Is Motivation The Same Than Inspiration?

I don't know really, I tell you what ! A few weeks ago somebody told me they thought I would do well on the speaker circuit as a motivational speaker. My first reaction was: Ah really (half flattered/half embarrassed) ??? Followed very quickly (while not as loudly) by: No fucking way mate !!!

There is enough pollution as it is and I am not talking about climate change here. There are a lot of people making noise nowadays , they talk crap, they write shit and they think they are the best thing since sliced bread. There is no way I am going to add my piece of cacophony to the glorified pyramids of self content.

That said I can and do public speaking every now and then. Maybe two to three times a year max in small venues or big ones but this does not make me a moral authority in anything. Its not because you can speak that you are smart (see Trump well actually he cant speak either). The serial speakers are busy, they are all very busy, they have their premium programs and they have their expensive retreats. The established ones don't want the wanna be elite speakers to join them while the latter have a tendency to snub the common mortals with their I am a big fish in a small bowl syndrome.

Those guys are big in Japan, they had standing ovation in many unverified locations (albeit mainly in their heads). They know everything about anything and they even produced books for some of them. So if its written in a book its a proven fact they have arrived right ? And you know that because all of them are best selling authors these days. How on earth could we live without their advice.  Be rich in 3 seconds, lose 70 stones and one bone in 6 weeks, how to pee thru your nose or is it true that your big toe used to be a totem in an Indian reservation. 

Personally they make me laugh but frankly they are pathetic at times especially those who try too hard. I guess you see what I mean unless you too have a key ring with a mini portrait of Tony Robbins !!! They have their celebrations, their circles, their groupies, their selfies. They belong to numerous speakers bureaux but when you have seen them once you have seen them 100 times. Many of them are one trick ponies, that's said the best of them are capable of re-hashing the same crap in a different way while the weakest or less talented ones barely manage to get their heads above mediocrity level.    

If I am generous, I  may have seen probably five speeches max in my life that have catapulted my brain to the wall and made me think. I am not going to give you their names because you probably don't know them and I am not even sure they still talk. Its not that the new gurus of business, tech and other life commodities are not genuine, its just that frankly they have nothing to add bar selling their empty shell narrative. 

Sometimes but rarely a few of them come to the realisation after a few years that maybe its time to call it a day. The others, the ones with a smaller equipped intellectual capacity use their horsepower to survive at all costs. They become a caricature, they refuse to back down sometimes they end up being a local TV celebrity, they open creches and wait for it at the height of their career they get their name on a plaque for planting a tree in the local community centre. 

When venues get smaller their social media get angrier. When audiences become meagre for lost fame they get hungrier. 

I know I know I may sound pretty hard but I am calling on your magnanimity. You got to forgive those guys, its not easy to deal with disillusion of grandeur when you suddenly realize you are not any better than the next loser.

I am available for a public talk by the way, any takers ? (just kidding :-) :-) )