Influential Speakers (week 5)

Wednesday's class was, again, very interesting. We had watched a couple of videos on these professional speakers who gave us some insight to American inspiration. Two of these speakers I found to be very inspirational; Tony Robbins and Elizabeth Gilbert.

Anthony Robbins is an American self-help writer and professional speaker who has been active for over 30 years. He became well known through his infomercials and bestselling self-help books, Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement andAwaken The Giant Within. The first edition of Unlimited Power was published by Fawcett Columbine (Ballantine Books) in 1987. Robbins writes about subjects such as health and energy, overcoming fears, persuasive communication, and enhancing relationships. He also became well known in America and internationally through infomercials promoting personal development audio programs and motivational seminars. His audio programs, seminars and self-help products featured Neuro-linguistic programming and Ericksonian hypnosis which he studied at the start of his career. Robbins seminars also used firewalking as a metaphor for overcoming fears and limiting beliefs. Later, Robbins combined his skills and techniques with other methods claimed to affect personal change.

Elizabeth M. Gilbert (born July 18, 1969 in Waterbury, Connecticut) is an American novelist, essayist, short story writer, biographer and memoirist. Gilbert has published consistently and always to high praise. Her first book, a collection of short stories called Pilgrims was said by Annie Proulx to be the work of “a young writer of incandescent talent.” That collection, which was a New York Times Notable Book, received the Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Next came Stern Men, a bittersweet novel about lobster fishing territory wars off the coast of Maine, which was also a New York Times Notable book. The Last American Man, her biography of Eustace Conway, an eclectic modern day woodsman, was a finalist in 2002 for both The National Book Award and The National Book Critic’s Circle Award.

Adjectives:

1. parsimonious
2. ubiquitous
3. woebegone