Faculty development program

We have a faculty development program every year. The college feels we must be improved.
In these programs, we have talks by people, who tell us "you must have positive thinking", "there is nothing you cannot achieve if you put your mind to it" and so on, with cute stories of how someone with determination achieved something great . Then they give us a power point with those chain mail type stuff which have lovely pictures with such uplifting messages.
I am well into my middle age and have lived through the usual joys and sorrows that people go through -- such talks annoy me tremendously.
Any person who talks to adults should have something more than bright messages.
What I would have found useful is some real life experience that the person may have had in handling teaching challenges..not preachy ppts....how to achieve the two mutually exclusive objectives of getting students to score in exams as well as learn the subject.
If someone could tell me how I can get students to read something, to discuss some chemistry in class, or even discuss a book they have read, I would be truly grateful.
People who do not realise that life is not some programmed sequential affair, who do not realise that our working hard or thinking positively isn't enough for something to happen, who don't understand that life is complex, have no right to talk down to me as if I was 12 years old.