Tags: celebrities, lists, motivational speakers
April 22, 2009 | lists
Ironic sentiments from a hypnotist
The first place you’re likely to encounter a motivational speaker is a high school auditorium. Armed with laser pointers and talk of carpe diem as a life affirming alternative to carpe capitulum and shoving it into a toilet bowl, they’re welcome relief from the Magna Carta or quadratic equations—but then again, so is a fire drill.
Regardless of how many members of the student body have ever had to post bail, talk will habitually focus on what they want to do with their lives—which is inevitably anything but peddling easy answers in a headset.
Some of these motivational speakers have made lucrative careers motivating people to sign up for an expensive seminar or buy rip-off DVDs. To anyone who’s suffered these Up with People types, please join us in an ‘Up yours’ as we Sicilian salute 10 Annoying Motivational Speakers. [For the Top 5 Click Here]
10. Stedman Graham. Stedman Graham is chairman and CEO of S. Graham & Associates, but is better known as the guy who backed up the Brinks truck to Oprah’s Chicago penthouse as well as her straight alibi. Well, we’re not buying it, nor are we forking over his multi thousand dollar speaking fee, usually commanded by captains of industry, multiple gold medal winning Olympians or former presidents. According to our research the “best-selling author and businessman, shares his insight into how participants can…cultivate their potential, expand their opportunities and empower themselves to participate at all levels of leadership and organizational development.” With these choice words, Stedman can’t be written off easily, except one hopes, at tax time. [For our take on his amour, please see our Oprah Weighs 200 Lbs: Lock up your Cupboards]
9. Jim Helwig. Known for four moves when he wrestled as The Ultimate Warrior (if you count shaking the ring ropes) he turned to the lecture circuit and opined that “queering doesn’t make the world work”. His motivating, unsurprisingly, ended there so he turned to the web where he writes: “there are approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. who are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese. And what about all the other millions who do not do any exercise at all and miss out on the great life-quality benefits. What’s missing? Same thing that is always missing. The unvarnished truth and people’s unwillingness to accept it. My Warrior Workout START Kit is the truth.”
8. Shazzie. Her ‘Superfood’ spiel begins with a portentous “We have made ourselves living cesspools and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases”, a quote from Plato, a guy who was about a dozen and a half centuries away from knowing how blood circulated through the human body. The ‘Superfoods’ peddler then lashes out a at a dietitian critic with a wild ad hominem attack. (Re: a national TV appearance) “As I was in a different studio at the time I couldn’t see her, but… the way she looks compared to the way I look, proves everything. Super foods are for real”. If that argument didn’t sway you, try this one on for size: “My intuition strongly tells me that we’ve been introduced to exotic superfoods at a critical time in our evolution” and later “our return to paradise is unfolding before our very eyes”. Yep, the garden of Eden all by snacking on dandelions but make sure the family pet hasn’t beaten you to them first with a raised hind leg.
7. Fran Capo. She can speak over 600 words a minute and holds a Guinness record for the fastest talker. Let’s hope she charges a flat rate rather than by the hour. After watching what’s below, I’d be motivated to work on my comedy.
6. Marcus Buckingham. “Who the child is, versus who the child isn’t. The school system is set up to focus on the F!” If this was your bellyaching when you brought report cards back to mom, MB is the guy for you. Buckingham unsurprisingly, has gotten the Oprah seal of the approval, and whose audience, speaking of seals, will applaud along mindlessly to whatever claptrap he dangles in front of them. Here’s more from Buckingham: “Some schools are deliberately and explicitly trying to become ‘strength based’ (if you’re playing the motivational speaker drinking game, take a swig whenever you come across a cheesy buzzword—by this article’s end you’ll have fallen off your chair) trying to help kids identify what their strengths are and use them productively.” And if this same dud student grows up to fill cubicle space, he notes, in remarks that will be applauded by union members on smoke breaks everywhere: “Casting is important, if an employee is not performing at excellence, maybe she is not cast in the right role.”
Homer, Marge, Brad Goodman and 'little Rudiger'
We now turn to Springfield’s resident child rearing empowerer, Brad Goodman, on the Simpsons, whose shtick most closely resembles Buckingham’s.
Brad Goodman: We can all learn a lot from this young man here, this, this –
Bart Simpson: Rudiger.
Brad Goodman: — Rudiger. And if we can all be more like little Rudiger –
Marge Simpson: His name is Bart!!!
Brad Goodman: His name isn’t important! What’s important here is that this lad has fully developed ego integrity with well-defined boundaries.
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It’s almost as if Buckingham is TRYING to be the stereotype.
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http://www.bertmartinez.com has taught my sales team techniques on how to prospect customers, sell the customer, and maintain fruitful relationships with customers, which has led to additional sales! Martinez is an award winning motivational speaker, entrepreneur and trainer who amazes audiences, and transforms businesses.