Memorandum

To:

Mrs. Renee Pay

From: Marina Brearton

Date: May 15, 2015
Re:

Professional Speaker Analysis

I had the opportunity to attend the 15th Annual Leadership Conference at

Utah Valley University on Monday, October 27, 2014. The title of the
conference was #Lead4Life Character, Trust and Doing Right. Doug Nielson
was the keynote speaker at the conference. He was captivating and
entertaining, as well as exceedingly informative. Doug Nielson was confident
and talked with the audience rather than at the audience, this helped keep
the audience engaged and comfortable the entirety of his speech.
Organization
Doug Nielson demonstrated how we as leaders need to take our life in
control and make our own destinies. The organizational pattern Doug Nielson
used was a logical/topical pattern of organization to present his topic. He
used this to logically connect each topic so he could connect the introduction
and the conclusion together seamlessly. This helped the audience
understand how each topic connected to one another. The pattern of
organization Doug Nielson used also helped to relate the conclusion right
back to the introduction.
The way he effectively used this organization was through going over each
topic and connecting them each logically to one another. His first topic was
Anchoring to Your Core or in other words, finding your core and sticking to
it. He talked about this topic thoroughly and then went on to say that in
finding your core you then have to create a plan for your goals and you do
this first by anchoring to your core. He then talked about creating a plan for
your goals and moved onto taking action. He moved to this topic by logically
connecting it to the last two. He jumped to the next topic by saying that if
you have a plan you have to take action for that plan. To connect all the
points in the conclusion he said that if you have all of the previous steps
completed you can be whoever you would like to be.
Doug Nielson chose this organization pattern very wisely. It was well done in
delivery and his supporting materials to go along made the speech that
much better.
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Supporting Material
Ethos
A lot of ethos came from Doug Nielsons biography in the pamphlet we
received at the conference. His ethos is covered in several ways in this
pamphlet. Firstly in his education; Doug Nielson earned his bachelors degree
in Clinical Social Work and Psychology and later he received his masters in
Behavioral Science from UNLV. His ethos was covered through this with his
speech because he knows how people work the best; he knows how people
are the most successful through his education. He also knows this through
his experience in helping people by the thousands to gain a distinctive
competitive edge against others. Hes done this for years through building
his own company where that is all they do; they help people perform at their
highest levels through speech and overall communication. This pamphlet
established his ethos far before his speech even started.
Ethos was also shown in several different ways throughout this speech. One
of the more prominent ways it was demonstrated was through selfexperience. Doug Nielson mentioned different experiences he had
throughout his life that exemplified he knew what he was talking about. His
life experiences included failing throughout childhood in school, going
through college and wanting to give up, leading up to today where he is now
a Psychotherapist. This was the other demonstration of ethos that Doug
Nielson gave. He mentioned that he is a psychotherapist giving him ethos
purely through being an expert on the topic he was talking about.
The way he presented himself and stood was another example of ethos. He
presented himself with confidence and authority on each topic that was
presented. This gave the audience a sense of ethos throughout because the
audience felt that he could be trusted through these demonstrations of
ethos.
Pathos
In bringing up the subject of his own personal experiences pathos was
established between Nielson and the audience. There was a trust built
because he believed in what he was speaking about. He talked about his
personal life experiences and how he wanted to be in a band and dropped
out of college to do so. Later he realized that that's not what he wanted to
do. The little voice he described (his conscious essentially) throughout the
speech told him to go to college. This appealed to his specific audience
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emotionally because many of the audience members are going into college
and hear that same "voice" inside of themselves as of now. Doug Nielson
accurately described the argument that goes on frequently inside ourselves
which is deciding to stick with what we know is best or taking the easy way
out.
Later in the speech Doug Nielson told the story of a scene he witnessed at an
airport. He said that he saw a little boy with a sign that said Welcome home
Dad, our hero. As he stood in the airport he watched the hero start to walk
up. The little boy holding the sign took off running and hugged his dad, his
hero. Doug Nielson appealed to the audience's emotions by mentioning this
story. Because the audience was filled with leaders this story was brought up.
It was brought up because most leaders want to be heroes. They want to be
the ones that make the difference. This emotionally appealed because that is
who the audience would want to ultimately become one day.
Logos
Through each topic Doug Nielson went through he made appeals to logic.
One of these appeals was mentioned when Nielson talked about making a
plan for your future. In order to make plans people generally need to know
what those plans are. Nielson then said that as leaders there has to be
clarity. People have to be specific and clear about their goals in order to
achieve them. Logically this appeals because it makes sense. No one can
have goals without clarity, without knowing what their vision is.
That is one very specific example of how Doug Nielson used appeals to logic
in his speech. His entire speech was an appeal to logic though. Logically to
be able to become the person you want to be you have to listen to who you
are and what you want, write it down and make it a plan, and lastly follow
through with that plan. Listen, write down, follow through was truly the entire
premise of this speech. Logically it makes sense to do all of these things in
order to accomplish your goals and become the person you would like to be.
Its important to follow these steps because they work.
Delivery
Doug Nielson was a prepared public speaker. He had an informative
PowerPoint to go along with his speech. This PowerPoint helped the audience
follow along with his speech. He also demonstrated himself being prepared
because he knew exactly what he was going to say next. There were no
pauses or hesitations in his speech. He had little to no disfluencies in his
speech. All of these together showed that he was prepared. His delivery as a
whole was extremely impressive.
Motivation
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Motivation is a critical element of any speech. Doug Nielsons motivation was

to get the audience to take action in their lives, to not ever give up. Doug
Nielson was excited to share his idea and his motivation with the audience.
His motivation was clear and stated well. Individually he wanted the
audience to know their purpose in life and to take control of their lives.
Having this motivation helped Nielson in his overall delivery and ethos. If his
motivation had been that of trying to convince people to give up on their
lives there probably wouldnt have been as good of a reaction to his speech.
Deductive reasoning
Doug Nielsons deductive reasoning was going from finding who you are as a
person to making plans for your future (now that you know who you are), and
lastly taking action on the plan you have made for yourself. His organization
helped his reasoning because logically each topic connects one to another in
this specific order.
Inductive reasoning
Nielson demonstrated inductive reasoning by bringing up the story of the
hero coming home. As leaders that is the goal, to be a hero. By doing those
things that were mentioned earlier in his speech leaders are more likely to be
that, a hero. Being a hero doesnt necessarily mean taking these steps but
Doug Nielson demonstrated how these steps could help leaders in being a
true hero.