Elements of Style: Enthusiasm

In late January I had the honor of sharing the stage with esteemed Harvard historian, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. We were speaking on a panel together about, Railroad Ties, a short film we both appear in following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Professor Gates is, among other things (Emmy-winning filmmaker, and creator/host of the PBS series Finding Your Roots), an incredibly skilled communicator. He has many tactics for bringing history to life, but one that I observed that day was how he energizes stories from long ago with a high-voltage enthusiasm. He talks about long-past battles, laws, and people with such excitement that you can’t wait to find out what happens next.

On that day he talked about King George III granting freedom and Canadian citizenship to enslaved people in the American colonies who were willing to fight with the Loyalists in the American Revolution. Professor Gates built up excitement about what was happening in the sequence of events, pausing at moments as if at a cliffhanger. The audience was on the edge of its seats to find out what happened next – 200 hundred years ago! The story he was telling may have happened in 1775, but hearing him tell it felt fresh and full of life.

When I’m coaching speakers, I encourage them to infuse their talks with their own enthusiasm for their topic. Why are they excited about it? What stories can they tell about discoveries they’ve made? What challenges have they encountered? How did they overcome obstacles? Why does what they’re saying matter to the people listening? How can their listeners contribute or benefit from it?

An audience feeds off of enthusiasm. Inversely, if you’re bored with what you’re talking about, it’s a guarantee that they will be, too. So find that spark of excitement that motivated you to present this information in the first place.

As Professor Gates shows us, it doesn’t even have to be new information.

Contact me about scheduling a group workshop or one-on-one coaching session today.