Motivational speakers inspire people to achieve their goals, overcome adversity, and see the world from a new perspective.
Successful motivators use powerful stories and illustrations to move audiences beyond their daily distractions, connecting them to their highest purpose as individuals, teams, or organizations.
One of the best ways to engage audiences and get them excited about your ideas is with a story. Whether you're a speaker, educator or motivational expert, the right storytelling skills can make all the difference to your audience.
The best storytellers know how to tell a story that's easy for their listeners to follow without bogging them down with too many details that don't contribute to the primary purpose of the narrative. Great storytellers also eliminate distractions and eliminate any tangents that detract from the main idea or moral of the story.
Besides engaging their audiences, stories are also believed to ignite both the reason and emotion centre of the brain, making them memorable in the long run. This activation can have a huge impact on an audience's ability to remember, think and act on ideas presented.
Empathy can help you motivate prosocial behaviour, such as donating to charity, encouraging a friend to seek help for alcohol abuse, or simply comforting someone with a hug. It can also guide your decision-making in social situations and reduce burnout.
To be empathetic, you need to understand another person's feelings and emotions. This can include physical empathy, such as feeling what a person is feeling physically or cognitive empathy, such as understanding their mental state.
Empathy is a central component of human nature, and it's genetically programmed in all of us. However, some people are prone to being overly empathic. This could lead to a lack of emotional self-control or feelings of overwhelm.
The ability to persuade others to accept a message, change their mind, or adopt a position is one of the most valuable skills in the world. Whether you are in politics, a salesperson, or someone in an organization that needs to influence a lot of people, it is critical for you to understand the techniques of persuasiveness and how to use them.
A speaker's success depends on how well she anticipates the audience's responses to her message. Sceptical listeners will often create counterarguments in their heads and try to find reasons why your point of view is wrong.
For this reason, it is important for you to use strong evidence in your speech. For example, if you want to show that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions caused global warming, you can include evidence such as statistics and data that prove your point.
Humour can be a powerful tool for motivational speakers. It makes people feel good, and it keeps them engaged in the presentation, which helps them to listen more.
In addition, humour is a great way to make negative or challenging ideas more palatable. It can also help you to open up conversations and get people to think outside of their normal box, even if they aren't comfortable with the topic at hand.
It can also be a great way to defuse stressful situations. When someone is laughing, they're not concentrating on the serious issue at hand, and the emotional energy that was being used to deal with a tough situation can be saved.
Although there have been a few studies that have investigated the cultural differences in humor perception and usage, no systematically developed relationship has been found between humor and psychological well-being across cultures. Hence, future research should employ empirical methods to clarify the causal relationship between humor and psychological well-being.