Taking charge of life - at a price

More Irish people are attending motivational seminars, but do these life gurus give good value for money, asks Róisín Ingle

A well-groomed American with silver hair and a toothy smile is in full flow on stage in a south Dublin hotel. Members of the 300-strong audience are listening intently, laughing where appropriate and murmuring in agreement when he hits on a theory that makes sense to them. He is Jack Canfield, one of the authors of self-help book Chicken Soup for the Soul, and he's talking about something guaranteed to get most people's attention: how to double your income in just one year.

There is a cross section of people in the audience, reflecting the growing interest among all sections of society for personal development talks and seminars such as these.

As Canfield points at slides which tie in with his seemingly endless supply of goal-achieving anecdotes, they take notes and afterwards queue up to buy The Success Principles, his latest best-selling book. There is a group here from Weight Watchers. There is a retired mother who has arrived with her go-getting son. There is a businessman who has driven from Limerick after being inspired by Canfield on RTÉ radio. If you want to double your income in just one year, the packed conference seems to suggest, it might be worth thinking about running your own seminar.

Jane Stephenson is the woman who brought Jack Canfield here to speak recently. She regularly runs events featuring a variety of motivational and spiritual speakers, the ticket price ranging from €40 for an evening talk on "Money, Myths and Magic" to €295 for a day-long workshop on "Inspirational Leadership".

Since returning to the Republic from the UK 10 years ago, she has seen her events grow in popularity, with tickets for the more well-known speakers on the circuit flying out of her office.

Until relatively recently, it was individual businessmen and women, and people from the corporate sector in general who formed the majority of her clients. In the past couple of years, however, she says interest has been growing among members of the public who are happy to pay for the talk or seminar and any additional materials themselves. As it stands, almost a third of those who attend her events do so in a personal capacity and, as word of mouth spreads, she expects that proportion to increase.

"A lot of people like the idea of empowering themselves and kick-starting the self-development process by taking their own initiative," she says of the new trend. "It's about fulfilling yourself individually rather than waiting to be sent on a journey. And if you pay the money yourself you are expecting to be inspired. Because of this, people demand a lot more out of the talk or seminar, more than if it was something they were sent to by their employer."

In pre-Celtic Tiger days few people had the inclination, much less the disposable income, to take the kind of initiative Jane Stephenson talks about. Back then you waited until your boss decided to send you to a talk, seminar, course or workshop that it was hoped would increase your skills or motivate you to do a better job.

On the day, you invariably sat bored, pretending to take notes, wondering what was laid on for lunch and hoping nobody would notice if you ducked out early. Back at work, the follow-up to this company-paid-for course was non-existent, and it was anybody's guess as to what happened to those nebulous feedback forms.

While things have tightened up considerably around corporate training, and especially around the follow-up procedure, this DIY trend among workers, entrepreneurs and those in retirement continues apace. And Stephenson's point about increased expectations can be seen in the fact that, even though she tries to keep prices down, she still receives complaints about her events being too expensive.

In fact, Stephenson's prices are small fry compared with what the big-time business and life-coaching gurus are charging these days. Last week in the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin, for example, about 12 people sat around a table for a one-day workshop on "Marriage Breakdown and the Challenge to Parenthood".

The workshop set out to "remind and inform separating parents how the principles of business negotiation can be employed to ensure the most equitable outcomes possible". For this the participants paid €475 each. The cost included morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea and course materials, but, even with these extras thrown in, it could be argued that one-on-one life coaching or even counselling might provide better value.

Communication adviser and "problem solver" Eamon Kelly is hardly likely to agree, given that he was the sole expert running that course and another like it scheduled for May in the K Club, Co Kildare, with the catchy title "Helping Individuals and Groups to Minimise the Damage and Debris of Breakdown Situations". Again it's €475 per person. "Essentially what most people who come to me are asking is, 'How do I make sense of everything I have to deal with every day?' But I don't give easy answers," he says. "The price is not a problem. I run a very discreet service and there will be a dozen people there as opposed to 80 at another event. Also, if someone asks to see me an hour before the workshop starts, or even afterwards, I am not going to charge them extra for that time."

Surely it's lucrative, though, I ask him. "I am not driving around in an '05 Merc," he replies.

Peter O'Connor of business consultancy firm Exceed is one of the people behind MyPotential.ie, a successful Irish and UK website which features everything from business seminars aimed at the corporate client to information on the increasingly widespread practice of meditation.

The reason for increased public interest in this area, believes O'Connor, can be found in any examination of how Irish society has evolved in recent years. "The fact that more individuals are attending seminars and other events is indicative of a dramatic shift in society. It has changed from when people went to church every week for guidance. Now, they are still looking for guidance, but many are looking elsewhere," he says.

O'Connor says it's too simplistic to look at the price of events and declare them bad value for money. "It really depends on the person," he says. "If you are in the middle of marriage breakdown and worried about how to manage that personal and often financial crisis, you might see that as money very well spent," he says.

"But I think what is also different is that people now understand that a one- or two-day course isn't going to change their lives. They know it's a process of change which has to continue afterwards. Although, having said that, people like Oprah or Dr Phil seem to think they can change your life in two hours."

Under the continuing influence of the US motivational scene which includes the likes of Oprah and Dr Phil, Irish seminars are growing ever more sophisticated. Paul Lanigan's "I'd Rather Go Blind" event last January was a good case in point. This featured a variety of philosophical, personal fitness and motivational speakers, including Mark Pollock, a blind person who speaks about his battle against the odds and who provided the inspiration for the seminar.

Lanigan's stylishly-produced event also included lunch, but tickets cost a whopping €630, or €530 if you booked online. Audience feedback indicated to Lanigan that this was slightly excessive, and his next event is costing €395 as a result. (It's worth pointing out that Lanigan offers a 100 per cent money back guarantee for anyone who isn't completely satisfied up to three hours into the seminar.)

While it's mainly a corporate audience at this early stage, he has noticed more and more individual members of the public attending.

"Last January we had a housewife from Letterkenny who was there for one reason, and the CEO of a major drugs company who was there for another. Looking inside ourselves for answers is not something we Irish are used to and there are still a lot of people out there who think it is all mumbo-jumbo," he says. "It's changing slowly, though."

The Letterkenny housewife who paid out €530 for the day-long seminar was Anne Sweeney, a 48-year-old mother of three who, having come through an extremely difficult period in her life, made a decision to spend two years exploring her potential.

"I am not an impulsive person by nature, but when I heard about the seminar I just thought, I am going to do this as an investment in myself," she says. "I know some people might think, what kind of madwoman spends that kind of money, but I could have spent it on something that wouldn't have been as helpful and as inspirational as that seminar was to me."

As part of her personal journey of discovery she is also attending a practical philosophy course, and jokes that she might be turning into a bit of a seminar addict, having recently attended another one in Donegal on the subject of starting your own business. "But," she laughs. "At least that one was free."