The Personality of the Motivator

Here's a bit more from Bringing Out the Best in People on how to keep your candle lit when everyone's trying to blow it out.

The Personality of the Motivator

To be a successful leader of people requires only two things: (1) an astute knowledge of what makes people tick; and (2) a spirit that spreads excitement and energy to other people.

1. Independent: spend time alone every day to regroup, reflect, and refresh.

2. Be a Dreamer: Think and act in a bold fashion. Set goals far out front of the group. Goeth said, "Whatever you dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." Be unafraid and unashamed to dream like a child. Think big. Be fearless.

3. Speak what you want: No great achievement has ever occurred without some one person taking the risk of propounding an idea at which others might have laughed. Motivators use always use words lavishly and intensely as they outline their dreams to propspective supporters. Speak your dreams. Speak them with enthusiasm...You can gain a considerable following if you are willing to relate your message to enough people and not be deterred by the large numbers who will not buy it. Instead, you pick up your idea and present it to the next prospect. Eventually, with enough presentations to enough people, a few people become enthusiastic, they join the parade, one by one, and soon a movement is on its way.

4. Defy Criticism: face forward and get through it.

5. Be Entusiastic: essence of charisma. Enthusiasm is contageous and you cannot get a group of people fired up unless you are enthusiastic yourself. This does not mean happy all the time. The great leaders get happy at times and angry at others. Do it with enthusiasm...You have to have a powerful commitment to your goals and your group. You must be able to keep goign when others get fainthearted, to throw away the clock until the job is done.


Self-Renewal for the Motivator

1. Associate with successful, positive people. In some cases you may need to distance yourself somewhat from pessimistic people who pull you down. At least you must be certain to spend considerable time with individuals who inspirre you, people who will stimulate your thinking, restore your vision, and stretch your capacity for dreaming. "If you are determined to be successful," says Patricia Fripp, "it is very important to associate with success-oriented people."

2. Monitor carefully the ideas entering your mind, for as the computer people say, "garbage in, garbage out." If you become what you think, and if you feed a constant stream of junk and trivia into your brain, you are unlikely to be the strong persuader you want to be. you may need to turn off the TV, watch less news, and instead read the great books, or mull ove rthe powerful ideas of the Bible...

3. Take advantage of the wealth of information now available on inexpensive audio cassettes. The wonderful thing about tapes is that in listening to them we get not only the ideas of great people but it is the next best thing to being with them in person - by listening to their voices we have a chance to make contact with their personalities, with their energy and enthusiasm. So rather than letting the radio's stream of nonsense occupy your driving hours or the time when you are waiting, listen to tapes of inspiring and successful people whose stories will elevate your moods. According to a study made in the University of Sourthern California, if you live in a metropolitan area and drive 12,000 miles each year, in three years' time you can acquire the equivalent of two years of college lectures.

4. Attend classes and seminars. It is worth a few hundred miles of travel and a few hundred dollars to audit courses taught by bright people where you can associate with other highly motivated persons. The seminar circuit today is the equivalent of the medieval traveling university, and it is possible to get an excellent education there.

5. Keep a ournal in which you write down goals and a record of your spiritual journey. A good journal is quite different from a diary. You are not wirting down events that happened outside you during the day -- rather you are observing and recording the movements of your soul. If this is done consistently, positive dreams and objectives are certain to arise from the unconscious.

In the end, the ability to give inspiring leadership is an inner quality of spirit; it requires people who, to use Emerson's noble phrase, "live from a great depth of being." And such spirituality does not come upon us suddenly. It accrues gradually from persistent study and regular cultivation.