Last week I went to a motivational seminar (www.getmotivated.com). I wasn’t seeking anything out, but a friend offered me a ticket, the speakers sounded interesting, and who couldn’t use a little kick in the pants some days. I think I kind of expected the seminar to have somebody like Stuart Smalley standing on the stage telling me that I was somebody, but it wasn’t quite what I expected.
The speakers mostly talked about how to become a better leader of people, but some of it was aimed at bettering yourself or your wealth. Here’s a snippit of what I heard.
The first presenter was Rick Belluzzo “Legendary President of Microsoft”. Rick was also a leader at Hewlett Packard, though I forget his title there. His main points were that as a leader, you should be “Hard-headed and soft-hearted” (My translation of that is be true to your cause, but be sensitive about how your actions affect other people.), and you should “Believe in yourself, and make yourself invaluable.” Sounds pretty reasonable.
The second speaker was Michael Phelps “14-time Olympic Gold Medalist”. I thought he was an odd choice at first because he’s not much of a speaker, but he really is a great example of self-motivation. I did actually get a few good points from him.
• Start with a plan
• Admit mistakes, learn from them and move on.
• Repetition is the best form of learning.
• How you approach work on days when you don’t want to, defines greatness. (I quite like that one)
Our third speaker was General Colin Powell “World Famous Soldier-Statesman”. He was easily the highlight of our afternoon. Whatever preconceptions I had about a stodgy old military man were soon quashed by this extremely engaging and eloquent man. He told stories about his time as Secretary of State, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as National Security Advisor. One amusing story of his came as National Security Advisor when he found himself at a table with Mikhail Gorbachev. Up to this point, Colin Powell had basically spent his entire military career trying to keep the Russians at bay, so imagine his chagrin when Gorbachev told him, “Mr. Powell, you’re going to have to find a new enemy.” (I’m sure it was better when he told it).
General Powell would really have liked the YETI note system we have at my office. He himself often wrote little post-it notes to his people just because he knew how much it would mean to them to hear from him how much they were appreciated. A couple of the points he brought up were:
• You need to build trust within your organization
• Great leaders often have to make changes
Our fourth presenter was Zig Ziglar “America’s #1 Motivator”. Zig has been doing this kind of thing for 50 years and is really quite a motivator and enjoyable person to listen to. Some points from his presentation include:
• Live without worry.
• What money won’t buy, is more important than what money will buy.
• If you can do better, do better.
• You can have everything in life that you want, if you help everyone else get what they want.
Our fifth presenter was a financial investor named Phil Town. Essentially he was there to tell you how to beat the stock market. All you have to do is purchase his software program. I won’t go into that, and you should probably look closely at things that seem to good to be true.
Our sixth presenter, after a rousing rendition of God Bless America, was Condoleezza Rice “Former Secretary of State”. Condy had some interesting stories about her upbringing and being Secretary of State, all while expressing her continuing belief in America and the eternal optimism of its people. She strongly believes in The Essential American Myth, that “It doesn’t matter where you come from, it matters where you are going.”
The seventh presenter was one of the people responsible for putting on the seminar, Tamara Lowe “Top Sales Training Expert”. She shared her rags to riches story with us and a little too much religious expounding, but she did have some interesting points on how different people are motivated differently, so you need to find out more about people in order to motivate them properly.
There were a couple more presenters after this, but to be honest, at this point we were pretty motivated by not getting caught up in horrendous traffic, so we left a little early. I enjoyed most of the presentations and think that a lot can be gained from going to seminars like this, but I’d warn everyone to listen and think before bringing out their credit cards.
Now get back to work.
