TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

I was a middling student my whole academic career. In my first few jobs, I was universally viewed as a lightweight by all the people I worked with. The politicians I associated with in New York frankly didn't like me. They couldn't wait to get rid of me and kick me out to Washington. And yet I went on to give some of the greatest speeches ever in the world and motivated Americans to get through the Great Depression. My name is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Folks, a lot of things have been written about Roosevelt. He certainly was perceived as a great speaker. The fireside chats are given a lot of positive reviews. But I think what people need to realize is public speaking isn't something where you have to be the straight A student. It isn't necessarily about highest iq and it is something you can develop at any stage of life. When you look at Roosevelt's background, yes, he was rich, he came from a prominent family. But he wasn't viewed as someone particularly principled, highly intelligent, or even serious. And let's not forget, this is someone who ran for president on the platform of I'll balance the budget. So he wasn't someone who had a strong, strong following among the progressives or liberals at the time. It wasn't an ideological following he had. And yet he got elected president four times. They actually changed the Constitution to stop someone like that from winning again and again and again. So much of his power was his ability to communicate and to speak and to speak simply to Americans. I think the real lesson here is so much of leadership isn't necessarily about always having principles that unwaver that never change for 20 years. It's not necessarily about being the hardest working person or the smartest person or the best educated person. So much of it is about crystallizing the emotions, the feelings of people, recognizing their feelings, giving them hope and then directing them to where you want to take them.