I love writing speeches for folks and one of the musts in speeches for business audiences is the ability to both engage and inspire during the speech.

One of the best speeches I’ve seen in the past couple of years was the one that Al Gore delivered at Disney during a business conference I was covering. His opening line was, “Hello, I’m Al Gore and I’m a recovering politician.” With that singular line he held the audience’s rapt attention.

Self-deprecation is a surprisingly good tool in the current economic stratus because we all need a bit of a lift when it comes to surviving these challenging times.

Gore’s past speechwriter and best-selling author, Daniel Pink, noted three important elements in speeches, during an interview with Tim Ferriss who asked, “What are the necessary ingredients of a good speech?”

Pink said, “I’ve said many times that the three essential ingredients in any good speech are brevity, levity, and repetition.”

(To see the full Ferris interview.)

Effective speech giving is being able to naturally and authentically incorporate the real you into the speech. We all long for true connection especially in these days of Web 2.0, 3.0, 80.0 and beyond, we still want to be inspired and genuinely touched.

When I interviewed Doris Kearns Goodwin, I asked, “What is the most rewarding thing about being a historian?” and her response was, “It is a great gift to really get to know people through their letters and speeches because that is often where you will find the real person behind the historical persona.”

One of the best things you can do when you prepare a speech is to be a real person.

A stunning and still inspiring speech was Pierre Omidyar’s keynote speech, in that speech Omidyar says,

“Build a platform - prepare for the unexpected… … And you’ll know you’re successful when the platform you’ve built serves you in unexpected ways. That’s certainly true of the lessons I’ve learned in the process of building eBay. Because in the deepest sense, eBay wasn’t a hobby. And it wasn’t a business. It was - and is - a community: An organic, evolving, self-organizing web of individual relationships, formed around shared interests.”

Reread the last line. Isn’t Omidyar really describing what social media is today? “An organic, evolving, self-organizing web of individual relationships, formed around shared interests.”

Go to this link where 100 of the top speeches are compiled and listen to them for similarities in the speeches.

It’s surprising how many speeches on the top 100 list and others come directly from the heart and search to connect with the audience’s heart. Omidyar’s speech is an example of that, as is Dr. Pausch’s stunning Last Lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”

(Go to this link for the full transcript of Dr. Pausch’s speech.)

One of my favorite quotes from Pausch’s speech is, “Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.”

It aptly describes how one must come prepared to inspire the audience. Too often, CEO’s assume that their title or place as the head of a company entitles them to rapt attention and that alone should inspire.

In reality, having a CXO title only means you can demand an audience, but it does not mean you can capture their hearts.

As mentioned previously, Pink notes these three elements: brevity, levity and repetition. (See how I repeated his tips, did so briefly, and with levity?)

And there are four other elements you must try to include in a speech:
• Imagery
• Metaphor
• Humor
• Honesty

If you take the time to listen to or read inspiring speeches, you’ll be amazed at how you can quickly identify and nurture the best practices for your speeches as well.

Over the holidays I while I was working on this article, I was sent this tweet, “

encouragement4u @NettieHartsock N.E.T.T.I.E. means Nurture Every Thought To Inspire Everyone 4:17 PM Nov 24th from web in reply to NettieHartsock

It’s interesting to have received it because I think it sums up what you want to do in speeches as well, “Nurture every thought to inspire everyone.”

Here are three resources to kick-start your “speech-listening” research:

1. Search YouTube for “CEO speeches” you’ll find over 600 available.

2. Check out the Carnegie Mellon’s “Last Lecture” series. This includes Dr. Randy Pausch’s which has a viewing of over 7 million and counting.

3. See all the TED speeches . Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s speech is extraordinary and so is George Smoot’s.

P.S. (Do you remember the speech attributed to Vonnegut’s MIT commencement speech which made the rounds on the Internet and proved to be false? It was actually a column written by Chicago Tribune journalist Mary Schmich titled, “Wear Sunscreen.” Either way it’s a wonderful speech to read and to listen to it you can go here.)