We listened to a motivational speaker/ stock market maven for eight hours this past Saturday. I learned enough about “trailing stop losses” and “covered calls” through the day to keep my butt squished into a sardine-stacker chair in an overheated, windowless ballroom with 400 of my new best friends as we dutifully answered questions like, “How many of you wish you hadn’t lost most of your 401(k) last year?” Man, in hindsight—meaning looking backwards through the lens of my sore tush—I really must have needed those scraps of investing information that squeaked through the motivational fog.

The speaker was your classic energy-in-a-bun. He was mildly entertaining and possibly even well-versed in his subject matter. This last quality remains a mystery, since his prime directive was, apparently, to positively shift our collective certainty that we did not think we could do what he was not quite getting around to teaching us. His relentless pursuit of this goal was impressive. What was not impressive was the depth of content covered and his lack of originality in attempting humor.

How many of you  have heard the following “lines” from the stage? (Hands up, everybody!! I need you to stay interactive here! You only get out of this what you put in to it!)

* I was in the half of the class that made the top half possible.

* Is having more money better than having less? Yes or yes?

* [regarding a bathroom break]… at least this time I remembered to turn off my microphone.

* [someone in the audience sneezed] Bless you. Did I tell you about my uncle who died from a sneeze? He was in the closet of another man’s apartment.

I was just grateful we were spared the “… like herding cats” and “Cross your arms. Now cross them the other way. How does that feel? Yes, change is uncomfortable.”

Okay, so this sounds a little cranky perhaps, but please, cut me some slack. While the portfolio is now lightly polished (decent ROI on the day), my rump is still in recovery.