First, you must understand that you are not an information speaker but a motivational speaker. It doesn’t matter what your speech is about as much as how your speech touches people. How it is delivered and how you say it. Let me illustrate an important point about being in the motivational speaker business.

Did you ever see the documentary that came out about the Titanic a few years before the  blockbuster movie did? The documentary was unbelievable. Someone had spent a lifetime of research, and found out every fact, detail, that involved that ship. This is new stuff that a lot of people hadn’t even heard before. It was an incredible two-hour documentary, but you havn’t heard of it and neither have I, and it didn’t make any money because no one really cared to see a documentary on the Titanic two or three years after that the Titanic movie comes out. Was the movie true in every sense of the facts, no. Did everything happen the way the movie said, no. The difference in the two films was that the Titantic movie won more Oscars than any movie in the history of cinema. There in lies the difference. Your keynote speech must be more than just a compilation of facts, or wisdom. It’s got to be so much more than that.hen you craft a motivational speech be thinking as you write it  that your not doing a documentary right but a movie. In the end were in the entertainment business. It doesn’t matter what your speech is about because were in the entertainment business and if you’re not entertaining people, people could care less what you’re talking about.

I’ve recently attempted something radically different in my reading, just to see where it would lead.  I started reading ten different books simultaneously.  This synchronicity has led to several new ideas, both personal and entrepreneurial, as well as to a little shifting and realigning in the good old gestalt. You might give this a try and see what happens to speaking and writing.

Here’s a list that was helpful for me starting out as a presentation skill trainer.

1- Taking Center Stage- Masterful Public Speaking Using Acting Skills, by Deb Gottesman and Buzz Mauro

2- Adaptation to Life, by George Vaillant

3- Simple Abundance, by Sarah Breathnach

4- Access to Inner Worlds, by Colin Wilson

5- The Transparent Self, by Sidney Jourard (one of my favorite books)

6- Hidden Power:  How to Unleash the Power of Your Subconscious Mind, by James K. Van Fleet

7- The Speaking Industry Report, by Lily Walters

8- A Whack on the Side of the Head, by Roger von Oech

9- The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, by Debbie Ford

10- The Pre-Publishing Handbook, by Patricia Bell

It takes effort just like anything else, anybody listening to this must be really confident. The key to making a great speech as a motivational speaker is that you have to rehearse so that you can make it appear as if I’m just telling a story spontaneously, off top my head. I think there has to be some tension in the story that you are telling. There’s got to be some built-in tension, there’s a struggle. There’s got to be a reason for the listener to say my gosh how is this going to work out, what will happen here?When you get that going, now they’re listening and even pulling for you. One of the biggest things is to paint a picture as a motivational speaker.

If I can tell you a story and without even realizing it you are there, you are actually visualizing it. You’re walking with me on the side of the you’re watching the fire burn in that house, that’s the key. If you can get there, your stories will captivate. Ask yourself as a motivational speaker , ‘do I always have a story for every point’? Absolutely you should!  I think people learn through stories. Whether or not you’re religious you have to accept this, Jesus Christ decided how can I get my message out to the whole world. He told stories. People relate to that and identify with them. I don’t know the cannot to many stories to be honest. In a 45 minute speech there’ll be one longer story, maybe a signature story, it’s can be five minutes long. But there are other stories that are 90 seconds long and there may be as many as eight or 10 of them in one keynote speech.

A signature story can be the one story that comes to everybody’s mind when you think of that speaker. Les Brown talks about the time that he became a DJ, as his all-time dream job of being a DJ. He tells us so wonderfully well, I’ve heard him tell it 10 times. What would really open up the hearts of listeners and they would relate to you and that would be the biggest part is that they would be pulling for you. If they’re pulling for you to succeed. Stories are what we want in our jokes, songs, movies and the books we read. The best motivational speakers are also the best story tellers.

Following are several great quotations that I hope you’ll find motivational. Copy and print the ones that motivate you most. Laminate them. Use them as motivational bookmarks. Post
them up on your job. Tape them to the ceiling at home and work. Carry them in your notebooks, purses, wallets, and in your car. Also work them into speeches for your motivational speaker jobs.

• “We become what we habitually contemplate.” — George William Russell, Irish Poet
• “Take charge of your thoughts. You can do what you will with them.” —Plato
• Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.”  Vonnegut “Everything you can imagine is real.” Pablo Picasso“What we are is what we have thought for years.”  Gautama the Buddha

The Primary reason I take motivational speaking jobs is that I want to impact people’s lives. I once saw a bumper sticker that read: “Make a living, not a difference.” Now, I know it was intended to be humorous, but I thought, how sadly true. It’s just what so many people are doing.

I think it’s so important that we search for the “worthwhileness” of our our speaking careers –and don’t become a motivational speaker until we find it. Beforehand, if I cannot think of the statement in my speech that will make the difference, that motivational speech is not yet ready to give.

Click Here to view my Speaking Course.

Ask yourself this Motivational Speaking Question

After every speech, I ask myself, “Did I make a difference?”  After every day, I ask myself, “Did I make a difference?” There are days when I answer…“No.”  I then think of situations where I could have handled things better.  Could I have been more creative and innovative — perhaps more compassionate or patient?  What else could I have done to make a difference? There’s a definite connection between worthwhileness and passion. You can see one brick mason at work and ask what he’s doing. “I’m building a wall,” he replies.  You see another brick mason and ask the same question. “I’m building a home,” he answers.  Each is performing the same task, but they have different perspectives, different philosophies. Perhaps, too, a different quality of work.  One probably finds it much easier to “call in sick.”  After all, he only has bricks waiting for him, while the other has a family depending on him.   In our public speaking jobs, are we building walls or homes?  If we’ve shown love,  if we’ve played our music,  then we’ve made a difference. After public speaking opportunities, when I ask myself if I’ve made a difference, one of the criteria I consider is whether or not I’ve empowered my audience? Have I shown them that they are important? Have I proven that each of them makes a unique difference?    This is the most fulfilling part of my motivational speaking career.