Book of Ka-ChingShed Those Tiny Wings
by Wendel Potter
Sept. 2, 2007
Have you noticed those annoying television commercials lately, the ones with actors portraying real people? They had to hire actors because there are no real people anymore.
But you know the kind of ads I’m talking about. The ones with that excessively declarative, affirmative pro-ME kind of gibberish.
I guess they’re trying to tell us that they are genuine American folk who have decided that everything is a choice and they are in control. They so badly want to let us know that they are taking charge of their lives. It’s obvious they haven’t noticed who’s been running our government lately.
Now, come to think of it, I can’t even tell you what these commercials are actually hawking. The products are not memorable.
I do know none of them are about beer. Not that beer itself is memorable. It’s what I do after drinking beer that’s memorable. Just not to me.
These particular ads just feature a lot of people making inane statements that begin with “I will” or “I will not” or “I choose”.
For instance, a woman is standing in a green pasture against a brilliant, blazing summer sky. The sky is blazing because the pasture and its nearby surroundings are under nuclear attack.
The woman is stoic as she proudly declares, “I will not wear pads with wings because I choose not to fly.”
That’s just one example.
I’m pretty sure these are not simply commercials for self-confidence. Not that you can’t sell that. Many have tried and have been quite successful.
The 70’s and the 80’s ushered in all kinds of drivel like “Winning Through Intimidation” and “Looking Out For Number 1”, self-help books that then spawned a rash of those motivational speakers that are still on the circuit today.
Guys like Anthony Robbins who is collecting big bucks to come out on stage and pump you up, telling you that you’re really better than you think you are and he’s going to show you how to draw the New You out of that Old Well-worn You.
All you have to do is buy Tony’s book and CD series and enroll in one of his 3-day workshops, where you will face life’s challenges by bravely walking barefoot on hot coals and schmooze with folks just like you who simply don’t want winged pads in their lives.
Just don’t eat the hot dogs off the barbeque. They taste like feet.
All of this will probably cost you about $7000 if you factor in travel and hotel accommodations because the workshops are usually held in some exotic place like Hawaii or Pango Pango.
(For Pango Pango, tack on another $1800. It’s a freaking paradise.)
But it will be well worth it because you will return home a new man or a new woman (or possibly a new woman who used to be a man). You will be brimming with confidence and have new life-altering insights.
You will never have to go to work again wearing a gorilla suit to mask your low self-esteem. Unless, of course, you work in a circus and wearing a gorilla suit is your job. That right there would pretty much sink your self-esteem, though.
Hopefully, what you will have gained from these seminars is good. It better be because you’ll be $7000 poorer and the kids still need to eat. (Make that $8800 poorer if you got sucked into the Pango Pango workshop.)
I guess my point is that most of this Motivational Seminar/Workshop/Book & CD stuff could well be represented by a truckload of horse manure. With Tony Robbins driving the truck.
Oh, sure. We can learn to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps every once in awhile and take a stand on important issues in our lives. But that comes from within. Only you can make that decision to tap that spirit.
It doesn’t take a book or a CD or a $7000 workshop (don't forget to add $1800 for the Pango Pango experience) where you sit around getting in touch with your feelings while your motivational host is getting in touch with your wallet as he recites his mantra, which goes like this: “Ka-ching! Ka-ching!”
The above quote is actually from the original “Book of Ka-Ching”. It’s a very holy book much like the “Book of Tao-te-ching” except in that one, it reads, “Tao-te-ching! Tao-te-ching!”
Personally, I prefer the “Ka-Ching”. I’ve never heard a cash register go “Tao-te-ching!”
Now I once hollered “Tao-te-ching!” or something much like it when my fingers were slammed in a cash register. (I was working retail at the time and had every right to have my fingers in the till; no, I was not trying to steal a shiny South Dakota quarter.)
But what I’m saying is that you don’t need commercials or motivational speakers to pull you out of the quicksand. Although watching the commercials is a lot cheaper. Unless you're watching them in Pango Pango.
Simpy put, only you will know when it’s time to give up the wings and stand on your own two pads…I mean feet.
Copyright 2007 Wendel James Potter
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