Are motivational courses and seminars worth it?
“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”– Earl Nightingale
We become what we think about.
You may not have heard of Earl Nightingale (March 12, 1921 – March 25, 1989) or his best selling work, The Strangest Secret. The Strangest Secret was a 1957 spoken word record by Earl Nightingale.
Originally, Earl used to give weekly pep talks to his staff at the insurance agency he owned. Many of his ideas were inspired and influenced by authors such as Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie. During a vacation in 1956, Earl left a pre-recorded motivational record for his staff to listen to in his absence, and this message spread like wild-fire. Staff requested copies of The Strangest Secret, which they shared with friends and family, who also requested copies. Eventually The Strangest Secret sold over one million copies and received the first Gold Record for the spoken word, which helped launch the fields of business motivation and audio publishing. A written transcript was also published and Terry Savage has described it as “…one of the great motivational books of all time“.
If you’d like to listen to a recording of the Strangest Secret you can Google it or click this link:
There is nothing new under the sun.
Motivational speeches and ‘pep talks’ are nothing new. They have been used for hundreds if not thousands of years by parents to encourage their children, by generals to lead their troops, by pastors to encourage their flock to revival and by leaders to give hope to their nations. Sometimes you need someone else to encourage you to stop the pity party and get back to living an abundant life.
Back in May of 2003, I drove down to Baltimore’s First Mariner Arena to attend “The Challenge: A Call to Action” which was a conference for men held by a Christian group called Promise Keepers. The cost for the admission was $100. 10,000 men were expected to attend the 17 hours of sessions and entertainment. Dr. Crawford Loritts was one of the many speakers, and a free bag lunch was provided, It was crowded, and it was electrifying to be surrounded my thousands of like-minded men. Beyond that, I don’t remember much of the event. The message about God was something I already knew. The fact that I was not alone was something I already knew. Everyone on stage was selling books, CDs, T-shirts, you name it. I brought a few items on impulse. I was satisfied overall but if I had to do it again, I’d probably stay home.
Motivation is motivational!
Brian Tracey once described motivational speaking as the highest paid profession in the world. Likewise, Earl Nightingale called selling the highest paid profession. This is not surprising because a motivational speaker is selling you a message you want to hear. The good news is that you desire to hear this life-changing information they are promising to impart. The bad news is that what they are selling you is something you could have found out for yourself for free. In the 1950’s people did not have the sum total of human knowledge at their fingertips as we do today. If you wanted information, you had to borrow the book from a library, or buy it outright. If you missed the TV show, you couldn’t watch it online, it was past tense, gone forever. Computers were the toys of mad scientists, no normal person owned one. Knowledge was limited to time and opportunity. So attending seminars was a practical way to get the most amount of knowledge on a single topic offered in a single location. BUT knowledge in and of itself is useless if you are unwilling to act upon it. You have to be motivated to make the necessary changes needed to improve whatever aspect of your life you are trying to change.
Some people have been so beaten down during their life that they no longer believe that their goals are achievable, This is why the second job of the motivation speaker is to encourage and convince their audience that if they follow their method they will succeed. If you can conceive it, and you can believe it, then you can achieve it! Hint- being surrounded by thousands of enthusiastic, like-minded individuals helps. But when it’s all said and done, the hard work is all up to you. If you fail to follow though, and give up because ‘it’s too hard’ or ‘it doesn’t work’, then you are wasting your time and your money. The only one getting rich is the motivational speaker because you paid for his or her seminar, and the books and materials they are offering. No one can make YOU a success except YOU. If you truly want to succeed, success begins with YOU! If YOU want to become motivated, just start doing whatever YOU are attempting to achieve. Begin working and the motivation will follow because motivation is motivational! There is nothing as satisfying as seeing results.
SNAKE OIL!
A few months after the PK conference in Baltimore, I was visiting a local mega-church which shall remain nameless, and that pastor had encouraged his church members to attend a special financial service later that evening. As money and finance are of great personal interest to me, I decided to go to this free seminar. I forget the name of the speaker, he did not impress me. He was preaching a prosperity gospel and his program was called INCREASE. He kept going on about how God wants us all to be rich, and that if you followed all the information in his INCREASE program, you too will be rich. He was very enthusiastic, but at one point he used a ‘negative’ tactic. He told the audience that his program would not for 90% of the audience because they would fail to follow the instructions. Yet when he was done speaking, dozens of people were lining up to buy his $400 financial INCREASE program on 16 CDs. I did NOT give that snake oil salesman one penny, and I never set foot in that church again.
Everything is online!
Before you shell out your hard earned money for seminars, programs, or encouragement:
Almost everything you want to know is already online somewhere, FOR FREE.
E-books, recordings (both audio and video), charts, graphs, statistics, plans, you name it, it’s all out on the internet for you to access. You have the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips if you own a Smartphone or have some way to access the internet. Knowledge is power, and that power is yours for the taking. You just have to believe that it’s possible and do it. People will always try to discourage you from succeeding, but when they do you have to tune them out. Their dreams died long ago and they can’t stand to watch you succeed where they failed. Misery loves company, so decline the invitation to their pity party because you’re better than that. You can do it! I believe in you. As always, I wish you success and happiness.
Instant Coffee Wisdom 