a new and better me
Jun. 28th, 2005 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swingchickiewent today with a bunch of co-workers to an all-day business seminar in the city. it was huge -- thousands and thousands of people packed the fleet center to listen to (and hopefully learn from) some of the country's most renowned motivational speakers. i went there hopeful, expecting to glean all this business acumen from the experts, anticipating the difference this was going to make in my work life and personal/financial life as well.
i came out of there so disappointed. there wasn't really any concrete information any of the speakers gave to us... it was just a roster of people telling disjointed anecdotes. half the speakers, like zig ziegler, talked a lot about god and how finding god helped them to be successful... and i'm sorry, but i'm not religious, so i just tuned out. the other half of the group was there to sell stuff... their entire speeches were a thinly veiled attempt to sell their books, or motivational CDs... in the case of the financial guru, he talked for an hour about buying and selling stocks through this really helpful website, then dropped it on everyone that in order to get a password, you had to sign up for a $1000 course and then pay $600 a year in site subscription fees. dammit. in between lectures, there were all these performers singing about god and country. it just seemed too much like a sunday morning evangelical telecast, and really creeped me out.
the only person whose talk i enjoyed was rudy giuliani... and that was mostly because of who he was. although he did give an interesting anecdote, that more executives should take to heart. he was told by his father a long time ago, that weddings are optional and funerals are mandatory... meaning, you should always go to a funeral, because that's when people need you the most. in the business world, especially in my business, that's sorely lacking... when problems arise, upper management is usually silent... when what they should be doing is reaching out to their employees, making themselves available, so the employees feel less alone.
so, one pearl out of an entire days' worth of sitting in an arena. eh.
i came out of there so disappointed. there wasn't really any concrete information any of the speakers gave to us... it was just a roster of people telling disjointed anecdotes. half the speakers, like zig ziegler, talked a lot about god and how finding god helped them to be successful... and i'm sorry, but i'm not religious, so i just tuned out. the other half of the group was there to sell stuff... their entire speeches were a thinly veiled attempt to sell their books, or motivational CDs... in the case of the financial guru, he talked for an hour about buying and selling stocks through this really helpful website, then dropped it on everyone that in order to get a password, you had to sign up for a $1000 course and then pay $600 a year in site subscription fees. dammit. in between lectures, there were all these performers singing about god and country. it just seemed too much like a sunday morning evangelical telecast, and really creeped me out.
the only person whose talk i enjoyed was rudy giuliani... and that was mostly because of who he was. although he did give an interesting anecdote, that more executives should take to heart. he was told by his father a long time ago, that weddings are optional and funerals are mandatory... meaning, you should always go to a funeral, because that's when people need you the most. in the business world, especially in my business, that's sorely lacking... when problems arise, upper management is usually silent... when what they should be doing is reaching out to their employees, making themselves available, so the employees feel less alone.
so, one pearl out of an entire days' worth of sitting in an arena. eh.
