The 15 Different Types of Motivational Speakers

If you wonder how many types of motivational speakers are there, you have come to the right place.

In this article, you will be learning about what is a motivational speaker, what they do, and in how many different ways they do it. With bonus tips on how you can become a motivational speaker as well!

Here’s the list of 15 Different Types of Motivational Speakers

1. The Corporate Speaker
2. The Educational Speaker
3. The Entrepreneur Speaker
4. The Humorous Speaker
5. The Inspirational Speaker
6. The Personal Speaker
7. The Personal Trainer Speaker
8. The Persuasive Speaker 
9. The Philanthropist Speaker 
10. The Religious / Believer Speaker
11. The Self-Helper Speaker
12. The Seminar Leader
13. The Social Speaker
14. The Spiritual Speaker
15. The Youth Motivational Speaker

Before we address each motivational speaker type and their particular approaches to inspire and motivate people and topics of expertise, let us define what a Motivational speaker is and what they do.

WHAT IS A MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER?

A motivational speaker is someone who passionately inspires people to take action to improve themselves and overcome challenges that they may be facing. So, this can be done by sharing tips and guidelines based on the speaker’s own experience.

This type of public speaker is known as someone who helps people establish goals or realize them by exercising mentally the best way to reach them and sometimes design strategies to make it happen.

HOW can You Become a Motivational Speaker?

If you want to build a career as a motivational speaker, you should first find out what kind of topics you are passionate about, learn all you can about them, become an expert, and then start teaching others.

If the topics you are passionate about are also areas where many people are struggling, then you have found yourself a great theme to become an expert and help people overcome their challenges.

A motivational speaker does not have to be a big influencer, a Youtube sensation, or someone who delivers keynote speeches professionally. It can also be that friend that lifts you when you need it and inspires you with helpful hints on how you could try harder and overcome your challenges.

Related Article: 5 Great Tips on How to Become a Motivational Speaker

15 Different Types of Motivational Speakers

1. The Corporate Speaker

A corporate speaker often dwells on ways people can build their own company by adapting a certain kind of posture that requires learning or readapting a sort of behavior.

The public speakers here are often executives or owners of business enterprises.

It is common to hear insights from their personal experiences, from the initial days to rising to the top. The primary purpose is to help people accomplish success in a professional part.

An example of where a corporate speaker briefs is at workshops offering private coaching programs where he gives boosts using practical techniques.

2. The Educational Speaker

The educational type of speaker commonly pitches about the importance of getting knowledge as a means to succeeding in life.

In this speech, it matters to show the audience that by stimulating their brains with new pieces of information, it can help them in day-to-day life.

One example of an educational speaker is teachers; they usually instruct people to do better in life by bringing new things daily or weekly and appealing to moral behavior.

3. The Entrepreneur Speaker

The entrepreneur speaker shares the struggles he or she might have gone through during his/her life experience before and during the process of accomplishing a goal.

To inspire people not to give up dreams, the speaker shares his hardships, which gives the audience strength and guidelines to establish goals.

The speaker here is generally someone running a business, or a series of startups having a specific power of decision inside the companies he works in.

4. The Humorous Speaker

The humorous speaker is often somebody that tells you realistic or challenging life stories with laughter. If you can help people get better with your involuntary jokes, then this may be the right type for you.

The public speaker here usually does stand-up comedies, podcasts, or even makes the toasts at ceremonial events to emphasize the reality and make people take the best of it.

If you want to follow a humorous public speaking career, you have to be a spontaneous person and know how to make the most even in debasing circumstances.

Some of the World’s best humorist for you know:

1. Chris Blackmore
2. Andy Buckley
3. Christine Cashen

Here the list of the top 10 humor speakers if you are still curious.

5. The Inspirational Speaker

The inspirational speaker urges you to believe in yourself, your dreams and come up with meaningful goals to achieve them.

Here the speech is more of an emotional conversation because you are introspecting and analyzing yourself or a problem that you never really paid attention to or tried hard to solve. It triggers an Emotion of wanting to do better, to be better in you.

Inspirational Speakers are generally individuals who have attained success in their areas of expertise or are seen as thought leaders and authorities in their domains.

Generally, you will find Entrepreneurs, Authors, Basketballers, Singers, Actresses, etc., that are real-life examples of having gone through problems but finding ways to not give up on their path in life and succeed.

Some of the world’s best inspirational movies stories:

1. Rush
2. Amadeus
3. Of Mice and Men

Here is a link to movies where you can find inspirational movie stories.

6. The Personal Speaker

The personal speaker is like an emotional coach who listens and makes thoughtful questions that make you reach the bottom of any issue you may have.

This speaker gives you tips to manage your individual life, whether it is day-to-day life or even some kind of interpersonal relationship that helps you overcome recurrent problems.

This kind of speaker is often somebody with a lot of charisma and empathy towards others.

7. The Personal Trainer Speaker

Personal trainer speakers often live a healthy and active life, so they engage their audience by doing exercises with them and sharing how anyone could do the same.

Personal trainers nowadays spread their messages through social media or in bodybuilding seminars. For them, by working hard and patiently, you can get the body that you want and therefore be a healthier person.

This type of speaker usually helps people dealing with eating disorder issues and self-esteem by making people understand how having the body you want can make you happier and confident in your choices in life. 

8. The Persuasive Speaker

The persuasive speaker has his perspective of what can be done better in a particular system. Their goal is to make people agree with his idea/proposition.

Political speeches are commonly a real example of the persuasive speaker; he makes people or groups follow or believe that life can be better if they got him to help out.

If you are looking forward to building a career as a persuasive speaker, you need to be a confident person that has a strong message to change specific realities.

You should consider researching rhetoric if you don’t know how to make convincing arguments or need refreshment training.

Related Article: 8 Awesome Persuasive Speech Techniques & Topics 

9. The Philanthropist Speaker

A philanthropist speaker commonly preaches about humanism, the importance of practicing a selfless life, and how you could reach happiness by transcending purchases or being in a relationship.

This speech can be motivational because it educates people to look at problems as a whole.

The public speaker here invites people to see a new perspective of a problem that affects everybody.

Some of the world’s best Philanthropist Speakers and Advocates are:

1. Bill and Melinda Gates
2. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan
3. George Soros

Here is a link where you can find the top 50 philanthropists if you are curious about it.

10. The Religious / Believer Speaker

The religious speaker usually talks about subjects, such as not losing faith and hope, while briefs about a higher power that puts you through some challenges to learn an important lesson.

It is common to see this type of motivational speech happen in churches or masjids; they tend to deliver the message with the expectation of teaching morals.

Here is a link to a visual example of a religious/ believer speaker if you need.

11. The Self-Helper Speaker

As the header says, the self-helper is the type of speaker that spreads messages about how to overcome the odds to be successful (whether professionally or in a love life). It can include group sessions where people learn from one another by re-educating harmful customs.

Usually, this type of speaker belongs to the research community, such as neurologists, sociologists, or even physiologists.

A self-help speaker can also be that person who writes about the importance and how you could improve yourself and and better contribute to society daily, and spend time helping people understand and go through depression or bipolar.

Some of the 25 best self-improvement books no matter how old you are:

1. Think and Grow Rich
2. Mindsight : The New Science of Personal Transformation
3. Feeling Good : The New Mood Therapy

Here is the link to the site if you are still curious about them.

12. The Seminar Leader

The seminar leader speakers are often experts in a social, cultural, or financial field. They are successful in the creation of a brand, or developing interesting research, or simply real experts in a contemporary issue affecting society, and that’s what they’re generally known for.

If you want to be a seminar leader, you have to be sure of yourself to have the confidence to do the marketing and properly present what you are selling.

People who engage with seminar leaders sometimes see what they can do differently in their lives. People who believe in a cause are usually seminar leaders.

Their goal is to make a difference in their community, the entire World, or just in somebody’s life. You can find them in conferences or even annual congresses about a challenging theme.

We have a great example in the TEDx Talks, which is an event that happens in different countries and periods, bringing a multitude of subjects for discussion such as education, science, business and environment. 

These events have been greatly successful because of how the Seminar Leaders or TED talkers share or sell an idea that makes people think or view an issue from a different angle, with the intention of getting those people to go out and change the world.

13. The Social Activist Speaker

Social activist speakers usually claim a specific social layer has a growing gap that widens daily.

The social activist speaker tends to be a person, a member, or not of an organization who cares a lot about others’ well-being.

They tend to defend and create social causes to bring consciousness about a group’s problem. This speaker usually engages in lectures to call out the audience to help who is in need.

If you want to be a social speaker, you have to be passionate about others’ concerns and willing to give some practical solutions to their problems.

You can often find this type of public speaker on social activities or volunteer organizations.

Some of the top 10 social activists for your best known:

1. Titus Kaphar
2. Angela Davis
3. Marcus Bullock

Here is a link to the top 10 social activists speakers if you want to take by example.

14. The Spiritual Speaker

The spiritual speaker usually spreads the word and shows people the value of healing, giving them some enlightenment to find a life mission.

Suffering here is just a moment; it results from the ego, and happiness comes with the awareness of the present moment, which is your pure essence.

The spiritual speaker teaches people to look at life from different perspectives, more than anything, because of their belief that everybody has a role to accomplish in each other’s life.

Most of them are just ordinary people who grew up among parents who believed in that too, and if you want to be a spiritual speaker, you don’t need to be a physicist or to have learned all about it since childhood.

To build a spiritual speaker career, first of all, you need to be an optimist so you can give people strength, do in-depth research about the spiritual World so you can become an expert, and then teach other people. 

Like that, you will draw some strategies to help people build themselves while understanding the obstacles they have to deal with.

You also need to be an open-minded person since the solutions are quite unconventional in a way that breaks paradigms.

Spiritual Speakers usually attend Satsang, they are the people who can come looking for guidance, so here the struggle is occurring in a way a doctor or a psychologist wouldn’t understand.

Some of the best spiritual leaders in The Western World 2020:

1. Joe Dispenza
2. Teal Swan
3. Eckhart Tolle

Here is a link to a visual example of some spiritual speakers if you like to see it closely.

15. The Youth Motivational Speaker

As the name says, this type of speech is addressed to young people; otherwise not always delivered by one. 

Youth motivational speakers usually talk about subjects that make teenagers feel insecure and guide them so they can grow to find their way in life.

If you want to build a career as a youth motivational speaker, you should first know which kind of problems young boys and girls are facing nowadays and how they could overcome it.

Reading books about young people who are going against the odds by being successful too early may help you become an expert on this.

Some of the top 10 young speakers trying to change the World:

1. Shamma bint Suhail Faris Mazrui
2. Malala Yousafzai
3. Yara Shahidi

Here is the link if you still want to know who they are.

Conclusion

There are many ways to inspire people, share ideas and motivate others to overcome their challenges, learn and pursue their passions, goals, and ambitions in life.

You don’t have to be an expert in most cases to make a difference, as long as you have the willingness to learn, are passionate about helping others and sharing your learnings or help people self-discover.

So, if you are truly interested in becoming a motivational speaker and helping others, there are 15 ways you can do just that.

As they say:

If there’s a Will, there’s a Way

References and Further Reading

Mckay, B. Consulted in “10 Types of Speeches Every Speechwriter Should Know” , October 14th 2020.

Meier, K (2020). Consulted in Chron Website “Types of Motivational Speakers” , October 14th 2020.