- published: 08 Oct 2013
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Wayne Walter Dyer (born May 10, 1940) is an American self-help author and motivational speaker.
Dyer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Melvin Lyle (deceased) and Hazel Irene Dyer and spent much of his adolescence in an orphanage on the east side of Detroit. After graduation from Denby High School Dyer served in the United States Navy from 1958 to 1962. He received his D.Ed. degree in counseling from Wayne State University.[citation needed]
Dyer worked as a high school guidance counselor in Detroit and as a professor of counselor education at St. John's University in New York City. He pursued an academic career, published in journals and established a private therapy practice. His lectures at St. John's, which focused on positive thinking and motivational speaking techniques, attracted many students. A literary agent persuaded Dyer to document his theories in his first book called Your Erroneous Zones. Although initial sales were thin, Dyer quit his teaching job and began a publicity tour of the United States of America, doggedly pursuing bookstore appearances and media interviews ("out of the back of his station wagon", according to Michael Korda, making the best-seller lists "before book publishers even noticed what was happening"), which eventually led to national television talk show appearances including Merv Griffin, The Tonight Show, and Phil Donahue.
Anthony "Tony" Robbins (born February 29, 1960) is an American self-help author and motivational speaker. He became well known through his infomercials and self-help books, Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement and Awaken The Giant Within. Robbins writes about subjects such as health and energy, overcoming fears, persuasive communication, and enhancing relationships. Robbins began his career learning from many different motivational speakers, and promoted seminars for his personal mentor, Jim Rohn. He is deeply influenced by neuro-linguistic programming and a variety of philosophies.
Robbins's work has been featured in major media including Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes, Life, GQ, Vanity Fair, Business Week, Tycoon and Success magazines, the CBS Evening News, NBC News, ABC's Prime Time Live, Fox News, CNN and A&E as well as newspapers, radio programs, and Internet media worldwide. Robbins has been mentioned or featured in 15 major motion pictures, including a cameo role a romantic comedy film Shallow Hal, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, and Jason Alexander. In 2007, he was named to Forbes magazine's "Celebrity 100" list.
Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was for a time the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, claiming to be raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.