“Hi boys and girls…” : thoughts on motivational speaking to children today.
I walked in the gym and sat in a folding chair in the back; my back against the wall like an old cowboy or special forces soldier. The space continued to fill with students of many ages between five and 19. A teacher joined me, and we watched a couple in their fifties up front dance together, while music played and students found their seats.
Finally the music stopped. Most settled into their metal chairs. The woman up front twirled away and the man, with a flourish, took a microphone and introduced himself as the motivational speaker.
I am not assigning him this label or title. This is how he introduced himself.
Apparently he has been a fixture on the local motivational speaker circuit within certain demographics within a certain geographic region. But as I am not up on these things, I was unaware of his status as a local celebrity. Had I known this, I would likely have responded in the exact same way I did knowing nothing about him, which was to clap and give my attention. When someone is up front, that is a basic signal of respect an audience can give.
I did give my attention for a short bit. Then it - my attention - began to explore and wonder and wander, as he climbed all over the place thematically and narratively. It is not my intent to disrespect those who do something meaningful or that is important to them, or something they have gained a certain expertise in. It is my intent to look at the ways leaders and public speakers are effective, or less so, and if less so, what lessons, improvements, or suggestions might be gleaned from their approach.
Or perhaps this is just my way of observing and avoiding a double onslaught of repetitive platitudes coupled with narrative incoherence.
These are three things I think one can do to be an engaged listener and effective communicator:
Give good attention
Learn and use people’s names
Ask relevant questions
Within five minutes, I was wanting to give this enthusiastic 50-something a little advice. First would be recognizing what year it is, and not using the phrase “…now boys and girls…” to an audience largely made up of teenagers.
Knowing your audience and what year it is seems to me an essential portion of connecting with a group of kids. Or anyone.
I watch some political candidates campaigning, and I can’t shake the notion that it’s some recurring long-form Saturday Night Live prank. But I’m sadly reminded, again and again, that it’s not. It’s far-right Trump Republican candidates saying the whispers out loud, loud loud loud, again and again, the the things that would have been dismissed as ludicrous by almost every elected politician in either party a decade ago. It looks like a joke, and sounds, smells, and appears to be a joke in every way. But it’s not a joke. It’s for real. They are for real.
To be clear, I am not connecting this person with Trumpian politics, TrumpSpeak, or TrumpThink. I’m simply saying our baseline for what is real and what is not; what are facts and what are not; what is intentionally comical and what is not, have changed dramatically over the last six years.
How is this relevant? It’s relevant like this:
I have no idea what this fellow’s politics are, and they are irrelevant in almost every way here, except for the way in which I kept thinking that he was doing his own version of SNL; his own version of a self-aware shtick that he was using to draw the audience - students from Kindergarten through high school - in on.
But he wasn’t. I started laughing when he delivered his trifecta of facts about himself, because I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t. In fairness, I believe he was delivering these more as bits of trivia he found interesting, rather than points of braggadocio. But the relevance, and even interest level of these facts, left me…perplexed.
This is the trifecta:
He talked about working for a professional basketball organization in some capacity for a decade, without providing any specifics, though alluding to the idea that it was glamorous.
He spoke of how his brother used to be the guy that carried a certain deceased superstar’s umbrella.
He boasted of winning a county-wide dancing competition.
He went on to talk about self-confidence and the stereotypes people carry around, and how wrong they often are. Unfortunately, he negated his anti-stereotype statements by repeatedly returning to examples of how:
If you’re from New York, you act cocky,
If you’re from L.A., you act cool,
If you’re from Miami, you act relaxed.
He connected this in some way to having something to do with what other people think when they see you coming. Something having to do with: think about how you present yourself to others and what do people think when they see you coming? In other words, consider the impact of first impressions. I think?
There was a lot of possibility in what he said, and loads of good intent. But even I, as an adult, trying and struggling to pay attention and follow his diverging trains of thoughts, couldn’t figure out where he wanted to land things.
Let it be said: I can meander and wonder along with disconnected thoughts as well as anyone, including him. But here’s an example that might be relevant here:
I’m a strong speller. But I’m not overly judgmental about people’s spelling most of the time…unless they’re doing something where it’s relevant, like writing copy for a billboard advertisement. In that case, I am highly critical, because it is part of the job to ensure the accurate conveyance of a message. And correct spelling is a not-insignificant part of successfully and effectively conveying a message in that form.
If you’re a motivational speaker for elementary and high school, then get your message down well:
keep it clear and simple,
avoid cliches and platitudes,
do not further perpetuate stereotypes,
avoid archaic language for your audience,
find a landing.
Know when to cut yourself off and end it.
I have become increasingly interested in the idea of attention. It is a disappearing idea, and I am convinced that those of this upcoming generation who find success in their fields of interest will possess this ability above that of their peers: the ability to give attention for a period of time and to focus, summarize, and synthesize content.
The corollary to that is that if we are involved in the education of upcoming generations - and we all should be in some capacity - then we have to model how to give attention…
…and if we are a (motivational) speaker, we have to respect the audience enough to do some research and deep thinking beforehand about what the message is and how to deliver it in a way that is interesting, differentiated, and sticky.
Interesting, differentiated, and sticky.
In other words, if you’re asking for people’s time - and attention - then respect them by respecting their time and making your content count.
I guess I’ll go re-read Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena about those who judge and critique those who are doing the actual hard work. :)
