Stop Selling on Motivation

If you call yourself a motivational speaker, or a motivation guru, or a motivational author, that’s a problem! It is problematic not only for the people who you are tricking into being your motivation students, but it is a serious problem for you as well. Therefore, this problem needs to be solved. You need to understand that ‘being motivational’ is a byproduct of being good at something – to have a set of skills, or simply one particular skill that you are better than almost anyone around yourself. The ability to motivate others itself is not a skill, rather, it is something that comes along, when you have developed your skill-niche.

It’s simple, really.

When you are a master of your skill-niche and people wish that you would be their mentor or they seek for your counsel, you motivate them through your counseling, and giving them the tools that they need to become as skilled as you are in that particular field of interest. If you are an airplane pilot, you motivate them through your mastery of navigating and controlling the plane to become a skilled pilot. If you are an author or a writer, you motivate them through your mastery of writing to become a skilled writer. If you are a racer, you motivate them through your mastery of driving a race-car, and dominating the race circuit becoming a skilled racer. The list goes on.

But when you call yourself a motivation guru, you are literally claiming that you are a master of motivation. That yields for serious confusion since the follow up question is almost inevitable – what is it that you motivate people to become?

In this world of persona digitization, the term ‘motivation’ is probably the most abused word because it has been used to grab people’s attention to an extent that is nothing short of insane. People are waiting to be motivated – but they are not willing to put in the work to get the results that they want. According to the skillful and famous Hollywood actor Will Smith, 99% of the people that he has come to know in his life who say that they want to be as successful as Mr. Smith, they are simply not willing to put in the work.

Instead of planning on how to trick people into spending money on your so called motivation seminars, please start developing one skill that makes you better than anyone else in your area of expertise, and then, start teaching people how to be a master in that skill-niche. That is going to help them to become better motivated with a skill that is indeed sellable, and it will make you richer in the process – not to mention the obvious display of nobility.