The importance of motivation was demonstrated early last century by Lewis Terman, a pioneer in the measurement of mental abilities. He tested a quarter of a million school children and found about 0.5 percent to be highly gifted.
Terman followed up 25 years later and found, not surprisingly, that most were holding high positions in their careers. However, a number of them had become manual labourers,working as fitters, petrol-pump attendants and similar jobs. These gifted children failed to succeed in life because they lacked the urge to succeed. They lacked motivation. Terman compared them to Rolls-Royces with magnificent engines,but no petrol in the tank.
From personal experience, I can affirm that tools and techniques are useless if you lack the motivation to succeed. It is like giving the best tools to a worker who is not motivated.He will not create anything meaningful.
Once, a social worker told me about a mother, a corporate high-flyer, who spent little time with her family. She felt bad about it and tried to compensate by giving her children lots of pocket money and the best of everything. One day, she bought her two sons the best computers, thinking it would make them study better. Instead, the boys spent their entire time playing computer games and totally neglected their studies. When she unplugged the computers, her elder son scolded her with vulgarities, while her younger son, only 11 years old, beat her until she was bruised all over — and had to seek the social worker’s help.
Motivation has to come from within. Even young children need to motivate themselves. Parents and other family members
can, however, encourage them, counsel them and offer moral support.
I succeeded with the help of PRAISE, a life skills model that I developed from the study of strategy whilst in the
navy. PRAISE provides the SUCCESS 6 Formula:
• Set the Prizedream. This will initiate the process of change and lead you to discover a lifetime CHANGE formula.
• Use internal Rules. When you are guided by your own internal rules, you learn to think out of the box. This gives you a lifetime CREATIVITY formula.
• Conduct Analysis. Examine the factors that are for or against you and identify the higher cause that drives you. This is your lifetime PASSION formula.
• Cultivate I nvincibility. Acquire the virtues that lead to invincibility. These give you a lifetime FULFILMENT formula.
• E xecute the S trategy. Learn from your failures. Turn setbacks into opportunities and weaknesses into strengths.This ongoing process equips you with a lifetime LEARNING formula.
• S ustain E xcellence. Achieve it not once or twice, but over and over again in a cycle of success unlimited. Acquire a
lifetime EXCELLENCE formula. And…
After I topped my master’s degree course, I went on to apply PRAISE in my corporate career, entrepreneurship and
other life’s challenges. I have been using the PRAISE model for over 20 years now and it has never failed me.
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