I just saw the funniest movie. It was called Yes Man and it had Jim Carrey in it and he always said no to everything. So then he goes to see this motivational speaker and then all of a sudden he has to say yes to everything he is asked for or asked to do (basically any opportunity he is given). So he does all of these new things and goes out with his friends and meets a girl and gets promoted at work and all of these great things started happening to him.
This movie really made me think about what speeches really can do to motivate us. One time for school my friend and I went to go see a motivational business keynote speaker come in and talk about affordable family health insurance. While I thought the speech was really good and informative, I didn't really think about it again after I wrote my paper for extra credit on it. My current roommate though who I went with thought it was so great she changed her major to risk management and social science so that she can actually do something about affordable family health insurance. I think that probably qualifies as a pretty good speech.
I do think that even if only one person or just a few people are affected by something like a speech, it still is great and extremely important. Because you never know how many people that one person is going to influence. Like my roommate Katie for example, she now can use what she learned in that speech from the man that came in to talk to us one day (by the way I was the one that dragged her there for extra credit, she should thank me for having a terrible grade that needed boosting) and what she learns in school and in the real world and help someone or many people and so on and so on. It is all about the pay it forward method. If you learn about something good from one person and you pass it on to just one or two or a few more people and they keep passing it on, you really could be making a big impact on the world. One person really can contribute a lot. We have to be the change we want to see in the world (a quote we always hear) but it really is true. You can't just sit back and hope other people make changes; you have to go out and do it yourself.