Passion and the vision

I was reading about the new Patti Smith autobiography, Just Kids, and was amazed at all the things this woman did in her life, not just the quantity of things, but even more so the variety of things. For those of you who weren’t around when Patti Smith was popular in the media, she is most famous, certainly to me anyway, as a musician. Her album Horses is on many of the “100 top rock albums” lists. But, in addition, she was a painter, a performance artist, an actress, and a writer. She even co-wrote a play with playwright Sam Shepard. She says, “I was born rebellious.”

When I read about someone like this, I wonder about my quiet little life. Do you ever have similar feelings, sort of amazement at what some people accomplish in their lives, and more than a twinge of jealousy?

It always makes me wonder why I am not like that. My first wife was certainly like that. At 21, after earning her bachelors degree, she started a drug rehab program with a group of nuns. After she got her MPH (Masters of Public Health), she started a home day care program for out-of-work women (welfare moms). I was always amazed, watching her, experiencing her passion and creativity, and, as usual, feeling more than a little jealous.

I was recently reading an article (http://tinyurl.com/ygyz3vl) about persons who do extreme sports, BASE jumping (parachuting off bridges and skyscrapers), hang gliding, rock climbing. Such people, according to the study, frequently have deficiencies of dopamine. This deficiency means they need more excitement than a “normal” person just to feel alive. The author labels such people Type T personalities.

Maybe those people envy my type of life, (there are downsides to being Type T), but I doubt it. I think they are too busy living their own lives. And, anyway, books aren’t written about us quiet people, and we aren’t seen on ESPN 2, so how would they even know about us?

But just because you don’t have a top rock album, and don’t BASE jump off of bridges, doesn’t mean you don’t have urgings, urgings to create something big, to do something special, to give your life more meaning.

You don’t need to have been born rebellious, like Patti Smith, and you don’t need to have an inadequate amount of endorphins like extreme athletes, to have a more meaningful, fuller life.

You just need to discover your purpose. Most of us (yes, I believe most of us – Patti Smith’s autobiography is so popular because her life is unusual, because she is unique) just need to dig a little bit deeper to discover our purpose. We have to work at it. But we can find it; it is there. There is no need for us mere mortals to settle for “just getting by.”

It is this “purpose” that I am referring to when I write and speak about the vision.

Once we discover our purpose, why we are here, the reason for our existence, our life gains so much more meaning. There is passion in our lives. We become filled with energy. But until we know what that purpose is, there is no way for us to fulfill it.

Vision is the first factor of self motivation, because it is the most important factor of the three. In my next posting, I will give some strategies on how you can discover your vision, your purpose for being here, so that you too can find passion in your life.

Do you nourish your brain with a good environment?

Napoleon Hill wrote, “We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted."

When I first read that quote, a couple of weeks ago, I immediately knew I wanted to use it in a blog about self motivation. In the self motivation model, environment is the third factor, along with vision and successability. One of the ways we increase our motivation is by working on our environment. We can mold our environment to enhance our motivation. So I copied the quote into a Word document along with other quotes that I have saved. As I sat down at my computer to write this posting, a couple of weeks later, I copied the quote into a clean document, reread the quote and couldn’t figure it out. I wrote right below it, “What the heck is a mental feeding ground?"

But as I reflected on the quote, it slowly started to make sense, and I could see why I had saved it. As I read it, Napoleon Hill is telling us that your environment is where you get your knowledge, your wisdom, your attitudes …… all the things that nourish your brain. So you better choose it carefully. If, for example, you surround yourself with people who are nay sayers, people who see nothing but the bad things, people who tell you your dreams are impossible, you will be nourishing your brain with these negative messages.

At first I wanted to write malnourish, but I think Napoleon Hill is right. Even though the results of this nourishment are bad, it will nourish your brain. Your brain will grow, just not in a very good way.

We always want to be aware of our social environment. We want to surround ourselves with smart people, with people who think we are special, with people who think they are special. We want to seek out people who will help us grow, people from whom we can learn the skills we need to manifest our vision.

What are some of the things that you need to manifest your vision? Are there skills you need? Do you need to find a person or group of people with whom you can safely share your dreams, and know they will not make fun of you? Do you need to find somewhere to learn those needed skills?

I’d like to share with you a strategy to help you make sure your environment is nourishing your brain in a positive, life affirming way. Take out a piece of paper and draw two lines, from the top to the bottom, dividing the paper into three equal columns. In the left most column, make a list of the things you need, emotional support, skill improvement, whatever you need to assure that you will be successful in manifesting your vision. In the middle column, next to each need, write down something already in your personal environment, or something that you can add to your personal environment, that will serve as a source for that need. In the right most column write down the steps you need to take to utilize that which is already in your environment, or that which you need to add to your environment.

And then go do it.

Your environment is going to nourish your brain, whether the food is healthy or not. Be intentional man or woman and make sure it is healthy.

Maybe sometimes we need to sweat the small stuff?

Everyone’s heard the saying, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Sometimes, however, we need to sweat the small stuff when it comes to our motivation. Things that seem small can often have a very powerful and negative impact on our motivation. These small seeming things are called distracters.

Back in January I wrote a post about a special kind of detractor, the distracter. As a little reminder, a detractor is anything that decreases your motivation, and a distracter is a special type of detractor, one that temporarily knocks you off course on your path to your vision. Many distracters are temptations or time wasters. So many of these distracters seem little things. For me, my main distracter is the television. How large a detractor can that be?

Distracters are deceiving, probably because they can be temporary. Tonight I can watch tv instead of doing my work, but that doesn't mean that tomorrow night I can't be ready to start working again on my life changing work.

But don’t be fooled by them. Yes, they are temporary, but that also means they are always there. Mostly distracters are the chronic detractors; you can never stop them permanently. TV will always be a temptation to me. As long as I pay the cable bill, I will have at my command hundreds of channels all waiting to entice me. It got so bad for me, that I put my main distracter on semi permanent hold. I no longer have a TV. No joke. But … to be honest, I am constantly considering getting a new one, a wide screen one, high def of course, once the book is published … as a reward. As if I will be better able to control my desire to watch too much TV after the book is published.

So even though they seem like small stuff, distracters for many of us are far more insidious than they would appear. Luckily there are strategies we can use to keep them in check, to minimize their negative impact on our motivation.

The first strategy is to get rid of the distracter, if you can. If you are a TV junkie like me this may be hard if you have a family that enjoys watching TV and you aren’t able to convince them that it takes away from family time, especially if they know that without TV you will be in your office working on your vision.

One strategy that can work for you if you aren’t able to get rid of the distracter is to keep your distracter in check by building the runway. This strategy works especially well with tasks that are less exciting than other tasks, even if they are no less important. The problem with less exciting tasks is that the inherent appeal of these less exciting tasks is less likely to overcome the temptation of your favorite distracter. The unexciting task just doesn’t motivate you to do the task!

Building the runway is built on the analogy of an airplane not being able to get off the ground unless there is a runway. Building a runway, even though it isn’t anywhere as exciting as flying an airplane, is necessary if we want to soar, and that’s what we want to do in manifesting our vision. By keeping in mind why we need to build the runway, the end result of our labor, we create the motivation to do this work. The key is make the task important to us; make the task a building block of our vision.

Distracters can stop you cold if you let them. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what your distracters are. The next step is to figure out how to neutralize them.

Some might feel my strategy of getting rid of my television was a bit too drastic. But I have seen the results. Since I got rid of it I have accomplished so much more on my vision. And I reward myself by going to the movies.

What is your "favorite" distracter? Please leave a comment telling me and other readers how you neutralize its impact on your motivation.

The Parable on Self Motivation

My favorite story from the bible is the parable of the sower. It tells of a farmer who goes out to the fields to sow his seeds. As he sowed, some of the seed fell on the wayside, and the birds ate it. Others fell into the weeds, and the weeds grew up around the young spouts and choked them. Some fell on a rock where there was no moisture so the seed withered away. Only the seed that fell on good, fertile soil yielded strong healthy plants.

There are many things I can learn from this parable, as from most parables, which is probably one reason why teachers, like Jesus, used parables to teach.

When I read it, I see the farmer as God, who gives each of us so many wonderful gifts, our seeds. Some of us are given musical talent, some athletic talent, others artistic talent, and others the ability to write. But just because we are given a gift doesn’t mean we have accepted it. Though some of us became aware of our gift early in our life, others of us never get in touch with it. If you aren’t aware of your gift, it’s hard to accept it. But even those who are aware of their gifts frequently reject them outright, or don’t take the steps they need to take to fully utilize their gifts.

It is these gifts that I referring to when I write and speak about the vision.

If we don’t know what our vision is, what gifts we have been given, what our potentials are, we need to discover them. Knowing why you are here will give your life so much more meaning. The vision quest will start you on that path of discovery.

The second thing I learn from this parable is that like those seeds I can only grow in the right environment. If I associate with people who have no interest in fulfilling their potential, nor in me fulfilling mine, I will be like those seeds that fall on the wayside and are eating by birds. If I work in a physical environment that detracts from my ability to manifest my vision, I will be like the seeds that fall onto the rock, where there was no moisture, and the seed withered away.

On the other hand, if I do things to make my environment positive, like surround myself with people who encourage me and who serve as positive role models for the path I have chosen, or take steps to learn skills I need to have to manifest as my vision, I will have guaranteed that my seeds have fallen on fertile soil and are growing into strong, healthy plants.

Here’s a short, simple prayer I use based upon this parable: God, make me fertile soil for the seeds of your overwhelming abundance.

Why not spend some time today thinking about the gifts that you have been given, and thinking of ways you can be fertile soil for these these wonderful seeds.

Dust yourself off and start all over again

In an earlier posting I wrote that the optimum level of risk is moderate risk, somewhere in between high risk and no risk. I told about the ball in the box game, how no-risk takers stand right on top of the box, and drop the balls in, whereas extreme-risk takers stand far away from the box before they throw the balls. The no-risk takers accomplish what they set out to do, but they accomplish very little. Dick Bass, the first man to climb to the top of the seven summits, the highest point of each continent, put it well, “What we achieve too easily we esteem too lightly.”

The high-risk takers, on the other hand, seldom get the balls in the box, and when they don’t, they point out how difficult it was. Their choices pretty much guarantee failure.

The moderate risk takers take reasoned risks, so when they do accomplish something, they can take pride in their accomplishment, and, flush with success, they are motivated to take on a new challenge.

However, moderate risk takers do fail. If they never failed, they would be no-risk takers. And just as success impacts your motivation, increasing it so you try new challenges, failure impacts motivation as well. Unfortunately, its impact is negative. Failure can make you not want to take on new challenges.

I used to be a prosecutor. I have experienced failures, they're called defense verdicts. When I lost a case, I wanted never to have to try another case again. However, it was my job, my income, so I would get back up on the horse and try another one. Quitting wasn’t an option.

When you are your own boss going after your vision, failure can make you gun shy and impact decisions you make; you may become tempted to become a no-risk taker. I believe Napoleon Hill had it right when he said, “Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That's exactly what the majority of men do.”

It’s certainly what automatic man does. Failure hurts and automatic man avoids pain. So it’s not the failure that causes the problem, it’s our response to it.

To help you deal with failure when it comes, here are four strategies intentional man uses instead of letting failure rob him of his motivation:

1. Understand that in order to move forward you need to put yourself in a position to fail.
2. Know that a mistake merely means an unwanted result, an opportunity for learning. Capitalize on your failures.
3. Pat yourself on the back; failure means you are pushing your limits.
4. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again.

Failure is a drag, there is no denying it. But failure, by itself, does not defeat a person. So long as the person gets up again, he is undefeated.

What do you do to pick yourself up after you've run into the proverbial brick wall? Why not post a comment and share your strategy with your fellow readers.

No man can walk down two paths

Successability, the second factor of self motivation, means confidence in your competence. The model for self motivation tells us that the more confident you are in your abilities, the more motivated you will be. There are two ways you can use this information to increase your motivation. The first is by doing things that will increase your confidence. The second is by not doing those things that decrease your confidence.

A great way for you to increase your confidence is by simply being successful, experiencing success. The expectancy value theory tells us a person will be motivated to undertake activities for which the person has a positive expectancy for success.

One thing that most people agree on is that if you spread yourself too thin, if you get involved in too many projects, you may have trouble being successful in any of them. This has been a lesson I have had to learn over and over again. Some might say I am easily distracted, but I prefer to see myself as simply curious, extremely curious. I am fascinated by so many different things. I actually pursue relatively few of them, but when I do pursue one, I take my pursuit seriously. My most recent pursuit was teaching myself options trading. Options trading is complicated. It’s also a dangerous pursuit if you haven’t educated yourself thoroughly. The most dangerous thing about it for me, however, was that I found teaching myself options trading took time away from what I knew I wanted as my primary pursuit, becoming the expert on self motivation.

Knowing what my primary pursuit is keeps me from squandering my time on other pursuits, and makes me more successful in my primary one. Guess how I know what my primary pursuit is? You’re right if you said it's my vision. My vision is what is most important to me. I very carefully and critically look at how I am spending my time. If I am spending time on pursuits that I need to spend on my vision, I need to get back on track.

I don’t mean to suggest that we all need to have one-track lives. My life should not be just about becoming the expert on self motivation. But becoming that expert has to be a priority in order for it to happen. So I spend some time on my photography, but I’ve stopped teaching myself options trading, I no longer study classical guitar, and no longer build stained glass windows.

I know myself well enough to know I will fall off the wagon again, and start on yet another fascinating pursuit. It’s who I am. But as intentional man, I also know I will eventually see the pursuit is taking up time that I need to spend on my vision. I worked hard to find my vision, and because it is my vision, I know it will motivate me to get back up on the wagon and start spending my time on my true path.

Do you find there are just too many fascinating things going on all the time? How do you keep focused on your true path? Please share with me and the other readers what you do to keep going on your path, by leaving a comment.

How can I become inspired?

In my last blog post I urged you to pay attention to your inspiration. When it comes it is a gift, I wrote, so don’t leave it on the table.

In response to that posting I heard the question, “But I don’t get inspired, at least not nearly enough … hardly ever. Is there something I can do to increase my inspiration?”

What’s funny is that I just happened to be reading an e-book that relates somewhat to this very question. The book is The Inspired Eye: Notes on Creativity for Photographers, by David duChemin. It’s a quick read, like all of his books (I have several) and is available for download at his website: http://www.craftandvision.com/

Mr. duChemin writes photography books and this book focuses on creativity and inspiration in photography. But what he says about inspiration is applicable to inspiration in all aspects of our lives. After reading his book, and spending some time thinking about inspiration, I came up with a couple of strategies you can use to increase your inspiration. You can make inspiration happen. In that way it’s sort of like motivation. You are in control. The way you make inspiration happen is to lay the ground work for it to appear. And then all you have to do is be open to it.

The first strategy is based on the truism that creativity springs from work, and not the other way. duChemin says if you want to be inspired photographically, you’ve got to be doing photography; the work brings forth the inspiration. In photography that means taking pictures, lots of pictures. It also means looking at the photos afterwards and learning from your work. It means being critical, not just downloading your photos into your computer and putting your camera away. As for me, I like writing speeches. I do it all the time. The more I do it, the more inspired I get.

The second strategy is to increase your knowledge of your topic. In photography that means first of all you need to know your equipment. With digital this is getting harder all the time. I have three books just on the topic of how my camera, a low end Nikon digital SLR (D40), works. (Things were a lot easier back in the 70’s when I used a Rolleiflex that didn’t even have a built in light meter.) Increasing your knowledge in photography also means, for example, knowing the rules of composition, and studying the masters. What ever your topic is, there is learning you can do. Look into your social environment and see what sources of knowledge there are and then follow up.

The third strategy is to get involved in your subject. The more you are involved with a subject, the bigger a part of your life it is, the more likely you are to get inspired in that subject. If you really want to be inspired, you need to totally immerse yourself in the subject. As you can imagine, I spend lots of time thinking about motivation, and I find that the more I think about it, and write about it, and read about it, and study it, the more frequently I am inspired. Make your physical environment reflect this immersion. In my physical environment I surround myself with representations of me as a speaker. I have all my Toastmaster trophies and ribbons on a shelf above my desk. I have a photo of me in my blue suit at a podium. You can also use your social environment to increase your immersion. If your subject is photography, join a photography club and surround yourself with like minded people. I do that with speaking. I belong to not one, but two Toastmasters clubs.

By using these simple strategies you can make inspiration occur. And when it does, make sure you grab hold of it and don’t let it go. Inspiration will motivate you like few things will. It’s a real gift.

Be open to inspiration

Our focus when we apply the self motivation model is to increase the motivational impact of one of the three factors of motivation: vision, successability and environment. There are many ways to do this. Before I tell you about a strategy that is one of my favorites, let me encourage you to be an active participant in this process. As you become more aware of who you are and what motivates you, you will be creating your own strategies. You will come up with strategies that are super effective, that will turbo boost your motivation. As I discuss different strategies in this blog, always be thinking of ways you can modify the strategies, fine tune them, so they are more powerful for you.

The strategy I want to share with you today I call be open to inspiration. When you are open to the inspiration in your life it can impact any of the three factors. It might be an insight as to who you really are, and result in you making your vision more precise. You might be inspired as to how you can be more effective in the work you perform toward your vision, thereby increasing your successability, your confidence in your competence. Or it might be some way to change your environment, so it enhances your work in some way.

Inspiration means different things to different people, although the more I think about inspiration I’m convinced we are actually talking about the same thing; what differs among people is what we think the source of the inspiration is, where the inspiration comes from. Some people think the inspiration comes from the deep recesses of your brain. Others believe it comes from the universal mind, or higher consciousness. Others believe it is God speaking to them.

Whatever source you believe in , inspiration is generally perceived as an intuition or idea that just suddenly appears. It will often be a very creative idea, and it may be a solution to a problem you have been trying to solve for a while.

Sometimes inspiration will come with a loud announcement; the light bulb will go on and there is no way you could miss it. But just as often it will settle into your mind quietly, and if you don’t stop and appreciate it, you might just miss some idea that could really turn around your life.

Inspiration can strike at any time, in the middle of a traffic jam, while you are cooking dinner, or maybe even while taking a shower.

My inspiration frequently comes to me in the middle of the night, usually somewhere between 3 and 4 AM, when all I really want is to be asleep. When I was younger if inspiration struck at this time, I’d tell myself, “Hey, that’s a great idea. What a solution.” And then I’d roll over and go back to sleep. The next morning, or maybe the next evening when I was finally able to sit down to my computer to start on my work, the wonderful idea was just a hazy memory, usually very hazy.

After too many of these wonderful ideas were effectively rejected by me, because I considered sleep just too darn important, I realized I was throwing away some great stuff, so I put a pad of paper and a pen on the table by the side of my bed, and started writing stuff down. Sometimes I even get up, go over to my home office, start up the computer and spend 20 minutes getting it all down. Once I have emptied my mind through the key board, I am usually able to go right back to sleep. I’ve never regretted taking the time to write it down.

The strategy is simple, but powerful. When you become aware of that quiet small voice talking to you, take heed. It’s a gift. Don’t leave it under the tree.

I woke up Monday morning in a funk

I woke up Monday morning in a funk. I just wasn't in the mood to do all the stuff I knew I needed to do. Maybe it was because I’d had a great weekend, having fun. I’d spent Saturday taking photos at the Mag Lab Open House (Tallahassee houses the world’s most powerful magnet and once a year the public is invited in and the kids are entertained and taught at the same time.) Saturday night I edited the photos and discovered I’d gotten some great shots. (I need to remember to put some on my Flickr account - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobprentiss, if you’re interested). Sunday evening I’d had a nice dinner with my brother who brought along his daughter and her husband who are visiting him from Buffalo.

So why was the Master of Self Motivation simply not motivated? Darned if I know. I guess I was due for it. But you know what? I doesn’t matter where it comes from, that’s history. What matters is what you do with it. That’s now.

When I am in a funk, and just happen at the same time to be in automatic man mode, my tendency is to sort of enjoy the funk. Do you ever get in that place, the “woe is me” place? I’m not sure why it can be so attractive. Perhaps because it allows us to give up responsibility.

After studying and writing about self motivation for so long, you’d think I would have eliminated my automatic man. Unfortunately, it’s not true. I go automatic just as much as anyone else. The difference is that now I usually catch myself more quickly than I used to. And when I catch myself going automatic, I take steps to increase my motivation and quickly pull myself out of that space.

My favorite strategy for getting out of a place of low motivation is to revisit my vision. This strategy comes from the Resonance Performance Model I shared with you in an earlier blog posting on motivation in sports. You can use this strategy when you are feeling unmotivated, feeling unconnected to your vision, or when you have run head on into a road block and need to get off the ground and get moving again.

I revisit my vision by reading it aloud, which is why I have it posted above my desk, and by envisioning what my life will be like after I have manifested as my vision. I try to get in touch with how it will feel when I have reached that place. I make that image as real as I can.

In an essay recently printed in Michael Masterson’s Early to Rise newsletter, best selling author Harvey Mackay quotes Woodrow Wilson, "You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forgot the errand."

When I read that, and thought about my vision, I couldn’t help but get charged up, and think about the important reason I am here, to enrich the world by teaching people how to motivate themselves so they can achieve all their dreams.

So don't wait to get in touch with your vision. It's a great motivator.