Replies

1. 
   SamT | Jul 14, 2007 05:53pm | #1

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2. 
   SamT | Jul 15, 2007 10:26am | #2

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   SamT

1. 
   rez | Jul 15, 2007 05:16pm | #3

   If I were in St.Louis I'd take you up on the offer. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."- Thoreau

1. 
   Huck | Jul 15, 2007 08:42pm | #4

   "If we had some bacon, we could have bacon and eggs...if we had some eggs.""...an open mind is a powerful thing.  The ability to listen to others is invaluable."

   Jim Blodgett

1. 
   rez | Jul 16, 2007 04:57am | #5

   "meet me in St.Louie, Louie..." "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."- Thoreau

3. 
   Kowboy | Jul 16, 2007 07:10am | #6

   Get Motivated! Business Seminar (Review)

    

     At the Palace of Auburn Hills (Michigan), eighteen thousand of us in need of motivation showed up for a good kick-in-the-pants and we weren’t disappointed.

   The gist of this day-long presentation is to have a slew of big name speakers to draw in the crowd, (Guiliani, Powell) so the stock-picking and real estate hucksters on the bill have some demographically perfect prospects to recruit.

     According to speaker and founder Peter Lowe’s wife, who was the Master of Ceremonies, 20% of the people in attendance make over a hundred grand a year! I’m sure my friend Tom, who gave me a ticket and brought me, earns that much. His company paid the forty-nine bucks and can apparently send as many employees as they please. Excellent marketing strategy on their part.

     The day starts with enthusiasm guru and icon, Zig Ziglar. This guy is the Mick Jagger of the motivational speaking industry. I hope I have half his energy when I’m eighty-some years old. He starts out with some classic crowd pleasing jokes, segues into some general feel-good business stories and then loses me completely with his Christian proselytizing. According to Zig, if you ain’t got Christ on your side, you and your business are going straight to Hell. Bummer.

     Steve Forbes, yeah, flat-tax-ran-for-President, is up next. He removed the silver spoon from his mouth long enough to fire us up for his flat 17% income tax agenda. People under 30k a year pay nothing or something like that. Sorry, I didn’t take notes, but the booklets they were selling for notes were too expensive.

     Dick Vitale, the ESPN sportscaster, was up next and he reminisced about how Bill Davidson, Detroit Pistons and Palace owner, fired him as coach of same. Vitale’s assistant calls him at home and says Davidson is coming over. Vitale tells his wife and she says he is coming over to fire you. Vitale doesn’t believe her ‘till Davidson drops the bomb in their living room. Davidson is a class guy; at least he didn’t e-mail Vitale like how Radio Shack fired all their employees. According to Vitale, it was the best thing that ever happened to him as ESPN was soon born and launched his new career direction. If Vitale doesn’t fire you up, check into the mortuary. You are dead.

     Peter Lowe, the whiz-kid salesman and founder of this thing is next. Lots of platitudes, hearts and flowers and lots and lots of Jesus. If you didn’t come to Jesus when Zig was up, this is your next chance. Sign-up sheets and everything. I saw a Muslim lady in a Burka in the crowd. I wonder what she thought of all of this. Looks like business subsidizing religion to me.

     The lunch break came and we went across the street to the Post bar. I had a come-to-Jesus meeting with a couple of Newcastle Brown Ales and a pizza. It was very crowded and by the time we made it back, we had missed most of Colin Powell’s speech. Damn! Why couldn’t we have missed Dr. Robert Schuller instead? No such luck. I could have lived the rest of my life not knowing that Schuller’s “Crystal Cathedral” was the seventh architectural wonder of the world or some such thing.

     I skipped a guy. I can’t remember his name, but he is how they pay the bills around here. This guy has developed a “tool” to track when to buy and sell stocks. He showed pictures of himself in his hippie days as a Colorado River guide and as a Vietnam vet, Harley, long hair and all. A guy he guided down the river, a Warren Buffet student, was so grateful that our guy saved them from drowning that he promised to show the hippie how to pick stocks. Five years later he’s a millionaire. Well if he’s so damn rich, what the hell’s he doing here instead of picking stocks? He’s selling us a stock-picking computer program, that’s what. If you sign up today, it’s only two grand instead of the usual ten. I passed and so did Tom. (Tom just recovered all his 2000 tech stock losses by this year, but I digress.)

     The Guinness Book of World Records shows the next speaker, Tom Hopkins, as having sold the most residential real estate, one house a day for a year! I like this guy. Upbeat and genuine.

     The next speaker is trying to get us to sign up for a millionaire real estate program. Sounds like the Carelton Sheets late night infomercial to me. It must sound that way to a lot of others because the bathrooms are filling up fast.

     At last, the guy we’ve waited for, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He gives us the leadership talk about recognizing your own weaknesses and surrounding yourself with people to compensate for them. Excellent advice. He didn’t mention how he dumped his wife of twenty-some years, but hey, he might run for President and he did do a hellava job during 9/11. Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani on the same ticket? It could happen. It did happen. Right here in the Palace. The MC lady lets us know if Rudy runs for POTUS, he’s got her vote and the crowd agrees.

     Maybe I’ve got an overly-conspiratorial mind, but I think this whole seminar is the work of a Carl Rove type. I mean c’mon. Jesus, money, success, Colin and Rudy? This is some kind of Republican fantasy and it was worth every penny I paid to see it.

     I did get a new job today. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

    

   Kowboy