Get Motivated

I "signed up" for an all day motivational seminar yesterday taught in the downtown convention center. It was put on by this group that does this all over the states. They bring in a lot of big name speakers and hold an all day seminar on how to get motivated and how to motivate others. It has been hyped for weeks and pushed to businesses to have them sign up and bring employees. Our company management decided it was a good deal and offered it up to all directors/managers/supervisors/engineers as an optional seminar to attend. I was pretty busy and hadn't really planned to attend until, on Saturday morning, we all got a message from the CEO on how great this training was going to be and how he would like to encourage everyone to attend, if they are able. 15 minutes after the message when out, a wave of acceptances came in.

Now, if you have never attended one of these, you are in for a treat. This is an ALL DAY affair. And I mean all day. There are a number of famous people speaking on motivational topics intermixed with other speakers who wind up pushing their business software or stock program that will enable you to maximize your profits (for a measly price of $99). We had great seats up under the stage so we were only 25 yards from each speaker, but they were padded folding chairs and, after about 6+ hours in them, my butt was not as "motivated". We got to hear from speakers like Sarah Palin, Colin Powell, Lou Holtz, and Rudy Guliani. It was interesting to see and hear these people in real life, without all of the polish and spin that you typically see on the boob toob. Sarah was a very interesting speaker, but not as polished as most of the rest of the group (who do this for a living). Colin I thought was the best speaker - funny and direct. Lou Holtz has a terrible lisp, but he was a funny guy. Rudy was a card, but not to every one's liking. They had Zig Zigler, but, honestly it was painful to watch him. Apparently, he had a fall two years ago and had some serious head injury so he has short term memory loss. His daughter was up on stage with him as his handler, but he seemed lost at times and kept repeating points of his speech. I have heard Zig one time before a long time ago and I felt sorry for him. The other speakers were peddling some program or software to make money and I had little patience for that kind of sales pitch. It was funny and interesting, but not worth 8 hours of my life. The arena was in the Toyota Center which normally houses our basketball team. When they broke for lunch, they would not let anyone leave the building, so we were all stuck with massive lines and overprice food for lunch. I didn't want to wait an hour in line for lunch, so I had a trail bar I brought with me and was able to score a diet coke from a vendor. The entire gig was interesting but not my cup of tea. Someone noted that, based on the speakers and highly inspirational (translation: spiritual) theme, the venue was definitely tilted to the right. No one got political, but it was decidedly geared to one side of the spectrum. Some people (like my brother) would have chewed his arm off trying to escape that place. I guess I should be grateful the company ponied up the bill for this gig, but I think that the CEO was expecting more or something else. Not sure they will do that again.