Speaking of success

There are many ways to communicate with people: writing, speaking, drawing, or even using your body. To give a speech is certainly one of the most effective ways to communicate. You can mix your write skills with your speak skills.

When I was fifteen years old I experienced one of the bests speeches in my life. I was in my high school in Brazil and an event for older students was happening. One of them was giving his speech about his successful career as an engineer. He was talking about how he get into the ITA, the Technological Institute of Aeronautics, one of the best academic institutions of the country in engineering and related fields. They provide a high level education in different engineering areas. To get in you have to pass one of the most difficult exams of the country, and if you pass you get to study for free and also receive a scholarship.

That speech changed my mind in many ways. As his audience were students, some of them seeking to be engineers, the speaker focused his speech on the challenges in passing the exam. He talked about how hard it was to study so many hours each day and how to organize the time, the challenge of dealing with a high level and life as an ITA student of engineering.

He used a very common language to delivery the message efficiently to his audience and organized the speech in a chronological structure, speaking first about the choosing of the course, the study phases, the approval on the ITA, how the student life at ITA was, and finished by talking about his achievements as an engineer. Something that I’ll never forget is that he told how he abdicated from a lot of good things in his life during studying and how he used to say and do things to motivate himself. He used to buy motivational posters of some famous quotes and phrases, like “No pain no gain”.

As I was seeking to be an engineer, that speech was special for me and I really enjoyed it. It made me more focused in my studies and more familiar with the engineering field. I also improved my studying time organization and started motivating more myself.