`Irritational' Larry gives counsel to MTMCers. (For second year ...).

Right up front, in the middle, of the bustling throng waiting to buy Larry Wingate motivational books, t-shirts and coffee mugs is Candace Keller.

The transporter for the U.S. Navy's Fleet Industrial Supply Center, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is hard to miss. She is thrusting two $20 bills forward. A Wingate support staffer is temporarily too busy to take her money.

Keller knows a good deal when she sees one. A $20 bill will buy a Larry Wingate motivational book--and with it a free Larry Wingate coffee mug. So, Keller reasons, her two $20 bills equal four gifts to take home from the 2002 MTMC Training Symposium.

"I was so excited when I heard he was coming back," said Keller, who saw Wingate at his first appearance to the symposium in 2001. "He is not a motivational speaker. He is true to form. He is more a `take-responsibility speaker.' He is more `be-aware-of-your-surroundings.'"

Back for the second year, the packed breakfast meeting March 27 cheered Wingate and cheered louder for his thoughts on personal and professional success. Success, he said, can be based "on a handful of very simple ideas."

"It's simple," said Wingate. "I believe business gets better when you get better."

Wingate, who spent 300 days on the road last year extolling his messages, is a strong proponent of individual responsibility.

"That never changes," said Wingate. "Yet that seems to be what most people don't get. Shut up--stop whining--and get a life!"

The applause rolls across the hotel ballroom.

"People are not willing to do what they have to do to get what they want--they whine."

Actions that draw one closer to a personal goal are "intelligent," said Wingate.

Conversely, actions that take one away from a personal goal are "stupid." There is "no neutral ground," he said.

"I am the pit bull of motivational speakers," said Wingate.

And he is not just a motivational speaker, he said, but an "irritational" speaker.

"We want everybody to be like us--that just won't work," said Wingate.

"People aren't like us. People are unique. We are all a little bit different. We have to respond differently to people."

There are personal questions that pertain to all of us, said Wingate. Those questions include:

* Am I happy?

* Am I healthy?

* Am I serving?

* Am I loving?

* Am I learning?

* Am I having fun?

* Am I doing something I enjoy?

* Am I prosperous?

"If you do all the others," said Wingate, "you will be prosperous and you will be happy. This is what is important in life. Not every single day will be a `hoot.'"

Wingate's comments, suggestions and anecdotal tales brought laughter to Oliver Bell, a policy analyst in Ordnance Security, with Naval Sea Systems Command.

"He's good," said Bell, who heard Wingate for the first time this year. "He identified with everybody. It's a straightforward message."

"We need to lighten up," said Wingate. "We need to have more fun."