My boss got a flyer in the mail about the Get Motivated seminar coming to Tallahassee, and offered to treat the management team from our department. It would be a day out of the office and Bobby Bowden, Zig Zigler and Rudy Giuliani were on the list of speakers. Sure, I could use some motivating. I am the last person one of these speakers wants to see at an event, because I’m not going to cheer or clap or sing songs. But it was at the civic center, so I’d be far enough away from the stage to remain a cynic.

A few weeks before the event, I started hearing ads on the radio. This must be a bigger event that I thought. The civic center’s marquis had warnings that parking would be tight and encouraged participants to carpool. What was I getting into?

I got downtown about 45 minutes before start time, and traffic was stopped dead. I found parking a few blocks away and stuffed some granola bars into my pocket so I could save $18 on breakfast. People were streaming into the center like Metallica was going to headline. Evidently lots of people in Tallahassee were eager to get some motivating.

After finding my crew and procuring a Mountain Dew, I settled in. I didn’t get much sleep the night before and if I was going to make it I would need the caffeine. Since I haven’t had the juice in a few years, I sipped it slowly so I’d be able to repress my inner Cornholio. A perky blonde took the stage with some fireworks and we were off to the races!

Rick Belluzzo talked more about HP than Microsoft, but I would, too, if I were him. Bobby Bowden couldn’t have had a more loving crowd. He was able to throw a couple jabs around about the firing, but nothing too directly. I’ve heard him speak before and he didn’t disappoint.

Then we had our first sale of the day. Gary and I had theorized that since the tickets were so cheap that we were in for the hard sell. It started off slowly, then just transitioned into the realization that he was motivating us to buy his stuff. He was pitching stock trading tools, and since I’d traded stocks before it piqued my interest. But I wasn’t about to spend a penny on it, especially since the internet makes all of this irrevelent. Why pay for it when you can find it for free?

After a short break, out comes Tamara Lowe. Her and her husband are the ones who run these seminars, so it was time for her moment in the spotlight. She started to talk about her book and her insights into motivation. It reminded me a little of The Five Love Languages but for motivating. Each person is moved differently and knowing how helps you communicate. That part of her talk was fine, then she had this odd transition into a story about her in a beauty salon rapping to a bunch of black women about Jesus. Hmmmm. All morning people had been dropping hints about God and their Republican slants weren’t hidden during the speeches. But now Tamara is trying to flow with this thing about God. She started talking about how as soon as she knew Jesus her addiction to drugs was lifted. Then if you wanted to pray with her right now, you could know him, too.

I wasn’t expecting this at a business conference. People need to be who they are, and that’s all well and good, but an altar call? I hate drive-by altar calls, especially when there was no follow-up, no opportunity to talk to anyone about it. To top it off, she was selling Jesus in a box, that once you opened it up, you could be free from your problems. I’ve done some work with recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, and I haven’t seen it happen like that. It is a lot of work and struggle to find serenity. But what did I expect from a sales expert?

Luckily after that we had a lunch break so I could walk around and go outside. I didn’t feel like sticking around for another sales pitch in exchange for a free lunch. It helped to at least be able to see the outside.

After lunch Zig Ziglar took the stage, after an introduction by his daughter. He had a bad accident a few years prior, and since then he’s had problems with his short term memory, so now she appears with him and tries to guide the talk. In practice, however, it wasn’t so smooth. He came out and was energetic, but it only took a few minutes to see he wasn’t himself. He was making the same jokes over and over. His daughter was doing her best to try to keep him focused, but it wasn’t working. I started to feel really bad for him, then anger at this obvious exploitation. But one of the questions they asked him is “When are you going to retire?” He really loves doing what he does, even in a diminished capacity. I googled this when I got home and saw a blog by someone who attended this in September. He said that Zig did well and the assistance by his daughter really worked out. I guess he was having a bad day in Tallahassee.

In talking with my boss the next day this came up. What does it mean to retire? What is retirement for some people? Should Zig hang it up? It is easy for me to say now, in my 30’s, that he needs to bite the bullet and stop. It takes a lot of courage and strength to admit you can’t do it anymore. But when I get there, will I be able to do that? Will I throw in the towel and head for the beach? I hope I can have a retirement with dignity. The only people who should see me losing my mind are my family, who will heckle and tease me while they can hahahahaha.

After another infomercial Rudy Giuliani took the stage. I’ve never lived in the northeast, and never visited New York City. I really have no desire to, unless I can get tickets to a taping of The Daily Show. Hearing Rudy introduced as “America’s Mayor” rubbed me the wrong way. But then he starts his talk, and to boil it down, it was an encouragement to stay up on technology and to learn to use the internet. Since I work in an IT department and was there with my boss and coworkers, I was quite bored. It may have been a great high school commencement speech, and maybe some of the older sales folks in the audience got something out of it, but not us. Yawn.

People started to leave after Giuliani left, and I didn’t blame them. There was another infomercial by someone who was going to show us how to make money using the internet, but I have an ebay account and know how to sell stuff. I was out of there! They were having a drawing for $10,000, but you had to be present to win, and the drawing was at the very end, but I didn’t care. Let me out! It was worth $10,000 to go home. My boss stayed, and my ticket wasn’t drawn, so I felt even better.

It was an interesting day, and I thanked my boss for buying us tickets. Was I more motivated afterwards? Not really. But I learned a little and got to see several good speakers in one place for free. And I got a blog post out of it.