SALVATION IN A BOTTLE

FEATURED POSTS

July 24, 2017

When you look up motivational speaker Jim Rohn on the internet, he sounds like a smart guy with a lot of answers about how to be successful in life and business. He definitely made a lot of money and many successful people credit him with changing their lives.

And, I think that’s great. But here is the rest of the story.

Jim Rohn was a guy, born in 1930, who dropped out of college after his freshman year and got a job as a stock clerk at Sears, Roebuck & Co. He wasn’t there for long. After attending a lecture given by entrepreneur and motivational speaker John Earl Shoaff, Rohn signed up in 1955 as a distributor in Shoaff’s direct sales company, The Abundavita Corporation of America – a Long Beach, California-based company that sold nutritional supplements through a network of dealerships.

A couple of years later, when Shoaff left Abundavita and helped start a direct sales company called Nutri-Bio Corp, Rohn went with him. Shoaff became his mentor, and Rohn soon assumed a position of vice president with the company.

What you don’t read in the glowing accounts of these two inspirational men is that they were a couple of old-fashioned medicine-man hustlers selling hope in a bottle to all the suckers out there – who just maybe should have been seeing a real doctor instead of buying pills from Shoaff, Rohn, and associates.

The following is from an obscure 1959 government document from the federal Food and Drug Administration that year. The government’s findings on the company’s marketing material for vitamins and minerals are almost comical.

Company literature, according to the feds, contained false and misleading representations “that the articles were adequate and effective to produce longevity and superb, perfect, and radiant health, happiness, hardihood, vigor, and good eyesight; resulted in men being active and sexually potent until age 100; resulted in women being beautiful and youthful in their 70’s and 80’s; prevented chronic illness; produced muscular fitness; conditioned the intestines and aided bowel movements; appeased the appetite and controlled weight; deodorized the body; cleaned and lubricated the intestinal tract, including the colon; allayed putrefaction in the colon; stimulated action of the colon; that the articles were adequate and effective for the treatment and prevention of headaches, irritability, nervousness, and mental depression; fatigue; dizziness; vague aches and pains; neuritis; insomnia; loss of muscle tone; weakness; loss of weight; indigestion; digestive upsets; loss of appetite; diarrhea; constipation; inflammation of the mouth; sores about the angles of the mouth; reddening of the lips; swelling and redness of the tongue; and dryness of hair or skin.”

Wow! Do you believe that?

I didn’t think so.

The truth is, probably 20 percent of the folks who actually bought Abundavita’s pills did end up feeling somewhat better. The power of suggestion is very strong.

The point is that motivational speakers – from TV evangelists to pill pushers – are really good at firing people up, but 80 percent of it is just hype and wishful thinking.

And it wears off quickly, just maybe because there was nothing there to begin with.

– George Lee Cunningham

Do you have a dissenting opinion or any opinion at all on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.

News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.