Mark Twain once wrote that he took up lecturing in 1886, "and from that day to this, I have been able to gain my living without doing any work."

Lecturing can be an easy way to make money, especially if you're a "motivational" speaker. Steve Salerno, author of the book, SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, maintains that corporations waste a lot of money bringing in sports heroes, pop psychologists and other high-priced cheerleaders to instill a more positive attitude in their employees.

In an interview in the current issue of Across the Board magazine, Salerno argues his case with with all the passion of the hucksters he condemns. "Where," he demands, "is the demonstrable proof that having a good attitude translates to better performance?? Prove it! It sure sounds like it ought to, and we want to believe that it does, but so far, it's not really been measured. How do you measure whether someone's pumped up or not?"

And suppose a motivational talk really does fire employees, demands Salerno. "If you pump someone up with tremendous enthusiasm, but you don't give him the skills to translate that into something productive, you have a loose cannon on your hands."

Unfortunately, says Salerno, most motivational speakers make money by doing exactly that -- firing people up without providing them with the practical skills they need to achieve real-world results. They are really being paid for the emotional high they give their audiences.

Salerno offers a case in point: "Take a guy like Beck Weathers, who got stuck on Mt. Everest and lost his nose and his hand. He comes down from from a mountain that many people say he had no business being on in the first place, and now he's a motivational speaker? Excuse me? What am I supposed to learn from this guy? Don't get stuck on Mt. Everest? And yet people queue up to hear him."

According to Salerno, people should stop buying self-help books altogether: "It's like living in a world of unending New Year's resolutions: I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. Instead of saying what you'll do, do it!"

Ironically, Salerno here is echoing "Dr. Phil" McGraw, one of the self-help gurus he lambastes in his book. Dr. Phil says, "Analysis is paralysis."

Maybe Salerno needs an attitude adustment. Probably, Dr. Phil would be glad to assist. How many of the rest of us do you think would pay to watch?