At least a few times during the past six months Ive quoted one of my dynamic speech teachers, Sheldon Hayden, with respect to one topic or another. He was a dashing, former Navy Captain and one of Dale Carnegies first clone-instructors. I had the privilege of learning with him when he was a fireball in his youthI think he was 75 at the time! Mr. Hayden believed the best speeches erupted from the fire we had in the belly, from what he termed, righteous indignation. This need to set things straight, to tell it as it is, to stand up and be counted; these things are the bread and butter of a speaker, he maintained He was a perfect exemplar of this philosophy when he took the platform. One of his favorite aphorisms said: Blessed are the dissatisfied, when they have a constructive goal! He knew that contented people, however tranquil and nice they might be, are not the ones who build and change societies. It is the others, the ones on the margins, the misfits, the outsiders who have to claw their way to prominence and center stage that make the biggest impacts. Learn to respect and to cultivate your dissatisfaction, and then infuse it into your speeches, and you, too will become unstoppable, and a person others call, eloquent. |
