“You really think Yann Martel is a good speaker?”

An acquaintance asked me the above question soon after I published “Are you a dreamer.”

My 2¢: You bet. Sure, he says “um,” etc.. And sure, he’s not one of those speakers who can get an audience roaring with laughter. Yann, it could be argued, even seems awkward in comparison to those kinds of people. It’s only after you try to imagine what a transcript of the other people’s talk would look like that you might realize that they usually don’t say very much. Yann is a good speaker because he’s a good writer.

P.S.
‘Talks’ can be a motivational tool. (Which is why many famous speakers are described as motivational speakers.) But they’re inferior to the written word as a source of ideas.

Oct 1, 2013