What makes You Special

Next question I have for you and it’s related to the last segment.

What’s special about you.

What exactly is it about you that you think people should listen to.

Let’s face it most people in the world are pretty similar.

They don’t want to hear a speech from someone who is exactly like they are who is in the same station in life.

So you’ve got to figure out what is special about you.

You’ve got to really isolate that part of that is people have to understand how are you worse off than they were.

Now you look at some of the great motivational speakers they’ve gone on to great success after being in car crashes and don’t have use of their limbs or they’ve been burned victims and they’ve still gone on to lead happy successful lives or they were labeled disabled mentally challenged.

And yes back in the 70s some of them were labeled with the R word.

How have you overcome something.

There is a structure in most motivational speeches.

Someone talks about how low they were how bad they were and how they overcame their challenge and if they can do it and they are worse off than you are how hard could it be for you.

That is the basic structure of most motivational speeches.

Now let me define a motivational speech can be sort of the generic all things to all people.

And I don’t mean this in any disrespectful way.

The Anthony Robbins style speeches the Zig Ziglar before he passed away.

There can also be a very very industry specific.

I mean before Steve Jobs passed away when he was speaking unveiling a new product he was clearly a motivational speaker.

He was motivating people around the world to buy that iPad to buy that iPhone.

So there are different types of motivational speakers you get to determine exactly what it is is your style.

Now you can’t be a Steve Jobs style motivational speaker unless you create a software company that’s worth billions and everyone knows and respects.

That’s not quite true.

You can have success in your own community in a much smaller scale and tell the tale of how you succeeded.

But again there needs to be some component there about struggle and how at least temporarily you were a lot worse off than the average person in your audience.

It can’t simply be.

Well I graduated from Choate and then I was first in my class at Harvard.

And I was first in my class at Harvard Business School and then I was hired by Goldman Sachs and then I retired at 40 with two hundred million dollars in my bank account.

Someone like that might have some interesting things to say that could motivate people in the finance world.

That probably isn’t going to have that common touch to be a motivational speaker to speak to thousands of people students people at large rallies.

So that’s my challenge to you now.

What is it about you that really makes you special whether or not your friends or family or colleagues know it.

What is it you think makes you special and what was that actual struggle that’s taken place that you overcame and then how specifically were you at some point in your life.

A lot worse off than the average person.

These are key elements in most motivational speeches so reflect on that.

Write your answers down to those questions.

Now.