Sometimes it says “inspirational speaker” on my invoices to clients. They want it that way for some kind of tax reasons, and I’m more than happy to help them with that. But also, I think that this service specification is quite accurate. I really believe that public speaking isn’t about information transfer at all – no speaker can beat the internet or even books in that arena. Instead, public speaking is about inspiration and evoking feeling. If I’m lucky enough to transfer anything on a good day, it’s energy.
Inspirational speakers are rare. Their talent lies not primarily in their knowledge on the subject, but in their delivery. They could really speak about anything, but we often don’t let them because we want speakers to speak about their area of expertise. You may or may not agree with me here, but to prove my point I want to show you two videos of one of my favorite speakers of all time. He’s not blind and he’s not a football coach, but he can take on the role of either, and deliver speeches that are just mindblowing. His name is Al Pacino, and here are a couple of the best inspirational speeches I’ve ever seen:
If you’re anything like me, you go for seconds when you find something you like, and as I did do that with Al Pacino’s speeches, I realized that he’s in public speaking roles all the time. Google it and see for yourself. Apparently, public speaking was a hobby of Pacino’s early in life, and English was the only course he didn’t flunk in high school before he dropped out at age 17.
It’s important to have heroes to look up to in whatever you do, and when it comes to public speaking, Al Pacino is definitely one of mine.
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