Time to get motivated.

or something.

I attended the "get motivated" business seminar today. I had been out of the office sick Mon and Tue. When I got into work at 6AM this morning, I found out in my email I had been approved to attend while I was out. Fabulous. Now, all I needed was a ticket. Of course, our secretary nor my boss were in yet. And, they of course had possession of said ticket. So I waited until 7 AM, which is when the doors opened at the Von Braun Center. Still no one.

I scurried downstairs to our training coordinator's office and explained the situation. She understood and reached into her desk and pulled out a stack of tickets bound with a rubber band. She pulled one out and handed it to me, and said "I have a few of these Platinum seats left. Take one of these." I gave my thanks and scurried out the door, not realizing exactly what I was holding in my hand at the time.

On the radio, reports were traffic was insane and they were expecting 15,000 people to show up. Of course, this area is know for major event traffic malfunctions, and they were encouraging everyone to park at the baseball stadium and ride the chartered busses to the convention hall. I complied.

Upon arrival, yes things were a big cluster. After riding standing up, on a sit down only bus, I was directed into the south hall area. While briskly walking to the hall, I was bombarded by people selling stuff. Of course, my main concern was going to be lunch. I did not get a chance to eat breakfast at work like normal (and I hadn't had my morning cup of hot tea either, so I was a little cranky). One of the vendor's was Ruth's Chris steakhouse offering a $15 lunch buffet. The menu listed BBQ and chicken. Those are 2 of my favorites so I was in on that. Later, I thought, RC is a steakhouse... why serving BBQ and Chicken?

I entered the hall and was bombarded by a sea of people. I approached one of the dozens of tables with colorful looking magazines and proceeded to pick one up and the girl behind it asked to see my voucher. Of course, I didn't have a voucher, all I had was my ticket stub. She then explained the colorful books were $20 if the company didn't pre-order them. I obviously passed on that after paying $5 for parking and $15 for lunch.

I meandered towards the front of the hall, assuming my "Platinum" ticket was more valuable then the "Premier" labels I was seeing on the seats at the back of the hall. As I walked down the narrow isles I started seeing people I knew. Lots of familiar faces. After chatting, I continued my walk and got to the "Executive" section. I thought, Executive sounds pretty important, but where does Platinum fit into all this? I walked up a little further and saw "V.I.P". Now I was really beginning to wonder where the freak my seats were. (remember, cranky from no breakfast and no hot tea).

I walked about 300 feet over to the side and found someone who appeared to have a badge on and asked, "Where is the Platinum seating?" The nice gentleman informed me that it was in the area where the black (and very cushy) seats were located up by the stage. Wow! My Platinum ticket, and fortune of being out sick for 2 days had landed me a spot in the front row... with a bunch of suits... with me wearing blue jeans, a stylish V-neck sweater, and tennis shoes. What?

I took my seat and then realized that there were about 5 video cameras and they were filming. One of the B-roll guys and his gaffe were working right in front of me. As a result, about every time I looked over, the camera was pointed in my general direction. So, I'm guessing there wasa lot of b-roll footage taken of me. Look for me on a "Get MOtivated" DVD coming to a shelf near you!

Overall the speakers were good. Although, to me it seemed like more of a "buy our program" thing in general. A lot of the life stories were intereseting, but the actual material was just about what you would get in any management course in college, of which I've had my share.

About the only thing I got out of it was from Phil Town who talked about Personal Finance and doing Covered Calls, options, for making money with large returns. I've been researching it all day. Once we get the house paid for, I will probably look into doing it with some of the extra money we'll have... after all other financial obligations are taken care of.