TJ Walker delivers a live-stream monologue warning about widespread con artists and quick-fix gurus across industries (weight loss, finance, self-help, public-speaking training). He emphasizes skepticism, independent verification, and the value of steady hard work (e.g., writing a page every day) over weekend retreats or gimmicks. The clip closes with Walker promoting his public-speaking workshops, online courses, and private/group trainings.
Chapters
Magic beans, life coaches, flim flam artists. This elixir will solve all your medical problems. Let's face it, life is full of cons. There are con artists everywhere. There are new ones coming out every make trillions by doing day trading using my secret algorithm. Never heard that one. See how long that lasts. There are so many people out there selling you a quick fix, selling you some form of gimmick, whether it's magic beans, green coffee beans to make you lose weight. There's so many things out there and you've got to be skeptical. You probably consider yourself a skeptical person, but let's face it, we've all been taken in by cons before. Here to tell you, unfortunately, someone can be a fantastic public speaker and be a con man. There's absolutely no correlation between someone having great eye contact, looking and sounding sincere, and actually being truthful or honest. Now, I try to stay away from con men and truthfully, they're not really interested in working with me because they don't like to pay in advance. So I have my own way of weeding out the con men. But there are a lot of con men and it's mostly men. There certainly are some women, but in my experience, many of the greatest con artists are men for some reason. They have mastered public speaking, they've mastered connecting with you at an emotional level, but they're selling a complete fraud. Every industry has this. The weight loss industry, the finance industry, the how to get rich quick industry, and how to give a better speech industry. My own industry is filled with people who want to just teach you acting lessons or tell you to take a beta blocker or hypnosis or tapping or Wonder Woman poses. There's all sorts of con artistry out there. And the reality is, like a lot of things of life, there are basic things hard work you have to do to become successful. You want to become a best selling novelist. You typically don't just go to a weekend retreat, write a book on a weekend and become a best selling novelist. You look at the advice of best selling novelists and they all pretty much say the same thing. Write at least a page every single day of your life, seven days a week. Write at the same time. Don't get discouraged if the first five novels you write are horrible and are all rejected. Nobody really likes to hear that advice. People like to ignore that advice. They like the idea of, let me just go to this $5,000 weekend on how to write a best selling novel and I'll do it and I'm here to tell you you can't be taken in by someone's speaking skill because it is a skill that anyone can learn. It is a tool can be used for good or for evil. And I do mean evil. So just because someone speaks effectively, don't give them credit for that. That gets your attention. They deserve your attention if they're a great speaker. But you then have to really, really scrutinize what they're saying. You have to get independent confirmation and you have to use common sense too. So great speaking is a great skill. It's what I've devoted my life to. But just realize that without ethics, that skill, without facts, that skill without selling some product or service, with integrity, not only worthless, it could destroy your life. I'm T.J. walker. I will help people speak more effectively because I believe speaking is the number one skill you need to be successful if you'd like to improve your own skills. I've got online public speaking workshops. You can go through online courses, learn at your own pace. Every month I have an in person workshop, public speaking and a media training workshop here in New York City. And then I conduct private one on one and group trainings all over the world. If you'd like to improve your speaking, give me a call or check out the website now.
