Convinced by Conviction
Loud, up-tempo, heavy-on-the-bass music playing.
Lights flashing.
Presentation queued up.
Motivational speaker walks onto the stage. Perhaps she does several back handsprings with a twist at the end before landing solidly on both feet. Maybe he comes out riding a unicycle, juggling bowling pins. Maybe they’re not a career motivational speaker but an athlete, mega-business leader, or politician.
Chances are, you’re at least familiar with this sort of thing. If not, head over to YouTube and watch any one of these videos (not an affiliate link).
The recipe is generally the same:
Charisma
Know your content
Have at least some credibility
Grab the audience’s attention with something interesting, emotional, or thought-provoking (go for the trifecta)
Exude confidence in word and body language
Be concise
Charisma
By the way, charisma is:
exercising a compelling charm which inspires devotion in others.
Or:
a person who possesses special traits that attract, inspire, or fascinate other people.
Both are great definitions and perfectly describe why some speakers can hold an audience’s attention while others will lose them in the first 30 seconds.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to sit in the Silicone Slopes tech summit. The host was new to the scene and had the opportunity to meet a hero of his on stage. It was their first-ever meeting. His exuberance quickly turned awkward and ultimately led to a formal apology to the guest and the audience for some rather inappropriate comments the host made on stage.
That day, our host didn’t help us settle into drinking the Kool-Aid®¹ of the conference but many of the guests did. They were inspiring, motivational, emotional, intelligent, entertaining speakers with mountains of charisma. The theme was generally the same: how you too can become a serial entrepreneur because we had won at capitalism and we’re going to show you how to do it in ten simple steps. (And don’t forget to pick up a copy of my How I Did It book at the door for a heavily discounted price. . .today only.)
I left the conference truly excited for the future I could create.
Within just a few days, the excitement faded. I settled back into my normal routine which didn’t consist of creating a remarkable future for myself because I was too busy (still am) doing it for others².
In the moment, though, I was completely convinced. Each of the speakers had so much conviction that they had convinced me I could do what they had done. For a very small percentage, that actually works. They go away from those conferences and make their dreams a reality. The conviction of the motivational speaker becomes their own.
Being convinced by conviction, however, isn’t enough for most of us. That’s why we have to keep up the exposure. It’s not enough to listen to Tony Robbins on stage one time (or many). You’ve got to buy the books, buy the DVDs (can you still buy DVDs?), sign up for the weekly newsletter, and pay the monthly subscription to premium content. (Medium is worth every penny you’ll spend on it because it supports fledgling authors like me.)
Again, that actually does work for some people. They can make lasting change based initially on the conviction of others. Incremental consumption of new content lead to real, continuous improvement. For most of society, however, we just throw money away on yet another speed reading course³ that promises to help me consume 20x the number of books and retain 1,000% more information than ever before!
Finding Lasting Change
Whatever the thing is you’re trying to learn, do, or accomplish, how do you turn being convinced by their conviction into something with staying power? How do you make lasting changes in whatever area of your life you’re targeting?
I have no idea, actually. I’ve lost the same 20lbs 20 times over the last decade. I tell myself daily that I’m going to avoid the M&Ms in the free-for-all snack cupboard at the office, but I usually cave in by 11:00 am. (I do regularly step out the front door and run 10 miles so I guess there’s that.)
But, I am confident the next [insert motivational speaker name here] seminar is going to be the tipping point for me.
Yup. Definitely the next one.
You’ll see.
¹ Drinking the Kool-Aid® originates from events in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978, in which over 900 members of the Peoples Temple movement died. The movement’s leader, Jim Jones, called a mass meeting at the Jonestown pavilion after the murder of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and others in nearby Port Kaituma. Jones proposed “revolutionary suicide” by way of ingesting a powdered drink mix lethally laced with cyanide and other drugs which had been prepared by his aides. How’s that for macabre?
² The phrase “living the dream” in Western society really just means you’re working too hard for someone else.
³ I may or may not have purchased one of these in college.
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