We Need More Demotivational Speakers in Our Lives

You (and everyone) need more demotivational speakers and less B.S. positive affirmation and participation trophies. Start here.

Updated:

“We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of self-justifications and yank us back to reality if we veer too far off.”

Carol Tavris, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)

Demotivational speakers are bubble-bursting, face-slapping, cold-water-on-your-head-dumping naysayers.

They’re anti-participation ribbons and givers of medicine that tastes like shit but works.

They’re shrill alarm clocks that startle us awake and bouncers who don’t let you in the club because you’re too drunk or too poorly dressed.

And they’re mothers who snatch the scissors you’re running around with from your hands before you hurt someone.

Nobody likes demotivational speakers.

That’s why we need them.

Using the wrong tool for the wrong job
Demotivational speakers stop us from using the wrong tools for the wrong jobs.

Why We Need Demotivational Speakers

✓ Because There Are No Instruction Manuals

Each of us is born with a unique toolbox of abilities, passions, and values which can and should play a part in constructing a greater world for us to live in. But none of our toolboxes come with inventory lists or user manuals. So, like monkeys attempting to use actual tools, we’re almost all using the wrong tools for the wrong jobs.

The only way we can learn to use our tools is through trial and error (à la extraordinary game of Thermometer.) If our fiddling works, it will be quickly apparent, like finding the right bit for a screw.

But what if our fiddling is fruitless and we continue in spite of it?

That’s when we need a demotivational speaker.

✓ To Combat Delusion

“It’s far easier to feel wonderful and special than to become wonderful and special.”

Tasha Eurich, Insight

Our brains are wired to creatively justify our every mistake. This handy skill protects our fragile identities from dissolving into puddles of sobs. But it has a glitch:

Delusion.

The more we use the wrong tool from our boxes for the wrong job, the more our egos find excuses and delude ourselves into thinking it’s the right one for the right job. We need demotivational speakers to drag us back into reality.

✓ To Take Our Eyes Of Others’ Prizes

We tend to obsess over the cool things “successful” people do with their toolsets. And the media, friends, and family egg us on.

This is problematic for many reasons:

  • Different toolsets: Rarely are we gifted with similar toolsets to those of the successful people we admire. We can’t, “Be like Mike.”
  • Fake smiles: Most “successful” people are as lost as we are, just richer. Fame and fortune aren’t synonymous with fulfillment.
  • Result disorientation: We fawn over others’ Insta-worthy results, but it’s the un-photogenic process that makes for a meaningful life.

Demotivational speakers hold us back from getting lured into wasting our efforts on unfulfilling tasks we aren’t equipped for.

✓ Self-Reflection Is Dangerous

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”

Benjamin Franklin

Self-reflection doesn’t lead to self-awareness.

As psychologist and author Tasha Eurich reveals in her book, Insight, surprisingly, it has the opposite effect (excerpt here):

The more people self-reflect, the less self-knowledge they have.

They also feel more stressed, depressed, and anxious, less satisfied with their jobs and relationships, and less in control of their lives.

So everyone needs to stop staring at our bellybuttons wondering why things happened, why we’re the way we are, and why we feel how we feel.

We need to figure out what to do. Demotivational speakers can help by power of elimination.

✓ Bad News Is Too Hard for Most to Break

When there’s good news coming our way, everyone is eager to break it to us. They want to be associated with the positivity and to get a sniff of that success.

Not so much when it’s bad news.

People’s mouths shut right up or they cover up the stench with white lies. They’ve got enough shit of their own to deal with without sticking their noses in ours.

So be thankful for the rare demotivational speaker who’s selfless and proactive enough to break the bad news you need to know.

Chris resisting demotivational message from Kim.
“Take this demotivational medicine like a big boy. It’s good for you.”

How to Work With Demotivational Speakers

Watch Out For Fakers

True demotivational speakers speak from experience. They learned how to make the most of their unique toolsets the hard way and are sharing that first-hand understanding.

Fake demotivational speakers gave up on figuring out how to use their own toolsets a long time ago. They’re as bitter as the nonsense they spew and want others to be bitter with them.

Worst of all are demotivational type-ers—those who won’t say it to your face but will smugly write it online. They’re a complete waste of our attention. Disregard all negative comments on social media, Reddit, and blogs. If someone can’t say it to our faces, it’s not worth listening to.

Seek Them Out

If we want someone with expertise on specific skills to give us a dose of demotivational speaking, we must seek them out and ask.

People don’t like breaking bad news, as already mentioned, and worthy demotivational speakers usually have better things to do than volunteer.

Soften the Blow

Use self-affirmation to absorb the demotivational blow. It sounds hokey but, according to Tasha Eurich, studies show it works.

Self-affirmation is reminding ourselves of our values and strengths that the demotivational speaker is not challenging.

For example, maybe you’re a good friend or a loving parent. That’s more important than sucking at making spreadsheets, putting balls in goals, or whatever the demotivational speaker is telling us we should stop wasting so much effort on.

In addition to softening the blow, the bigger picture perspective we get from self-affirmation makes us more open to ideas we’d otherwise find too painful to accept.

Look at It From Their Side

Instead of deflecting demotivational messages, try to understand,

“What led this person to have this opinion?”

Take time to reflect on it. And if you can’t it figure it out, ask.

Gradually Adjust Your Beliefs

Everything we hear is an opinion and not a fact.

Marcus Aurelius

When a single demotivational speaker blows your bubble, don’t let that completely deflate you and change your mind. Adjust your belief dials instead. And keep adjusting as more input comes in from different sources until you have enough evidence to come to a conclusion.

As Tasha Eurich puts it, “Feedback from one person is a perspective; feedback from two people is a pattern; but feedback from three or more people is likely to be as close to a fact as you can get.”

Live With Your Shortcomings

“Waste as little effort as possible improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.”

Peter Drucker, Managing Oneself

We can choose to work on improving at whatever demotivational speakers tell us we suck at.

Or we can choose not to.

Sometimes we’re better off living with our weaknesses, admitting them to our friends and colleagues so it takes the stigma and the sting away, and focusing on improving on our strengths.

Learning how to be a demotivational speaker
Demotivational speaking doesn’t come naturally to most.

How To Be a Demotivational Speaker

“You have to tell people what they need to hear, as opposed to what they want to hear.”

Charlamagne tha God, Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It

Return the demotivational favor by passing it on to others.

But please wield the weapon carefully.

Don’t Use a Sledgehammer

Our instinct to tell it as we see it—what’s obvious to us and what the facts are—is wrong. It’s as subtle and sensitive as swinging a sledgehammer. Just as there are better ways to nag and better ways to change other people’s minds, there are better ways to demotivate.

Productive demotivation requires we position our messages in the best interests of the recipient.

  • ✗ Less, “Your blog posts are crap.”
  • ✓ More, “I see you want to share things you’ve learned with others. Maybe you’d be more effective doing so in podcasts/tweets/children’s books.”

Then we have to let the demotivatee come to their own conclusions. We can suggest whatever we want, but they have to live with it, so they have to own it.

Saturate It With Sweetness

Going full Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsay on every misguided person you meet will lead to a short and ineffective demotivational speaking career. You’re not on T.V. and people won’t find it entertaining. They’ll find it crushing.

That’s because we’re all wired to focus disproportionally on bad news, insults, and dangers. It’s called negativity bias.

The intent of demotivational speaking is not to crush someone’s dreams, but redirect them. So, here’s a rule-of-thumb:

Saturate every dose of negativity with four to five equal parts positive.

People practicing sending demotivational messages

Spread the Demotivational Message

There’s too much “you can do whatever you put your mind to” B.S positive affirmation and too much selfish I-don’t-need-to-be-the-one-to-break-it-to-you white lying going on in the world today.

And the consequences are dire. People are causing more harm than good by deludedly using the wrong tools from their boxes for the wrong jobs.

Demotivational speaking is the antidote. Get out there and do it, seek it, and listen to it so we can make the most of what we’ve got and help others do the same.

Further Demotivation

The following books helped me come up with the concepts for this post:

Black Privilege, by Charlamagne the God. Introduced the term “demotivational speaker,” to me. It’s among one of eight principles for success in Charlamagne’s entertaining memoir of his climb from the dirt roads or rural South Carolina to become the host of one of America’s top radio shows, The Breakfast Club. And he’s a world-class demotivational speaker himself.

Insight, by Tasha Eurich. Why self-awareness is the meta-skill of the 21st century and how to develop both components of it: internal self-awareness (the ability to see ourselves clearly), and external self-awareness (the ability to understand how others see us and how we fit in the world).

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. How our brains’ self-justification instinct wreaks havoc on all aspects of our lives, memories, and society. It’s one of the “sledgehammer” books that changed my thinking.

About the author

👋 I'm Chris. Everything you read on TheZag.com is my fault. This site is like a gym for your comfort zone, full of challenges to make your status quo sexier. Join my 'Consider This' newsletter for a fun new challenge every 10 days. Try it!

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