If you’re familiar with the self-help/motivational speaking circuit, you’ll no doubt know who Jim Rohn is. If you’re not, then he was considered to be one of the “legends” of personal and business development. He’s just one of a handful of names that people like to drop to prove that they know something.
Jim Rohn died on the 5th, after reports that he was ill and undergoing some kind of treatment. It turned out that he was 79 when he died, but he still looked full of life when I saw him in a video presentation.
The one thing that really amazed and even shocked me about Jim Rohn’s death, given his status, is the response from the rest of the self-help/motivational/personal development community…
I’ve only seen and heard one other person pay tribute to him. That was Vic Johnson, through an email newsletter that I still receive.
Seriously.
I haven’t seen or heard any of the other high-profile speakers, goal-setting coaches, Law of A-crap-tion zealots – or anyone else for that matter – even talk about Jim Rohn, without having to search for it in Google. Even Brian Tracy’s Facebook status (although I could be wrong) doesn’t mention him or his death.
I’m sure this will be rectified once this post goes live, if it hasn’t already, but we shall see.
I can’t really say much about Jim Rohn as I haven’t met him or really studied his principles, but I liked him for the same reason that most people (I guess) liked him: his teachings were practical.
When I heard him make suggestions and give advice, I felt the urge to work on those things right away, or really think about how I can put what he had said to use. He talked about things that had worked for him, and the things he’d been taught by his mentor, to go from being broke to being financially sound. He’s also one of the very few American speakers to have travelled and taught in some of the more obscure places in the world (for example in Russia, where he taught people about the supposed benefits of capitalism).
Of course, I didn’t agree with everything that Jim Rohn said. At the beginning of one of his audio sets, for example, he suggested that a speaker who claimed to have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) was “making excuses” and “acting like a baby”. Even though I disagree with the idea that claiming an illness always amounts to making excuses, I would say that if it was a serious enough issue, the person would have done all they could about it. As you guys know, I also disagree with the idea that failure is always the person’s fault, and that it has nothing to do with other people or circumstances.
Sadly, for all the speakers and “gurus” that claim to have Jim as an inspiration, most of what they teach are summed up as vague, wishy-washy, useless but marketable sentence solutions. While one could walk away from a Jim Rohn seminar feeling like they’ve learned something (because his seminars were focused on strategies and teaching), most of these other people use his influence to sell an endless cycle of products – none of them actually teaching anything.
And on that note, Drew salutes Jim Rohn for his nuggets of sound advice and humorous quips. RIP.
Tags: American Speakers, Brian Tracy, Business Development, Email Newsletter, Facebook, Goal Setting, Google, Handful, High Profile, Jim Rohn, Personal Development Community, Profile Speakers, Vic Johnson, Video Presentation, Zealots
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