Laurie Beth Jones is an author and motivational speaker who
is supposed to motivate you to become, I suppose, a better leader (in the style
of the human potential movement).
But Jones’s approach, instead of being just fluffily newage, is rather hardcore
religious. So, for instance, she can help your company develop
“spiritreneurship”, which seems to mean ensuring that your employee’s work
honors God. In other words, Jones is some kind of missionary (“my Personal
Mission is to recognize, promote, and inspire divine connection in myself and
others”) dressed up with the fluff and hollow gestures of motivational speech,
as well as New Age ideas, a bit of Kabbalah rant, shamanism, and astrology.
Jones is, for instance, author of JESUS, Career Counselor: How to Find (and Keep) Your Perfect Work, Jesus, Inc.: The Visionary Path, Jesus, Life Coach: Learn from the Best,
and Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for
Visionary Leadership. You get the idea.
If you want to see some real crazy, however, I recommend
having a look at her critics, mostly fundamentalists who lament her paganism.
Here is Bob DeWaay dismissing her work not because it is fluffy bullshit, but
because it is occult paganism. And here is Ingrid Schlueter lamenting how Jones is channeling the occult and Satan
through her writings and apparently bringing about the endtimes.
Diagnosis: It is hard to distinguish loonery from marketing
techniques targeted at the critical-thinking challenged, but Jones’s bullshit
has actually had a bit of influence, it seems (some of her books have
apparently enjoyed decent sales).
I live right next door to Laurie Beth Jones. I have come to know the author and the way she really lives.
ReplyDeleteLBJ and I are neighbors. We are each authors. My book is on Amazon and it is very clear directive material. PowerfulMen.Net. Needless to say, we are VERY DIFFERENT IN OUR LIFESTYLES. I simply wave.
ReplyDeleteFinding motivation for some is easy. For others a challenge. Modeling others helps. Like it or not Jesus is a good model. The churches that have claimed him as spokes model? Perhaps not so much.
ReplyDeleteTwo things that frighten me....
Jason from Halloween & Roman Catholic summer camps.
Every author has a book to sell and once the 1st book sells - especially a self help book. Then a trend has begun. Go back to Tony Robbins or James Redfield - 1st book very good. Then they built a business model around the methodology and each chapter of book 1 became the next book - see Stephen Covey as well. ;)