The Characteristics of Motivational Speakers and Al Pacino

            A motivational speaker. It can be anybody. Anybody of any gender, race, or age. It may be Heidi Hayes Jacob, one of the pioneers of Curriculum Mapping author of Curriculum 21 about the need to change schools to become more globally aware and competitive in the 21st century. Or it could be the head of your school’s Student Council. Whatever the scenario may be, all motivational speakers should have four things in common besides motivating the audience, the ability to connect through the eyes of the crowd, having an effective voice, having vast experiences to share, the ability to establish connections effectively, and most importantly, confidence. Al Pacino, in the movie Any Given Day, is no exception.

            First and foremost, the best motivational speakers must be able to “connect through the eyes of the crowd”. The speaker cannot stand stiffly in front of an audience, speaking in a monotone voice, looking as if he or she were in a separate world. Even with the most elaborate presentation materials, the speech would not be effective at all. Therefore, if the speaker cannot connect with the audience, how do they motivate them? Al Pacino connects with the audience, but he almost made the audience connect with each other. In the video, the coach (Al Pacino) and the football team both have a common goal, to win the game. The coach motivates them by saying that the path to victory is long, but they can win if they take the path step by step, inch by inch.

             Secondly, an important characteristic of not just motivational speakers, but public speakers as well, is having an effective voice. In fact, it can be considered the most important characteristic besides experience and confidence. Anybody can deliver a speech. But no one can deliver a speech well if he or she has a voice that serves as an irritating, boring, monotonous tone that has a slight buzz to it. When that happens, who is going to listen? The coach speaks in a slow, clear, concise, and persuasive voice that clearly accentuates important words and phrases, such as “inch by inch”, “step by step”, “together”, or “win”. In my opinion, being “slow, clear, concise, and persuasive” if having an effective voice.

            Another important asset of a motivational speaker is experience. This is the unique characteristic that not everyone can possess. For example, the speech would be completely useless if you asked a student from junior high to lecture at a university in a course of Bio Entanglement Physiology, which is the study of the interconnectivity of life systems. A person can only fully understand this subject through study, multiple experiments, and experience. You must have significant experience in the field to give a thoroughly efficient speech. The coach, in the video, must have had some previous experience with scenario of being on the verge of losing. He must have had some previous experience with the entire idea of “inch by inch”. He must have had some previous experience in which he is using to motivate his team at the present.

            Lastly, but in my opinion the most vital characteristic of the best motivational speakers is confidence. The major objective of a motivational speaker, as the name suggests, is to motivate the audience. With that fact, can a person motivate others if that person if not confident at all in themselves or what they are saying in the first place? We can see that Al Pacino, the coach has confidence in himself and his team. Because clearly, if the coach didn’t believe that the team could win “inch by inch”, he wouldn’t have given a pep talk worth, four minutes thirty-four seconds. In my experience, the longest pep talk has been around thirty seconds.

            In conclusion, the coach clearly has the assets of a great motivational speaker - the ability to connect through the eyes of the crowd, having an effective voice, having vast experiences to share, the ability to establish connections effectively, and most importantly, confidence. But is Al Pacino as great of a motivational speaker as the coach in Any Given Day?