Choose Your Guru!

You’re overweight

Sacred text: The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom.
You trust him because: Oprah does.
His style: Southern-fried aggression.
What he says: "Do you get the fact that if you don't do what you need to do, that I will … drag your lazy ass out of bed and get you to school, get you to the track, to do whatever it is you've got to do to get in this game of life and start playing?"
What he means: You're a fat slob, but if you listen to me, you don't have to be.
Insane thing he will make you do: The Weight-Loss Challenge—a Lord-of-the-Flies-like diet competition.
You can’t keep your eyes off: His mustache.
Ideal devotee: A 43-year-old part-time telemarketer with two children and an adulterous ex-husband.
If he wasn't doing this he'd be: A casino greeter.
Your sneaking suspicion: This is all preparation for his 2012 presidential campaign.
Cost: Bleacher seats at the "Get Real" Tour, $55.
You could get the same advice cheaper from: Your thin, obnoxious sister.

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You’re broke

Sacred text: The Courage to Be Rich.
You trust her because: She used to be a waitress.
Her style: Ruthless common sense, veneer of kindness.
What she says: "People first. Then money. Then things."
What she means: Money first.
You can’t keep your eyes off: Her half-blond hair.
Ideal devotee: A 61-year-old public-school teacher who blew her savings on Pets.com.
If she wasn’t doing this she'd be: An emergency-room nurse.
Your sneaking suspicion: She thinks you’re incredibly dumb.
Cost: The Courage to Be Rich, $14.

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You didn’t get promoted to VP for marketing

Sacred text: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
You trust him because: All your bosses read him.
His style: Cheerful jargon.
What he says: "In an interdependent situation, every P problem is a PC opportunity—a chance to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that significantly affect interdependent production."
What he means: Be nicer. And write a mission statement.
Insane thing he will make you do: Utter the words "holistic, integrated, principle-centered" without smirking.
You can't keep your eyes off: His bald skull.
Ideal devotee: A 39-year-old division manager of a gigantic pharmaceutical company.
If he wasn't doing this he'd be: Your boss.
Your sneaking suspicion: He's trying to convert you to Mormonism.
Cost: Three-day Seven Habits workshop, $1,495.
You could get the same advice more expensively from: A McKinsey consultant.

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You’re overweight and broke and you didn’t get promoted to VP for marketing

Your guru is: Tony Robbins.
Sacred text: Awaken the Giant Within.
You trust him because: He’s about 12 feet tall.
His style: Egomaniacal exhortation, sprinkled with pop neuroscience.
What he says: "Associate massive pain to not changing now and massive pleasure to the experience of changing now!"
What he means: You're weak. I will make you strong.
Insane thing he will make you do: Walk on red-hot coals.
You can’t keep your eyes off: His teeth.
Ideal devotee: An aspiring dictator; Andre Agassi.
If he wasn’t doing this he'd be: The world’s greatest car salesman.
Your sneaking suspicion: Is this Scientology?
Cost: "Unleash the Power Within" three-day arena seminar, $695.
You could get the same advice cheaper from: Your high-school basketball coach.

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Your marriage is a mess

Sacred text: Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives
You trust her because: She’s so mean.
Her style: Ma Barker.
What she says: Make him dinner, listen to him, sleep with him. And stop whining.
What she means: You’re a terrible wife. No wonder he cheats on you.
Ideal devotee: A masochistic 47-year-old housewife.
If she wasn’t doing this she’d be: A dominatrix.
Your sneaking suspicion: She doesn’t make her husband dinner, listen to him, or sleep with him.
Cost: Free on the radio!
You could get the same advice, but more thoughtfully, from: Dr. James Dobson.

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You’re New Age and greedy

Your guru is: Deepak Chopra.
Sacred text: The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.
Alternatively: Golf for Enlightenment.
You trust him because of: His Indian accent.
His style: Yoga blather meets Ayn Rand.
What he says: "The first spiritual law of success is the Law of Pure Potentiality. This law is based upon the fact that we are, in our essential state, pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is pure potentiality; it is the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity. Pure consciousness is our spiritual essence. Being infinite and unbounded, it is also pure joy."
What he means: Karma, chakra, dogma, yadda, yadda … God wants you to be rich.
Insane thing he will make you do: Primordial sound meditation.
Ideal devotee: An M&A specialist who does yoga.
If he wasn’t doing this he’d be: Managing a Eurotrash nightclub.
Your sneaking suspicion: He prefers Big Macs to yoga.
Cost: Five-day Soul of Healing/Ayurvedic Panchakarma Program, $3,280.
You could get the same advice cheaper from: The clerk at the natural food co-op.

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You don’t know what to do in a threesome

Sacred text: Talk Sex, Sunday nights on Oxygen.
You trust her because: She’s Canadian.
Her style: Grandmotherly bawdiness.
What she says: "The simplest things can wake up a dormant sex life. When was the last time you sucked her toes, kissed the inner aspect of her thigh, licked his chest?"
What she means: What are you waiting for? Suck her toes! Now!
Insane thing she will make you do: Jelqing (don't ask).
You can’t keep your eyes off: Her gray hair.
Ideal devotee: 45 years old, happily married.
If she wasn’t doing this she'd be: A public-school librarian in Toronto.
Your sneaking suspicion: She has a better sex life than you.
Cost: A copy of her book, Nocturnal Admissions, $12.57
You could get the same advice more ludicrously from: Dr. Ruth.

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Your kid is a nightmare

Sacred text: To Listen to a Child
You trust him because: He says, "In my experience …"
His style: Reassuringly wise.
What he says: "No developmental line in a child proceeds in a continuous upward course."
What he means: Angel yesterday, monster today. Don't worry about it. He'll be an angel tomorrow.
You can't keep your eyes off: His stethoscope.
Ideal devotee: Anxious first-time mother.
If he wasn't doing this he'd be: A fabulously successful management consultant.
Your sneaking suspicion: But my kid really is a nightmare.
Cost: A copy of Touchpoints: The Essential Reference, $18

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You believe baseball is life

Sacred text: The 1977 Bill James Baseball Abstract—the Rosetta Stone.
You trust him because: All those "baseball is poetry" blowhards—James pours battery acid on them. Baseball is science; Bill James is Isaac Newton.
His style: Witty statistics.
What he says: B = [ TB + ((BB + HB - IBB)*.24) + (SB*.62) + ((SH + SF)*.5)-(SO*.03)]
What he means: That guy can't hit.
You can’t keep your eyes off: Nothing. He's practically invisible. That's the mystique.
Ideal devotee: Pale, bespectacled, computer programmer with Asperger's syndrome.
If he wasn’t doing this he'd be: Writing letters to the editor of the Kansas City Star.
Your sneaking suspicion: My obsession with "win shares" would stop if I just got a date.
Cost: The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, $17.50.
You could get the same advice from: A million guys playing Rotisserie baseball.

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You’re an earnest lefty

You trust him because of: His thoughtful chin-grabbing.
His style: Smug piety.
What he says: Is " 'we the people' a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality—one nation, indivisible—or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others"?
What he means: Republicans are evil.
You can’t keep your eyes off: His rimless glasses.
Ideal devotee is: Watching PBS.
If he wasn’t doing this he’d be: A celebrity psychotherapist.
Your sneaking suspicion: He hates dogs.
Cost: Nothing. It’s public television, remember?
You could get the same advice from: Salon, The Nation, Harper’s …

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You dream of hand stenciling your file cabinets

Sacred text: Martha Stewart Living.
You trusted her because: Her never-fail recipes never failed.
Her style: Impatient condescension.
What she said: "Not guilty."
What she meant: Guilty.
Insane things she made you do: Make your own envelopes out of wood veneer, gild okra, etc.,…
You couldn’t keep your eyes off: Her fake smile.
Ideal devotee: Her appeals court judge.
Since she isn’t doing this, she's doing: Time.
Your sneaking suspicion: Underneath that frosty exterior, there actually beats a heart of pure ice.
Cost: Twelve issues of Martha Stewart Living, $24
You could get the same advice cheaper from: Barbara Smith, Katie Brown, Chris Madden, and all the other rivals to succeed her.

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You are an American woman

Sacred text: O.
You trust her because: She is human, yet she is divine.
Her style: Self-deprecating empathy.
What she says: "Be your best you."
What she means: Be your best you, really.
Insane thing she will make you do: Be your best you.
You can’t keep your eyes off: Her waistline.
Ideal devotee: Woman.
If she wasn’t doing this she’d be: Turning water to wine, raising the dead, etc.
Your sneaking suspicion: She will never marry Stedman.
Cost: Online workshop, $24.95.
You could get the same advice from: Your mom, if you’re very lucky. Or God.

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