Unfortunately there are also those motivational speakers in South Africa who take fat chances. At one instance where a business teacher at a local high school, on being excessively ‘motivated' by one of these motivational speakers, concentrated so much on improving ‘self esteem' of her students that she lagged behind in imparting the basic skills that were necessary for students to do well in that course. The result was there for all to see. Neither did the students bolster their self esteem nor did they acquire the basic knowledge that was supposed to be imparted in that course. The entire endeavor was a total disaster. It was difficult at that stage to correctly analyze what went wrong, but now one can safely say that the teacher completely forgot that self esteem is not something that can be imposed from outside; it automatically flowers within as a person acquires necessary skill and experience. These motivational speakers would have us believe that the messianic zeal that they exhibit when they rave and rant and occasionally sob on the stage do indeed result in tectonic shifts in our lives; we become changed persons once we attend their seminars. But anybody who has ever solved a real life problem, especially one that involved participation of a group, would readily acknowledge that motivation is an extremely situation-specific and delicate concept and only a genuine leader who has a thorough grasp of issues at hand can motivate their followers. None else, no matter how glib tongued they may be, will ever be able to genuinely motivate anybody. So, it is high time we wean ourselves from the frothy potion that these ignorant communicators are so eager to serve us and focus on what works and how it works. The good news is that there are also many authentic motivational speakers in South Africa.