The gifts of communication and public speaking can be a powerful avenue to help bring change to people’s lives. While it is important to excel at public speaking and to continuously improve your skill set, especially if you are training people, the most important aspect of public speaking is helping change people’s lives and helping them to do something different. The core motivation for public speaking should always be helping people to turn their lives around, teaching them how to grow from where they are to where they want to be.
What Business Are You Really In
One particular public speaker never gives direct answers to questions about his vocation. He starts his presentation asking the audience questions such as, “If your finances were on a scale of one to ten, where would you like your finances to be?” Of course, everybody says ten. So he asks them, “Well where are they now?” They answer around a seven. Then he asks, “Okay, for your health on a scale of one to ten, where would you like your health to be?” Of course, everybody says ten. He replies by asking them, “Where is it now?” People will give varied answers, such as six or seven or maybe even nine, leaving some room for improvement. Then he asks them, “If you consider your relationships, where would you like your relationships to be on a scale of one to ten?” Everybody answers ten. When he asks, “Where are they now?” they answer at a five. He then responds with his reply of, “Well, I’m in the transportation business.”
That reply, as you can imagine, results in strange looks from the audience. So, he clarifies his statement by explaining, “My goal in life is to transport you from where you are now to where you want to be.”
That public speaker has really hit on the heartbeat of communicating and public speaking, the idea of bringing people up to a higher level and bringing them closer to their goals and dreams.
The Negativity Weighing People Down
The current economic climate is one of serious instability. People are living through one of the greatest recessions in history since the Great Depression. Most of the news headlines and business talk revolve around the current economy, the high unemployment rates that people are facing and worldwide economy collapses where entire nations are going bankrupt. It stirs up a lot of fear in people. There is a lot of concern, anxiety, and uncertainty about the future.
The current international climate also revolves around arms conflicts, national boundaries, and the different ideologies and conflicts surrounding the war on terrorism across the world. Religious conflicts are almost a certainty at any time in history but with the modern day news media, people are now constantly bombarded with negative news, anxieties about huge world issues, political instability in different countries or even political impasses in their own Governments.
You Hold the Key
This constant flow of negativity weighs people down, depresses them and even affects their attitude. It makes it harder for them to rise above their circumstances and everything happening in the world, to really live a full life and to believe they could accomplish the dreams burning within them.
Therefore, more than ever, you as a public speaker- as a public communicator- hold a powerful tool in your hand. You have the ability, the gift to lift people above this negativity, above the anxieties surrounding them, and to inspire, to teach, and to lead them further towards their goals and to help them fulfill their dreams in life.
