Alliance Advisors, Inc.

What is your driving force? What keeps you going everyday? Is it your job, your family, or your livelihood? When I write about motivation I am writing about what the driving force is behind keeping you moving in the direction you need to go each day. This applies to everyone no matter if you are self-employed, or a salesman, a home-based worker, a wife, author, or husband; motivation is required to keep us in the frame of mind we need to be in order to be successful at what we are trying to achieve.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated? Everyone has highs and lows in their business and life, so we all find ways to motivate ourselves. Listed here are some of the ways I motivate myself:

Prayer. As a Christian this is the very motivating to me. I know God is listening it just depends on His timeframe when He answers. I patiently wait for those answers.

Daily Goals. Every morning I write down what I need to accomplish for the day. At the end of the day it is a pleasant feeling to see all the lines I have drawn to cross off the items listed I have accomplished.

Read. I normally turn to self-help manuals for guidance in positive direction. As a self-employed person, I frequently read online newsletters, buy books, read articles; researching any media I can that I think will help me in accomplishing the goals I set for myself.

Reach out to a friend. If all else fails, call a friend to be a sounding board. When sharing with others, it builds awareness and enables you to realize you are not the only person trying to accomplish something. A large majority of the time the person you contacted needs support and motivation also.

At one point in your life or another, we all have felt our efforts are not worth the outcome we have reaped so far. If you will remember why you are trying to accomplish what you are doing, then some of your motivation may come back. Perhaps it is for your family, your spouse, or yourself, whatever the reason you were motivated to do something, now go and accomplish it! The 80/20 rule applies here also; 80% know what to do and 20% do it. Do not lose the faith. Nothing is holding you back but self-doubt or weariness and lack of motivation! Be part of the 20% and do it! As Nike says, “Just Do It”!

Welcome to Part II of “Motivational Wisdom from a Chef Rat” where Disney movie Ratatouille’s star and uber management guru, Remy the Rat, shares his motivational wisdom and inspirational insights:

> BE REAL – BE YOURSELF

When Anton Ego, France’s most notorious food critic who can make or break a restaurant with a single review, makes his appearance at Gusteau’s, Remy’s culinary talents are finally put to the test.

But instead of preparing a fancy delicacy worthy of Gusteau’s esteemed patrons, Remy chooses to make a homily Ratatouille (a vegetable stew made of eggplant, tomatoes, green peppers, and squash). It’s a common folk meal fit “for peasants” the assistant cook declares.

Remy ignores this slight and goes with his heart. It’s genuinely him and what he knows. He prepares an exquisitely rapturous, mouth-watering Ratatouille dish that just blows away the critic. As Ego takes his first bite, his cold exterior immediately melts in delight as he is brought back to sweet memories of his Mom’s home-cooking.

This was an emotional scene for me as well. In my case, it brought back sweet memories of my father’s home-cooking. My father passed away in a car accident eighteen years ago, and yet, I can still fondly remember savoring his Ratatouille. It was one of my father’s favorites and he used to brag all the time about knowing how to make this French specialty. My brothers and I used to laugh as kids at the funny sounding name and how my father would roll the word off his tongue with such relish.

Bottom line: be yourself and ignore the critics.

> TALENT CAN COME FROM ANYWHERE

When Linguini (I don’t come up with these names), the supposed up-and-coming star boy chef at Gusteau’s, reveals that the real inspiration behind his cooking is Remy the Rat, the entire staff thinks he’s lost his mind and promptly leave the establishment.

Lesson: the best talent and ideas can come from anywhere and sometimes do come from the most unexpected places.

Don’t pre-judge people. Just because someone’s a rat doesn’t mean they can’t cook!

Likewise, don’t be easily impressed by degrees, pedigrees, fancy titles, wealth, or so called experts. You have to carefully evaluate whether their talent or ideas will help move YOUR career or business forward. Sometimes that means seeking a second or third opinion.

> CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR

When famed critic, Anton Ego, asks to personally speak with the head chef of Gusteau’s, he is told to wait.

Check your ego at the door and tell it to wait. Don’t let success get to your head. And give credit where credit is due.

When Linguini steals all the limelight and attributes Gusteau’s new found success all to himself and his love interest, it breeds sour resentment in Remy who eventually leaves Linguini to his own devices.

You decide what’s more important to you: your ego or your career. An effective leader always shares the limelight and generously gives credit, while a poor leader hogs up all the accolades creating resentment and unwanted enemies.

f you want to fast-track your success, go out of your way to catch people doing something right and give them the credit they crave so desperately and rightfully deserve!

> ASK FOR A NEW PERSPECTIVE

When Anton Ego makes his grand appearance at Gusteau’s to put the final nail in the coffin, he literally asks for a new perspective. “Surprise me!” he demands asking for something new off-the-menu.

We don’t always have to go with the canned selection that’s offered us – whether it’s provided in a menu, business proposal, job offer, meeting agenda, or course curriculum. We can ask for a new perspective.

I suspect Ego was a management guru in his past life as this is great advice for managers as well. The next time you hold a meeting, ask for a new perspective. Or ask in advance of the meeting that each person come prepared to attend the meeting with at least one new idea or new way of doing things.

Ask them to surprise you. The results may indeed surprise you – and hopefully for the better! (For added emphasis or just for fun and humor, take your team out to see Ratatouille or play clips from the movie at your meeting once it comes out in DVD).

Speaking of management gurus, I’m thinking of co-authoring a follow-up to Dr. Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese.” I think I’ll call it: “Who Made My Ratatouille: Motivational Wisdom from Remy the Rat.”

Throughout my St Albans motivation courses, I make it clear that in order to be motivated you need to be moving. The word motivation leads us to think about being enthused, inspired and driven and these are important qualities for a human being to posses. They are the feelings that get us out of bed in the morning, that enable us to work in pressurised environment and that help us to grow. Everything in the universe is either growing or dying, and if you want to avoid the latter for as long as possible, there needs to be something in your life that helps you to feel as if you are growing. This is where St Albans Motivational courses can help.

Most people seek this growth from the work that they do, in their every day job. Others find it in a hobby. The challenge occurs when the work you are doing is not motivating, or not motivating enough. This can lead to a “flat” feeling or worse still, real negative emotions, but the lack of motivation may also prevent any action being taken that could potentially change things for the better.

A lack of motivation will eventually filter its way through into other areas of our lives, because these things are all interlinked. A person, who feels a lack of motivation at work, may be in bad spirits when they get home, and therefore not give the best of themselves to their relationship, or perhaps they will go wild socially to attempt to rebalance, and this could then have a negative impact on their health. In fact, this is the most common scenario and I have witnessed it firsthand. Many people I worked with in the past- and even myself, have been in disempowering or unstimulating jobs, and then spend Friday and Saturday night drinking too much, eating too much and generally over doing things. Now I am in a job that I love, providing NLP, Hypnotherapy and Life Coaching for motivation to those in St Albans, that constantly sets me worthwhile challenges I can say that I have a much more balanced lifestyle.

People require motivation for many different areas of their life- some need it to get them to the gym, others to give up smoking and others to change their career. In order to be completely committed to gaining motivation there are two things you must be willing to accept. One is pleasure (oh good!) and the other is pain (oh dear!). It’s the typical carrot and stick scenario and you must think of it this way: If you want to do something that you are currently not motivated to do, the chances are, you have probably considered all of the pleasurable ways it would be good for you to do it. For example, if you want to be motivated to go to the gym, you might list the following positive (pleasure/carrot) reasons:

1) I will look better when my body is fit
2) My body will be physically healthier
3) Exercising will help me to sleep better
4) I will meet more people

Now read Motivational Courses using Hypnotherapy, NLP and Life Coaching 2/3