An inspiring flop

Last night, after an inspiring practice, and productive day putting the finishing touches on my winter training plan, I started thinking about the team meeting I've got coming up next week.  It's the last official team meeting we'll have this fall, and will cover everything from the regatta this Sunday to the team goals for the spring as well as breaking down the winter training schedule, and answering any questions the team might have.  

So I'm driving home, and I start thinking about what I want to say to the guys.  And I decide that I would really like to come through with a solid talk or inspiring speech to really get them excited about winter.  I started thinking about to my time at the University of Puget Sound and the pre-race speeches I'd give my novice women, how upbeat, and "go get them" they were.  And then I started thinking about my two years working at Lake Oswego CR, and this last year at Willamette where my speeches amounted to nothing more than, "guy, we can do this."  

Where along the way, had I lost my apparent "gift" of quality speech making?  What happened to the guy who could end on the right note, inspire confidence, and some serious swagger, and then see it unfold in the athletes?  

Last night I started talking out loud - which I often do when I'm trying to work through a problem - and started putting together the things that I'd like to hear or that I wanted to make sure that I said.  And from the random bits and pieces, I started compiling my speech.  I talked about, "wanting to see that spark in their eyes," and wanting them to feel and experience some of the things that I felt and experience when I was competing.  I talked about appealing to their pride, the fact that no one knows what life will bring, but years from now, wouldn't it be grand to look back and say, "at least once in my life, I was the best," and all sorts of cliched things phrases.

And I liked what I was saying, until I got home and realized that in the process of putting this together, I'd neglected to do anything to record my thoughts.  And thus, this "great" speech would go down having only been heard by myself and the upholstery of the truck.  

So all that aside, what inspires you?  What makes you scrap the bottom of the tank when you feel as though there is nothing left?