Ep 18 Why Was Martin Luther King Jr a Good Public Speaker?

So why was Martin Luther King Jr. Considered a great speaker?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in Life. Speaking with T.J. walker.

Hi and welcome. This program is coming to you originally on Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday celebration, the national holiday in the United States. People ask me all the time what was special about Martin Luther King Jr. Why is he considered a great speaker? Why is his speech, the I have a Dream Speech, considered by many historians to be the greatest speech of the 20th century? We'll address all that in great detail on the program today. Thanks again for joining me on this day of celebration. For starters, since we do often look at the body language segment in the beginning of each program, let's hop into that. We'll talk about the body language of how Martin Luther King Jr. Came across in that great on the Mall speech in Washington in front of that huge, huge, vast audience when he gave the I have a Dream speech.

Body language.

When you look at Martin Luther King Jr. S body language in that speech, he conveys absolute confidence. You don't see him shaking, you don't see him looking nervous, licking his lips. All the things speakers do when they're nervous. Let me tell you. I'm sure he was nervous. Of course, he was an accomplished, experienced speaker, but he'd never speak into an audience that large before. And we're talking about six figure audience numbers. Huge, huge, huge audience would make anybody scared. But he didn't look scared. He didn't sound scared. Again, how is this applicable to you? Just watch yourself on video, practice your speeches on video and really figure out what is it you're doing that will make you look and sound comfortable and confident. That way, when you get in front of a larger audience, maybe not 100,000 people and the National Mall, but maybe you're used to speaking to 10 people. Now you're speaking to 50 people. You've practiced, you know, how you want to look and sound. Now I want to go in more detail on exactly what Martin Luther King Jr. Did in the I have a Dream speech as well as throughout his speaking career that made him one of the greats. And this is pretty universal opinion now that he's one of the great speakers of all time. Interesting tidbit. When Martin Luther King Jr. Was in college, or perhaps it was theology school, he got a grade of C in public speaking. Not many people realized this. To me, this is fascinating, although not particularly interesting, because in my own experience I've seen speaking is not a habit someone is born with. It's Not a skill someone's born with. You're not born with genetic skills in the way, all things being equal, someone 6 foot 6 probably has a better chance of becoming a pro basketball player than someone 5 foot 4. All things being equal, speaking isn't like that. Speaking is one of the few things in life where you can learn at any age, well past the age of development for becoming a professional athlete or a professional musician. So never forget that. The other big fact I find, again, fascinating, but really not unusual at all. The year when Martin Luther King Jr. Gave his I have a Dream speech that went down in the history books, it wasn't his only speech, as you can imagine. Some of you are probably thinking, well, T.J. i'm sure he spoke frequently. He probably spoke once a week. Maybe he spoke 50 times that year. Now, Martin Luther King Jr. Did not speak 50 times in that year. He spoke 300 times. He gave 300 speeches that year. In fact, it wasn't at all unusual for him to give 300 speeches. So part of what makes him a great speaker, it's what makes people great at anything. The Beatles had already practiced and played and performed together 10,000 hours before they ever got their very first record deal. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The more comfortable you are, the more confident you are, the more skills you learn. So, so much of being a good speaker is about quantity. Now, quantity doesn't solve all problems. We've all seen politicians or a principal or a teacher who's boring, and they've been speaking tens of thousands of times. It doesn't solve all problems. But when you look at the people who are really great, it's generally because they've also put in the quantity of speeches. Now, some of you are nice enough to write to me and say, well, T.J. you seem so comfortable, fluid, smooth, confident. When you're speaking in your videos. You're a real natural. You're a real master. Well, no, you should have seen my first videos when I started doing them back in 1983. I am comfortable and confident and relaxed when I do this. And I think I appear that way because I do one every single day. On average, more than one a day. This particular day, I'm taping seven episodes of this show. The audio version, but also a video version for those of you watching on Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube and other places like that. And again, it's no innate talent that I have. It's just I'm comfortable with it. And I'm not, folks. I'm not Equating myself with Martin Luther King Jr. Okay, but I am comfortable because I do it every day. I speaking every day on video, sometimes in person. I don't get invited to speak in person 300 times a year. But that's the beauty of the modern world. You don't have to wait to be invited to speak at a civil rights rally the way Martin Luther King Jr. Was invited to speak all over the country. Now, he spoke that often, and by doing it, he got comfortable. Many, many elements from the I have a Dream speech first appeared in earlier speeches. So he was refining his content and he was getting more comfortable with it. Other aspects of his speech and why he was a great speaker. Not just the I have a Dream speech, but other speeches. When he spoke, he spoke with absolute confidence. He didn't convey with his voice or with his facial expressions doubt about whether black people should have equal rights to white people. He spoke with absolute conviction. Folks, whether you are introducing a new software or trying to get human rights for blacks or women or some other minority or just selling a service, you need to speak with absolute conviction. Because audiences are funny if they sense that you have doubt about what it is you're trying to sell. Make no mistake about it, Martin Luther King Jr. Was selling something. He was selling an unpopular idea that black people deserve the same rights as white people in America. It was very unpopular at the time. If you're selling an idea, you have got to display absolute confidence in what you do. If you seem like you have doubts, your audience is going to think, well, if Martin has doubts about this, maybe he's a smart fellow. If he thinks it's not quite sure, maybe he's right. Maybe this isn't something that we should believe in. There is a crowd psychology to that. Now, the next thing he did, it's not commented on that often, but there was actually some humor in this speech and he put it throughout a lot of his talk. He famously said, at other times, we want to be your brother. The black man wants to be your brother, not your brother in law. And at the time that was considered humorous and still might be. So there is. Even for serious issues, you bring a little levity to it. The other thing is pace. The natural thing to do, especially if you're in a crowd of a hundred thousand people, is to rush. Your heart starts racing, the adrenaline is flowing, and you start speaking faster because you think, the sooner I finish this, the sooner I can sit down and get out of here and not mess up in front of the whole world. When you listen or watch to the I have a Dream speech. Today you realize he was not rushed. There was no panic. There was no sense of, I'm nervously trying to get through this as quickly as possible. No, he spoke at his own pace, his own speed, and he put in pauses where they needed to be. The other thing about his speech is it is clearly written for the ear, not the eye. If you read, and I may offend some of you, certainly it's not my intention, but if you actually read the I have a Dream speech, it doesn't particularly read that well. Two things will strike you. Number one, it doesn't read that well. It doesn't seem that profound when you're reading it. Number two, the way he delivered it was different from how it was written. And that's one of the skills you get giving 300 speeches a year, is you can look at a prepared script and you can edit in your own mind and say it differently because you're crafting it for the ears of your audience. That takes experience, my friends. It takes confidence. And Martin Luther King Jr. Had that. So keep that in mind. No matter how many times you've written your speech, rewritten it and edited it, if you're really confident, you've got to have the ability when you're speaking to craft your words so that they are perfect for the audience, audience for their ears, not simply following a script. The other thing that will strike you if you're reading it is the whole I have a dream repetition really wasn't in his original draft. That's something he put in when he was giving it, because if you read something like that, it doesn't read well. There was some controversy among his staff at the time whether he should do that. He ignored the dissenters and decided, I'm going to stick with that reframe of I have a Dream. Some people might have thought it was hokey, but you know what? It worked. Here we are talking about it. He's the one with the national holiday in his name, not Strom Thurman and others of his contemporaries fighting on the opposite side of the battle. So he wasn't afraid to use repetition. A lot of speakers are afraid that if they repeat themselves, they'll seem boring. Repetition is a great way of driving home an important point for a big speech. So I'll have more on that in just a moment.

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The other thing that makes his speech stand Out. And if you want to go down as a great speaker, whether you're going down to the history books and actually get a holiday after you, I can't guarantee that. But if you want a reputation as being a great speaker, you have to say something different. You can't just say something bland and general that everybody already accepts. Now, as I deliver this, it's 2016, it's Martin Luther King National Holiday Day, and what he stands for, equality of the races, black people being able to vote, start businesses, go to any restaurant, is not particularly controversial in the United States and in certainly most of the Western most of the world. It's not that controversial. Well, it was very controversial in the early 60s and certainly in the 50s when Martin Luther King Jr. Really rose to prominence. It was, in fact, his ideas, they were widely hated by tens of millions of Americans. And depending on what poll you want to read, a majority of Americans, certainly a majority of white Americans, thought this guy was a dangerous rabble, rousing communist, and he was denounced. So it's easy to look back today and say, well, everyone agrees with Martin Luther King. Of course, everyone across the whole political equation, all ideologies, everyone now supports and always did support Martin Luther King, Jr. Well, no, he was a polarizing figure, and he wasn't afraid to stand up and say things that he knew in advance. Tens of millions of people listening would not agree and would, in fact, hate him for it. So, folks, if you really want to go down in the history books with your speaking, you have to be willing to say things to change people's minds, to be on the forefront of something. And that means you saying something that currently a lot of people don't agree with. Now, folks, this particular show is not about politics. And we have supporters and viewers and listeners to this program all across the political equation and all sorts of different parties from all over the world. You're not here to listen to me or watch me pontificate on politics. This is about speaking. But I can tell you if your goal is to really stand out as a truly excellent speaker, you've got to use your time on the stage, on the platform, in front of people, or in front of your own computer, making a YouTube video or a podcast. You've got to figure out how to get people to really focus on the issue you care about and to convince them that your vision is right. And they may have to discard certain views that they had before that they simply don't like or that they might not like your views. And they have to give up something they're currently comfortable with, that is a part of real speaking. Greatness is when you can mobilize people to your viewpoint, even though your viewpoint might currently be hated, detested, because that is, in fact, what Martin Luther King Jr. Did. Now. So what are some other lessons that we can take away from this speech that we have to be careful of? Here's one thing. When Martin Luther King Jr. Spoke, there was a particular context. He was focused primarily on 100,000 people or so who were there. So if you listen to his speech, it has sort of a grand oratorical, rhetorical focus to it. And it sounded elegant, dignified, and very oratorical. It worked for him at that time for several reasons. For starters, he was focused on the audience there for the TV coverage, then and later focused on the huge crowd, had wide shots. So it created this image of him of being hugely dignified, refined, a true statesman. He didn't come across as angry or screaming or like a kid or someone junior or spouting off. And let's not forget, in the early 60s, many Americans, white Americans, their perception of a black man was someone who wasn't educated. If he was involved in politics, it was doing dangerous, irresponsible, sort of crazy things. That was the perception. So to see someone in a suit and tie speaking as the most prominent senator of the time or the most prominent president of any country, would it really set the right tone? Now, here's the part you got to be careful about. A lot of speakers today, try to imitate that. And if you imitate that today, in the era of television and people being conversational, there is the danger you will look stilted, uncomfortable, pompous, bombastic, overly formal. And, folks, I'm going to use partisan examples, but I'm being unpartisan. Ronald Reagan, great communicator, but he understood in the age of modern television, you had to sound like you're talking to one person. So Ronald Reagan's style really was not like Martin Luther King Jr. S style. They both worked at their times, but Ronald Reagan had a more modern, conversational style. Even when he was giving a State of the Union or an inaugural address. Now, I'm going to contrast this with a prominent Democrat, John Kerry. The former US Senator went on to become Secretary of State and was the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, he actually had a style that was more like Martin Luther King Jr. John F. Kennedy. I say to you today, my fellow Americans, it was more stilted, more formalistic, less conversational. It is one of my theories as to why John Kerry didn't win the 2004 election is because he had a very old fashioned rhetorical style. So that's my one bit of advice. If you're using Martin Luther King Jr. As a role model, don't copy the aspect of sounding overly formal. It worked in the right context for him. It doesn't work for most people today.

Do you have a speaking related question for number one USA Today best selling author TJ Walker? For more than 30 years, Walker has been a public speaking coach and media trainer to presidents of countries, prime ministers, CEOs, Nobel Peace Prize winners, professional athletes and Ms. Universes. Send your questions to info at mediatrainingworldwide. Com or on Twitter @tj Walker.

I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. As always, may all of your speaking opportunities in life be a huge success.