Review of Victor Antonio’s Motivational Speech – Eugene Wong

I think that the fundamental part to keeping an audience interested in what you are speaking about is energy. If the speaker himself doesn’t seem interested in his own speech, how could the audience be? This speech by Victor Antonio, who teaches about business, is the perfect example of it; the speech is jam packed with enthusiasm and spirit. In addition, he uses audience participation very well to his advantage. To top it all up, he has a good sense of humor and uses it to keep the audience entertained.

            Firstly, Victor Antonio has massive energy in his speech. You can see it in the way he talks, in his hand gestures, even in his face expression. Constantly, he uses a animated lively tone that grabs people’s attention and keeps them on the edge of this seats the entire team. When delivering a speech, tone is very important. If Victor Antonio had said the same words he had but change the tone, the speech would be completely different. Also, he uses a lot of energy in his body. In some places, he is practically stabbing the air with his finger (I think his hands were actually equally as animated as the woman who was translated to sign language), or acting out scenes on stage. This has a powerful effect on how the students see him. From the beginning, his speech immediately came off as a fun, casual speech. How did Victor Antonio do this? He used energy! All in all, if you want your audience to be interested, you yourself must be interested in you speech!

            The audience members in the video are constantly doing one thing or another. Victor Antonio has the audience participate in the speech, keeping it interesting. For example, he constantly says things like “Clap if you know what mean!” or have the audience finish the end of the sentence. Have you ever been in a situation where you’re listening to a presentation (which usually coincidentally has a PowerPoint) and the speaker would not even look at the audience? I’ll bet you have and it probably wasn’t interesting. Well, this speech was the polar opposite; Victor Antonio openly interacted with the audience and even at one point went on to have the students stand up and swear an oath of allegiance to their “thang”. So the morale of the story is to interact with your audience.

            Lastly, Victor Antonio uses a quick sense of humor. The majority of the time, his listeners were laughing. This is a great way of making an impression. I am willing to bet out of all the speeches that the graduating class hears in that year, the one they will remember is Victor Antonio’s. In addition, humor is also a good to get your point across. The story/joke about the two farmers was particularly catchy, and will probably be told as a joke for ages to come. Humor once again makes the story memorable. Using humor, Victor Antionio seems like a charismatic, funny person.

            So this is why I found Victor Antonio’s speech interesting. He used huge amounts of energy that keep his audience interested; he made extensive use of audience participation, making his speech entertaining; and scattered jokes in his presentation to make it memorable. Now, next time you make a speech or present something, keep these points in mind.