How

Motivational
Speech Succeeds with a
Touch of Perspective
How Motivational Speech Succeeds – with a Touch of
Perspective
What exactly is motivational speech? Ok, we admit you know
what it actually is – motivate someone or a bunch of people
with some pep talk.
But we guess what you really want to know is does this really
work?
Motivational speech sounds good when you hear it. It
entertains you, it makes you feel you can break the odds and
swim against the current. But a few days after the talk is
over, wouldn’t the psychological effects of it wear off?
Wouldn’t all those anecdotes and thought-provoking quotes
and statements just sound like a great story you heard?
Well, if history is anything to go by, pep talk does work. It did
play a big part in ending World War II. And it gave the United
States the power it needed to bounce back from Pearl
Harbor.
Don’t get a clue what I’m talking about?
It was one of Sir Winston Churchill’s famous speeches that
gave Britain’s Royal Air Force the determination and the
strategic nous it needed to fend off the Nazi fighter planes
and destroy them over the English Channel in the crucial
Battle of Britain:
“The Battle of Britain is about to begin. On this battle
depends the survival of Christian civilization…Hitler knows
he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
If we can stand up to him all Europe may be freed and the
life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit
uplands; but if we fail, the whole world, including the
United States and all that we have known and cared for,
will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more
sinister and perhaps more prolonged by the lights of a
perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear
ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire last
for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their
finest hour.”
Excerpts from Winston Churchill’s “Finest Hour” speech to the
House of Commons, 18 June 1940
President Roosevelt’s motivational addressing of the nation
following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the
United States into World War II. It wasn't what the country
intended, but its joining with the Allied powers helped them
win the war and topple the dark powers:
“We are now in this war. We are in it–all the way. It will not
only be a long war, it will be a hard war….We don’t like it–
we didn’t want to get in it–but we are in it and we’re going
to fight it with everything we’ve got.”
Excerpts from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Pearl Harbor Speech”,
also known as “Infamy Speech” to the US Congress, 8
December, 1941
If you look at these speeches, they motivated by adding some
perspective to the situation the audience was facing – the
troublesome set of circumstances they’re in, the empathy by
the speaker towards what they are facing, the dangers that
could arise if the audience didn’t act despite being wearied
by enemy attacks, and the glory that awaits them if they
perform the decisive but dangerous and troublesome action
of taking on the enemy.
So that’s where motivational speech succeeds – not just
through anecdotes and quotes, but with a healthy dose of
perspective. The motivation that perspective provides fails to
disappear from the mind, no matter how adverse the
situation is. And that’s how motivational speech powers
people to perform seemingly impossible feats.

Peter Theodorou has studied the effects of perspective and

also other aspects that make motivational public speaking
bring about the desired effects intended by the organizers on
their audience. That’s why he is a sought after public
speaker.