Opening Insights: Motivation
How do we motivate people today – from baby boomers to Gen Zs?
What supports people in taking action – personally and professionally; to move forward and drive their lives?
- FEAR?
- HOPE?
- TRUST?
Threats of what one could have and will not get?
What is the driving force behind our actions or inertia?
Informational Insights: Today's Motivation Solution
Complacency is the kiss of death in business and in life. That's why Jeff Bezos recommends using fear to drive work ethic and innovative thinking — even when things are going well.
"I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified," the Amazon founder wrote in a 1999 shareholder letter. "Our customers have made our business what it is," he continued, "and we consider them to be loyal to us – right up until the second that someone else offers them a better service."
For Amazon to remain competitive in the future, employees needed to be scared of no longer being the best and commit to "constant improvement, experimentation and innovation in every initiative.”
Using fear as a motivator is a strategy that has also worked well for others, including Tim Ferris.
Ferris, the best-selling author and podcast host, encourages fear-setting, an exercise where he writes down his fears, what could happen as a result of that fear, and how he'll prevent that worst-case scenario. He says his biggest wins have been connected to this process that helped condition himself to fail in order to find success.
PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi also uses fear to guide her next moves forward. When she first took the helm at PepsiCo, Nooyi came in with novel ideas, like a focus on healthier products and a redesign of packaged goods. Nooyi's vision helped transform the company and made her a leading business figure in the food and beverage industry.
In a 2016 Bloomberg interview, the CEO who steps down October 3, acknowledged that fear greatly contributed to her strong work ethic and innovative business strategies. "I'm always afraid that if I fail, I may have to go back to something that I don't want to," she said. "That fear always motivates me and so I drive myself to be better and better at my job everyday."
The same goes for Bezos, who doesn't allow a fear of failure to keep him from learning or trying new things. For example, Amazon has moved beyond just selling books online. From health care to groceries to meal-kits, the company has staked a claim in a growing number of industries since its launch in 1994.
"To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment," Bezos wrote in a 2016 shareholder letter. "Failure and invention are inseparable twins."
Experimentation, for Bezos, has paid off in dollars and cents. Bezos himself is now worth more than $156 billion, a record amount, and Amazon is poised to become the next trillion-dollar business.
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/why-bezos-wants-amazon-employees-to-wake-up-terrified-each-day/ar-BBMyqKU?ocid=spartandhp
Possibilities of Consideration: A Truth vs. The Truth
If there is no love then fear, jealousy and envy move in and take over.
Fear, jealousy and envy cannot cohabitate with love.
When we come from love we are able to recognize and apply our gift of reason to understand that hurt and
fear is the absence of the fulfillment of our basic needs.
RICHARD JORGENSEN
People use fear to motivate and manipulate. They use fear to drive action. There are instinctual reactions to fear: fight, flight, FREEZE. Hence, using fear as a motivator is not necessarily a viable / universal solution to evoke motivation and change.
The issues of overcoming and rising above one’s fears is very different to using fear to evoke emotional reactions and behaviors. When we seek to overcome fear, we make a logical and conscious decision to examine our own intentions and actions… this is not fear mongering this is a process of discovery.
- What if you could be a part of cultural transformation?
- What if you could be a part of empowering your organization, community and country?
- What if you could be a part of the social, economic and cultural growth and empowerment of your world?
- What if you could do something to reverse the addiction problems within businesses, communities and schools?
- What if you could create value for your people, employees, families, organizations, communities and country?
- What if you could share your wisdom, insight, knowledge and experience to help educate others?
- What if you could be a part of a solution to unite and support people in developing collective and individual sentience?
Add Your Insight: Living Your Passion…
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
FRANK HERBERT
