When I was at school we were taught that there were three keys to success: IQ, qualifications and work experience. Now we know that these might get you through the door but they won’t take you up the ladder. They’re not even always necessary to get you through the door. Many top CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies don’t have a higher qualification (Richard Branson), some are drop-outs (Bill Gates), most are not geniuses and they often arrive from the outside with no experience of that particular company or even industry.

The Key to Success

Research into success at Harvard University by Dr Albert Rhotenburg set out to find the star performers not just in business but also in sport, art and science. Rhotenburg checked IQ, qualifications, experience race, culture, inheritance and social background. The only factor he consistently found in all the star performers was motivation. All the talent in the world means nothing if you’re not motivated to do anything with it.

So what exactly is motivation? Dictionary definition: Motivation is an emotion that produces action. Emotion comes from the Latin meaning: ‘to move’. If you’ve got no emotion, you’ve got no motion, you’re not going anywhere. The problem with motivation is that it’s like a warm mug of tea, it goes cold quickly. I’m sometimes called a motivational speaker but if all I do is motivate my audiences for five minutes, that’s not worth very much. The key is self-motivation. Can you motivate yourself when you’re not feeling so motivated? To do that you need to understand what drives motivation.

Pain and pleasure

Human beings are motivated by one of only two things: pain and pleasure. We are motivated to reduce pain and increase pleasure. If you want to lose weight the reasons may be to avoid that feeling of sluggishness and low energy, and perhaps a heart attack, in a word – pain. Other reasons may be to improve your health, become more attractive or gain energy, to increase, in a word – pleasure. Why do most people give up on their health goals? Because they’re focussing on the immediate pain of exercise and unfamiliar food instead of the long-term pleasure of a healthy new body. Why do we give up on our wealth goals? Because we’re focussed on the pain of reducing our spending rather than the pleasure of getting out of debt and building wealth.

 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” So says Proverbs. If you have no vision of a pleasurable future you won’t sow the seeds of success today. That’s why clear goals are so important; they motivate us to take present action for future reward. From this it may seem that all motivation is external: “if I do this than I get that.” But we also need to be intrinsically motivated. If you only go to work for a salary you’re not going to be happy or very effective. Part of intrinsic motivation is being driven by a higher purpose.

Missionary or Mercenary

Mercenary’s are only motivated by money, as a consequence they try to do as little as possible and take as much as they can – a sure formula for failure in a world where the best way to get is to give. If you’re not giving much you’re not going to get much.

No one wants to support, promote, serve or be served by a taker. In contrast, missionaries are motivated by purpose and so they give as much as they can. If you don’t want to be a missionary because you don’t like people, be a missionary because you like yourself. The best way to get more is to give more. But I suspect at heart everyone wants to be a missionary. It’s more fun. As MarkTwain said: “the best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up.” Serve a higher purpose. That’s the way to motivate both you and them.

“Justin is much more than a motivational speaker. He is informative and provides practical suggestions that go beyond short-term motivational hype.” Maxine Van Der Vyver, Senior Advertising Manager, Media 24 

Watch Justin Speak on Motivation

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