The following excerpt is from Calvin Miller’s The Empowered Communicator: 7 Keys to Unlocking an Audience (affiliate link). It got me thinking… Some speakers are so self-serving. And other’s really have a way of connecting with their audience.

Which one are you?

Dear Speaker:

Your ego has become a wall between yourself and me. You’re not really concerned about me, are you? You’re mostly concerned about whether or not this speech is really working…about whether or not you’re doing a good job. You’re really afraid that I will not applaud, aren’t you? You’re afraid that I won’t laugh at your jokes or cry over your emotional anecdotes. You are so caught up in the issue of how I am going to receive your speech, you haven’t thought much about me at all. I might have loved you, but you are so caught up in self-love that mine is really unnecessary. If I don’t give you my attention it’s because I feel so unnecessary here.

When I see you at the microphone, I see Narcissus at his mirror… Is your tie straight? Is your hair straight? Is your deportment impeccable? Is your phraseology prefect?

You seem in control of everything but your audience. You see everything so well, but us. But this blindness to us, I’m afraid, has made us deaf to you. We must go now. Sorry. Call us sometime later. We’ll come back to you…when you’re real enough to see us…after your dreams have been shattered…after your heart has been broken…after your arrogance has reckoned with despair. Then there will be room for all of us in your world. Then you won’t care if we applaud your brilliance. You’ll be one of us.

Then you will tear down the ego wall and use those very stones to build a bridge of warm relationship. We’ll meet you on that bridge. We’ll hear you then. All speakers are joyously understood when they reach with understanding.

— Your Audience — Source: Calvin Miller, The Empowered Communicator: 7 Keys to Unlocking an Audience