W5_P2

Consider a well-known speaker, for example, the current President of the Unites States. What is this speaker’s strongest characteristic as a speaker? Is it credibility, attractiveness, power, or all three? In what ways could the speaker build ethos in these areas?

For me, the most well-known speaker is Zig Ziglar. His strongest characteristics as a speaker are his credibility, his attractiveness and his power of influencing and motivating people. In regards to his credibility, he is one of the most sought after motivational speaker at any conference. In addition, he is very charismatic as I for one was very attracted to his personality and his humbleness. Finally, he is very powerful in motivating people to believe his tactics are believable and attainable.

For example, I went to see one of his motivational conferences here in San Jose. I was in awe of how he related to his audience so quickly by his humor. Since he is a professional motivation speaker, he captured my attention by his charisma and his power to influence anyone.

According to Herbert Kelmann, audiences are influenced by sources in three ways: through internalization, identification, or compliance. This is exactly what happened to me when I saw Zig Ziglar. By the time I left his seminar, I was on cloud nine believing I could BE, DO, and HAVE anything I set my mind to accomplish.