Motivation

November 25th, 2022

That is quite strange. I thought I was going to hate it, but in reality, I liked it — a lot. Yesterday I spend my afternoon and evening at the company function — there was a long and pointless speech by the managing director (although I took from that speech some information that I will use for negotiating my salary in January), there was good and plentiful food, and there was some dancing afterward (but by that time I was already home). There was also a motivational speaker, which was the part I dreaded the most. And he spoke for two hours without a break. And all that speech, I was seating on the edge of my seat, transfixed and loving every minute of it. That was so wholly unexpected.

I guess it was because my idea of a motivational speaker was a loud, boisterous person beaming with nauseating positivity and zealous nonsensically of confidence and happiness for everyone. It was a very American idea of a motivational speaker. And this guy was an elderly man, very eloquent but speaking softly, and I don’t think he moved at all during those two hours. He just spoke in precise and short sentences. I guess that was the key — precise wording to describe precise emotions and mental states, and a precise course of action to take. There was a lot of humor in this speech as well, I guess it is needed to keep up the attention of listeners. There were some personal stories, but he always went to the point the speaker wanted to make. I like this word — precise — I think I need to think about it some more. I like precise words and instructions and descriptions, but do I communicate precisely as well? If I am not — this is something that is possible to learn, as long as one is aware of the speech and the pattern of words and has a clear idea of what to convey. Good reading of an audience is important as well — and all that can be learned and applied to communication.

And as an aside — the speech was very well received by us employees. Not so much by the management — I could see their faces getting longer and longer as the speech progressed. And afterward, I heard some statements from managers that it was all bunk and fairy tales that have no place in the modern corporate world. Strange that it was management who organized this motivational speech in the first place. I guess that spectacularly backfired on them, and I couldn’t be happier and smug about it.