Back in October of last year, I went to the Get Motivated! touring seminar when it came to Nashville. It was dirt cheap — almost free — probably paid for by the expensive workbook for notetaking, which is filled with inspirational feel-good stories to get you motivated. Our whole office went (all six of us for like $19) and took the entire day to go hear some really good speakers, including such luminaries as Zig Ziglar, Colin Powell, Pat Summit, Bruce Pearl, and Rudy Giuliani.

And luminous and insightful those speakers were. I really enjoyed listening to them, and got a lot out of it. It was nice to get a day out of the office, too. But there was one problem: in between the good, meaty, inspirational talks, there were talks that basically amounted to live infomercials, slick sales pitches disguised as actual content. The first one or two were convincing until they got to the end with a slick sales pitch and you realized you were being played. Some were pretty ridiculous. There was a guy who was selling some website thingamajg that he called “wham-o” that can make you — yes, YOU! — a million dollars. Without doing ANY WORK! (Last I recall, Wham-O is the toymaker that brings us such hits as Slip-N-Slide) Yeah, we got a good laugh out of that one. And then there was Phil Town’s day-trading scheme with the silly green and red arrows, which, as I’ve dug around a little bit, turns out to be something of a scam.

Honestly, the slick sales pitches ruined the whole thing for me.

My boss said afterward that he would’ve rather paid more to hear just the headlining speakers and no sales pitches. I couldn’t agree more. Of course, the sales pitches (and resulting sales) are probably how Peter and Tamara Lowe get paid to run the whole circus, in addition to the expensive souvenir workbook. (Here’s some more in-depth information about the Get Motivated seminar in D.C. Best quote from this review: “My Rule #1 of financial advice is: Don’t hand your credit card to people who tell you the stock market is easy.”)

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed it. I got a lot out of it. I was motivated, but probably not in the way Peter and Tamara intended. I was inspired to not be some slick, shallow salesman. Ever. If I was motivated to do anything, it was to be authentic.

Now if you’re going to be slick, back it up with something substantial. Apple is pretty slick, but I feel like there’s something there beneath the shiny, pretty, well-marketed exterior of their products. (Apple is perhaps a bit overpriced, but that’s beside the point.) It feels like there’s actual quality involved. There’s always a case for good design, pretty stuff. But don’t make something pretty just for the sake of making it pretty. Don’t even try hucksterism.

In short, I don’t want to be slick without having substance. I’ve always said that style without content is dead. Otherwise, you’re just fluff: flimsy, insubstantial, and wholly not-filling. In other words, junk.