Corporate "firewalk" ends with burnt feet in Italy

[DavidDvorkin]

I've always refused to attend these corporate motivation events. Even without the danger of getting your feet burned, they're absurd.

[Dawson Leery]

1. "Hustlings your game, Zig Zigler's the name!"

[DJ13]

2. "Next up, knife throwing!"

[petronius]

3. Nice excuses and blame-shifting from the facilitator - I'm guessing that guy's

business is going to take a severe downturn (or even go up in smoke).

Still, he should be off the hook for victims 3-9 (people need to learn from what they see)... :)

[walldude]

4. I worked for awhile at a number of Tony Robbins events

including firewalks. God I hated those events. Basically a cult of personality. Weak minded people being manipulated by assholes with the prime purpose of leeching as much money from them as possible. What really bothered me is they use basic brainwashing techniques to sucker these people. Stuff them all in a crowded, hot room, with little food and lots of water, keep them on their feet for hours at a time, blast them with insanely loud music, and hammer them with what they believe to be helpful techniques to create a successful life, but what are actually sales pitches to attend the next level of "events". Nothing but a scam from front to back. I once watched Tony Robbins "counsel" a couple on how to have a better relationship. I guess he forgot to mention to them that he was in the middle of a nasty divorce after being caught cheating. What an asshole.

[EFerrari]

5. I had to attend a training session where 20 of us had to do a "trust" exercise.

I told the trainer that I didn't know these people and had no reason to trust them, let alone spend an entire day of my life forcing myself to pretend I trusted them.

He signed me out.

lol

[loudsue]

6. HAHA!!! Good for you!!!

:applause: That's what everyone should do with that bullshit!! When I opted out of one of those cult-like deals, the facilitators were trying to make me feel guilty. I didn't. I saw their idiotic game and felt sorry for the poor folks who got their money taken. They're only going to feel worse about themselves when it doesn't work, and now they're out of all that money.

[Dawson Leery]

13. I consider these motivational snake oil saleshustler

to be of the 'lessers'.

[XOKCowboy]

8. LOL We always used to tell you....

QUIT LISTENING TO HIM! That's why it was so much fun on comm.

[walldude]

9. LMAO... it's kind of hard.. those teeth... they are mesmerizing!

[XOKCowboy]

11. Well that's better than the local camera guys...

who were missing shots because they were calling their mom or filling out their notebooks. :)

[MadHound]

7. Geez, I was so hoping this particular type of stupidity had gone away,

Apparently it just went overseas.

My sister used to work in an ER on the East Coast when this fad first started, said that for a couple of years they could count on at least one group of people a month to come in with burns, some minor, some not. A lot of times people reacted to the roasting of their soles by falling down, and thus getting bad burns on knees, hands, etc.

[Bozita]

10. How 'bout something really dangerous like walking barefoot in a LA marsh?

[JHB]

12. Geez, waht a racket that is..."Corporate motivational consultant"...

Bunch of snake oil and monorail salesmen.

[Stevenmarc]

14. That certainly would motivate me to hire an attorney

[bobbolink]

15. Barbara Ehrenreich does a good stinging expose' of "motivation" in

her book, BRIGHT-SIDED, How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

I highly recommend it.

[Lance_Boyle]

16. My take on this is that if HR organizes something and it's not a career fair, it's worthless

or worse. How on Earth "HR" ever got to be its own department with responsibilities outside of hiring and firing is beyond me. Stories like this about firewalking and motivational hoohah and all the other time and money wasting things HR people come up with make me wonder how much savings the average company could realize by getting rid of HR altogether. Talk about an utterly worthless resource-leeching nightmare of a department...