Motivational Speakers and Self-Improvement gurus

[Mazen]

One of my friends is what you call a life coach. He gave me his business card few years ago and I threw it into a pile of business cards on my desk. Today while looking for somebody else’s card, I came across his. His official job title read Motivational Speaker and Life Coach.

And these thoughts came to mind…

My friend makes a decent living from his job, he charges hefty hourly rates for his sessions and commands relatively large sums of money for his speeches. I never understood why! After all, my friend ran his company into the ground and found himself doing this job after he failed!
I never understood why would somebody pay this guy so that he would sit down with them and give them generic and very high level advice, nothing tangible or specific. I am talking really high level and general ideas and phrases. For example, he would say something cliché like “you have to find strength deep within yourself” or something like “you need to start, do not just sit back on your fat ass and think that things will start on their own”. I mean, this is really general stuff, everybody knows that!
My friend is not the only one making a living from this profession. Ex-presidents, ex-CEOs, successful people, not so successful people, people from all walks of life sell speeches and self-improvement tips. Of course, in the same category are what you call psychologists or shrinks.

It just fascinates me, and maybe somebody here could explain this human behavior. Why do we humans - or at least many of us - need somebody from the outside to push us forward, to keep us going?
In the Middle East, we don’t come across this profession much. I think mosques and churches fill this gap.
Does it just make people feel better that they are doing something about their situation, albeit irrelevant and insignificant?

[ابو مينا]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة Mazen

One of my friends is what you call a life coach. He gave me his business card few years ago and I threw it into a pile of business cards on my desk. Today while looking for somebody else’s card, I came across his. His official job title read Motivational Speaker and Life Coach.

And these thoughts came to mind…

My friend makes a decent living from his job, he charges hefty hourly rates for his sessions and commands relatively large sums of money for his speeches. I never understood why! After all, my friend ran his company into the ground and found himself doing this job after he failed!
I never understood why would somebody pay this guy so that he would sit down with them and give them generic and very high level advice, nothing tangible or specific. I am talking really high level and general ideas and phrases. For example, he would say something cliché like “you have to find strength deep within yourself” or something like “you need to start, do not just sit back on your fat ass and think that things will start on their own”. I mean, this is really general stuff, everybody knows that!
My friend is not the only one making a living from this profession. Ex-presidents, ex-CEOs, successful people, not so successful people, people from all walks of life sell speeches and self-improvement tips. Of course, in the same category are what you call psychologists or shrinks.

It just fascinates me, and maybe somebody here could explain this human behavior. Why do we humans - or at least many of us - need somebody from the outside to push us forward, to keep us going?
In the Middle East, we don’t come across this profession much. I think mosques and churches fill this gap.
Does it just make people feel better that they are doing something about their situation, albeit irrelevant and insignificant?

The average life coach has specific tactics to handle the problems of the audience usually. The successful ones are capable of delivering an intense emotional charge to kickstart a brief well-designed speech that address the misery of the given issue, promising their clients every now and then that those obstacles are very known patterns and the healing process has already been started, the moment you signed that check. Don't Panic ,Breathe bro.
'Eat that frog' motto is a shinny example for those who procrastinate and postpone their own must-to-do daily tasks. The coach advice is simple.he encourage you to imagine a vivid disgusting fat giant frog sitting alive at your breakfast plate waiting you to eat. That frog would be the task you try to skip doing , depending on a list of well-known lame excuses. People have found the analogy was great and they have given it a shot. The result speaks for itself in the form of top-seller books, series of conferences and a never-ending coaching parties. ( don't remember the coach's name , it's been a long time since I read his book.)

We human need a compass on every corner of the road. A fortune teller, soothe sayer, prophet , imam ,politician or a life coach, you name it. We need an advice , disguised in a party where we celebrate our pains,failures and hopes in a different mass hysteria with a different color and flavor each time.
We need a common shared day dream ,where we can interact with others to ventilate. And the more we pay ,the higher we get.
Guess that is why we pay,sit and listen to false prophets each time.

[ابو مينا]

N.B

It will be very nice to point out my mistakes and correct them.

I'm terrible at tenses and too many other stuff.

[Baghdadi]

Hi Mazen
I think the only advantage we can get from such a job like Motivational Speaker is when we need a different point of view which what managers usually do so I think only big organizations would need a specialized person to do the job.
The company I work for have two human resource officers and we call them HR, their job is to solve any issue or incident that happens at work between employees such as argument, misconduct, misbehaviour . . .etc, they have nothing to do most of the time and when any issue happens they try to make it bigger than what it is to show off that they doing their job.
In the middle east mosques and churches might fill the gap but negative way, they don't show people how to do their job but actually they encourage them to not work by telling people that praying and fasting should be priority number one and our life on earth is not important because it's only temporary.

Regards

[حكمت]

thank you Mazen, it was really interesting...
in fact, I observe this States a lot of times, and if I want to be frank, I have to tell you that's I get used to do this mission for my friend but for free
from My experiments I can say that's most of people are lazy, they don't want thinking and operating their brains.
when I finish My speak, I think silently , what the miracle I was saying? was I inventing any thing unusual?
I didn't do any thing, I only thought A little, choose correct things And solutions, after that's I said it, that's every thing, And they can do it themselves easily.
maybe the people need to feel that's there is who stands next Them, And that makes Them feel high.

[Baghdadi]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة حكمت

thank you Mazen, it was really interesting...
in fact, I observe this States a lot of times, and if I want to be frank, I have to tell you that's I get used to do this mission for my friend but for free
from My experiments I can say that's most of people are lazy, they don't want thinking and operating their brains.
when I finish My speak, I think silently , what the miracle I was saying? was I inventing any thing unusual?
I didn't do any thing, I only thought A little, choose correct things And solutions, after that's I said it, that's every thing, And they can do it themselves easily.
maybe the people need to feel that's there is who stands next Them, And that makes Them feel high.

Dear Hekmat
You look good in purple
I didn't see you online often for the past week
Looking forward to see new topics from you

Regards

[Baghdadi]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة ابو مينا

N.B

It will be very nice to point out my mistakes and correct them.

I'm terrible at tenses and too many other stuff.

Dear Abu Mina
I did read what you posted for two times and looks good to me
Don't worry, even people with English their first language struggle with spelling

Regards

[حكمت]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة Baghdadi

Dear Hekmat
You look good in purple
I didn't see you online often for the past week
Looking forward to see new topics from you

Regards

thank you very much dear Nabeel
in fact , I've decided to leave The forum for some reasons.
but who try this forum، he will be addicted
so I came back
hot regards

[بديع]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة حكمت

thank you very much dear Nabeel
in fact , I've decided to leave The forum for some reasons.
but who try this forum، he will be addicted
so I came back
hot regards

who tried this forum will be addicted
sorry my friend, just for a better sentence structure

ps: we missed you

regards

[حكمت]

المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة بديع

who tried this forum will be addicted
sorry my friend, just for a better sentence structure

ps: we missed you

regards

thanks my friend

..
..
And I missed you too