Inspiring 10-Year-Olds Keynote: Overcoming Fear to Reach Your Full Potential

Abstract

Dalton Sherman Keynote Speech Section Number As argued by Schultze (2020), public speaking is servant speaking directed to address the needs of others contrary to personal interest. Watching Dalton Sherman speak to over 20 thousand audiences courageously is not only inspiring but also challenging. Fear is a weakness that limits many people from understanding their potential. I can confirm that if Sherman had failed to respond to God and his mentor's call to address the target audience, he would not have understood his potential in public speaking. Arguing from the servant speaking point of view, it is evident that though ten years old, Sherman took the responsibility of persuading the target audiences on the need to believe in the inner self to achieve the set life goals. Sherman's tonal variations and body language inflict emotional touch on me, making me fully concentrate and understand the main idea of his speech from the start to the end. The boy represents a potential speaker in dire need of speaking on behalf of all other students to ensure that the target audiences believe in their potential to make the best out of their academic life. Upon stepping on the podium, one immediately notes Sherman's courage and readiness to speak in public through his body language. Unlike many adult speakers who tend to talk over the audience's applause, Sherman smiles and waves at the target audience without expressing uneasiness (0.30-1.06). Posing over 30 seconds in an applauding adult audience for a ten-year-old is not a joke. Still, Sherman beats all odds and demonstrates his considerable talent and readiness to serve his target beyond a reasonable doubt. The boy also employs tonal variation backed up by facial expressions, body movements, and finger-pointing to emphasize varying points within his speech. For instance, though he uses a loud and energetic voice in most parts of the speech, the boy lowers and slows the voice in some instances, like “As you know, in some cases, you are all we have got” (3:50), “Is to believe that we can reach our highest potentials” (2:55) and “If you do not believe- well, I am not going there” 7:22. Such tonal variations aim at taking full attention of the target audience while insisting on the need to understand such emphasized points as the critical points within a speech. According to Schultze (2020), it is an approach that expresses a skillful speaker who understands his target audience's needs and thus identifies a logical topic that best addresses the noted needs. Throughout his speech, Sherman engages fully with his target audience. The boy makes the speech personal by ensuring...