They Put the Suc in Success

Motivational gurus and minor celebrities tell how they became rich and famous

Comments (0) By Michael Kiefer Thursday, Mar 14 1996

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He looks like Olympic skater Scott Hamilton in a red wig, but instead of having a skater's grace, he rocks and reels onstage, eyes flashing, arms thrashing like some demented marionette.

But what the hell, it's his show, and a damned good show at that.
And he, inadvertently, had the best line of the whole day while pitching his set ofmotivational tapes: "This month's cassette includes an interview with President Gerald Ford and his secrets of success."

Oh, we mentioned pitches, didn't we? Three quarters of the way through his or her speech, each of the motivators stopped to take a commercial break, shamelessly selling books and tapes and seminars and a salesman's boot camp.

Even the event tickets had name and address forms to fill out, ostensibly for door prizes, but also with a disclaimer warning that filling out the form just might trigger a landslide of direct-mail advertisements.

But sales is the philosophy of 1996. And Barbara Bush had already defined philosophers.

She quoted a schoolgirl who had been asked on a test to identify the Greek philosopher Socrates.

"Socrates was a man who walked around giving advice," she said.
"They poisoned him.