Motivational speeches are more about narrative than motivation. Inspirational, stimulating, conflict-inducing, and action-inducing stories. It's about delving into a fascinating subject, addressing exciting occurrences that elicit strong reactions, telling an enthralling story to captivate the audience, and disseminating well-recognized themes to appeal to one's fundamental impulses.
Motivational speeches appeal to people's emotions by making them feel good about a person's narrative, an event, or a philosophy that they can use in their own life. Because motivation is an emotional process, these speeches may motivate some individuals for a brief time. Students, business executives, and Internet users listen to billionaires, monks, and philosophers intending to become financially motivated, but what excites their emotions is the pleasure of a tale.
This isn't to say that motivating speeches aren't effective. The popularity of the lecture and the speaker's compelling narrative produce specific emotional changes that influence human motivation, but the transformative capabilities of such speeches seem overstated. The exceptional levels of transformative drive claimed by speakers may change a select few, but they are marketing ploys designed to deceive an unsuspecting consumer or business.
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