For Motivational Speakers, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Those Willing to Divulge Their Defeats
Are in Demand.
By ROBERT JOHNSON Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Those champions of rah-rah rhetoric, motivational speakers, are turning to an unlikely new tactic to hold their audiences: talk about failure.

Oh sure, the mission for professional speech makers at corporate meetings, seminars and sales rallies is still to inspire listeners to success. But they're finding that the message gets across better when it includes a bit of drama about defeat.

Best-selling business-book author Tom Peters, a frequent speaker, is talking a lot lately about the value of failing "fast," learning from the experience and moving on. Only with failure, he says, can you verify wrong ways of doing things and discard those practices that hinder success.

Among the new breed of speakers who are hot, he says: "People who tried to climb Mount Everest and didn't quite get to the top. There are a lot of them out there."

Why are such customers demanding speakers who talk of failure?

When a speaker sprinkled tales of failure into his talk last year to plant workers at Cutrale Juices USA Inc., a citrus-fruit processor in Auburndale, Fla., "It worked wonders," says James Baker, the company's labor-relations manager. Morale rose among the 550 workers at Cutrale, a subsidiary of Brazil's Sucocitrico Cutrale Ltd., after a speech by Frank Candy, an Orlando, Fla., motivational speaker who charges $5,000 for a speech In Florida, and more nationally and internationally. "People had been down here after a period of labor problems, but Frank gave a great talk about keeping going through adversity," Mr. Baker says. Some workers later told Mr. Baker of identifying with the 50-year-old Mr. Candy's version of how pro basketball star Shaquille O'Neal had played for years as the game's most dominant player without winning a championship until he did so with the Los Angeles Lakers last season. "Shaq was obviously the best, but he just couldn't quite get the reward he deserved. I think a lot of us like to see ourselves that way and hope if we stick with it that eventually we'll be recognized," Mr. Baker says. Mr. Candy says he was an extra in the movie "Rocky," portraying a member of the audience at the boxing match between Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers. "I didn't think that movie would be a hit but I learned something: There's nothing people love more than hearing how someone else crashed and burned but got up like Rocky Balboa -- and says through swollen eyes, 'Come on man, I dare you to hit me again.'