Forget "Electrifying" - Think "Effective"

OH, THE PRESSURE . . . I was reading something by a well-known speech coach the other day. There were a lot of good, if familiar, bits of advice. And then he went on a thread that brought everything to a screeching halt. He exhorted his readers to "Be electrifying."
        Yikes! How do we do that?
        Most presenters struggle with how to keep their audience interested. And now presenters should electrify their audience? What a leap.
        Actually, it's a leap you shouldn't bother with. Trying to be electrifying is like trying to be funny or trying to be happy — you can't force it. Being happy, being funny, and being electrifying are by-products of other things, like shared experiences or flashes of inspiration or unexpected ideas.
        Audiences can be electrified by a speaker, but the sensation they feel is not because the speaker has willed himself to be electrifying. Rather, audiences get charged up by the ideas or moments they experience while in the presence of a speaker who is fully engaged with them. It's the insights or discoveries that the audience makes that fire them up and getting them thinking "Yes!" or "Aha!"
        And it's their flashes of energy that lift the event to "electrifying" status. Sure, a speaker has to be reasonably energized to get them engaged, but it's his or her ideas that matter most, not how big they smile or how boldly they stride across the stage.
        Give your audience something to care about — something to get excited about — and you'll get all the energy back that you can handle.