Inspirational Speeches

When you think of an inspirational speech, what comes to mind? Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”? Churchill’s World War II speeches to Parliament and the British people? Roosevelt’s or Kennedy’s Inaugural Address? Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address? Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”?

Or, is your idea of an inspirational speech, the words used by football coaches to fire up their players before a big game, generals or monarchs to lead soldiers into battle, or preachers to arouse their flocks on Sunday?

To inspire literally means to breathe life into. It has come to mean to infuse (into a person) a spirit, feeling, thought, or principle that can lift them up. It’s what all the leaders of the great religions were able to do through their actions as well as their words.

Inspirational speeches are those that reach out and touch our souls. Shake them. Wake them. Make them want to act…do something they wouldn’t do if not moved by the speaker’s words.

What does it take to inspire people in a speech?

Is it the speaker? The words? The delivery of the words? The setting and/or occasion? The mindset of the audience? Probably all of these things go into making a speech inspirational. And more. I don’t know a formula you can apply or a set of instructions to follow. But we can learn from looking at speeches that have inspired people in the past.

Through his careful selection and arrangement of words at Gettysburg, President Lincoln transformed what was intended to be a memorial for the dead into a mission for the living—to help restore the union. How did he do it? He appealed to his listeners’ patriotism by alluding to the founding principles of this country. He also implored his audience not to forget the sacrifice of those who died. With his words, he was able to elevate the battle—indeed, the entire Civil War—to something bigger, something transcendent and, thereby, give meaning to the carnage. Once he’d given the audience the message, in this case, asking them to help give this nation a new birth of freedom, he then got them marching with his rhythmic, highly memorable peroration “…that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” The speech inspires the listeners to lift their eyes from the ground and the graves to the horizon and the future.

Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech has an equally memorable, uplifting ending—one he’d been building to in the course of the speech: “Free at last…free at last… Thank God almighty, we are free at last.” That’s what his whole movement was about and he summarized it in a rhythmic, three-part phrase that most of his audience would immediately recognize. Over the course of the speech, he captured the nightmare of racial injustice, warned the U.S. government of the urgency of the moment, praised his followers for their courage, and urged them not to lose patience and resort to violence. But he also shared his dream, his vision of the future with his famous “I have a dream…” refrain and exhorted his listeners in stirring language to go back to the south to help achieve it.

When you want people to act, you not only have to give them a cause or a vision or a mission, but you also have to give them a beat to march to.

Churchill was a master of using words to create a rhythm. His daughter once described her father practicing his speeches with a brandy and a cigar in one hand, a draft of the speech in the other, pacing back and forth in time with his words.

Take his first address to the House of Commons after becoming Prime Minister as the countries of Europe were rapidly succumbing to Hitler’s overwhelming forces and England was about to be left to fight the German army alone. “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realized: no survival for the British Empire; no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival….” Churchill’s repetition of keywords and phrases beat the drum that kept English men and women believing in him, in themselves, and in their chances of success despite the enormous odds against them.

But also part of inspiring people is being honest with them. Dr. King could talk with credibility about the “narrow jail cells” and police brutality because he’d been there—on the front lines—and experienced the violence first-hand. He knew what he and his listeners were going back to. Churchill never underestimated the difficult days ahead. He’d been warning about the Nazi threat for some time. And he never failed to level with his listeners. As a young man, he’d been in combat and knew the horrors of war. In addition, he’d faced a number of personal disappointments and challenges and overcome them with perseverance and courage.

Likewise, FDR was candid with the American people when he took over the American presidency in the depths of the Great Depression. While his confidence was contagious, he was certainly no starry-eyed optimist. He knew the seriousness of the situation and he didn’t try to hide it from his audience. But he also stated its limitations (“They concern, thank God, only material things”) and cited history and aroused their pride in their nation and in those who went before them. He made it clear, using inclusive language that everyone’s together in confronting these difficulties. He also identified a common enemy, greedy bankers, and he made a strong emotional case against them. It gave him a point to rally his troops around. And he offered Americans hope by promising action.

Leaders inspire confidence through their words, but also through their actions.

Writing about Churchill, the British author C.P. Snow observed: “If he (Churchill) thought about a course of action long enough, if he conceived it alone in his own inner consciousness and desired it passionately, he convinced himself it must be possible. Then, with incomparable invention, eloquence, and high spirits, he set out to convince everyone else that it was not only possible but the only course of action open to man.” This could have described King, Roosevelt, Malcolm X, and many other leaders who could use their words to infuse confidence and hope and inspire their followers.

So, inspiring people is part eloquence and cadence, part vision and credibility, part belief and passion. A good contemporary example of an inspirational speech is Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”. What makes it inspiring? Who he is and what he’s going through—a relatively young person dying of cancer with grace, eloquence, and humor. He’s someone you can’t help but like and admire. But he’s not looking for sympathy for his plight; he’s out to inspire us to do more with our lives. He has a mission: he wants to get us to dream big. And he uses his story—his own dreams and how he achieved them—to give us something to go by. So, part of inspiring us is telling us inspiring stories. They can be yours or they can be someone else’s. It doesn’t matter as long as the story connects with the audience and causes it to think and feel and move in the direction you want us to head.

Another current example of an inspirational speaker is Steve Jobs. Take a look at his Stanford Commencement Address (2005). Steve Jobs is no Bill Clinton or Barack Obama when it comes to speaking from a dais and he doesn’t convey the passion of Dr. King or Barbara Jordan—except when he’s introducing one of his products. But do you have any doubt about his ability to inspire that Stanford audience? And he did it reading a speech in a fairly flat voice with very little body language. So, how did he do it? By talking about important things to his audience—love, life, death; by being willing to tell his story—beginning with admitting that he was adopted, acknowledging that he was a big enough jerk to get fired from the company he founded, and ending with the revelation that he has cancer. We love stories—especially when they expose something about important people we probably didn’t know before and illustrate how they’ve overcome setbacks or defeats. How much more vulnerable can you be than to admit to being adopted, being fired, and being fearful in the face of death? And, yet, there he is, standing before them and sharing the wisdom gleaned from these experiences.

Two other speakers who can inspire with their words are Bono and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Take a look at Bono’s acceptance speech when he won the NAACP award in 2007 and Tutu’s “Reconciling Love” speech (2005).

To summarize: leaders inspire when they themselves are confident and passionate, credible and candid and when they offer compelling visions, tell uplifting stories, and use stirring words and strong, resonant voices to carry them to an audience waiting to hear them. But people can also inspire in quieter voices when they are willing to expose themselves and share what they’ve learned from their life experiences…when they use their flaws or failures, setbacks or disadvantages, and how they overcame or dealt with them to help us to live better. They speak their truth and they inspire by example.