Motivational Speaking

(yet another exercise in self-loathing, but not too bad)


and now a bit of free form thinking, coupled with a bit of amateur self-analysis, just to get the rust off.

I came across a revelation about myself, well...let's say I confirmed what I already suspected. I'm sure I'm not alone in this situation. In fact it's pretty much a confirmed fact, people are so very easy to figure out. But I digress...I am a better person when I am pushed, prodded, manipulated or threatened by someone. I need reinforcement to behave in a manner which is acceptable.

In my experience, when left to provide my own self-motivation, I usually do fine for awhile but then I taper off. I get lazy, especially when results don't seem to show any improvement. But when I am further motivated by someone else, I adapt to the situation and continue on an upward trend.

This is normal, but it is not always helpful. Motivation is basically a way to achieve a result. It comes in many shapes and sizes. When someone elses' motivation is more powerful than your own, it hampers your ability to function normally.

I've had quite a few jobs in my life, and most of them have ended under circumstances that were not of my own choosing. I've adapted a philosophy that you are just waiting for the day you are going to be fired from the time that you begin a job. So you make the most of it, and maximize your ability and your opportunity.

It's important to point out that every place I've ever worked, save one, is no longer in business. They all went under after my departure; not the next day, or the next year, but they all went bust. When you discover the idea that when a lot of my self-motivation had run its' course, my departure was soon imminent, you see a logical progression to those places failing eventually. They failed to motivate me, so you have to conclude that they were faulty in the man-management aspect of running a business.

I take a perverse pride in the fact that those places are no longer around. It feeds a part of my ego that makes me believe in my own self-importance. But it also can be a trap that lulls you into a sense of infallibility. I've seen, in hindsight, all of the things that I could've changed or ways that the situation could have ended up differently. And I have adapted those things to change the way I approach my dealings with people in my subsequent jobs. I was never fired for the quality or quantity of my work, it was always about how I dealt with people. OK, that's not 100% true--there were a couple of extenuating circumstances--but for the most part, if I had treated people differently, I would've survived. But, a lot of those things were dependent upon motivation. I was either forced into behaving in certain ways, or I was ignored in my pleas for external motivation.

In a larger way, this is a problem I have in all of my life. I crave reinforcement, feedback, or progress. I need tangible proof that what I'm doing is right or wrong. But I am severely lacking in this department. I tend to not get the sorts of answers I need, so I become paralyzed by uncertainty. And then I behave in ways that don't always end well.

A wise man once told me that Timing is Everything. And sometimes I find that to be true, because I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the wrong place at the right time. But I find I'm rarely ever in the right place at the right time, in the right frame of mind. And it sometimes hurts--me, my friends, my family.

But it's not my fault, I'm only human.

Selah