Powerful Speakers: S4:E38 of the Leadership & Success Podcast

28 Jul 2025 · 3 min

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2:45

In this interview excerpt, Speaker B answers the question of what separates good speakers from great ones. He emphasizes that greatness stems from character, not merely speaking skill. Citing a conversation with author Dottie Walters, he repeats her insight that "great speakers are great people who speak well." He outlines the core principles that underlie greatness: humility, teachability, and kindness, and argues that these virtues must be cultivated before effective speaking can emerge. He also stresses the importance of a relationship with God as the source of meaning, direction, and strength, suggesting that without this spiritual foundation life feels meaningless. Speaker A reflects on how many focus on the science and art of success while neglecting fulfillment, happiness, and purpose. The exchange highlights the paradoxes of life—blessings can feel like curses and vice‑versa—and frames great speaking as an authentic expression of a person who has grown through pressure and purpose.

In your opinion, what separates the good speaker from the great ones?
Character. Greatness that comes out of character. I was speaking with Dottie Walters who wrote Speak and Grow Rich. Now Dottie has gone, has left us well over 15 years ago, but she said something to me once. Face to face on my birthday. And she looked at me in her— with her piercing eyes. She said, Philip, great speakers are great people who speak well. Great speakers are great people who speak well. And that really spoke to my heart, because if you want to be a great speaker, you first must be great. And if you want to be great, you must find the principles that make a person great. And those principles are not what you may think about. It's not about exalting yourself. It's not about trampling over other people. It's actually principles of humility, principles of teachability, uh, principles of kindness. And as you open up your life to the giver of those principles, you grow into a great person, and then you accomplish great things. And then from there speech flows, where you can share that journey with other people. Now, there are some great people who've done great things but don't speak well, nor do they want to speak, but they're still great people. They just do it their own way. But a great speaker is someone who's authentically become a great person because of really the pressure of life. I mean, gold is made and produced out of pressure. And sometimes things that we think, um, are a curse are actually a blessing. And some things that we might perceive as lucky or a blessing may actually be a curse. Life is full of paradoxes. But I know one thing, that without a relationship with God, life is, for me, completely meaningless. He's the giver of life and meaning and direction and hope and strength and everything. Possibly hope or imagine.
That is really, really profound because it looks like for most people out there, they kind of, you know, focus on the science and the art of success, how to be successful, do well, and get a whole bunch of stuff. But they don't really focus much about how to be fulfilled. Fulfillment, happiness, purpose, that doesn't really