Regardless of the size of the audience, many people who first begin giving speeches simply want to do a good job. They want to be engaging, not boring, and quite frankly, just don’t want to embarrass themselves. If you are like me, you were also looking for validation which came from the applause, standing ovations, and compliments.
But the more and more you speak, the more reps you get, those things become less and less important. Experienced speakers want to make a difference. Their desire is to move people to action. The best speakers want to change lives.
A Champion Head Coach
Mike Bianco is in his 21st year as head baseball coach of the Ole Miss Rebels. His teams have won 962 games in his head coaching career. Coach Bianco is also a two-time National Coach of the Year. Most impressively, his team just won the 2022 College World Series. Coach Bianco is a great leader!
In 2017, Coach Bianco gave a pre-game speech to his squad which provides a template for all communicators who are wishing to craft a motivational speech which will change lives. Watch the 1:49 video below and then I will break it down into the components which made his speech so compelling.
7 Steps To Crafting A Motivational Speech Which Changes Lives
After listening to Coach Bianco’s words, we glean 7 steps to crafting a motivational speech which changes lives:
Tell Stories
No one truly knows why something goes viral. Otherwise, everything created would follow a simple template and go viral as well. But what we do know is while facts are informative, they do not go viral. Almost everything which goes viral is a story. People see themselves in stories. Stories can be passed on from person-to-person and generation-to-generation.
Coach Bianco told the story of Jack Weber. What follows are the key elements of Weber’s story and what makes it worth sharing.
Make Those Stories Relatable
Relatability creates traction and causes a story to spread. As Coach Bianco said, “Not a tall guy, about my height but he weighted almost 300 lbs.” Weber was an average guy who was forced to go on a diet. Can you relate?
Create Urgency
A speech which changes lives creates a feeling of “we must do this and we must do this now.” It is then when Weber’s story takes on a different tone. Weber’s daughter Megan was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease and desperately needed a transplant. Though Weber was a match, he unfortunately could not participate because of his obesity. Doctors warned he might die as well during the procedure. For his daughter’s life to be saved, Weber had to immediately begin losing weight. Fear did the work of reason.
Establish A Timeline
Urgency requires action. Once urgency has been created, your action steps must be time specific. Weber was told he had six months to lose 100 lbs. So he set out on that journey.
Show The Outcomes
To inspire your listeners to change, your story should either be an inspiring example or cautionary tale. Because of the urgency and timeline established, Weber lost the weight and his daughter received the transplant. This is an inspiring example. However, without Weber following the doctor’s orders, he could have just as easily been a cautionary tale of what not to do.
Give Next Steps
Smart communicators not only give their audiences great content, they tell them what to do with what they’ve heard. They create handles. After telling the story, Coach Bianco gave the following applications:
- “You’ve got to be committed tonight.”
- “Commit to what you’ve been committed to all year, pitch by pitch.”
- “The at-bats”
- “The energy.”
- “When something bad happens to you, give big body language.”
- “Be a good teammate, be selfless.
Leave Your Audience With A Memorable And Repeatable Phrase
Coach Bianco said, “Once your commitment is greater than your feelings, that’s when you get results.” A great speech leaves a memorable and repeatable phrase the listeners can constantly repeat in the days, weeks, months, and even years following. We are still repeating Coach Bianco’s phrase five years later.
So in conclusion, crafting a life-changing speech requires you to tell relatable stories, create an urgent timeline, show the outcomes, give steps, and leave the audience with a memorable and repeatable phrase. Do these things and your next speech may not get a standing ovation, but change lives as well.
Now allow me to create urgency in you, give you a timeline to act today, and next steps to take.
If you are looking for a resource which provides dozens of stories you can share with your team, click HERE or on the image below for my book 2021 The Year In Leadership: The Stories Of Faith, Athletics, And Business Which Inspired Us All. This book will give you endless content you can leverage to motivate and inspire your team. At the time of this writing, Amazon is running a special and selling the book for only $10.80!!! Make sure you get copies for you and your entire team.
