The Motivation Manifesto: Definition of and Formula for Motivation

Hey, everybody, it's Ben Richard, founder of High Performance Academy and author of the new book the Motivation Manifesto. Nine declarations to claim your personal power. And in this video, I want to share with you some tools and strategies that you can use to deepen and strengthen your own motivation in life, no matter what your goals and dreams are. I want to talk with you about what's the number one reason why most people fail? What is it that keeps them from charging forward towards their goals or their dreams? Why is it they start activities and they stop? Why is it they can't seem to get over obstacles or hurdles as they're trying to live their best life? Now, I'm excited to shoot this video here at this table specifically because this is where I did a lot of the research and the writing of this book. This book is my opus. It's my life's work. If you've enjoyed my previous book, Life's Golden Ticket or the Charge or the Millionaire Messenger, I got something in store for you here that you won't believe. An entirely new voice and approach to talking about personal development that I think is really going to catch fire in the industry for this reason. You and I both know a lot of people start something, they can't finish it. And you and I both know a lot of people have a lot of good hopes and dreams, but. But they just can't keep going and they don't know the reason why. And part of the reason why is we haven't had a real, I think, intelligent discussion about motivation for a very long time. And so we've got this culture now where people are so, I think, sometimes entitled or sometimes lackadaisical or sometimes just lacking that good charge about their life to want to go and do something and to want to go and grow or share their voice or be genuine and be real. And the question is, what's the challenge? Why is it that so many people are suffering from the inability to start things or to complete things or to maintain their real desires in life? Well, you know, you and I both know so much of that comes back down to motivation. Every great virtue and value that we espouse and celebrate as a human race comes down to the ability and the absolute need to have motivation, right? If you talk about love as an ultimate value of humankind, well, unless we have the motivation to perpetuate that value, it doesn't show up in our lives. And now we're mean to people who we care about, right? Or if we talk about the idea of how important it is how absolutely important it is to be kind to other people. Well, if we don't approach our day with that motivation, that intent, that reason for action to actually actualize kindness, then we won't do it. So motivation is at the base of every single human value that we have. Motivation is at the base of every single goal that you have. Everything that we know in all of psychology and neuroscience ultimately comes back to this reality that we must be motivated to actualize our highest self, to actualize the activities and the actions that. That it would take to achieve our dreams. So what's the sticking points? This is a book that helps us understand a more intelligent conversation in reality about motivation. And in this video, I want to go deep in those topics with you because I know you're somebody. If you're already watching it, if you made it this far in the video already, you're probably somebody who's deeply interested in personal growth and your own personal development. Because you know if you can continue growing yourself, you can find greater levels of freedom in your life, greater levels of joy, greater levels of achievement, greater levels of success and fulfillment and happiness in life. The challenge is we've sort of been cultured, I think, to believe that the number one fail point for most people is fear. Right. That's what. Yeah. I've asked audiences around the world. Many of you know I speak on stages around the world. I've been doing these videos now online since, gosh, 2006. And as I've talked with so many people, and I've seen literally millions of comments in my videos, and we've received literally millions of emails into my company, I realize over and over and over again that there's this myth that fear is the number one thing holding people back. But here's the question. Is that true? Is it true? I mean, has no one ever overcome fear? I mean, you yourself, haven't you gone into social situations that you were terrified and you ended up doing just fine? Or have you ever wanted to start something and you were scared to, but you did it anyway? I mean, it's true that people can feel the fear but do things? If that's true, then maybe fear isn't the thing. Over the long course of someone's life, is it really fear that kept them down the whole time? I don't think so. I think we've understood so much about what fear really is now that it really comes from concern about three different things. That when we have fear in our life and it has taken over our life, we. We need to reorient our position or perspective towards fear to understand that fear is usually just concern about either loss or hardship. Right? We're scared that if we try something new that we'll lose the things we do like, or we'll lose respect, or we'll lose connection with other people, or we believe that it'll be just too hard, it's going to be too challenging for us, that we won't be enough to be able to sustain the activities or the momentum to be able to achieve the things that we want to achieve. But a lot of us have overcome loss. I bet a lot of you watching this. I bet I guarantee you've been in this place before. Something was hard and you were scared of it, but you continued on. There was something that kept you going. What was, was your motivation. See, the number one reason most people fail isn't fear. It's lack of sustained motivation. Because if you have enough motivation, you'll bust through the fear. If you have enough motivation, it will drive you to overcome your challenges, your insecurities, your own doubts, your own delays, your own bad behaviors, and you will find a way. With sustained motivation, you can push through anything. With sustained motivation, you'll stay on track. With sustained motivation, you'll wake up each day more vibrant than you've ever felt in your entire life. And you will keep going. You'll attract and get that momentum that you need in your life to accomplish the things that are significant and important and meaningful to you. So we've got to have this conversation about, well, how do you develop that kind of motivation? I mean, real, deep, conscious motivation that drives you every single day. That's what this book is about. Ultimately, it helps you identify what is the main motivation that you have. And by the way, it's the same motivation I have. It's the same motivation that your neighbor has. It's the same motivation that we share as human beings. The book makes the argument and lays out the sort of the case for why the main motivation of humankind is freedom, specifically our sense of what we call personal freedom. All of us are basically motivated primarily by the striving and this desire to have more personal freedom in our lives. Now, before, if you think, oh my gosh, this kid must be talking about democracy here, or he must be talking about, you know, a Western idea. This is not necessarily a Western idea or any level of philosophy that is oriented towards any political belt. In fact, you will see as you study, and I know many of you have, over the course of of millennia, what we've come to understand as human beings, as we have evolved and we've learned more is that the reality is each of us, each of us wants kind of the same thing. What we desire is more emotional freedom. We want more financial freedom. We want more time freedom, more spiritual freedom. We want more freedom to be ourselves. We want more freedom in the moment to be spontaneous and. And present and mindful. We want more freedom to pursue the things that we care about. We want more freedom to speak our voice. We want more freedom to feel that spiritual awareness and lightness that comes from shedding baggage. We want more freedom in our relationships, to open up our hearts and to be vulnerable. We want more freedom to connect with people that we were interested in knowing and loving and caring for all. Ultimately, it's freedom that we're after in one way or another. And even if that you say, wait a second, I don't know if it's. If it's the primary thing, well, you'll realize again that without the ability to freely practice something or chase something, all else fails, right? Freedom is the foundation of almost every choice at some point. Point, because you must have the freedom to make the choice. So this book makes that argument. And in fact, here on this page, you can download the Declaration of Personal Power that starts the book as well as that first chapter on freedom and test me out. Read it. I mean, read it word by word by word and see if you don't find yourself realizing that maybe what you've been wanting for a long time, some more freedom in your life, you know, some more freedom to chase the dreams that you really want. Some more freedom of time to pursue things that you're passionate about. Some more freedom emotionally, spiritually, and in your relationships, to connect with people at a different level, to open up your heart again at some point. Every choice that we make is grounded on the hope and the desire in our mind that we hope we have the freedom to make that choice and to pursue that dream. And it comes from an understanding that, okay, if freedom is the primary motivation of humankind, specifically personal freedom, if that's true, then how do we amplify it and how do we figure it out? This entire book helps you get there at levels, I think, of both philosophy and practice that maybe you haven't thought about before. You know, it took two years to figure out this book for me. It took two years of looking at revolutionist rhetoric to figure out how did people, when they were really challenged or held back by real tyranny or social oppression, break through that. How did people when they talk about their own personal revolution, their own personal breakthroughs in life with, when they talk about that, what language did they use to talk about that? And it always came back to this point where they just, they felt this freedom, this breakthrough, this liberty from one level of life into a whole new level of life. And that's what this book will help you feel like, because I went through that process writing the dang thing too. It's the hardest book I've ever written because I had to study so much of philosophy, so much of politics, so much of psychology and neuroscience to help people understand how can they become more motivated at significant levels. Not just happy, you know, sort of, I guess, psyched up in some new age way, but a significant deep conscious way that is rational and real that we can put into our body and into our mind, that stays. Because remember, the number one challenge people have is not fear, it's, it is sustained motivation with enough sustained motivation to overcome that fear. But we have to get people thinking differently at a more logical and philosophical level about their lives. And that's what the great people do among us. And let me read you a short passage here and then we'll get into, well, how do you develop that level of motivation? I start talking in this book about the power of reason and the reality that philosophers throughout time have talked about this incredible power that we have to direct our own minds. And I know that sounds so simple, but isn't everything you've read in personal development really about changing and better directing our own minds? It's about the power of thought. It's about, you know, change your thinking, change your life, change your patterns of belief. You would change your life. Almost everything in personal development always comes down to that, doesn't it? It's about the ability for us to consciously use our mind to direct our focus, to have better experiences in life. Otherwise, what happens to us? We aren't free. We become slave to impulses or slave to opinions of other people. We become trapped in our own just, you know, immediate sensations which often teeter towards fear or insecurity. Because of that, we can't overcome something significant in our lives. But if we can use our own mind and learn to direct our own thoughts, you and I both know the power of that. I'm here because when I was 19 year old kid I had a dramatic car accident. And it taught me that the end of my life I'm going to ask these questions about life. Did I live? Did I love, Did I matter? And in the process of understanding Those questions. It helped me think differently about my life. It gave me a frame to think through how my life is going to evolve and what's going to be important about it. I want to live my life fully. I want to love openly and completely, and I want to make a difference. But I can't do that unless I direct my focus and my motivations each and every single day. Otherwise, I can just quickly fall into distraction, fall into other people's opinions, fall into my own insecurities. But rising above that requires reason. That idea that I think, therefore I am is one of the foundational elements that we've learned in philosophy and psychology throughout the last 50 years. And so reason is the secret to developing a motivated and independent identity. I'm on page 55 if you have the book, by the way. The great artists, leaders and innovators use the entire force of their reasoning faculties to become their highest selves and do their highest good. They express who they truly are and pursue goals they find meaningful. They strategically contemplate their direction and values. They weigh what will give them the greatest sense of vibrancy and and fulfillment in every major decision. They select from life's abundant array only the courses that suit their nature and their intention to be free and to serve. They are resolute in calling forth their greatest character traits and wrestling down their lowest impulses. They appear in the eyes of the mindless masses to be the lucky ones, to be the chosen ones. In fact, they simply decided to choose. People who are motivated are not lucky. They are conscientious. They chose to use their minds in a more purposeful way in order to energize and lift their lives. And for that they tend to achieve more and gain more respect. The thoughtful woman who is in charge of her own mind and emotions has extraordinary power and earns high regard. But the man not in charge of his own mind is lost in a swirl of unpredictable and often unwanted thoughts and impulses. He is seen as immature or unreliable. And as the vacuum of his unconscious fills with fear, he inevitably drowns in self doubt or suffers social despair. This is a book about learning to find and leverage the power of your mind to become more motivated each and every single day to not fall prey to this hope that so many people have. They say, well, I hope tomorrow I feel a little more motivated. No one feels more motivated tomorrow. It doesn't just happen. It's not like you wake up and like, you know, I've come to life. It's not like that. If you've ever Heard my teaching before. I often say, you know, the power plant doesn't have energy. It generates energy. You don't have motivation. You generate motivation. Just as you don't quote on have happiness, you generate happiness. It's by conscious will and conditioning that we develop a deeper motivation and happiness in our life. The energy that we have each day is sustained because we choose to sustain it. We give it our full force of mental focus to make that happen. And I know some of this is preaching to the choir, but I mean, if I'm sharing this with you and you're like, yeah, is there somebody in your life who needs to hear this message? Who needs to watch this video or read a book like this or download the excerpts from this book down below? Well then share the link to this video with them or, or buy a book right now down below. There's also a link to order this book for free. I bought thousands of copies of this to send out to you guys for free. I just ask that you pay your shipping and handling to receive it so that I can focus on buying the books for you all versus just focus on the shipping and handling costs. So if you'll go ahead and pay for your shipping and handling, I'll ship it to you. And I hope you'll find that this book is. It's beautiful. It looks and feels like a handcrafted journal. And you know, it's got this great ribbon on the inside. And I think that you'll find the content just as good. So I hope so. Let's talk about this then. If we can use reason and the force and focus of our mind to develop more motivation each day, then how come more people aren't motivated? And let's be honest too. What's prevented you from being more motivated sometimes? And I know again, I'm preaching the choir. If you watched it this far, you're totally dorking out about personal growth. And I know you're going to order the book. And maybe, though, you also struggle with motivation. I have. This book took two years. There were times, believe it or not, I wasn't motivated to write. It just didn't happen. I just. I didn't feel like writing. But every great author says the same thing. If you wait to feel the perfect conditions to write, you'll never, ever scribe a word. You know, we can't wait for the conditions or the feelings that to suddenly be perfect in our life, to start pursuing and activating our dreams. We can't. If we keep waiting, nothing will ever happen. So let's get down to it, how do we develop that deeper level of motivation? Well, first is understanding a base, a primer that our primary motivation is some level of personal freedom. So you have to sort of decide what that means for you A again, download it or buy the book right now so you can get into this and understand that. Because I think it will really open up your mind to what's been missing in your life. But let's get a greater level of clarity on motivation right now, even before you read the excerpt or the book. So here's the simple reality. There's a formula for motivation and the book helps lay this out in just one chapter. And then we go into nine specific things you can do in your life right now to develop greater energy, force of will, and long term motivation. Yes, there's a formula to motivation. There's something we can do and we know psychologically triggers more motivation in your life. Literally from what sparks motivation in the human psyche to what sustains it, to what ultimately amplifies it over the long term. Again, the book just lays that out in one chapter. And we give you all these nine specific declarations to make in your life and all these practices to do that as well. Because the book is ultimately 70% of it is about practices that you can institute in your life right now that will revolutionize your energy, your motivation, and your ability to achieve more. But let's talk about that formula. What factors spark motivation in humankind? Like, what is it that gets us motivated, energized, excited? What is it? Well, we know that motivation at base is having a reason to do something, a reason for action, a reason for cause, Right? We know that. And so what we know about sparking motivation is first and foremost it begins with ambition. All motivation begins with ambition. An ambition to have, be or do more. Right? We want something more. A greater level of love, a greater level of connection, a greater level of energy, a greater level of financial wealth, a greater level of achievement in our careers or our lives, a greater level of just joy or gratitude or vibrancy each day. It's that pursuit of something like that, something that feels greater or more than that is ambition, right? To be, do more, have more. And by the way, ambition has gotten unfortunately a very negative phrase in today's world. Because I think we came out of the 80s where ambition meant greed. But that's not the world today. Ambition means serving more people. The ambition to build a school means something. Having ambition to, to help somebody is a good thing. Without ambition, there is no spark of Motivation at all. So we have to have like a desire to do something that we find meaningful and significant. That do something, be something, have something, or serve more. So here's a question. What's your ambition right now in all the different parts of your life? Are you clear about that ambition? Because. Because here's what really sparks and solidifies motivation. Clarity. Real clarity. So think about your relationships right now. What's your ambition in your marriage? What's your ambition with your relationship with your partner, your spouse, your lover, your friends? What ambition do you have in your most significant relationships? If you have no ambition there, it's just gonna stay exactly the same as it was yesterday, the year before, the year before, year before. Where there is no ambition, there is no growth. There can't be right, There can't be. There can only be stagnancy. Only the same level that ambition to up it is vital for motivation. So below this video, I've got another tool for you and it's called the Ambition Activity. So you can download that. It's free. Just download it and fill it out. It's a worksheet to help you identify your ambitions in the different parts of your life. Because if you identify them clearly, you're more likely to want them. It's so basic, right? If you're not clear about what you want, of course you're going to lack motivation. Higher levels of clarity in your life bring higher levels of motivation. It's a very simple rule right now. What else sparks it, right? We know ambition. But here's the thing. A lot of people hope for something. A lot of people, you know, they have ambition to lose weight, but they never do. Or they have a lot of ambition to be a better husband or wife, but they don't. Or they have better ambition to be cooler to their kids or better ambition to serve more. Like everybody has lots of ambition, but sometimes they don't activate it. That motivation doesn't land. It doesn't stick. Why? Because the second part that's necessary to spark motivation is expectancy. Expectancy. What does that mean? We have to actually expect or believe that our ambition is possible. That that thing that we are driving towards that we want is actually possible. That we can manifest it, that we can control it, that we can build towards it. That by our own will, desire, efforts, habits and actions, we can actualize that ambition. Because, see, if we have a big ambition, but we don't believe we can have it, we won't do it. Right? One of the great phrases of all of personal development if you don't believe it, you won't achieve it. It's so simple. So we have to understand what is the ambition and have great clarity to it, but then also have a sense of control within, often called a locus of control, that, that we have the ability and the belief internally that we can shape the outcome of that ambition. In other words, we have a high level of what psychologists would call efficacy, the belief in self that allows us, that says, you know what, I'm a causal agent in my life. I can cause actions to happen, to achieve my greatest good, to become my highest self. So that's what sparks us. That's what's like bamboo fires us up. First and foremost, the spark of all motivation is an ambition and a belief that we can do it. Ambition and expectancy, the magic now becomes in sustaining motivation. And this is where most people fail. A lot of people have a good idea for how they want to change their life and maybe believe they can, but they don't sustain the motivation. And this is why they need this book so desperately. They need these nine practices for more than they could possibly imagine. So what sustains it though? Well, what we know from everything in psychology and everything in, frankly, high performance studies. My entire Life's work of 18 years now of reading a book every single week in psychology, personal development, leadership, marketing and business. Everything I've learned about human mind and frankly, human machinery, you know, of the commerce that we create comes down to very simple truth. And that is, if we don't sustain the motivation over the long term, we cannot achieve high performance, we cannot achieve great things. So what are the two elements in sustaining high performance, in sustaining real motivation? The first one is attention. Attention, focus, right? A lot of people have one ambition, but they have 50ambitions. And then they start towards that ambition, but then they lose it. They forget it. They, they get trapped in everything else. They get distracted by this world that keeps pulling from us and pushing at us. That all of a sudden that ambition they had, they forget it. You know how many people I've interacted with worldwide who forgot what they were after, who forgot how they wanted to grow, who forgot their dreams because they had an obligation or they had something come up in their life that stopped them from doing what they wanted to do. They lost attention to their dreams. They lost attention to who they were and what they were trying to become. And because they lost the attention or a period of time, the motivation died. Then they got in that place where they just woke up and because they didn't have a focus on their dreams or goals or desires. They just felt like they're going through the motions of life and responding to other people's emergencies and needs, but not living their life. They didn't feel alive, they didn't feel vibrant, they didn't feel joyous, they didn't have a smile on their face because they were just trudging through because they lost the attention and the focus on their dream. So we must give massive attention to our dreams at levels that most people would never do if we want sustained motivation. For me to write this dang book, I can tell you this is my life's work. This is my opus. I'm more proud of this work than anything I've done in my life. I've never struggled, fought, worked so difficult for a book in my entire life. I had to sustain that motivation. And in doing that, what I found, what I really found was I had to make sure I kept constantly moving away. Distractions that were not, you know, anything that came into my life that was not helping me on my path or, or staying on the path toward my dreams, I had to push them away. It was vital if I was going to succeed over the long term. Vital. That second thing, though, that sustains motivation. And you and I both know this is effort. You know, what ends up happening. Even if people focus on something, but they don't ever do anything. They have no sustained motivation. And now they're frustrated. They're just like. They're like hopeful people, but they never become fulfilled people because they never have real effort towards something. They never take a lot of bold, significant action to pursue their dreams. And because they do that, they struggle forever. You know, effort is everything. And here's what most people don't understand. Most people get this backwards. They think, I must only have. I must have massive motivation before I take action. And the reality is, often nothing motivates us more than momentum in terms of sustained motivation. It's those little steps that add up along the way that actually energize us, that sometimes if you're not motivated, the most important thing you must do is do something, right? It's like, do something. It's like if your parents ever saw you and they said, well, I'm bored, Mom. I'm bored, dad. And they said, well, go outside. Go do something. And it does. It changes your emotional reality. It changes your psyche to get something going. And as you apply more effort, even if just little bits at first, those little bits of effort add up into an overwhelming avalanche of momentum and ferocity. Of your motivation. Your motivation grows as you act in the world. You, your motivation declines as you stop putting effort towards your dreams. Makes sense, right? Makes so much sense. So imagine now we've got our ambition and we expect that we can make that happen. That sparked us, that gets us going. Now sustaining it over the long term is all about giving it constant attention, Constant attention and focus and acting towards it. That gives us that momentum, that feeling of sustained motivation. But there's one other level of motivation too, that amplifies the whole thing that makes that piece live at a level that most people can ever imagine. And that is these two elements. The first element is attitude. You know, those who are drowning in a pool of pessimism rarely achieve anything significant. Those who are operating from a bad attitude in life, I mean, you've been around them, right? They don't motivate other people, they bring other people down. Having a good, positive, optimistic attitude is not just about straight up positive thinking or hopeful things. Look, everything we know in psychology always comes back down to the vital need for human beings to have a heightened level of optimism for sustained long term health, mentally and physically. People who are more optimistic not only tend to get paid more, not only tend to achieve more, not only tend to report higher levels of satisfaction, joy, happiness and gratitude in their life. People who are optimistic tend to live longer, right? It's about having a perspective that keeps us driven and excited and enthusiastic for tomorrow. So our attitude is vital. And the second component of amplification of our motivation to environment. The reason I'm shooting this video and the reason I wrote this book here is because this environment inspires me. I'm in this huge, beautiful. We'll make sure we do a shot of this great sunroom at this beautiful writer's villa that has inspired me so much. Now, for the record, I didn't used to have an environment this amazing. You know, when I was first starting out, I had a table that was about a third the size of this one. And I was bankrupt and I was living in my girlfriend's apartment because I couldn't afford my own apartment anymore. I mean, I was challenged, but I didn't lack the understanding of how important it was to get around an environment that inspired me. So I'd go to bookstores and I'd go to, you know, cafes, I'd go to libraries, I joined groups. I would go be around people who motivate me. I'd go to seminars and get around people who are, who were actually driven instead of people who were just like couch potatoes and upset all the time. I focus on building around me an environment physically and socially that supported my genuine expression and growth in life. I mean, one of the telltale signs that you are a free person are those two things. Genuineness. You being genuine and spontaneous and real, authentic in the moment. That ability says you are free. And the ability for you to grow into something, to grow towards the best you and towards your dreams. That also says you have a heightened level of freedom in your life. So I hope that this conversation about motivation has helped you. I mean we really only covered what I think the first, less than the first 50 pages of this book out of a 235 page book. So I hope you'll grab it. I hope you'll share the message about this video. Please share this video with other people if you think it would help them. The tools down below I think will be significant for you to actually fill out again. You can buy the links down below. You can get this book for free. I'll ship it anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. Wherever you're watching this from, I'll ship it to you for $7. I don't care where you live, right if you're next door to me, it's going to cost seven bucks. If you're in Turkey, it's going to be seven bucks. I don't care where you live. Also down below is a link where you can download the activity guide for this video. I highly recommend you actually print it out and fill it out. I think it's going to open up a lot of ideas about your life for you and get that energy back into. And as that happens for you, I think you'll find a heightened level of spark that sustain energy and amplified motivation over the long term. And last but not least, if below this video, please just post your comments, post your questions. I'm here really looking at each and every single one of your comments. I apologize if I can't get to all the questions that might be there, but I'm going to keep reading them every single day. Because being in a positive environment like this, what we're creating this culture together, this motivates me to this inspires me. I hope you enjoyed this first video in this process. I hope you'll go now and support this book and share it with somebody you love. If you have somebody in your life who's really down and out, get in this book right away. If you're in a place right now in your life where you're ready to go to the next level. Get the book right away. I think it will really help you not only feel better about life, it will help you ultimately achieve more in terms of both what you accomplish in your life and the sense of fulfillment and magic and joy you got to experience because you found within you a deeper level of motivation. Look forward to seeing you next video reading all your comments down below. Thank you for all of your support and helping me share my message throughout my career. I look forward to seeing you at High Performance Academy one day or one of our other products or programs in your comments. I just want to thank you for your energy and for helping create something here that I think will change a lot of lives. Till I see you next time, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly, and stay motivated to make your difference every single day.