The booming fifteen minutes speech gave me a rush of adrenaline. That was the first time I was in a room with a motivational speaker occupying the microphone. And just like that, along with the other three dozen people in the room, I had an assuring feeling of “Making it Big”. I felt motivated, driven and focused. Most of us have gone through what seems to be a life changing experience. Motivational speaking has made its share of entrepreneurs, but how? Let’s get into what actually happening.
1. “The Unique You” concept
If you happen to browse a website run by a motivational speaker, you will find an abundance of phrases like, “Are you living the life you deserve?”, “Do you want to perform better?”, “Nothing is unachievable!,” “Find your inner self!”. What do these taglines have other than a truckload of the word “You”. They scream out load “you have a unique ability” and that is true. This realization puts you on a conquest to find and explore that ability. Tony Robbins, debatably the best motivational speakers to have walked the stage, gave an exercise to the audience in one of his sessions. He asked them to pick out every brown object in the room, and then he asked his audience to close their eyes and recall the objects that were of color red. There were resistive affirmatives. Then he asked them to open their eyes and spot the red objects. And suddenly there was plenty more red. “Seek and you shall find” was Tony’s response. He then emphasized on redirecting focus. The point he made there was that if you focus your energies in the right direction you will most certainly find what you are looking for. So when you will change your focus and put your effort in finding “The Unique you”, it will increases the probability that you will find that trait and it will you put on the highway to “Making it Big”. On an entirely other note, motivational speakers use the “you” language to indulge the audience.
2. Rocketing up expectations
We are all motivated as ever to achieve our life goals after a session with a reputable motivational speaker. We start to expect the unexpected. We also tend to feel that a lot is expected from us. What do those sky high expectations really do to us? They enhance our performances. This expectation-reality relationship is explained by “The Pygmalion effect”. This phenomenon explains how people perform better when greater is expected from them. Positive expectations channel our energies positively and we end up better performers. By making us believe that the talent inside us and the people around us expect more from us, they make us better performers. Well, no wonder the boy who topped my class was the teacher’s favorite.
3. You stay motivated
It’s one thing to get a rush of adrenaline; it’s another to stay motivated. Life stories are common occurrences in motivational speeches; these stories intend to convey how individuals who faced mountain loads of problem were able to come out on top. These stories widen our perspectives about finding sources of motivation. We tend to respond positively to seemingly problematic situations. Against our previous attitudes, we find motivation in apparently tragic events. A reputable Pakistani motivational speaker mentions in his speeches that he started his shop (business) from an outlet of McDonalds. So he turned a letdown of not finding a suitable place to work into a part of a success story. I am sure aspiring entrepreneurs won’t let the non-availability of a suitable working place cause hindrance in achieving their goals. Nick Vujicic , a successful Australian motivational speaker was born with tetra-Amelia syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by the absence of all four limbs. He is a living example of how unfortunate circumstances have a gold filling of motivation.
4. You might over relate
“I will conquer the world, just like the guy with that pinstripe Armani suit. He is my inspiration.” These thoughts are not uncommon among people listening to motivational speeches. The motivational stories might turn out to be great aspirations for certain people, but people might start to relate just too much with the people in those stories. Those aspirational success stories are examples of how nothing is impossible; they are certainly not guidelines to the top of the mountain. People might just start to think that their pieces go together to solve the same puzzle as rest of the entrepreneurs. Following them blindly might lead to you devising an ineffective approach to your life or worse. You might even find yourself working for a cause you do not believe in. You might ignore opportunities that your life scenario has to offers in relating with an entrepreneur that was struck with poverty in his initial stages. You will find yourself pushing the wall instead of using the door. These factors will certainly affect your efficiency. So make sure you use those sessions to motivate yourself, and not to pick up business plans.
We saw how motivational lectures can boost up our morale and chances of our success, and how they come with a downside. Make sure you benefit from that slick dressed, charismatic figure and stop looking at that life counseling session as a cloning mechanism.
