Each year billions of dollars are spent by people who want to be inspired to change their lives. From giants like Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar, to lesser knowns like Dale Irvin (the Professional Summarizer) and Russ Stolnack (the Executive Imposter) just about every kind of inspirational speaker can be found. But what drives a man or woman to stand up and tell others how to lead their lives? What's it take, after all? And does it really work? So begins Jonathan Black's funny, thoughtful, and unpredictable investigation into the world of professional public speakers. He visits the speaker hall of fame, crashes the National Speakers Conference, signs up for the Landmark forum, interviews countless speakers (including Ronan Tynan and Vince Poscente) and the people who choose to hire them, all the while cataloguing the hustling and the encouragement, the shameless self-promotion and the moving self-effacement. Along the way, Black faces his own fear of public speaking--and his own skepticism--when he decides to give motivational speaking a try himself. Yes You Can! is an entertaining and utterly unforgettable look into an American spectacle.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
An Olympic skier who failed to medal in Albertville cheerleads sales reps at $15,000 per 50-minute gig; a triple killer gives speeches from prison; a firewalker coaches executives to walk on red-hot coals and conquer their fears; and a double amputee who is both a doctor and an opera singer summons a group of Michigan road builders to appreciate their loved ones. As he surveys a field of 5,000 registered American motivational speakers and 50,000 wannabes, Black, a former Playboy managing editor, learns that the events industry is nervous in these budget-conscious times, as corporate bean-counters question what professional speakers actually add to a company's bottom line. Trying to inspire some suburban Kiwanis with his own speech, Black wonders if people really change after hearing a speaker and concludes that the proclivity to change may be programmed into American DNA. He also discovers that one lecture can't always do the trick and enrolls in a more rigorous Landmark Forum, where strangers swap intimacies for three intense days, and chases that with a 10-week jargon-laden seminar on effectiveness. Although bolstered by solid research and lively anecdotes, this effort might have motivated readers more as a magazine article than as a book. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Black, former managing editor of Playboy and executive editor at GQ, explores the world of motivational speakers. Understanding how this business works and why it works was his essential goal as he traveled all over the country attending motivational programs and seminars, soaking up what he calls the "motivational culture," which, in the 1980s and 1990s, so he learned, was all about getting richer. In the post-9/11 climate, however, people want to hear others talk about personal survival and triumph over adversity. Speaker bureaus, the audiotape industry, the concept and practice of "life coaches," and bottom-line financial returns of motivational programs for individuals and companies are all featured and examined here. The author also looks at contemporary American society's addiction to the idea of constant change as a wellspring for the popularity of motivational programs. One of the most interesting motivational speakers he profiles is Ronan Tynan, a member of the Irish Tenors singing group. A fascinating mirror held up to our cultural face. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A non-hype book about hype,
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This review is from: Yes You Can!: Behind the Hype and Hustle of the Motivation Biz (Hardcover)
The title of Yes You Can suggests a hard-hitting exposure of the motivation biz, but in fact Black delivers a well-researched description of a number of players in the motivation game.
What amazed me was Black's detailed history of the way Thomas Leonard, founder of CoachU and the coaching revolution that followed, came directly from Landmark. Few people (and fewer authors) recognize that coaching transformed group programs to one-to-one, in the process creating a marketing bonanza. Black stops short of articulating how coaches work to transform lives - mostly by creating "accountability" and encouraging clients to lose self-limiting beliefs. Some find the system amazingly helpful for productivity; others come to resent the coach as an intrusive nanny. In his last chapters, Black questions how motivational speakers get booked, going down a depressing trail of audition tapes and rejections. Speaking, he is told, starts with Toastmasters. Frankly, I think professional speakers send everyone to Toastmasters just to get them out of their way. It is important to emphasize that chapters vary enormously and your own chapter may differ greatly from the one Black joined. My chapter holds several experienced speakers, including professional speakers. I do share some of Black's frustrations. It's fun to create and deliver a 7-minute speech, but this experience doesn't really prepare you for delivering a half-hour dinner talk or a 90-minute workshop. And there's no natural progression from Toastmasters to professional speaking. The happiest Toastmasters are those who seek nothing more than a pleasant meeting experience and those who begin with fear of speaking and enjoy their new-found confidence. I'm definitely recommending this book to anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of the group of phenomena loosely classified as the motivation biz. I'm especially impressed by the way Black unifies a group of seemingly diverse phenomena: coaching, motivational speaking, even the popular TV show Wife Swap. My only suggestion would be to contrast these motivation hustlers to the mainstream therapy field. Legally and socially, we give preference to "licensed therapists." But should we? Dr. Ruth (the sex therapist) used to acknowledge her lack of credentials, saying clients tended to overrate the advice received from licensed, white-coated "professionals." They'd be more likely to question an unlicensed source and therefore less likely to trust someone who turned out to be incompetent. She had a point. In her book, Cult of Personality, Annie Paul demonstrates that tests administered by licensed mental health professionals have no basis in science. Myers Briggs has gained widespread mainstream acceptance. Rorschach tests can be used by the courts to make life-changing decisions. Accredited universities often include these tests in the counseling curriculum prescribed for students who want to be licensed. A number of models held by mental health professionals have been discredited. A New Yorker article noted that the received wisdom of trauma counseling -- get victims to relive their pain -- has no scientific basis. Indeed, academic studies have had difficulty finding evidence of success for conventional therapy. Studies comparing trained therapists with briefly-oriented graduate students find little difference in outcomes. I believe we should be concerned about the hype and hustle Black describes so well. But to be fair, we shouldn't compare these trends to some imaginary scientific gold standard that prevails in mainstream therapies. Rather we should recognize they're meeting a need of many contemporary citizens of the western world: a desire for help to navigate an increasingly complex world with a wide array of options, combined with a refusal to accept a one-down position and mental illness "diagnosis." They want to be clients, not patients, and with good reason.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yes He Did! Behind the Cover of a Great Book,
By
This review is from: Yes You Can!: Behind the Hype and Hustle of the Motivation Biz (Hardcover)
Jonathan Black managed to draw me into a world that prior to this did not pique my curiousity. The world of motivational speakers and their drive to feed the need for self improvement was entirely unknown territory, and territory of which I thought best to steer cleer. However, Black's considerable and subtle skills as storyteller, and his growing tone of honest and sincere inquiry, respectful inquiry, into our all too human need to "be ourselves" made this book captiviating, amusing, moving, a great read. It ranks up there with some of the great early Tom Wolfe writing on America's off the beaten track sub-cultures, those milieus with their own rules, superstars and markers of success. Terrific stuff.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
YES YOU CAN ... enjoy this book!,
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This review is from: Yes You Can!: Behind the Hype and Hustle of the Motivation Biz (Hardcover)
It's hard to know at first just where author Jonathan Black is going with this book. I began it with the expectation that he was going to do an exposé of the motivational speaking business. Although there are elements of that in the book, Black gives a fairly evenhanded and sympathetic portrayal of those who make a living at motivational speaking.
This includes a spectrum of those who barely scrape by at one end and others who are multimillionaires at the other. He portrays how difficult it is for meeting planners or corporate management to prove a definite return on investment (ROI). Nevertheless, there are probably dozens of other corporate activities where return on investment is either not measured were impossible to quantify, yet these practices persist. What makes the book also absorbing is the concluding section, where Black joins a Toastmasters group and becomes an apprentice at motivational speaker himself. He does not expose the speakers as charlatans, nor does he deify them. He does seem to indicate that, in order to be a sought-after motivational speaker, you must have some kind of "hook" as well is fairly polished communication skills. An entertaining read about self-help gurus, corporate coaches, and wannabe motivational speakers.
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