Read Online Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich - Free Book Online
Authors: Barbara Ehrenreich
Tags: Social Science, Psychology, Sociology, Non-Fiction, Anthropology, Cultural, Pop Culture, american culture, Happiness
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stand and engage in a few minutes of rhythmic clapping to music. Thus primed, we are treated to a fifty-minute discourse, delivered without notes, on the “infinite power” we can achieve by resonating in tune with the universe, which turns out to have a frequency of ten cycles per second. When we are out of resonance, “we tend to overanalyze, plan, and have negative thoughts.” The alternative to all this thinking and planning is to “be in the Yes!” When she comes to the end, Morter has the audience stand again. “Squeeze your hands together, think the thought Yes. Put your feet firmly on the planet. Think the thought Yes.”
Best known among the keynoters was Joe (“Mr. Fire”) Vitale, introduced as “the guru himself,” who claims doctorates in both metaphysical science and marketing. Vitale, who looks like a slightly elongated Danny DeVito, offers the theme of “inspired marketing,” and also love. “You are just incredible,” he begins. “I love all of you. You are fantastic.” He admits to being a “disciple of P. T. Barnum” and recounts some of the pranks he has used to gain attention—like a tongue-in-cheek press release accusing Britney Spears of plagiarizing his “hypnotic marketing” techniques. Love seems to be among these techniques, since he recommends increasing one’s business by looking over one’s mailing list and “loving each name.” He plugs his most recent book, Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Power, and More , which explains how a doctor cured inmates in an asylum for the criminally insane without even seeing them, by simply studying their records and working to overcome his negative thoughts about them. Again, there is a jubilant finale: “Say ‘I love you’ in your head at all times so that we can heal all that needs to be healed.”
The audience absorbs all this soberly, taking notes, nodding occasionally, laughing at the expected points. As far as I can judge, most of the attendees have not published books or ever addressed an audience as large as the National Speakers Association provides. Random conversations suggest that the majority are only wannabe speakers—coaches or trainers who aspire to larger audiences and fees. Many come from health-related fields, especially of the “holistic” or alternative variety; some are coaches for businesspeople, like the ones I had encountered instructing laid-off white-collar workers; a few are members of the clergy, seeking to expand their careers. Hence the predominance of workshops on nuts-and-bolts themes: how to work with speakers bureaus, acquire bookings, organize your office, market your “products” (DVDs and inspirational tapes). Not everyone will make it, as one workshopleader warns in her PowerPoint presentation, with a kind of realism that seems sorely out of place. Some, she says, will go into a “death spiral,” spending more and more to market their Web sites and their products, and “then—nothing.” But clearly there is money to be made. In one workshop, Chris Widener, a forty-one-year-old motivational speaker who began as a minister, tells the story of his unpromising youth—he had been “out of control” at the age of thirteen—culminating in his present affluence: “Three and a half years ago, I bought my dream house in the Cascade Mountains. It has a weight-lifting room, a wine cellar, and a steam bath. . . . My life is what I would consider the definition of success.”
As fresh people advance in their speaking careers, what will be their message, the content of their speeches? No one ever answered this question or, as far as I know, raised it at the NSA convention, I think because the answer is obvious: they will give speeches much like those given here, insisting that the only barriers to health and prosperity lie within oneself. If you want to improve your life—both materially and subjectively—you need to upgrade your attitude, revise your emotional
Best known among the keynoters was Joe (“Mr. Fire”) Vitale, introduced as “the guru himself,” who claims doctorates in both metaphysical science and marketing. Vitale, who looks like a slightly elongated Danny DeVito, offers the theme of “inspired marketing,” and also love. “You are just incredible,” he begins. “I love all of you. You are fantastic.” He admits to being a “disciple of P. T. Barnum” and recounts some of the pranks he has used to gain attention—like a tongue-in-cheek press release accusing Britney Spears of plagiarizing his “hypnotic marketing” techniques. Love seems to be among these techniques, since he recommends increasing one’s business by looking over one’s mailing list and “loving each name.” He plugs his most recent book, Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Power, and More , which explains how a doctor cured inmates in an asylum for the criminally insane without even seeing them, by simply studying their records and working to overcome his negative thoughts about them. Again, there is a jubilant finale: “Say ‘I love you’ in your head at all times so that we can heal all that needs to be healed.”
The audience absorbs all this soberly, taking notes, nodding occasionally, laughing at the expected points. As far as I can judge, most of the attendees have not published books or ever addressed an audience as large as the National Speakers Association provides. Random conversations suggest that the majority are only wannabe speakers—coaches or trainers who aspire to larger audiences and fees. Many come from health-related fields, especially of the “holistic” or alternative variety; some are coaches for businesspeople, like the ones I had encountered instructing laid-off white-collar workers; a few are members of the clergy, seeking to expand their careers. Hence the predominance of workshops on nuts-and-bolts themes: how to work with speakers bureaus, acquire bookings, organize your office, market your “products” (DVDs and inspirational tapes). Not everyone will make it, as one workshopleader warns in her PowerPoint presentation, with a kind of realism that seems sorely out of place. Some, she says, will go into a “death spiral,” spending more and more to market their Web sites and their products, and “then—nothing.” But clearly there is money to be made. In one workshop, Chris Widener, a forty-one-year-old motivational speaker who began as a minister, tells the story of his unpromising youth—he had been “out of control” at the age of thirteen—culminating in his present affluence: “Three and a half years ago, I bought my dream house in the Cascade Mountains. It has a weight-lifting room, a wine cellar, and a steam bath. . . . My life is what I would consider the definition of success.”
As fresh people advance in their speaking careers, what will be their message, the content of their speeches? No one ever answered this question or, as far as I know, raised it at the NSA convention, I think because the answer is obvious: they will give speeches much like those given here, insisting that the only barriers to health and prosperity lie within oneself. If you want to improve your life—both materially and subjectively—you need to upgrade your attitude, revise your emotional
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