Motivational Speeches

Today, my summer internship went to a motivational speaking event at the local arena.  I feel like everyone's seen these advertised-- a bunch of famous people get together and talk about... I think it's supposed to be success, but really it ends up being whatever they feel like.  This one had a pretty interesting mix of people- ex-Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, Fox NFL broadcaster (and former Steelers QB) Terry Bradshaw, Kansas basketball coach Bill Self, Forbes magazine owner Steve Forbes, Bill Cosby, and a bunch of people I'd never heard of.

Pretty quickly, I figured out that, at events like this, speakers fall into two categories-- people who want to make the audience laugh, and people who want to sell the audience something.  The first category is infinitely better than the second.  Lou Holtz was surprisingly funny.  He and Terry Bradshaw spent their time talking about how stupid they were.  Holtz talked about how much he loved his wife.  Bradshaw talked about how much he loved his mom.  Bradshaw also spent a lot of time talking about how much gas his center had during games.  And he did pretty great impressions of Franco Harris and John Stallworth.  Bill Cosby was also funny, if you like Bill Cosby.

But people who hawk ways to get rich suck.  Steve Forbes wasn't selling anything, per se, but he was telling everyone to buy gold, complaining about the Fed, and generally showing that he has no clue what he's talking about.  The guy's Dad handed him a cash cow.  He'd be better off shutting up and sitting by his pool.  Then there were a couple of guys hawking market research software.  One was selling a class to figure out how to sell covered calls.  Snooze.  The other guy was selling a class to... figure out how to buy rental properties.  That business is a winner these days.  I'm not one of the "markets are perfectly efficient" crowd, but... you're not going to consistently beat the market with a two-day class and a $99 piece of software.  Sure, you COULD get rich doing it.  You also COULD win the lottery.  I feel bad for the people who hear these pitches, pay for these classes, waste two days at them, and then waste some more money trying to beat the market.

I guess the conclusion is motivational speaking seminars are worth it for the cheap, pretty funny stand-up routines half of the speakers do.