How Passionate Speaking Can Be Deceiving.

I just read a blog post on Don Power’s blog called David Risley Disappoints. The point of the post was that Don was feeling pretty let down by David Risley’s latest Webinar.

I didn’t see David’s webinar, so I’m not going to comment on that. What I want to comment on is a remark made by Don Power in regards to David’s presentation style:

“Even a little more genuine enthusiasm like what you see from Yaro Starak or Gideon Shalwick would have gone a long way to convince me that David has not only a product you’d want to invest it but a personality as well. Now, I suppose this approach was not entirely a bad thing. It seemed to prove that David does indeed have a “no hype” style and that is usually a good thing. But for a guy who has a background in marketing and who advocates the importance of selling on emotion, one would expect a little more sizzle to get people fired up about his ideas.”

Certain accents and intonation can be mistaken as a lack of enthusiasm.

It seems that these days not being a fiery or passionate speaker is becoming a handicap. People are wrongly equating enthusiastic speaking as meaning one is passionate, while one speaking calmly and quietly is being interpreted as a lack of passion or just plain boring.

I’ve watched several of David Risley’s videos. Sure, he’s pretty laid back, pretty monotone and has a deep voice, but that doesn’t mean he lacks passion regarding his message and product. David works very hard because he’s passionate.

I’m naturally even more monotone than David is. Do you know why? It’s because of my accent. I was born and raised in New Zealand. I learned from my linguistics studies at university that the New Zealand accent has the flattest intonation of all English speaking countries. However, it doesn’t mean I lack passion.

David Risley is from Florida, and to my recollection don’t the speakers in the southern states of the United States speak in a slower and more laid back manner? Isn’t it just possible that different speakers speaking with perceived varying degrees of enthusiasm is in part due to their place of upbringing and their accent?

On the whole, don’t the North American accents sound more confident and passionate than the British, South African, Australian and New Zealand accents? However, when I hear non-Americans giving a talk or presentation, I don’t feel that they’ lack passion or are boring.

Some people save their energy for other things.

For those of you who have read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, you may remember Napoleon saying that some highly successful business men control their sex drive and transmute that energy into their business lives. Isn’t possible that you can save your energy in speaking and transmute that energy into other areas such as learning, developing a product, writing, etc?

Being motivated by someone’s enthusiastic speaking is superficial.

If you think the amount of enthusiasm one speaks with makes one’s message any more or less credible, then you’re only looking at the superficial. I think that you have to go deeper than that and examine the message in its entirety, and not just give up after a few minutes because the speaker lacks passion in his speaking. What you’re doing here is using the speaking style for aural masturbation. This’s sad and can have negative consequences.

Dangers of relying on perceived passion in judging a message.

You set yourself up to be more easily deceived.

If you rely a lot on the enthusiasm of a speaker, then you may fall victim to hype. A person with a crap message or product can deceive you just by coming across as supercharged and passionate in the way they speak. Look at Hitler, I doubt he would have been able to get the German people behind him if he didn’t have so much enthusiasm when he spoke. His passion helped to bring people into his evil cause.

Televangelists speak enthusiastically with lots of passion to get their listeners to fork over their dollars – it doesn’t mean that they’re any more connected to God than you. Anyone remember what happened to the American televangelist Jim Bakker? He was imprisoned for fraud.

You can blow a lot of money.

You’ve listened to the Internet marketers and paid testimonials. You’ve been wanting to lose that thirty pounds for ages but have never felt motivated enough and now you’re been told there’s a simple, proven way to lose weight quickly with ease. You can hear the excitement in the speaker’s voice and you can’t help but become excited too. The audience around you is also becoming excited. You make your decision to get the product, and find that someone’s sold you a pup. You’re still 30 pounds overweight, and out a bundle of money.

Your motivation can dip quickly after hearing the message.

I like Anthony Robbins’s message and products. However, some people attend his pricey courses because of the way he speaks. They feel he moves them with his passion. The problem here is that once you’re without him, you quickly lose your motivation. His message is still in all the notes you took and his books, but because you were caught up in his passion, you can’t seem to do it by yourself. Your motivation quickly drops.

You miss out on lots of great messages.

If you start watching an online video and think after a minute or two that this dude is boring and dull, and click to another page, then you’ve potentially lost a great message, which may have changed your life. Stop aural masturbating and just listen to the message no matter how enthusiastic the speaker comes across.

Famous successful, passionate people speak with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Look at the speakers below. You can see a range of enthusiasm from these people when speak or spoke when they were alive.

Enthusiastic sounding speakers.

Semi-enthusiastic sounding speakers.

Unenthusiastic sounding speakers.

I think many of you’ll agree that all of their messages are full of great content and meaningful. Although the last seven speakers sound are more monotone and speak less enthusiastically, their messages are just as useful and potentially life-changing as the semi-enthusiastic and enthusiastic sounding speakers. I can sit through Eben Pagan’s 45 minute plus videos and hang onto his every monotonous syllable. Even someone like me, a complete dumb ass when it comes to marketing, can learn and see value is his messages.

How about Darren Rowse? Come on – there’s a knowledge goldmine in that man’s skull for all of us bloggers, whether it be through his written content or video content. If Darren wrote down his content and just read it to the camera, it would still be the same great content, yet many would superficially judge him as boring and lacking in passion. Brian Tracy is very soft spoken and his voice is soothing rather than rousing, but his messages light a fire up under my ass every time and enlighten me.

Conclusion.

Don’t judge a person’s message or product by the amount of passion you perceive they have when they speak. Be patient and when listening to a message someone is delivering. Let’s judge the message rather than the perceived amount of passion with which it’s delivered.

Note: This post is not an attack on Don Power. His post just got me thinking about this topic. He’s a nice guy and a good blogger who you should check out.

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