Motive for Action

Did you know that your drive or inner motivation is effectively just a contraction of motive and action? It is the inner driving force, which compels you to take action and if it is to be effective, must come from within. When your motive to take action comes from within and is driven by a compelling internal image, not some obscure travel poster in your external environment, the offer of a big bonus or any other external stimuli, you do not completely identify with, it will be fleeting at best.

Motivation

As you know, when the motivation is from any external source, the desire and drive to keep taking action will gradually fade away, as though it never existed in the first place. If you truly want to succeed on a grandiose scale, then you must be motivated from within or said differently you must be “IN SPIRIT” or inspired by a crystal picture of possibility and know why the goal you want to achieve is important to you. So if you want to finally invite meaning and fulfilment into your experience and you are committed to become a peak performer, you must find your “Motive for Action” from within.

Research I have studied over the past five years has shown me that super achievers, who have inner drivers where they seek to help others, leave a legacy, invite excellence into their lives or become independent, are far more powerful drivers, than a desire for wealth, status or recognition. All the super achievers I have interviewed have all stated that when they were focused on winning wealth or looking for recognition, they achieved small successes. The floodgates really opened for them, when they changed their focus from their own selfish needs and instead focused on reasons bigger than themselves, as their motivation.

One of the greatest predictors, of their potential as found by Behavioural Scientists was someone independent desire for excellence.  Yes of course you need to consistently take action every day to succeed. So why would your motive to take action be more important than the actions themselves?  It all comes down to challenge, obstacles or setbacks. If you do not have a strong enough internal driver or powerful internal motive driving you to perform the actions you need to take to succeed. As soon as you encounter any challenges, obstacles or setbacks, which are inevitable on any success journey, you will simply stop taking those actions altogether.

Wealth is a bonus

People like Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Estee Lauder, Walt Disney and Oprah became exceptionally wealthy, but their primary drivers were never personal wealth. They all had a powerful driving force within them, which drove them to excellence. Wealth was merely a by-product of their desire to produce excellence and deliver the very best, which was within them. They all sought inner satisfaction and were not driven by the need to selfishly accumulate money. Their applause came from with; they did not need to hear the praise of the people around them. There is no greater motive to action than comes from your inner heartbeat and the satisfaction of accomplishment.

Love what you do

To remain inspired in the long term,  you must love what you do and the ideas you pursue. If you do not completely love an idea or concept, do not waste your time and energy on it. You can only be in tune with or inspired by an idea or concept that completely resonates with you. If you try to motivate yourself with external stimuli, but you do not completely love an idea, you will never remain inspired or driven to bring the idea to life. To remain inspired, focus on all the things you love about that specific project, task, lifestyle or whatever it is, and it will seem effortless.

Andrew is one of the most sought after Motivational Speakers and Sales Training experts in South Africa. You can trust him to deliver a motivational message that will re-energise your team and help them to ignite the fire of inspiration in their bellies once again. Should you want to inspire or re-energise your team, visit my website for details on one of the best <a target="_new" href="http://www.andrewhorton.co.za/">Motivational Speakers</a> around.

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Make innovation part of your DNA

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Make innovation part of your DNA: Management Make innovation part of your DNA Andrew Horton Blurb: There is a never-ending ebb and flow of change going on all ...

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Make innovation part of your DNA

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Make innovation part of your DNA: Management Make innovation part of your DNA Andrew Horton Blurb: There is a never-ending ebb and flow of change going on all ...

Make innovation part of your DNA

Management

Make innovation part of your DNA

Andrew Horton

Blurb: There is a never-ending ebb and flow of change going on all around us. Don’t get left behind, as a business owner you need to adapt and innovate…

Change is inevitable and the rate of change is accelerating daily. You have two choices; bury your head in the sand and hope change won’t affect you, or open your eyes and discover ways to use change to your advantage by innovating and discovering new ways of doing things.

Innovation can take many forms. It may mean developing something brand-spanking new. Or it may mean focussing on new routes to market, speeding up your processes, or tapping into the modern need for convenience.

For example, take FNB’s hi-tech dotFNB stores, which I spotted in a local mall recently. It’s a radical shift in old-school banking thinking – a high-tech, service geared, cashless environment.

In the past companies that were not creative or innovative could chug along and still make a good living. Of course, businesses like horse carriage manufacturers that did not adapt, innovate and create new products, have over the years disappeared. But the business cycle used to be so long that companies that did not see change coming took a really long time to close their doors.

Today’s business cycle is estimated to be around 11 months and is getting ever shorter. So if you haven’t innovated and found new more creative ways of servicing your markets over the last 11 months, it’s possible and indeed highly probable that you will soon be left behind.

Are you changing?

Are you aware of any changes in the markets you service, or in your customers’ expectations and needs? The secret to survival today is to constantly survey the marketplace around you. Ignorance is most certainly not bliss. Ignorance is failure, regret and could even cause your business to suffer huge losses.


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ACTION IDEA

Schedule a time every week to survey your world. Try to pinpoint as many changes as you can that are happening around you and in your business environment. I schedule time every Friday afternoon at 5pm to survey my world. I do this by going through a Change Checklist (see alongside). I use these questions to ensure that I explore the changes going on around me. Answer all the questions on my list every time you do this exercise. The more thorough you are, the better equipped you will be to see and respond to changes.

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MY CHANGE CHECKLIST

·      What has changed in my industry?

·      What has changed in the markets I service?

·      Are there any new opportunities which have opened up for my products or services?

·      What has changed from a legislative perspective?

·      What changes are there in my community?

·      What changes are there in my country?

·      What changes are there around the world?

·      What new challenges have presented themselves?

·      What new personalities are influencing the world?

·      What new tools, techniques and technologies have come to light?

·      How can I use any or all of these changes to my advantage?

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With your eyes open you will be able to spot change and adapt to it. By observing the subtle changes going on around you, you will be well-placed to anticipate and utilise change, rather than just react to it.

Innovation is not done in a day

For innovation to work, you need to create a culture of innovation within your enterprise. It’s not something you do only when developing a new product, it’s something you should be doing all the time. And all stakeholders within the business should be encouraged to observe and identify change or opportunity. More than one eye on the world makes it more likely that opportunities and threats will be identified.

Unlocking creativity in your people

Research has shown that creative thinking decreases as children get older. The school system and the pressure to conform to the norms of society change us. What happens to all those who started out highly creative? They still have it, but they have turned down the volume on their creative side.

Unlocking your creativity requires you to re-develop the neural pathways which closed off or got lost as a child. It took many years to lose your creative neural pathways, so don’t expect them to reappear overnight. Have patience and follow the few recommendations I have made below:

Shake things up: While driving use the seek button on your radio to tune into a new channel. Whatever comes up, listen to it for the rest of the day. It’s a simple way to pull yourself out of your comfort zone. The unfamiliar music will encourage your brain to form new neural pathways to help you interpret the new music. These new neural pathways will help you awaken those slumbering creative neural pathways, which have been asleep since your early childhood.

Do new things: Try to engage in as many new activities as possible. The more things you can change the greater will be your ability to re-awaken that slumbering creative person hidden within you.

Do different things: When last did you do something for the first time? My wife and I actively try new things all the time, from ballroom dancing to bungee jumping, to traveling to new and interesting places all the time. Again this will help you to re-awaken and utilise your creative self.

Innovation must become a way of life, something you are, not something you do. Once you learn to live this way, you will be astounded at how creative and innovative you become. Dreaming up new ideas and better ways of doing things will become the norm...

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Andrew Horton is a motivational speaker, time management expert and author of The Leadership

Toolkit. He also hosts the Empower Half Hour on DSTV. 

Visit: http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Motivational Speakers Can help you to Change

Motivational Speakers tell you about Change

The usual question I am asked by delegates at my various talks and training sessions revolves around how they can improve themselves, their business results etc. Yesterday during lunch break, a really wonderful lady approached me and told me that her daughter was not acting the way she wanted her to act. She was responding badly towards her. At times even snapping at her and showing her no respect at all. Her question was “How can I change my daughter”? I am most certainly not trained to offer any advice to a mother about raising children. 

The extent of my knowledge about raising children stems from my own experience with raising my own two children. One who is now 23 and the other 16. This hardly qualifies me to offer advice to anyone, on how they can change their teenage daughter. As one of the top motivational speakers I do not believe we can change anyone else, all we can do is influence them to act differently by the way we act, I think the advice I offered her, came as quite a surprise to her.

You Change others by changing yourself first

 I believe the key to helping anyone else improve or encouraging them to change in any way, starts with you changing first. If you want to change the way someone responds to you, then simply change the way you respond towards them first. You cannot control anyone else; you only have 100 % control over one thing, namely yourself. As you cannot climb into the other person’s body and change them or their behaviour. You can only change yourself and, your responses’ towards them. This is where you should start.

People treat you the way you allow

I know this is not easy for some people to hear, but I sincerely believe that people treat you the way you allow them to treat you. People respond and interact with you on a level, which you encourage. This response is driven by your level of maturity and personal development.

For example: If you commit to grow and you become 10 times wiser or you develop your personal philosophy to a point where it is the polar opposite of what it now is or you work on your character and improve it, to a point where you are 10 times the person you were before. How do you think the people around you would treat you at that point? I am certain that everyone, including your children, friends, business colleges and even blank strangers would treat you completely differently.

Contribute to others through your personal development

I believe that the greatest contribution you can make towards changing the way people treat you or even improving others to improve their lives, is to invest into your own personal development. As you grow as a father, grandfather, business partner, or as a member of society, you automatically become a greater contributor to everyone around you.

Give the Greatest Gift

The greatest gift anyone can give to the world and to the people around them, is the gift of the own personal development. Every parent, who grows, has so much more to contribute and give to their children and as each person within the community grows, so too does the community as a whole grow and expand as a whole. Whole countries and even our world gets better as each one of us commits to grow and expand.   

Self-Development helps me to Help others

The greater you commitment towards your personal development, the better equipped you are to serve your children, spouse, business partner, community, country and the even the world. Self-development makes you more valuable to everyone around you. That is why I am so committed to help millions of people to improve their lives and communities through their personal development. I see it as a way we can all change our world for the better.

Motivational Speakers

Motivational Speakers in South Africa - Build a Solid Foundation

Motivational Speakers in South Africa - Build a Solid Foundation

How strong is the foundation of your life right now? As one of the  most sought after Motivational Speakers in South Africa, Andrew will ask you if you are you satisfied that you have built a rock solid base, from which you can launch your future success? I believe the foundation of your life is built on your values, which are comprised of your character, integrity, belief, loyalty and honesty. To truly be successful in life you need to ensure that you have a foundation, which is harmonious and based on all the crucial elements of your personal values.

I have seen people compromise on their values, where they have walked all over other people to acquire great financial wealth, using deceit as a tool for their success. These people appear to have all the flashings, which go with success, but they lack true friends and deep relationships with people, who matter. There are also those business professionals, who invest so much time into their corporate lives that they alienate their families, as they climb the corporate ladder. Or the business tycoon, who has acquired great financial wealth, but is lying alone in his bed in the hospital recovering from his second triple heart bypass operation. None of these people have an understanding of balance and harmony in their lives.

Harmony or Balance in Life

As my experience grows and the more I see people around me compromise on their values. Where they live lives, which are out of sync with the harmony and balance in the universe, the more convinced I become that we have a responsibility to not only focus on one element in our lives, at the expense of any other. We must strive for harmony and always remain in alignment with our authentic self. We can never be content or fulfilled, if we live in a place which is unbalanced or out of sync with the universe or our own inner values. Your values are the cornerstone of your happiness and contentment.

We are thinkers and Doers

All of us go through live thinking thoughts, which drive our actions or lack thereof. We all act according to our most dominant thoughts, so if your dominant thoughts are focused on lack, negativity or losing, that is exactly what you will get to see in your life. I believe that we are all wonderful creators and winners in our own unique and special way. So if you want to achieve success and meaning in your life, you must act in alignment with your values and must remain focused on thinking positive developmental thoughts.

Think better thoughts

You are where you are right now because of what you have thought up until now. So if you want to change where you are going to end up one year, five years or even ten years from now, you must change the way you think. Your thinking drives your choices and decisions, which in turn determine the actions you take or fail to take and as the actions you take or fail to take, determine the results you experience. The obvious way to improve your results is to change the way you think.

Foundation Stones

Remember that your values or the foundation stones I described earlier, namely Your character, integrity, belief, loyalty and honesty, are the raw materials your mind uses to create all its thinking. They are at the core of all your thinking and will determine, what you have, what you do and are the key factors, which determine the results you get to enjoy in your life. They are effectively the code, which determines how your life will turn out. Opportunity lies within you, accept that success is not a result of chance, but choice. Choose to be authentic, live according to your true values and success is yours for the taking.  

Motivational Speakers in South Africa