Future seminars include Get Smart! and Get Lost!
UMEROUS audience members attending a recent speech given by former president George W. Bush for a Get Motivated! seminar in Fort Worth, Texas, found themselves so inspired by motivational zeal that they simply got up and left in mid speech.
Janie Leonard, who attended Mr. Bush's talk "because I hoped he would inspire me to do great things," said she felt the urge to exit soon after the ex-president's "second lame baseball joke."
Explained Ms. Leonard, "I felt that Mr. Bush was trying to motivate me to leave, to get up and do something, not tomorrow, but right now! Knowing that his audience would only squirm as he stood up there mumbling and rolling on his toes, he still kept on being dull and boring. That is just so motivating!"
Other audience members appeared to concur, as they began shuffling out of the auditorium, motivated to do things like get more coffee, or, as one attendee put it, "go to the bathroom and then get the hell out this convention hall now. Life's way too short, dude."
But had the early exiters felt they got their money's worth?
"Oh, I definitely did," Ms. Leonard insisted. "I mean, I now know that I was put on this earth to do something meaningful. Mr. Bush clearly knows he doesn't need to be interesting. He's a man of action! He is challenging me to reach or exceed his accomplishments. Can I start a war that's still going on almost seven years later? Wow! Can I try my level best to destroy Social Security? Maybe not, but these are touchstones that can inspire me!"
Ms. Leonard says new ideas are "just swirling through my head at light speed," and that all she needs now is some venture capital to get one or two projects off the ground.
"I think Mr. Bush may be speaking at an upcoming Get Invested! seminar, so I'm signing up pronto!" said a motivated Ms. Leonard.
The former president has indeed been asked by the Get Invested! group to fill a slot on the agenda left open by one Bernard Madoff, who has departed the world of finance for a career in the flourishing field of corrections.
© 10.26.09 Kate Heidel
