Why you should stop trying to inspire others and what you should do instead

?I want to inspire my audience“ is one of the most common sentences I hear from my clients when I ask them about the goal of their presentation or talk. Unfortunately, by setting this goal, they are already on their best way to never achieve it.

The problem with trying to be inspirational is that chances are pretty high that you might come across as needy or narcissistic. Of course you could try to hide your true aspiration but an audience is usually quite sensitive when it comes to authenticity and once they discovered your hidden agenda then the result will be even worse and you’ll be labeled as manipulative - not very inspiring.

So stop being obsessed with how you could possibly inspire others. Accept the fact that inspiration is not something that can be imposed and put your ego aside. There is a much better thing you can do instead.

Ask yourself what you can do for your audience. Because in the end, it’s not about you, it’s about them. What is there, they can learn from you? What can you help them with?

If we listen to inspirational speakers like Martin Luther King Jr. or Brené Brown then there are a few things we can learn from them when it comes to being in the service of the audience.

King and Brown both discovered the key to a better future. King knew that equal rights between white and black Americans would only become true if the black communities would not only believe that such dream would be possible but also that they were entitled to actually live this dream. Brown on the other hand discovered the tremendous power of vulnerability and its crucial role in human connections. Both, King and Brown, had the same goal: guiding their audience towards a better future. But they both knew, that they could not open the door the audience had to walk through. The only thing they could do was to hand over the key to this door and then empower the audience to open it themselves. Sometimes helping others also means to acknowledge that there are some things you can't do for someone else - you can only help them to find the courage and motivation to do it themselves.

King and Brown are not inspirational speakers because they set themselves the goal of becoming inspiring speakers. They are inspiring because they decided to put themselves in the service of their audience. They shared the key to a better future and helped their audience to imagine what would be on the other side of the door.

It might not always be the key to a more equal society or to more meaningful human connections - but there is no doubt that you as well have some keys to offer. And no matter how small or unimportant your key might seem to you - if you’ll manage to hand it over to your audience, and empower them to use it, then you’ll have achieved much more than you could ever have by starting with the question ?How can I inspire my audience?“.

Be the better speaker and put yourself in the service of your audience instead of promoting yourself. And then, maybe, inspiration might indeed follow you.