|
If you want public speaking tips, what are the ten perceptivities you may learn from former US President Ronald Reagan who was known as ‘The Great Communicator’.
The news of the death of former US President Ronald Reagan at 93 in June 2004, has again focussed the world’s attention on both his achievements and great communicating skills.
So what may we learn in regards to life, business and success from Reagan?
Well, after reading the tributes that have poured in for the man they called ‘The Great Communicator’, here are my 10 insights.
1. YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD
While most people are enjoying retirement, others are just reaching the height of their power and influence. At the age of 69, Reagan was the oldest person ever to become president of the United States.
What do you plan to do at that age?
2. THE ‘NANCY FACTOR’
There’s a saying that behind each great man, there’s an even better women. Reagan knew his intensities and significantly his weaknesses, such as a lack of attention to detail. His wife Nancy made up for this and they became an ‘unshakeable and unbreakable couple’.
This highlights the power of a good kinship with a life partner.
3. A RICH AND VARIED LIFE
Reagan had a rich and deep well of life experiences on which to draw from. The shoe salesman father, the economic reality of the 1930s Depression and at 25, the excitement and drama of being a slick sports broadcaster.
All these experiences helped shape his values, beliefs and capacity to commune with audiences.
4. HUMOUR AND HUMILITY
Despite the early success and attraction to Hollywood as a B-grade actor, Reagan never forgot his roots.
On the assassination try on his life in March 1981, he turned to his wife in the emergency room afterwards and said, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
5. INSTANT LIKEABILITY
Like some humans with charisma and charm, Reagan had that rare capacity to build instant rapport with people he met. He connected with persons on a personal level and humans liked him for that.
How may you use charisma to build your personal brand?
6. SIMPLE CONCEPTS
While some have criticised his lack of detail and intellectual rigour, Reagan’s great gift as a communicator was to take the complex, like a solution to the Cold War, and make it appear simple to the masses.
Like Clinton’s ofttimes cited comment, “It’s the economy, stupid’, Reagan was a master at delivering simple conceptions that everyone could understand.
7. HOLLYWOOD STYLE
Reagan know how to dress, network with the right persons and manage his image. Skills learnt early in the cut-throat world of the Hollywood movie industry.
8. ATTENTION TO DETAIL
There are reports that Reagan’s sovereignty as President was tightly managed and scripted. So what if there were chalk marks on stage outlining where to stand and his use of cue cards as memory joggers prior to important meetings. His background had taught him the importance of attention to detail. Sports broadcasters around the world are meticulous to their approach to big matches. Reagan neared presidential duties no differently.
These are the little things that may make a big divergence to the affect of your message.
9. THE RARE ABILITY TO MOVE PEOPLE TO ACTION THROUGH THE SPOKEN WORD
Out of the millions of demonstrations given each day, few achieve this goal. Yet, I believe it will have to be the outcome of each speech.
Reagan had it. An online biography from ‘The New Book of Knowledge’ takes a deeper look at this rare skill.
“As a freshman, Reagan took portion in a student strike that resulted in the resignation of the college president, who had proposed cutting back the curriculum and the instructing staff because of a shortage of funds. Reagan made the main speech at a rally that won aid for the strike from almost all the students. He later said that he learned then what it was like to succeed with an audience. His skill with audiences was to be a major element in his successes in later life.” (Source: http://www.grolier.com [http://ap.grolier.com] )
10. UNFALTERING OPTIMISM
Research shows that the optimisti feeling that all is going to turn out well is a learned skill and optimistic humans achieve more from life.
This is the one quality I admire most in Reagan. He had it until the very end, as this quote delivered on November 5th, 1994, announcing he had Alzheimer’s disease, demonstrates.
“In closing let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the outstanding honor of permitting me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal the optimisti feeling that all is going to turn out well for it is future. I now start out the traveling that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.”
Ronald Reagan Signature Collection American
Before he became the 40th president of the United States of America or even governor of California, Ronald Reagan was a veteran Hollywood actor who, even though he played largely in Warner Bros.’ films. He was exceedingly likable as an actor — handsome, charismatic and accessible– the very ingredients required to be a successful leading man in Hollywood in the 30′s and 40′s. Now available on DVD are five of Reagan films in Ronald Reagan: The Signature Collection.
The movie star who would be president is remembered with his own DVD five-pack, all culled from Warner Bros. titles made amid 1940 and 1952. It’s a good sampling of Reagan’s comparatively brief movie-star prime: a second lead in good movies and leading man in lesser properties. Athletic, cornfed, and energetic, Reagan’s persona in these movies foreshadows the calibers that voters would later see in the politician. Will this collection convince anybody he was a great actor? Unlikely. But he knew how to embody an idea.
The earliest film here is Knute Rockne, All-American, the 1940 biopic of Notre Dame’s legendary football coach. Pat O’Brien has the title role in this boilerplate Hollywoodization, and even though Reagan’s percentage is little it is pivotal–and it would follow him for the rest of his life. He plays ill-fated Notre Dame player George Gipp, whose deathbed plea to Rockne–”Win just one for the Gipper”–became a national catchphrase. It’s an efficient, cornball picture, and a fond childhood memory for anybody who ran into it at an early age.
Kings Row (1942) is consensus pick for Reagan’s finest screen hour. A big, juicy, and genuinely rather weird melodrama, the film cruises through the creepier side of small-town life, with Reagan in a very likeable groove. He plays the more rascally of the two male leads (Robert Cummings is the sensible hero), a breezy charmer whose talent with the ladies gets him in trouble. The most lurid twist in the movie leads to Reagan’s line, “Where’s the rest of me?”, which became the title of his autobiography. An exceedingly agreeably diverting movie, with conductor Sam Wood inestimably aided by James Wong Howe’s lush cinematography and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s classic music score.
Reagan’s career cooled after the Second World War, and he plays a second lead in 1949′s The Hasty Heart, an adaptation of a hit play. Set in a military hospital in Burma just after the war, the story hinges on a group of persons who requires medical care concealing a fatal prognosis from an ailing Scotsman (Richard Todd). The creaking of the play is all too apparent, even though Todd’s performance is expert. Patricia Neal, still new to movies, plays the nurse in charge. Reagan gets to display his photographic memory by reeling off the books of the Old Testament by rote. This one has the sole commentary track in the package, which has the (possibly unique) feature of having the director, Vincent Sherman, commence weeping as he’s talking regarding the film.
Storm Warning (1951) is an effective but odd hybrid: portion film noir, share socially conscious picture. Ginger Rogers witnesses a Ku Klux Klan killing as she’s stopping off in a little town to visit younger sis Doris Day; Day’s hubby Steve Cochran is one of the killers. In one of his best roles, a laid-back Reagan plays the uncompromising local district attorney. The film has a good deal of superb noir shots in it, but the expose of the KKK is veritably tame: even though the word “lynching” is used, there’s no racial angle to the movie at all. It’s more like the Klan is a crime syndicate that needs to be cleaned up. In The Winning Team Reagan plays famed baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, whose struggles with disease and alcoholism form the spine of the tepid plot. Doris Day, now top-billed, co-stars as Alexander’s supportive wife. The movie compensate proper tribute to a legendary baseball moment: Alexander’s heroic performance in the 1926 World Series. It’s another win for the Gipper. –Robert Horton
Ronald Reagan Signature Collection American Picture
Ronald Reagan Signature Collection American Photo
Ronald Reagan Signature Collection American Picture
Ronald Reagan Signature Collection American Image
Most helpful client reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
 Wonderful Overview of Reagan’s Best Film Work…
By Benjamin J Burgraff
There are those who write off Ronald Reagan’s acting talent as minimal, and his Hollywood career as a long list of ‘B’ movies, like “Bedtime for Bonzo”. Nothing could be further from the truth, and “Ronald Reagan – The Signature Collection” offers the future President in movie roles that display his charisma, charm, intensity, and integrity, over a 14-year span. The selections made are all exceptional, and surely worth observing (The only reason I don’t give the collection ‘five stars’ is the lack of commentaries for any of the features other than “The Hasty Heart”; certainly, “Knute Rockne” and “King’s Row” is worthy of them!)
26 of 31 persons found the following review helpful.
 What Rupes Will Be Giving You This Christmas
By joseph Corey
here’s the rundown from Warner’s Home Video press release when it comes to this collection.
The Hasty Heart offers a commentary by conductor Vincent Sherman and John Meroney, a vintage Joe McDoakes comedy short So You Want to Be in Pictures, a classic cartoon The Hasty Hare and a theatrical trailer, with Subtitles in English, French and Spanish.
Kings Row will feature an Oscar® nominated short United States Marine Band, a classic cartoon Fox Pop and a theatrical trailer, with the main feature subtitled in English and Spanish.
Knute Rockne All American includes an Oscar® winning Technicolor historical short Teddy, the Rough Rider, a classic cartoon Porky’s Baseball Broadcast, an audio-only 1940 Lux Radio Theater Broadcast with Pat O’Brien and Ronald Reagan, and a theatrical trailer. Subtitles are in English, French and Spanish.
The Winning Team and Storm Warning both come with a trailer and feature subtitles in English, French and Spanish.
for those of you marveling in regards to why sure titles aren’t in this boxset “Bedtime for Bonzo” came out from Universal. “Hellcats of the Navy” is owned by Sony.
16 of 20 humans found the following review helpful.
Full marks for a great selection
By D. James
While never having been a big fan of Ronald Reagan either as an actor or a politician, I’ve been waiting for various of the titles included in this set to be freed for a good deal of time. Fantastic that they’re being freed in the one well-priced collection.
Those that are the most prevised for myself are ‘King’s Row’ and ‘Storm Warning’, both long overdue in my opinion. There’ll be a great numerous excessively affected emotionally in regards to the release of ‘Knute Rockne’, a definitive classic sports-themed film.
PS – Win just one for the Gipper! (someone had to say it).
See all 10 client reviews…
|