Motivational Speakers – A house of cards….

Part 1 of the Series: Stolen……or at least borrowed…

I had the opportunity to attend a business seminar recently, and like many similar seminars I’ve attended over the years this one kicked off with remarks by a motivational speaker. If you’ve ever been to one of these meetings you know that the Motivational Speaker is usually not content or industry specific to the actual meeting, but rather is tasked with getting the crowd (attendees) fired up before the “tech-talks” begin. I’ve been privileged to listen to many highly paid and successful motivational speakers over the years (and a few who weren’t). I can say that about 85% of them actually are very effective at motivating you.

I had sort of an epiphany this time though.

The Speaker's comments were nearly as good as her presentation skills – which were excellent! Her multimedia presentation was first class and very engaging, and at the end of the talk I really did feel uplifted, motivated and excited to get-on with the rest of the sessions. I shook her hand during the break and told her how much I appreciated her words of wisdom, and during this brief interaction I noticed two things. First, I noticed the small gold cross she wore around her neck and second, I noticed that during our conversation she had indicated that she was, “blessed.”

Now many of you will recognize those words as the “Underground Code-words" of modern day Christians in the workforce. The words, “I’m blessed”, or “be blessed” are frequently used to covertly communicate, “Hey, I’m a Christian, so if you want to start talking Christian stuff it’s OK – I won’t lodge a formal complaint against you with Corporate HR for proselytizing in the workplace…”

Anyway, I did "coyly" ask, as I was stepping away, if she were a “believer” – another good underground word used in the dangerous world of corporate America that contains within itself - enough plausible deniability to keep even the most devout Christian from being dragged before the Anti-Christian Thought Police Division of many Fortune 500 Company’s Corporate HR departments.

"You asked them if they were a believer didn't you! Admit it!"

"Uh, uh, uh, I meant were they a believer in our latest corporate earnings report!!! Please leave me alone!!!!"

See - plausible deniability...

(Now on a side note - I know many of you are freaking out because you think I’m giving away some of our most closely guarded code words – but fear not!!! I’ll write a different post later coming up with some new code words and symbols that we Christians can use to communicate in the work place. I was actually thinking about maybe drawing half of a fish on a piece of paper and letting the other person finish it in order to prove that they were a Christian….but more on that later – I don’t want to give away all the secrets!)

Well back to my epiphany. After realizing that the speaker was a Christian I thought back to what she’d said. – Here’s a very short, very general, and very un-eloquent version:

Be nice to your customers, be nice to your co-workers, be nice to your boss, be nice to your employees, and be nice to everyone with whom you come into contact. The corollary to all that was be polite to all of these people too, even if they are not polite to you. She then went onto say don’t judge people just because they look different than you think they should look, and then, she ended by saying don’t try to manipulate people to get them to do what you want them to do. She tied all this together by saying that if you act by these tenets you will actually be more successful, get more done, and enjoy it much more while you’re doing it.

Now again – she took an hour to say all that, and she was much more eloquent as she worked hard to get us to believe that even in evil corporate America, this was still the best way to do business. And I will admit – I came away happy, fired up, and filled with the belief that she was right.

But after I figured out - through her secret use of code words - that she was none other than a worshipper of Jehovah! – I began to reevaluate her message. Hmmmmm. Where had I heard these things before? Why did all of this sound so strangely familiar?

And then I hit upon it!

And when I did the whole conspiratorial house of cards that motivational speakers are came crashing down around us both!

Her message came from none other than the Bible!

Not only was her message based on basic Biblical teaching but I began to consider other motivational speakers I’d heard. What had they said????

Be open to the thoughts of others even if you don’t respect them...you never know when you'll get a real gem...

Treat all people with respect even if you don’t feel like respecting them...it will pay off in the end...

Share….don’t be paranoid and afraid…..

If you follow these principles in your business you’ll be successful….

My goodness! I realized that people had written entire books based on these principles that were all clearly enumerated in the Bible, sold them to millions of business people and made tons of money!!!! In fact, find me one “motivational book” that didn’t take it’s major theme from the book of Proverbs and I’ll reward you with a valuable prize!!!!

So the jig is up! I’m onto you motivational speakers! And if you agree to pay me huge sums of money I won’t pass this entire post onto all of the CEOs in the entire world!!!

All right – so now that I’ve established that motivational speakers have stolen their work from the Bible - Stay tuned for more posts about what else has been stolen from Christians…You may be surprised!

God Bless,

Larry