The (Im)Partial Impressions

Today, Shiv Khera was in town. He is a somewhat famous motivational speaker, or at least famous enough that people sat in a hall for two hours to listen to him talk about change. I didn’t have high hopes for the program, but it was actually better than I expected. My grandfather had given me Mr. Khera’s book, You Can Win, which was a good read for people who wanted to change themselves and that sort of thing. When he entered the room, my first impression of him was basically, “Dang, he’s old.”

Time to take a short detour. Yesterday at the gym, while I was thinking of some clever excuse to skip legs because even God knows squats are tough, a guy came in. Six feet, average build. “He’s so tall, what a show-off,” was my first impression, which is hilarious because he was only three inches taller than me. My gym also had a new trainer, and unsurprisingly, I thought, “This guy is too buff, probably doesn’t have a life.” Later, when I talked to him, he seemed like a pretty nice guy.

My point is that out of all the people I have met in my life, 87% of them, a number I have just invented with great scientific confidence, had a bad image in my mind before I even talked to them. Funnily enough, the people I had the worst suspicions about often became good friends later. Most of the time, we create entire negative biographies for people even though we know absolutely nothing about them.

Anyway, this came to mind when I caught myself criticizing Mr. Khera before he had even started speaking. Maybe these thoughts came in because he has a lot more money than me. Very mature of me.

Coming back to the motivation workshop, there was one thing that puzzled me. On one hand, Shiv reminded us that Muhammad Ali, every time he came into the ring, said to himself, “I’m the greatest, I’m the champion,” just to remind himself that he was the best. This sounded pretty awesome. On the other hand, I once read in another motivational speaker’s book, because apparently I am building a private museum of these things, that a happy person doesn’t need to look into the mirror and remind himself that he is happy. That seemed pretty on point too.

After this minor existential crisis, I came to realize that many “motivational speakers” are often just really good speakers. They know how to sell their words. They can shake your beliefs for an hour, make you feel reborn, and then leave in a Mercedes while you walk back to your hostel thinking, “This time I will change.” By dinner, you are the same person, except now you own a notebook with one dramatic quote in it.

People get convinced easily. That’s why we have so many speakers and so few listeners. A few of these people are actually good, but still, take what they say with a grain of salt. Never make someone your god just because they have a microphone and a clean blazer.

Peace.