To:

Mrs. Renee Pay

From:

Erin Smith

Date

November 6, 2015

Re:

Professional Speaker Analysis

I had the opportunity to attend the 16th Annual Leadership Conference at

Utah Valley University on Monday, October 26, 2015. The title of the
conference was Come Alive. Hoan Do was the keynote speaker in the
conference. He was an inspirational speaker who really connected with his
teenage audience and effectively shared his message on being a great
leader.
Organization
Hoan Do supported his speech with 3 main points: Choose the Right
Attitude, Find the Right Outfit, and Make Meaningful Connections. Hoan
Do began his speech with encouraging his audience to Choose the Right
Attitude. Mr. Do really connected with his audience by stating that he knew
that everyone says be positive and most of the time its unproductive and
makes you angry. He also made the claim that you should acknowledge how
you feel and then move to having a better attitude. He illustrated this by
telling his audience to Change the Radio Station and when someone says
something out of line or a something discouraging happens, take a step back
and say that is wack because the truth is. Mr. Do pointed out that bad
things happen, but its all about being flexible and adjusting your attitude to
be more positive. His second point was that each person should Find the
Right Outfit for themselves. Everyone is unique and Mr. Do pointed out that
it can take a while to find out what you want to Mr. Do with your life. He
reassured his audience by saying that it is natural to struggle with finding out
what you want to achieve. Lastly Hoan Do introduced what he calls Making
Meaningful Connections. Mr. Do talked about what he called the 3 Ms:
mentors, mates and mentees. First he stressed the importance of having
great mentors and the positive impact on your life. Mentors can help you
make decisions as well as create opportunities for you to succeed. Next he
talked about mates. Mates are your friends, they make life more enjoyable
and theyre the people you can rant to and receive sympathy from. The last
M is mentees or the people you mentor or inspire. A mentee could be a
younger sibling or someone your training; regardless its who you make a
positive impact on. Overall Hoan Do gave a speech on how to truly Come
Alive as a good leader.

The organizational pattern Hoan Do used was Cause/ Effect. Mr. Do used
specific effects such as Having the Right Attitude and provided supporting
examples such as Changing the Radio Station, that is wack because the
truth is and his narrative about telling his friend telling him to have a
positive attitude to show the causes. Hoan Do also used Inductive
Reasoning, or using specific examples to make a general conclusion. Mr. Dos
Inductive Reasoning was characterized by his use of examples and stories
and then tied these examples into his general claim. For example for his
point Choose the Right Attitude, Mr. Do recounted a story about him and
his roommate discussing positive thinking and how it backfired. The story
was very entertaining and helped support his general claims about having a
positive attitude at the end of that point.
Supporting Material
Ethos
Ethos is defined as a rhetorical device used by the speaker to establish
credibility with the audience. Hoan Do demonstrated Ethos by tailoring his
speech to his young audience and by utilizing his biography to inform his
audience of his qualifications and achievements. His biography reads as
follows: Hoan Do is a student success coach, author, and competitor in
NBCs hit show, America Ninja Warrior. From an early age, Hoan understood
the sacrifices his parents made in their escape to the United States during
the Vietnam War. Feeling indebted to his parents for their courageous pursuit
of a better life, Hoan vowed to ensure that one day, he would be able to take
care of his parents. Hoans hard work took him to Malibu Cali., where he
attended Pepperdine University. Recognized as the best youth mentor by the
International Examiner, Hoan travels across North America speaking at
colleges, high schools, and student leadership conferences where he shares
practical advice that helps students succeed in and out of school. Hoans
engaging lifestyle and ability to share important life lessons in a way that
resonates with his audiences has earned him Verizon Wireless Motivator
Award.
Hoan Do also connected to his audience by using more colloquial and
friendly language that would reverberate with a teenage student. For
example Mr. Do made statements such as Im not here to lecture you, Its
not about me, and its about you and also slang such as wack, swag,
and fleek. These statements and colloquial words shock the audience at
first; they didnt expect a professional speaker to utilize vocab that they used
so casual among friends. It was refreshing and Mr. Dos realism and
abruptness connected with teens on a level they are comfortable with.
Pathos
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Pathos is defined as a rhetorical device used to appeal to the emotions of the

audience by the speaker. Hoan Do demonstrated Pathos through his use of
humor, specifically his use of Horatian satire and hyperbole. Horatian satire
is the used to gently criticize society or a specific group of people.
Specifically Mr. Do used Horatian satire to illustrate his story about having a
positive attitude. He talked about how certain people will disregard all
negative emotions felt and tell you to have a positive attitude. This
appealed greatly to the teenage audience because it is a common
occurrence and it didnt directly attack a certain group of people, the
audience was able to see the fault in themselves. Hoan Do also used
hyperbole in action and word to appeal to the emotion of his audience.
Hyperbole is defined as simply over exaggerating. Mr. Do used hyperbole
specifically in action when he acted out his narratives. His actions were so
outrageous that they were very humorous to his audience. Hoan Do used
these rhetorical devices to create humor ultimately appealing to the pathos
of his audience.
Logos
Logos is defined as a rhetorical device used to appeal the logic of the
audience by the speaker. Hoan Do had many general statements included in
his speech that he reinforced with his narratives. Mr. Do made statements
that are common knowledge such as youll always be judged, let it go, and
anything that stresses you is outside of your comfort zone. These simple
statements are found everywhere in life, but Hoan Do reviewed them with
the audience and allowed them to reason, with the support of his narratives,
the truth of these statements. Hoan Dos introduction of simple, but
universally acknowledge facts appealed to the logic of his audience.
Delivery
Hoan Do was a very prepared speaker; he had good nonverbals and visual
aids. The specific nonverbals that stood out to were eye contact, vocal
variety and gestures. Mr. Do really personalized his speech and connected
with his audience by looking at individual audience members, throughout the
crowd, and establishing direct eye contact. This simple action really engaged
the audience and allowed them to focus directly on his speech. He also had
great vocal variety and gestures. Mr. Do was very engaged and passionate
about what he was saying; that excitement and empowerment translated
into not only his voice, avoiding monotony, but also into his every action. Mr.
Dos use of hands and even his entire body to act out narratives, hooked the
audience and made his speech very entertaining to watch and listen to.
Hoan Dos use of visual aids helped to enhance his speech. Many times
speakers make the mistake of putting too many words on PowerPoint slides
or creating other lengthy PowerPoints that distract from the speech. In this
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case, Mr. Do excelled. His PowerPoint was very short and his slides consisted
of a picture and the point he was illustrating. Hoan Dos PowerPoint
enhanced rather than distracted from his speech. In addition to his
PowerPoint, Mr. Do made use of a costume. He dressed up as a cheerleader
to reenact his narrative of his break out moment in his high school theatre
class. This was very funny and really engaged the audience driving even
more attention towards his main point.
Motivation
Motivation is a critical element of any speech. In this case motivation was the
key purpose of the speech. Hoan Do was very successful in his attempts to
motivate his audience. His use of inspirational narratives, his witty humor
and his genuine excitement really helped to motivate the students, teachers
and other guests at the conference. Mr. Do used a lot of humor to support his
point and to reinforce the subjects of his narratives which stuck in the
audiences mind. His passion for the things he was talking about and his story
about how passion impacts a lot of people inspired the students at the
conference to Come Alive in their responsibilities as leaders in their schools
or groups.
Overall Hoan Do delivered a well-organized, humorous, motivational speech
that inspired the student leaders and other audience members to choose
the right attitude, find the right outfit and make meaningful connections
on their journeys to becoming better leaders. Mr. Dos speech was very
successful in connecting with his audience and inspiring them to be the
greatest leaders they can be.