Motivation, Inspiration and Empowerment

Motivation, Inspiration and Empowerment

Dixie is a motivational rally addict. She recently approached me in the airport at LAX. I was getting a decaf latte when she came up and said, 'Aren't you Michael Murphy?' Before I answered her, I asked, 'Do you carry a metal badge?' She laughed and said, 'No, but I am from the behavioral institution'.

She asked when my plane was leaving. I told her that I had about an hour before it left. She said that she had about the same amount of time. We compared tickets and realized that our gates were next to each other.

When we sat down, her first words out of her mouth was, 'Michael, I'm addicted to motivational rallies. I get a huge charge out of them every time I ago. I find and attend at least one a month.'

I told her that I did the same but from a different role.

She went on to explain why she had approached me (for reasons other than my rock star status; ha!). She described for me the 3-7 day adrenaline rush she gets from speakers and the energy she receives from all of the participants. In minute detail, she described even the breaks and how she would network with amazing and highly successful people.

She said, 'Michael, I'm also addicted to books, tapes, videos and audio recordings that I buy at these events.'

Dixie's countenance then changed and she said, 'But in the 'in-between times', when she not attending a 'rally' or listening to a audio or watching a video, she said, "I have so much self doubt and fear that it is petrifying.' I said, 'Well, Dixie you sure seem to be on top of the world right now. Why is that?' She quickly replied, 'Because I just saw you and know that just the opportunity to talk to you would get me high once again.'

I took that next 45 minutes to an hour to explain to Dixie the difference between motivation, inspiration and genuine empowerment.

First, motivation is not a 'bad thing'. It is something that is needed in our lives. My father was a huge motivator in my life. His motivation didn't come out of Norman Vincent Peale's, 'Power of Positive Thinking'. It came from intense fear of his disapproval of me.

I was not a very good student in high school. It was the 70s and I was a part time hippie. I couldn't decide if I wanted to a hippie or Superfly (a popular movie in the mid-70s about a very wealthy drug dealer who drove luxury automobiles, wore exclusive brands of clothing and majored in 'the good life'.)

One thing was for sure though. I wasn't interested in being a Rhodes scholar. I barely finished high school.

Towards the middle of my junior year, I had an epiphany that I was about to be considered an adult. I was going to finally have to grow up and take some responsibility in my life. So, I started planning to go to college.

I wasn't as smart as other kids and prayed to get accepted to a college that I had my heart set on. The problem was, this college turned away 75% of its applicants. I certainly wasn't the kind of scholastic material that they were looking for. Nonetheless, I got in after first being turned down flat.

I didn't have a clue how to study. In fact, major fear gripped my heart when I finally learned I was going to be accepted.

We didn't have a lot of money for me to go. My dad had a very good career as an letter carrier for the U.S. Post Office. My mother worked as a teller at a bank and later in the business office of a local college.

I asked my dad one day how we were going to afford for me to attend college. He said, 'Michael, you worry about getting accepted and we will worry about how we will pay for later.' It is a good thing that I didn't know that what he was really saying was, 'Son, get accepted. YOU'LL figure out to pay for it later.'

I did figure out how to accepted, how to make my grades and how to hold down two jobs while doing it all. I graduated from there in 1982.

As I look back now 25 years later, I realized I finished college because my dad motivated me. Basically, it went like this. I was either going to finish college or I was going pack my car and move to Canada. I would never be able to face the humiliation of facing my father ever again if I didn't finish.

That, my friend, is motivation. Is it good, positive motivation? Not hardly. But at the time, it did work.

Motivation can come from many different sources. It can come from fear. It can come from emotionally charged 'motivational rallies'. It can come from within your own heart and mind. Motivation is good as long as there is something leverage you and keep you motivated.

The natural progression in understanding how you can continuously move forward and excel in your life is to understand 'inspiration'.

Inspiration literally means 'in spirit'. It means to garner the brain chemistry, the emotion and the adrenaline to continue to seek or move in a certain direction. When inspiration is sustained, you will develop beliefs about yourself, your abilities and your talents. It remains resident in your mind and emotions longer than what most people experience by simple motivation.

The next natural level of progression in realizing how to propel you to eventually reach and possibly exceed your goals in life is 'empowerment'.

The old proverb says, 'You take a man fishing and feed him for a day; you can teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.' I think that is the essence of true empowerment. It is teaching a person how to motivate and inspire themselves.

What Dixie experienced was temporary. It was fleeting. What she sought and needed was personal empowerment.

I love teaching people how to set out a daily routine of making affirmations that will seed their subconscious mind to change their habits and consistent actions. I coach, develop solutions and products to show them how to be their own positive influence in their lives.

Several years ago, I was attending a pity party hosted by, well, ME. I was sitting there thinking about how I had no one to encourage me in my life. No spouse to encourage. No father or even father-figure to encourage me. No good friend to pump me up and tell me how great I am and get me motivated or inspired.

While I sat there in my despair, a voice deep within said, 'Michael, do you not have a voice? Michael, do you not listen to yourself more than you do anyone else, anyway? Why aren't you using the voice you deem to be the most precious and important voice in your life? Why aren't you encouraging yourself?'

There is a story of an ancient king who had an army encamped along with all of their wives and children. He set out one day with his soldiers, to fight a battle. While they were out defeating one enemy, another enemy came into their encampment, captured their families and took them as slave.

Upon the return of the king and his army, they saw their encampment completely abandoned with none of their loved ones in sight.

The king's own me were infuriated that while they followed their king into a battle far away, other enemies came and enslaved their families. The king's men were blaming their king and discussing what they should do to him.

The king sat all alone with, seemingly, the whole world coming down on him. When left alone, no support, no encouragement and his own men about to take revenge out on the king, the story says that the king began to encourage himself. He did it from the basis of his faith, but with no one else there, he used his own voice to motivate and inspire himself.

After doing this, he rallied his men once again and went and took back their families from their enemies.

You have a voice. It is a voice of personal empowerment. It is a voice that you deem to be the most important voice in your life. Have you ever found yourself in place where you listened to no one but yourself? Why? We will trust our own voice before we trust anyone else's.

Use your voice of encouragement. You are empowered when you learn to be your own best friend, your biggest encouragement, your own cheering squad and your biggest fan. Get yourself up and get yourself going. Learn the daily habit of 'talking to yourself'. I've heard some people look at me as if I'd lost my mind when I tell them talk to themselves.

A man asked me once, 'You really didn't just tell me to start a conversation with myself, did you?' I asked him if he had the ability to think. I asked him if he had the ability to weigh decisions in his own mind. I asked him if he was in control of his own brain. He said, 'Of course I am.' I said, 'The only people who do not talk to themselves are people who are dead or brain dead. Talking to oneself IS the process of thinking.'

Your greatest power is within you. It is your inner voice. It is what you say to yourself on a consistent basis.

The great industrialist, Henry Ford once said, 'If you THINK you can do a certain thing or if you THINK that you can't; either way, you are right'. If you TELL YOURSELF that you can live your dreams and experience the life you've always imagined for yourself, then you are right. If you believe that you can live motivated, live inspired and live successfully, then you are right.

Your power comes from the thoughts that you think. Choose to 'empower' yourself by choosing your inner dialogs and words. For in finding this inner rudder of your life, you will steer your life to being, doing and having all of your dreams.