Believe the Hype

Sometimes people question the hype that surrounds my motivational speeches and training. My answer to those who question whether the hype is important is, yes. The hype matters.

The hype is more than some loud music, and some dancing on stage, and some motivational words.

The hype creates a vehicle for fostering connections and for narrowing the disconnect between who we are and who we serve, between where we are and where we need to go, and between what we say and what we do.

Because within the hype and beyond the hype there is a message.

It’s a message about learning to respect who you are and about altering – or reaffirming – the path you are traveling in life. It’s a message about shifting the paradigm and fostering a pedagogy of hope and of transformation.

And sometimes the hype is delivered in a package with some I’m Possible t-shirts, and some adults doing the YMCA dance, and maybe me doing a little bit of beat-boxing or dancing across the stage.

But if you look closer, you might see something else.

You might see how the hype also translates to a single mother, whose husband recently left her and left behind a whole heap of hopelessness, walking up to us at the end of the day, with tears in her eyes, thanking us for being there and for giving her hope. Thanking us for the hype.

And the hype translates to a young man, who saw me not long ago and ran up to me and shook my hand, saying that I came to his middle school years ago, and that what I had to say that day had saved his life. And he just wanted to say thank you.

So the hype looks different than standing behind a podium, with an audience full of silence. And the hype makes some people feel uncomfortable, or threatened.

And we get that. Many of us understand the podium. There’s a comfort in the podium.

But at the end of the day we’re not really here to make ourselves feel comfortable.

We’re here to make children, and teens, and the adults who love them feel like they can make difference in their own lives and the lives of those around them. 

And sometimes that calls for a little hype.