a speech, one of our main goals is to find a way to use the importance of public speaking to connect with our audience. We want to open ourselves up to them and let them know that we are just like them. One way that speakers go about doing this is to include personal information in our speech. However, is it possible to include too much personal information?