Why the motivation business is booming: charismatic speakers create new industry

IN Washington, D.C., Les Brown flashes his megawatt smile and slows the pace to convey his sincerity, telling a capacity crowd, "You were born to win. You survived 40 million sperm."

In Atlanta, Patricia Russell-McCloud picks up the tempo to emphasize her message, telling a room full of young leaders, "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. You can turn stumbling blocks into steppingstones."

In Harlem, in Houston, in L.A., in cities and towns all over Black America, thousands of Blacks are crowding into community centers, churches and convention halls to listen to speakers who tell them, among other things, that they are better than they think they are and that they can do almost anything if they believe in themselves. In all or almost all cases, the meetings have a religious or quasi-religious quality. Speakers oftentimes orchestrate chants, urging listeners to believe if only for an hour.

"You can do it!" they say.

"You're a star," "You're a jewel" or, in Bishop T.D. Jakes' memorable words, "You're God's leading lady."

Women are, not surprisingly, the leading wedge of the movement, and speakers, male and female, tell them to forget hurts and disappointments (and "no-good men") and become their own woman.

For all these reasons, and for others as well, the motivation business has become a billion-dollar business, attracting not only professional speakers like Brown and Russell-McCloud but also mega names like Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Bishop T.D. Jakes and Iyanla Vanzant.

Interestingly and significantly, the field is rapidly outgrowing professional boundaries. In almost all cities, there is a growing contingent of senior citizens and teen-agers passing out cards which say, simply, MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER.

Russell-McCloud, who quit a job with the FCC to concentrate on motivational speaking, is amazed by recent developments in the field. "It's almost a phenomenon," she says.

The reason behind the phenomenon is simple. There is an immense and growing need for reassurance, for hope, and for somebody to say that everything is going to be OK. The 9/11 crisis has intensified that quest. "There's no organization that tells people they have something special," Brown says. "We need to be reminded of what we already know."

Brown and Russell-McCloud are among the top professionals in the field. In 1983, when Russell-McCloud turned her back on a successful career as an attorney and a broadcast bureau chief, people said she was crazy. "I left a good-paying job," she says. "Everyone wanted to know what was wrong with me, including my parents ... My husband said he would support me, 'So try it.'"

She tried it and now travels 200,000 miles a year, making more than 150 speeches. The Atlantan earns an average of $15,000 a speech and has spoken to audiences of 50 to 20,000. Big-name "amateurs" like Oprah and Tiger Woods have reportedly made more than $100,000 a speech.

Like Brown and other leading motivation experts, Russell-McCloud has a number of corporate clients and spends a lot of time speaking at corporate conventions and meetings.

How did the pioneer Black motivation speakers get started?

Les Brown, like others, started out working for free, speaking at high schools, jails, daycare centers and churches. He developed his style by reading books and watching speakers like Norman Vincent Peale and Zig Ziglar. Some speakers memorize one or two big speeches and repeat them over and over, but Brown says he tailors his message to the audience.

Brown, who is based in Orlando, accepts up to three or four engagements a week and can earn as much as $20,000 per appearances. The speaker, who wrote Live Your Dreams and It's Not Over Until You Win, is developing a cadre of Brown-taught speakers. Five of his seven children, ages 18 to 34, are also motivational speakers.

Most motivational speakers are represented by lecture agencies like Norma Thompson Hollis' Black Speakers Online, which has more than 900 Black speakers listed in its database.

Black motivational speakers are Black but they challenge and transform Black, White and Brown listeners of every creed and orientation, sometimes by stressing common themes, sometimes by stressing the dominant themes of the African-American experience which is, some say, the greatest triumph-over-the-odds message on record. Whatever their approach, all say with Les Brown that they have a message not for one group but for all groups. "I have a message," Brown says, "for the planet."

COPYRIGHT 2002 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group