I apologize, dear readers, for neglecting you for so long. You took the time to follow me, encourage me, and off I go living a Fire-free life. How dare I.
I had to go back and look at my notes to see where we left off, and to see what Joe Vitale has up his sleeve these days. There's no real theme to what he's doing.... promoting a few products from Clickbank, promoting his pal Pat O'Bryan's unseminar coming up this month, and then... this morning, he wrote a blog post about a lunch meeting with "God."
I'm sure you know that he doesn't really mean GOD himself. Or George Burns. Or even Morgan Freeman.
I don't think he even meant Osho, Dr. Hew Len, or any other of his spiritual advisors.
Maybe Central Market needs to check their mushroom stash. Perhaps Joe was having psychedelic visions again.
Personally, I think he's just trying to call attention to himself.
(I know, say it isn't so. A known narcissist calling attention to himself with empty, false promises of things that will never come to pass. Like perhaps a miracle from miracles coaching.)
Well, apparently this business casual diety asked Joe to think big. Joe's thought processes immediately turned to the biggest thing he could imagine. He thought of his ego. The diety in khaki said to think bigger than that.
Joe was amazed. His eyes widened.
There's something bigger than Joe's ego? Really?
Maybe... yes. It is entirely possible.
Remember that evil media man, Dan Harris from ABC News, that twisted and turned his meeting with Joe into a hatchet job... this after Joe shared his love of all things indie music and bonded with Dan so deeply and spiritually. They were such good friends! Remember them... they tried to make Joe look human with foibles and attacked his beloved ego.
Perhaps Joe could find a way to upstage them and finally have his revenge? Perhaps Joe could have his OWN (not affiliated with Oprah Winfrey Network) network and only allow Vitale-approved news on it? Maybe Joe could take all of those negative nay-sayers, you know the ones that control everything in this world and try to make people feel bad so they buy things like medicine and food, and show them how media should be done. Joe has "complained" (his words not mine) about them in the past.
Yes, apparently, Joe is still burned by his own little fire from that experience.
Yes. That way, Joe could prop up his beloved ego and put everyone who doesn't worship at the Altar of Joe's Ego in their place. What a way to turn a negative into such an ego-worshipping positive! Way to go, Joe! I hear your business casual GOD really loved that! I'm sure all the great metaphysical texts have mentioned something about making up conversations with people you think are dieties in cafes on hot summer days.
Let's see. If the Law of Attraction really does work, then how did Joe attract such an ego-crushing experience with Dan Harris in the first place? What did you do, Joe? What awful, horrible thoughts did you have that magnetized your mind for such humiliation? After all, isn't your primary teaching that you should take responsibility for everything that happens to you?
Or maybe bad things do really happen to such wonderful people such as yourself? How is it that you area victim of evil Dan Harris, but your "friend" who was down on his luck from your previous blog post created it all himself?
Here's a question, and I've been doing my own investigative work to find an answer. But Joe doesn't talk about his homeless days much at all. Some people have suggested that perhaps Joe was never really homeless. Other people have suggested that perhaps Joe was actually homeless for a matter of a couple of weeks. We are just not really altogether sure whether or not Joe was really as down and out as he purports in his marketing.
We'd like to know, though.
Which leads us to another look at Joe's "world changing" Operation YES initiative. This is yet another thing that Joe mentions in passing all too often, but it's something that Joe hasn't done anything with. Nothing. Joe wanted to end homelessness (you know, the problem he's so intimately familiar with), but there has not been one dime invested, not one change made, not one person's life affected by his Operation YES initiative. The only thing that has changed is the removal of James A. Ray's name from the Operation YES web site.
If I'm wrong, please prove me wrong, Joe. Stop talking about what Operation YES should be, and show some hard evidence of what it has done. Otherwise, I will assume that Operation YES is just another vanity affair like your Abundance Television Network will be.
A lot of talking, a lot of promises, and no substance whatsoever. Kind of like the little Russian Wish Doll Joe and Pat O'Bryan dreamed up to make all your dreams come true. Or did they take that idea from a woman named Maria Joe met while traveling in Russia?
My expectation is that Joe will do nothing with the Abundance Television Network. Just like he did nothing with the Expect Miracles Television show he promised was in the offing about 4 years ago. Just like so many products, books, services... it's all just empty platitudes... marketing at its best... substance at its least.
Recycled information... over and over again.
And that's my opinion, of course.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
BBF - Having seen many years ago how willingly Joe Vitale will abandon what little there is of his integrity in his quest for personal gain, I honestly feel for anyone who gets sucked into participating in any of his get-rich schemes (and as I think you know, even his supposedly philanthropic efforts are little more than marketing tools for him). I've known too many of his former friends and associates (late ex-wives?) that had a supremely bad taste in their mouths after their dealings with Joe, and the only common element among them all is Joe Vitale.
ReplyDeleteHe teaches bullshit science, false Buddhism, and his self-proclaimed "hypnotic" writing. If by hypnotic he means putting folks to sleep, perhaps, but truth is that the only hands that are shaking with excitement are his own. And I suspect that if he ever were to sit across the table from an enlightened being - much less, God - he's be told to shut the f#2k up and go back to selling his MLM pyramid schemes, and to leave the spiritual angle who actually care about their - and others' - spiritual growth.
Of course, this is just my opinion, as well. But it is based upon knowing the unscripted, unedited Joe that his typical cheerleader, reader, or customer never gets to see. And I don't hate Joe... just what he does, especially in the name of spiritual growth.
So good to see you back, BBF. I literally laughed out loud several times while reading this post, beginning with the bit about the funny mushrooms. I almost wet myself over the bits about the evil Dan Harris.
ReplyDeleteJoe has once again played the Conspicuous Altruism card, which many of his readers seem to find appealing. When not pandering to people's greed or self-interest, he attempts to appeal to their arguably more noble impulse to be a part of something greater than themselves. I say "arguably" more noble because all too often these days in the New-Wage world, many people's desire to be part of "something greater" is tainted by their own personal ambitions for money and/or attention (the latter of which, I've long argued, has become a form of currency in and of itself).
Of course even if people's altruistic acts are fueled in part by their own self-interest, those acts can still help a lot of folks in need. And as long as the money raised to help people wasn't raised through scamming or defrauding others, then who am I to second-guess people's motives?
In the case of Operation Y.E.S., however, it appears that the organization has in fact accomplished NOTHING so far. And perhaps we who "watch and judge from the sidelines" (as Joe might say) can be forgiven for suspecting that the only reason Op Y.E.S. has yet to officially "launch" is that Joe and Craig Perrine and whoever else is involved in the scheme have yet to figure out a way to make it into a real money-maker for THEM, while still maintaining a facade of altruism.
As you may or may not know, depending upon whether you've made your way through the mountain of comments to Joe's latest post, I chose to engage Joe directly on this one, beginning with a simple question about what exactly Op Y.E.S. has accomplished. His first response to me was to say I should ask "the people who have been helped," though he named none of those people. Then he suggested I go off and help some people myself. (Kind of a neener-neener; aka Competitive Altruism.)
Only after I responded again did he mention that I could sign up myself if I were truly interested, and that he was getting ready to launch "a giant book" about Operation Y.E.S. Apparently the only thing holding up *that* launch is that the folks involved are still trying to decide how to do it so that the book can help the most people.
I think we know what "helping the most people" means in Joespeak (see sentence above about Joe and Craig).
A few points I neglected to mention on my previous post...
ReplyDeleteIf the conversation with the business-casual "God" took place exactly as Joe said it did (and with Joe we can never be certain), that "God" sounds pretty fishy to me (no offense to actual fish, which I appreciate for their fascinating ways and their tastiness). Joe claims that the guy said he has access to millions and millions of dollars, which -- at least by my interpretation -- meant that this "God" has connections to numerous investing "angels" who, according to this "God," operate by the credo that "Money is no object."
When we were discussing this, Ron pointed out that angel investors NEVER say money is no object. Most of them got to where they were through shrewd investments and through being very conservative with their money.
My sense is that either Joe is exaggerating about this "God" in order to get his readers all excited and motivated to give HIM more money (duh), or he is in fact being scammed.
If the latter is the case and he gets taken, I suppose he can always write a whiny blog post about it later on. No doubt he’ll have plenty of sympathizers who will, at the very least, buy him Amazon gift certificates to help soothe his troubled heart.
Blogger is giving me that “character limits” warning so I’ll continue this in my next comment.
(Continued) I agree with the opinions that Joe's "formerly homeless" story is probably greatly exaggerated. He seems to be using it more and more these days.
ReplyDeleteAs we've discussed here before, in some interviews Joe has claimed that his program can end all homelessness and foreclosures in the U.S. in one day. He added "foreclosures" to the mix after the recession really started taking hold some time in 2009.
As we've also discussed, but I think it bears repeating, the vision of homeless people that Joe peddles is that of middle-class, educated folks who are temporarily down on their luck or discouraged by the circumstances of their lives. All they need to do is hop on down to the local library and check out a few self-help books to get them through the slump. And while they're there, they can use the library's computers to set themselves up with a GoDaddy hosting account. Then, if they really want to invest in themselves, they can go to one of Pat O'Bryan's UnSeminars and learn how to create a Web site that could possibly make them millionaires. Problem solved.
While the above isn't on the Op Y.E.S site, I'm consolidating Joe's advice from several sources. For those who have read Attract Money Now, some of this will sound familiar.
In any case, regarding homelessness, Joe fails to factor in the chronically impoverished, the mentally ill, and the addicts, all of whom, I suspect, need much more than a self-help book, a GoDaddy hosting account, and an online sales page.
It's possible they may require even more than that "giant book" that is still waiting to be launched.
Joe doesn't even realistically factor in the people who lost their homes to foreclosure in the recession, and who may take years to recover their previous standard of living (and that's if they're lucky), no matter how many selfish-help products they buy. He doesn't factor in the baby boomers who weren't ready to retire, and the Gen-X-ers who were just reaching the prime time of their careers, but whose jobs have been permanently cut and who are just an unemployment check away from homelessness.
The homeless vision Joe seems to be perpetuating – the market he’s targeting – seems to be that of a temporarily troubled young-ish person, much as he was when he ran away from his Ohio home to work in Texas, and got screwed by an oil company owner (according to the story he has been telling for the past few years). Left without money and with no job prospects, and too proud to return to Ohio with hat in hand, he stayed in Texas.
He likes to talk of the grueling months he spent sleeping on the streets of either Dallas or Houston (the story varies from site to site), while keeping his sanity and hope alive by availing himself of the free inspiration at the public library. And, as noted above, he advises the same for those who are similarly down on their luck.
Too bad Republican-inspired budget cuts are forcing libraries all over the U.S. to either close their doors or drastically cut their hours and services.
Oh, well. As long as Joe has his cars...
this guy always give me a weird vibe LONG before anyone dug into his dealings. Somewhere in all his pep talk marketing crap I remember him telling a story about how he did this or that thing and finally got "a nice car" ...turns out it was a TOYOTA.....ROFL! seriously? a Toyota?... way to shoot for the moon Joe!
ReplyDelete