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April 22, 2009 | lists

Ironic sentiments from a hypnotist The first place youre 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, theyre welcome relief from the Magna Carta or quadratic equationsbut 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 liveswhich 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 whos 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 Oprahs Chicago penthouse as well as her straight alibi. Well, were 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 cancultivate their potential, expand their opportunities and empower themselves to participate at all levels of leadership and organizational development. With these choice words, Stedman cant 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 doesnt 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. Whats missing? Same thing that is always missing. The unvarnished truth and peoples 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 couldnt see her, but the way she looks compared to the way I look, proves everything. Super foods are for real. If that argument didnt sway you, try this one on for size: My intuition strongly tells me that weve 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 hasnt 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. Lets hope she charges a flat rate rather than by the hour. After watching whats below, Id be motivated to work on my comedy.

6. Marcus Buckingham. Who the child is, versus who the child isnt. 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. Heres more from Buckingham: Some schools are deliberately and explicitly trying to become strength based (if youre playing the motivational speaker drinking game, take a swig whenever you come across a cheesy buzzwordby this articles end youll 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 Springfields resident child rearing empowerer, Brad Goodman, on the Simpsons, whose shtick most closely resembles Buckinghams. 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 isnt important! Whats important here is that this lad has fully developed ego integrity with well-defined boundaries.

April 24, 2009 | lists

Professional psychics havent monopolized preying on peoples insecurities or personal and professional incompetencywhether its discovering your own inner child, how to be a stronger, better alcoholic, or how to get confident, stupid!theres always a smiling rent-a-friend inspirational speaker, a basketful of catchphrases at the ready, telling you how to seize the ring not found at the bottom of a Cheerios box. In Part I of our list, we tried to offer a sampling of the different types of motivational speakers, covering the how to succeed in business? angle from a guy whose answer to this question is Duh? Marry Oprah!, an ex-wrestler fitness guru who extols the virtues of hard work (and that from a guy who would remain unknown had he not been a walking steroid in the early 1990s) and someone who believes turning on a stove can killnot when its packed with explosive or in a gas-filled room, but by depleting the nutrients in your food. In Part II, we are taking a moment (breathe deeply, but not so much that youll get light-headed) to turn to more conventional carpe temporis punctum types.

5. Deepak Chopra. Madonna counts herself a Chopra devotees. This, despite contradicting, at least from the neck up, her gurus you can tell your body not to age notion. The late Michael Jackson was a fan as well. [Here's a brief, Michael Jackson joke interlude that worked better when he was alive: Why isn't Michael Jackson a motivational speaker? Because he's already been inner child] Chopra is, according to critic Richard Dawkinsa one man alternative health industry, worth $75,000 per lecture (!) at which he dispenses vagaries that would blow the mind of your average hacky sacker in a sarong: When you get to the primal state of the universe, what is it? A universal field that encloses all matter and energy. This field is everywhere, but it also localizes itself. Being much brighter and more accomplished than anyone else here, doesnt mean he isnt more than deserving of a spot in our Top 5. His pompous The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams certainly merits his inclusion. In it, the good doctor postulates The only difference between you and a tree is the informational and energy content of your respective bodies. One of the similarities between The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and a tree is that a small forest was felled to publish this hokum. But he doesnt stop there. He claims in Return of the Rishi (we preferred the sequel, Too Rishis Too Furious) that meditators can levitate. A chapter in that book describes how he personally experienced lifting off, which he calls the first threshold in yogic flying, which, if successful, will redefine our current understanding of yogic flying: a bunch of middle aged losers with pony tails hopping along the floor in their underwear. His book, meanwhile, did achieve lift-off out the window of many a thinking-persons place of residence. 4. Esther and Jerry Hicks. Authors of the Laws of Attraction, these Hicks tap into a notion of infinite intelligence, immediately contradicted by the following: Dont continually harass yourself into misalignment of whats already in your vibrational escrow.[Editor's note: Consider it done!] And later, the majority of peopleare not accustomed to focusing on the vibrational world, at least those who havent had a pair of suspenders snapped against their chests or are familiar with the intricacies of tuning a guitar.

3. Jeff Davidson. When you practice the sweet and gentle art of doing one thing at a time, you get your best results!!! The worldslows.down. You cant jump on your horse and ride in all directions. Now, there is nothing particularly annoying about Davidson himself, but hes a surrogate for the multitude of slow down and take stock of your life anti-multi tasking types (one of us is spinning a basketball on a finger as we write this), who are indistinguishable from one another or maybe they wouldnt be if we slowed down to take a more protractedcarefulnuanced.assessment of each of them. We cant, as we have others like Tony Robbins to take to task.

2. Dan Millman. Millman, is the creator of Way of the Peaceful Warrior (because if theres one thing thats made warriors successful throughout history, its that trait of being peaceful) and the man behind the dictum that life continues to come to us in waves, but who unfortunately doesnt have his podium set up on a beach when theres a tsunami warning. According to an Amazon review, which saves us a half-hour of skimming through it, Way of the Peaceful Warrior is Purely palliative, useless, and deadly dull. Another gem from this party-planner extraordinaire, Millman: I learned that we can do anything, but we cant do everything.. at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is

everything. One thing can be said about Millman: There is no better way of emptying

your mind, than by turning to his teachings. 1. Anthony Robbins. Author of Awaken the Giant Within, made that much easier if youre 67 and not built horizontally, Robbins is the giant-toothed face of the get happy movement offering pearly white wisdom like If youre running east looking for a sunset, youve got a problem and Its important to have the best mentor..so you dont get stuck in the desert when youre looking for the ocean, you know, metaphorically (good thing he made that distinction, so youre not confused into thinking you need a Bedouin surfer mentor). Why reinvent the wheel? Success leaves clues! and later. All the tools Ive come up withthe foundation came, standing on the shoulders of other giants. That this twit would paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton like that, is testament to his giant ego within and cements his place at #1.