Ian Whitworth: Behind the scenes of the success industry

Ian Whitworth is a Sydney entrepreneur who is testament to the fact that any fool can do it. Failed vet student, amusement ride operator, audiovisual technician, he had to start his own advertising agency so he could give himself the creative director job he yearned for. It won some awards, though, and helped him start audiovisual business Scene Change, partly to test marketing ideas that his corporate clients felt were too weird. It worked, becoming a successful national firm in the event industry, a sector smashed worse than most by COVID-19. Ian’s blog, ‘Motivation For Sceptics’, provides an honest and darkly amusing window into the reality of entrepreneur life. His writing also appears in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Smart Company. Undisruptable: Timeless business truths for thriving in a world of non-stop change is his first book.

Today, Ian Whitworth is on the blog to give us an insider’s guide to the motivation industry, and why you shouldn’t believe everything you hear at a success seminar. Read on …

Ian Whitworth

*Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ blasts from huge speakers*

WOOOOO! DO YOU WANT THE SECRETS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS?

DO YOU WANT IT MORE THAN ANYTHING?

Sure you do. Before I started my own businesses, I worked behind the scenes in the success industry. I was a corporate roadie, running sound, lights and video for every motivator, futurist, and success hustler in the country. I watched them all, over and over, and took notes. It helped pass the time.

Like the diet industry, the success industry preys on people looking for a ‘hack’ to bypass the need for effort and persistence. Sorry, there is no shortcut. Success takes a ton of work. But the good news is: it’s not so complex.

Your Mum Told You Already

Motivator advice is mostly correct. It’s stuff your parents already told you, but you weren’t listening. Persist. Meet your deadlines. Listen to people. Smile. Tidy up.

Your Mum’s advice is free, and thus has no value. But you’ll pay $1299 to hear the same information padded out into an all-day session in a convention centre.

To fill out the day, motivators add a ton of showbiz shtick, much of it pioneered by history’s most successful dictators. Say what you like about dictators, but they knew how to juice up a crowd. It’s a really time-consuming way to learn.

Please Don’t Touch My Shoulders

There will be embarrassing interactions with those around you. Half an hour into the speech you hear the dread words:

“Feel’s like the room’s a little low on energy right now. Let’s get some music on! Make some noooiiiiiise! Now I want you all to stand up, turn to the right, and massage the shoulders of the person to your right. YEAAAAAH! How good does that feel? Keep it up! Can you feel the energy? Now, turn around and massage the person to your left!”

Please. I did not give up half my day to touch the shoulders of some random sales guy, and I especially don’t want to turn around and feel his creepy sausage fingers on me. That is the opposite of relaxation.

A basic adult skill is the ability to think and absorb information while quietly sitting still. Why do you think they teach it at school? If people could negotiate treaties to end world wars from the seated position, you can learn the basics of business without getting pawed by strangers.

This is not where you find grown-up business people. It’s all emotional colour and movement designed to fire up sales reps whose job is to run toward the machine guns without questioning the point of their mission.

All Talk, No Track Record

Motivators talk it up, but most of them haven’t actually hands-on built a successful business other than speaking.

Or they had one long ago, but then keynoting became their business and they lost touch with the current world. And if you can score eight grand for a 45-minute routine, that’s a lot less work than real estate.

There’s a ton of pseudo-science. Like the old trope that communication is 55% visual, 38% auditory, and only 7% the words you say. This comes from Anthony Robbins’ 95%-wrong, out-of-context interpretation of a paper by UCLA Professor Albert Mehrabian back in the 80s. (Here’s a quick summary of where it all went wrong).

And because everyone else mines Robbins’ gear for their own material, it’s been propagated by thousands of motivators and how-to-present bloggers, and is now accepted as gospel.

So people think the words don’t matter.

They matter a lot.

Futurists take the least-value prize in the keynote world. They just trawl Wired for plausible-sounding stuff that can’t be disproved in the present. They deliver these factoids like gospel, with the jazz-hand flourishes, shiny jackets and nouveau-mullet hairstyles of off-Strip Vegas magicians.

They are so full of bullshit. You pay them ten grand, and they show you the same video of drone pizza deliveries we’ve been showing since 2014.

If I had my way, futurists’ speaking fees would be paid into a trust, with the funds released after ten years if a single one of their flaky predictions actually comes true. If not, the cash goes to charity.

So You Want To Be A Thought Leader

Then there are the books. They all have one. I don’t want to put you off reading, it’s the most essential habit if you’re to get anywhere.

But your time is precious. You can waste a ton of time reading books that turn out to be written by ex-real estate sales grifters trying to hustle a spot on the speaking circuit.

Want to know where heaps of business books come from? There are lots of expensive ‘So You Want To Be A Thought Leader’ academies where you go to learn how to be the next Gary Vaynerchuk.

They take you away for a weekend retreat, and they guarantee you’ll come home with the first draft of your new book. Even if you’ve never written before.

That … doesn’t sound like a very good book. To borrow a line attributed to Truman Capote: that’s not writing, that’s typing.

Even worse, there are white-label publishers now that have a bunch of pre-written books on self-improvement topics. You just pick a title on real estate investment, parenting or yoga, add your own name on the cover, and bingo! You’re an author. Because “your book is your business card”.

Ask yourself: does the author really have a strong public track record in that thing they’re writing about?

If not: bin.

Tip: Read Outside Your Direct Topic

Every industry has its own orthodoxies that feed off everyone writing and republishing the same articles.

Though those ideas are mostly right, you won’t get breakthrough inspiration unless you go off-topic and find ideas to steal from elsewhere.

If you only read sales books, you’ll never develop a broader sense of the human condition. So your career will top out at a functional, journeywoman level, rather than getting to the levels that only wisdom can unlock.

Find Better Role Models

The world is jumping with people of breathtaking achievement, most of them outside of business. Listen to them speak and read their stories instead.

I’ve had more inspiration from David Attenborough for my work life than all the corporate motivators I’ve heard combined.

So do you want to know how to be successful without spending days locked up in auditoriums?

I’ve written all you need to know in 64 words in my book, Undisruptable. You’ll have to buy it to find out, and I feel a bit of a clickbait hustler making you do that that.

But if I revealed it here, the nice people at Penguin Random House would put me in a weighted bag and drop me off a bridge.

Plus it’s not really the point of the book, which a hands-on guide to taking back control of your life. By escaping that crusty job and setting up your own business.

Wow, just what the world needs! A new business book to add to the millions already published!

The proofreader who worked the book said it was the first time in her long career she’s actually enjoyed reading a business book. She said:
“This old socialist was chortling out loud all the way through,” she said.

If Undisruptable can convert a socialist proofreader to the joys of business, think what it could do for you.

OK, take it away Eminem.

—Undisruptable by Ian Whitworth (Penguin Books Australia) is out now.

This book is part of our Books for Excellence collection.

Undisruptable

Timeless business truths for thriving in a world of non-stop change

by Ian Whitworth

Ian Whitworth built national companies from nothing. Coronavirus hammered some of them flat. Yet he's fine with that. Because when the chaos is swirling and shit is getting real, there's opportunity. Now is the time to put yourself in control - where no boss or virus can take you down.

So many talented people want to give it a shot, yet they're held back by the big business myths. But success is simpler than your crusty CEO wants you to think...

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