One of the odd things about our work is we come across certain words a lot and we’re often amazed at how they are misused or misunderstood. From this list the undisputed king is the concept of ‘motivation’. I often explain the myth that some of us have more of it than others with a little story. Imagine we knew someone who spent all day, every day sitting at home on the couch watching TV and eating chips.
It would be tempting to call this person unmotivated, wouldn’t it?
But we’d be wrong. In fact the couch potato is a highly motivated individual albeit towards activities you and I might not think are very productive. The fact is, until we die, we all have the same amount of motivation and it’s the direction of these efforts (eg. choice of how we spent our time) that differs from one person to the next. Have a think about that the next time you hear or use the terms motivated / motivator / motivation.
Cheers, GJM
PS – feel free to comment on the above or make suggestions of future posts by submitting comments below.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
We can not guarantee you’ll win but...
One of the questions we get asked most is “can you guarantee that I / we will win” after doing some mental skill training. The answer is no but we can guarantee to increase your changes. How and why this is the case is best told by the story of why we called ourselves Condor Performance.
A few years ago I was in Peru with my partner and we heard about this place called “the valley of the condors”. The most common way to get there was via tour group so I asked a few of them “as it’s a two day drive are we guaranteed to see some condors?” They replied that there was about a 50% chance of seeing these massive birds during the hour at the viewing platform.
We decided that these odds were not good enough so set about trying to hire a car (easier said than done in Peru). In the end we managed to find a local willing to lend us his truck for 2 days and set out (with a hand drawn map) to find the valley. At about noon on the second day we arrived only to discover that there were about 500 tourists and no condors. We waited. Slowly, the visitors were told that there tour buses were leaving and the 500 soon become 50 but still there was not a condor is sight. By about 2pm there was only a single bus left plus the two of us and the dozen or so tourists finally threw the towel in having spent all that time and money only to see nothing.
As we were the only people with our own transport we had the option of waiting a little longer. Not five minutes later we saw three black dots on the horizon. Partly in disbelief and partly in sheer wonder we saw as the three dots came towards us. There were Andean Condors and gave the two of us a private show by flying above us, doing a couple of laps of honour and then flying off over the mountains. We could not believe our eyes.
We were not guaranteed to see any Condors by deciding to go alone...but we did increase our chances.
Cheers, GJM
A few years ago I was in Peru with my partner and we heard about this place called “the valley of the condors”. The most common way to get there was via tour group so I asked a few of them “as it’s a two day drive are we guaranteed to see some condors?” They replied that there was about a 50% chance of seeing these massive birds during the hour at the viewing platform.
We decided that these odds were not good enough so set about trying to hire a car (easier said than done in Peru). In the end we managed to find a local willing to lend us his truck for 2 days and set out (with a hand drawn map) to find the valley. At about noon on the second day we arrived only to discover that there were about 500 tourists and no condors. We waited. Slowly, the visitors were told that there tour buses were leaving and the 500 soon become 50 but still there was not a condor is sight. By about 2pm there was only a single bus left plus the two of us and the dozen or so tourists finally threw the towel in having spent all that time and money only to see nothing.
As we were the only people with our own transport we had the option of waiting a little longer. Not five minutes later we saw three black dots on the horizon. Partly in disbelief and partly in sheer wonder we saw as the three dots came towards us. There were Andean Condors and gave the two of us a private show by flying above us, doing a couple of laps of honour and then flying off over the mountains. We could not believe our eyes.
We were not guaranteed to see any Condors by deciding to go alone...but we did increase our chances.
Cheers, GJM
Friday, September 4, 2009
Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery
One idea that we are constantly trying to get our clients to focus on is the here and now. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Huge amounts of emotional energy are wasted on thinking about the past and the future. Unless you have a time machine the fact is what is in the past - good, bad or ugly - will stay there. What will happen in the future is best influenced by what you do today (also known as now). So if "yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery" then the best time to focus your mind and your efforts is....you guessed it...today.
Stay tuned, GJM
Stay tuned, GJM
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