How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People

I thought I could let this go, but that just wouldn't be me.

Ever since I was a kid, my mom has made me listen to her motivational business/self development tapes. I dreaded them. In fact, I finally learned how to tune them out. Now, all these years later, I spent over 40 minutes listening to a self-proclaimed "success story" who obviously never had a mom like mine.

From the moment this speaker took to the stage, I was turned off. He yelled... a lot. He spoke so fast, we could hardly understand his words. We were told he had a 30 minute limit... pretty much our entire table was turned off by him, so one member actually set a timer on his cell phone. Others at the table took to playing tic tac toe on their programs; others made jokes about his presentation. When the guy would make a joke, we noticed that no one on our side of the room was laughing; it seemed the only people who were doing it were the ones in front that probably did it out of respect. Honestly, had I not cared so much for the award nominees, I would have left. The guy kept on with his screaming; it reminded me so much of Sister Arlene back at St. Vincent's screaming at us in trig class. It seemed this guy was never going to stop, and when he began making his way towards our table, one of the guys grabbed a knife as if trying to protect himself. Several members at our table complained of elevated blood pressure, I myself felt like I had a constant ringing in my ears. But eventually, it stopped, way past the end of our cell phone countdown.

The night ended, and as everyone was filing out, I noticed not a single person stopped at this guy's booth to talk to him. I guess most everyone had had enough. I heard lots of comments in the parking lot... "that was nothing new," "of course you have to put people first, who does he think we are?", "I can't believe the Chamber paid for THAT," and my favorite, "why would anyone bring a 7 am speaker to a 7 pm function?"

Overall, it seems this speaker should stick to writing books. He claims a lot of success for motivating his team to the top sales position in the country for a network affiliate. I honestly have no idea how that is, other than they just don't want him yelling at them.