Have you ever wondered how you can motivate yourself, or someone around you?
As a professional speaker, I’m often asked to ‘motivate’ the audience. As a trainer and sales authority, I’m often asked to give my clients ideas on how they can motivate a sales force. In the circles in which I run, ‘motivation’ is a big deal. Evidently, it is in short supply.
I’ll often reply that I can’t motivate anyone. I can only help tap into and unleash the motivation that is already there. In other words, if there is nothing that you want to achieve, nothing that you want to acquire, nothing that you want to become over and above what you have and are today, then attempts by those around you to motivate you will be failures. There is no motivation inside you to unleash. The status quo is perfectly acceptable.
On the other hand, all the successful people I have known have one thing in common. They have all shared the mindset that I call More. A mindset is a group of beliefs that are so deep and firmly held that they are the source of many of our thoughts. Those thoughts kindle our behavior, influencing almost everything we do. Our mindset shapes the way we see the world, and therefore, the way we do our jobs.
More is my name for a specific set of beliefs about the world and ourselves – a mindset. People who have the More mindset believe that there is more to life than just this. There is more that we can do, more that we can become. There is more to our jobs than where we are at today. There is more challenge, more to achieve. There are more customers, more sales, more of everything.
Not only do they believe that there is more, but they hold to an ethic, that requires them to seek to attain more. They strive to do more, be more and have more because they believe that they can and they should. This fundamental mindset is a characteristic of every great achiever, whether they be a salesperson or a social worker, a politician or a preacher, a mother or a martyr.
Don’t get this mindset mixed up with greed, which focuses on the accumulation of more and more money. The more mindset is not so trivial. It is focused on attaining a greater degree of human potential. In the case of sales people, one portion of that human potential is measured by money. But that money is incidental to the drive for more. Some high achieving salespeople are salaried, compensated in such a way that their sales achievements do not directly impact their income. Some are still high achieving, more motivated people.
The more mindset concerns itself with not only doing more and having more, but also in becoming more than we are now. When we are imbued with the more mindset, we can never settle with the status quo. We know we can be better than we are, and we can achieve more than we do.
More is an approach to life.
More provides the energy that drives the changes we will need to make if we want to achieve anything substantial in life.
Where does the More Mindset come from? I’m not sure if we are born with it, but I do know that we can acquire it. Most people, I suspect, are instilled with it by their parents and childhood upbringing. That’s where I got mine.
But, one can still acquire it as an adult. We can overcome gaps in our childhood and the negative effects of childhood traumas with focused efforts in our adulthood. The most frequent cause of an adult changing gears and taking on the More Mindset is a religious transformation. Now, don’t get nervous, I’m not proselytizing, I’m explaining.
Because a religious conversion is not a superficial event – it speaks to our deepest beliefs and views of the world and ourselves – it often causes a U-turn in the journey of our life. Priorities change, ethics change, values change, and qualities of character which may have been ignored before, now become the worthwhile focus of efforts to change ourselves.
While I suspect that this phenomenon may be seen in every major religion, it is most prominent in Christianity – where it is a basic tenant. The ‘born-again’ concept characterizes that U-turn in our lives. We can start over, we can rise above the past, we can become someone whom we would have never become otherwise. By changing our fundamental belief system, we ultimately change almost everything in our life. More becomes a bedrock motivator. The Apostle Paul recognized this connection between mindset and outcomes when he urged the early Christians to: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)
If you want to motivate yourself or those around you, focus on acquiring or instilling the More Mindset.
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Read about the More Mindset and other key strategies in
“11 Secrets of Time Management for Sales People” by Dave Kahle.
This is the classic book on time management for sales professionals, and has been published in eight languages and over 20 countries.
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