Dr.John Izzo is “a leading business strategy expert, a best-selling author, a community leader, and an avid conservationist.”And if you visit his website, you would discover that he is much more than that.

Dr. John Izzo recently spoke at the TEDxVancouver conference on the topic of “The Defining Moment for a Generation-In-Waiting.” It was an interesting video to watch and the comments below wrote “motivating”, “inspiring”, “captivating” and many other complimentary responses. It then occurred to me to think why would someone become a social influence, to be admired by others.

For one, I think it is the “experience”. It is not until you have experienced something can you talk about it persuasively. It could be something that others also experienced, it could be something that others does not wish to experience, or it could be something others desire to experience. One occasion or another, experience provide things that books just can not substitute for.

Secondly, I think it is the words that he used to engage with people. Using “us”, “we”, to make the audience feel that they are in the same situation, using words such as “pride” and “our generation” to make the audience bring up a sense of belonging and collaboration.

Lastly, the strong statistics that he brought out at the beginning of this video present to the audience the hard facts that support his argument.

This video gave me the urge to google him and find out more about him. I think being able to persuade others through talking is an accumulated skill that is very valuable to possess. Find out more of the videos from the TEDxVancouver conference here.