I was not expecting to be moved on such a deep level.

On a recent trip to a local thrift store, I picked up a copy of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” by Sean Covey. I’ve studied “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Sean’s father, Stephen Covey, and I was curious to see how Sean Covey presented these leadership principles to teens.

I was excited to find that Sean Covey had gone to great lengths to make the 7 habits relate to teens by discussing what matters most at that age: sex, friends, school, work, family relationships.

But, one of the things that struck me was Covey’s case for “beginning with the end in mind.”

When you’re a teenager, sometimes it’s really hard to begin with the end in mind because you’re more focused on the day-to-day things in life. Seeing yourself in 5 to 10 years is a challenge for many people, but for teens, it’s increasingly difficult. I would hazard to say that an alarming amount of teens don’t even know where they see themselves tomorrow.

As a part of the discussion, Covey asks the reader to fill out a personal discovery in preparation to write a personal mission statement. Covey asks questions such as “think of a person who has made a positive difference in your life,” and “List 10 things you love to do” and so on so the reader can get a sense of what they really care about.

Mind you, this is a second-hand book and this information had already been filled in by a young man named Derrick.

This is what really stopped me in my tracks:

One of the questions that Sean Covey asks was “Describe a time when you were deeply inspired.”

The question brought to my mind all of the people and things that have motivated me to accomplish my goals in my life. I thought of teachers that have really motivated me to achieve beyond what I was capable of doing. I thought of movies that I’ve watched that made me cry. I thought of people that are sick, but that fight each and every day to make the most of life.

Then I read what Derrick wrote in his book:

“I can’t really recall when somebody deeply inspired me.”

…

My heart sank. I read it again.

“I can’t really recall when somebody deeply inspired me.”

The power of those words made me stop and put the book down. In that moment, I was overcome with a tremendous sense of loss.

I thought, “Isn’t that sad that this young man has been so unaffected with life that all he could manage to write in his book was that he couldn’t remember when someone deeply inspired him?”

But his response was so true. So honest. So painfully honest.

And it got me to thinking, “how many other people must be feeling that exact same way right now?”

How many people out there aren’t “turned on” by life? How many people don’t have any great motivating force that is leading them to do great things and live a meaningful life?

I thought how incredibly empty those people must feel every day.

Truly, the empty life is a life without inspiration. The empty life is a life of guilt and shame from not accomplishing your dreams. The empty life is a living body with a hollowed out soul.

What fills that soul and makes it sing?

Inspiration.

Literally, taken from inspire, “to breathe.” The spirit is the animating principle, it’s what gets us to push ourselves to do more. When we’re inspired, we’re moved towards something we care about. We’re more connected to life. We’re enlivened, exalted.

Behold the power of inspiration.

When we surround ourselves with inspiring people, teachers, movies, music, art, books, and ideas we can create motivational momentum. It’s like adding fuel to the fire. The more fuel you have, the hotter and higher the fire will burn.

The empty life is truly a life devoid of inspiration. There is no fuel, no passion, so your fire is nothing more than a dim glow, or worse. That’s why it’s so important to find what moves you.

If you’re not inspired, the first thing you’ve got to do is find a way to get inspired. Find what inspires you in everything that you do.

What Derrick wrote in his book inspired me. It told me “there is a message here that people can benefit from.”

My wish is that you find similar inspiration, something that turns you on to life. I wish for you something that moves you to do great things with your talents and skills.

I wish for you a spirit moved.

This is an interview with Peter G. James Sinclair of http://www.motivationalmemo.com

1. Is it important as a leader to begin with the end in mind? Why or why not?

Firstly I want to take the time to thank Jered for the wonderful opportunity of sharing with his readership my answers to these 5 fabulous questions that he has posed to me.

So here we go…

Throughout the years I have led many organisations – from groups of young people, to sports teams, to numbers of employees, and then as a father of three fabulous children. And through all those experiences I made the mind-blowing, yet obvious discovery, that in order to be a leader we first need to have someone following us. As someone once said, that if you think you’re a leader and no-one is following you, you’re just out having a stroll.

But if we are in fact a leader, and do have people following us, then we best be leading them somewhere. This takes vision. This takes courage. This takes strong leadership.

The leader is the visionary, and because of that very reason we need to have a clear idea of the end in mind.

And no matter how many detours may need to be traversed along the way, the vision will be both the guiding light and the drawing force of all energies expended in the direction of the destination – by both the leader and their followers.

2. What do you think about goal setting?

I actually don’t think about goal setting. I breathe it. Goal setting is up there with oxygen. A very successful businessman said to me once, as a young and struggling entrepreneur, that if you don’t have a goal, then your first goal should be to get a goal.

For many years I played soccer or football as many people call it around the world. So with soccer in mind, can you imagine 22 players on a field that consists of all the line markings of a normal football field, and yet there are no goal posts at each end?

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Who’d turn up to watch a goal-less game? How would you keep score? What’s the point? The players could kick the ball around to one and other, but how could we measure real results?

So too with life.

Without goals in our lives we will not be able to engage others in the pursuit of dreams that could be of benefit to them. And as far as benchmarking or assessing as to whether we are moving forward in life, it would be like trying to measure the height of a building without a tape measure.

3. What do you feel is the biggest leadership challenge we’re facing today?

With the ascent of social media there are more and more people being followed than ever. Twitter allows us to follow and at the same time to have many followers. But does that make all those being followed good leaders?

I think the greatest leadership challenge in this day and age is for leaders to be authentic and transparent.

We have recently witnessed how through the power of the people dictatorships, that have been in place for decades, tumbled in days. Assisted by the power of media and social media, that same energy was transferred across borders and into other cultures resulting in the demise of other tyrannical leadership.

In answer to your question, here is what I wrote in an article entitled: The Future Is Now: 21^st Century Leadership (http://www.motivationalmemo.com/the-future-is-now-21st-century-leadership/)

‘For in this new world, men and women will gravitate towards leaders who are in the dark as they are in the light. Transparent, vulnerable and approachable.

And if leaders are exposed for whom they really are, in a questionable light, the customers, the clients, the followers, the listeners, the watchers – they will leave – and leave in droves. Governments will be overturned. Buildings will be vacated, and businesses will fold.

Unless the people are engaged in the conversation and allowed to contribute, and are allowed to voice their opinion in an environment of openness, they will seek greener pastures.

No longer is the leadership model pyramidal. The pyramid is long dead and gone, and has suddenly been levelled to unveil a landscape that is now broad and expansive, and where the leader has been offered the opportunity to embrace their followers in a spirit of love, compassion, respect and understanding.

People will no longer be told what to do. We saw this ever so clearly when the Berlin Wall crumbled, and cracks are already beginning to appear in other ideologies that have enclosed other nations in the past. With these will also fall the hidden walls that many a leader is currently hiding behind – whether in politics, education, organizations, charities, churches or businesses – the walls will fall.’

4. What’s the best way to motivate others?

You have a choice of three ways to motivate others. You can use a whip. You can use a carrot. Or you can help them to discover their personal strengths, or their inner passions and create an environment and a culture that allows for them to develop and to grow into the person they were created to become.

As a leader, to motivate others, you need to provide guidance, training, but at the same time learn to listen so that you really begin to understand their deepest desires and their most cherished goals.

It is then the role of the leader to help them every step of the way. For to be a great leader is to be one who has learnt the art of servant leadership.

And finally, the best way of all is to set a living example of someone who is motivated and passionate in the pursuit of their own goals.

In many ways motivation is best caught, rather than taught.

5. What’s the best way to motivate yourself?

The best thing to motivate yourself is to first do this….

1. Identify your strengths
2. Identify your weaknesses
3. Strengthen your strengths
4. Delegate your weaknesses

And in identifying your strengths I also mean identify your passion. Ask yourself these questions:

• What would I do with my life whether I was paid or not paid?
• What am I good at?
• What do I want to learn more about?
• What fires me up?
• What gets me excited?

And the best stimulant for motivation is then to get into action immediately. Don’t procrastinate. Do it now! Turn your motivation into moti-motion today!

Here’s to your success!

About Peter G. James Sinclair:

Peter G. James Sinclair is in the ‘heart to heart’ resuscitation business and inspires, motivates and equips others to be all that they’ve been created to become. Receive your free copy of his latest eBook Discovering The You In Unique at – http://www.motivationalmemo.com and add him on Twitter @PeterGJSinclair – today!

Over a year ago, a frustrated writing consultant came to me and said, “I’ve had it. I can’t get my student to do anything. No matter what I try, he just doesn’t care about anything. He’s lazy. I feel like I’ve hit a brick wall. What should I do, Jered?”

Here’s the situation:

Students enrolled in English 110.03 are required to attend two separate half-hour sessions with a writing consultant per week.

The response to this is varied.

The majority of students use the sessions to bounce ideas, and rely on the consultant to find errors in their work.

A handful of students come prepared with questions, try to squeeze every last drop out of their time with their writing consultant, and ask for additional sessions to improve their writing.

And, of course, the lazy ones.

These are the students that see the sessions as a waste of time and only show up to play the part of a warm body to get credit for the course. You can spot these students as soon as they walk in to the session. They are the ones that prop their feet up on the desk, lean back in the chair, and clear all the worries from their mind.

And, coincidentally, these lazy students complain most about their professors. They say, “Our professor gives out too much homework. He expects too much. His assignments are stupid. He’s mean. He’s ugly. He’s boring. I hate this class.”

These lazy students bring in papers that are covered in red ink. They rush the assignment the night before because they put it off, and put it off. They don’t pay attention to what the professor said in class. They don’t read the assignment guidelines. As a result, their papers receive depressingly low grades.

Here’s what I notice about the lazy students:

They’re miserable.

Nothing seems to go right for the lazy student.

And, I think to myself, “Isn’t that fascinating… the contrast in students? On one end of the room is a student who gets straight A’s, has a passion and vigor about life, and loves what she’s doing. On the other end is a student who is failing out of college, has little to no drive to succeed, is absolutely miserable and, for the lack of a better phrase, hates the world.”

The Laziest Student of All Time?

One quarter, I met with a student that was particularly lazy. I mean, we’re talking lazy. He was so lazy that he started missing his consulting sessions after the second week. He stopped handing in essays on time. He stopped showing up to class. He stopped showing up to school, even. He appeared every once in a while.

Then, around the eighth week of classes he showed back up out of the blue. I said, “How are things going?” He said “not good.” He said that he has to make up lots of consulting sessions, and that he might have to retake all of his classes because he’s failing.

I said, “I don’t want to intrude, but is there something going on in your life that’s preventing you from doing your work?”

He said, “No. I just like to play video games and sleep. I hate school. School is boring.”

Now I thought: How do you turn this guy around?

His final essay was to write 5 pages on any topic he was interested in. He said he was having troubles coming up a topic. I said, “One of the things that experienced writers teach is to write what you know. You’ve talked about how much you like sleep and video games… Do you think that would make a good paper?”

He sat for a moment. Then, realizing the genius in the idea, said, “I think that sounds like a plan.”

So he went to work crafting an essay about the benefits of sleep and video games.

Mid-way through his rough draft he came to me and said that he’s realized something. He said that his excessive laziness playing video games and sleeping long hours had contributed to his downfall. He said that it had ruined his quarter, and that he regretted video games and sleeping too much.

I said, “Wow. That’s powerful.”

He said, “What do I do? Do I continue writing a paper about the benefits of sleep and video games, or do I add in the part about how it’s not good for me?”

You can imagine the smile that came across my face when I heard those words come out of his mouth.

I said, “Wow. I think you have something powerful here. Do you think you could write a strong paper on the idea?”

He said, “Yeah. I think it would make a better paper.”

So, what happened?

Guess what? He wrote the paper. He outlined. He wrote the rough draft. He edited and revised. He turned the paper in on time.

And guess what he got on it?

A “B.”

That was the highest grade he had ever received on a paper his entire adult life.

The Key to Attacking Laziness:

The key to attacking laziness is to become more disciplined. Discipline can only come through taking action.

When you feel yourself getting lazy, the best thing to do is ask “where is this taking me?”

You have to have willpower to say “I don’t want to go down the path of neglect and dig myself into a hole of failure. I choose to discipline myself and work towards a better life.”

I think the answer to attacking laziness is best described in a quote from Jim Rohn, who says, “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”

Some people eat a lot of junk food and say “You only live once.” That’s true. And they might not notice the effects of what they’re doing to your body immediately. But down the road it’s going to catch up with them. When they are stricken with illness, they’ll say “I wish I would have eaten healthier.”

Some people spend all of their money and say “I’m having a good time.” They spend themselves in a hole, and look up and say, “I’m broke. I have nothing. I wish I would have taken better care of my money.”

Some people ruin relationships with other people because they’re lazy and they get too comfortable. They turn people away with their harsh criticisms. Then, they find themselves lonely and say “My God. What have I done? I wish I would have made strong, lasting friendships.”

And of course, people throw away their schooling years by doing just enough to get by. Then a few years down the road, they are ashamed at themselves and say “I wish I would have gotten more out of my schooling.”

The best advice: Don’t devalue yourself by sitting idle. Invest in yourself by doing something great.

You see, being lazy messes with the mind. Being lazy shatters your self worth. It doesn’t take long to fall into a hole and say “Wow. I’m lazy, and I’ve ruined a lot of things.”

Maybe you feel you’ve been lazy about something, or maybe you’re trying to help other people see that their laziness is not helping them invest in the future. Whatever the case may be, it’s important to remember one thing: We attack laziness with action.

Take massive amounts of determined action.

Once you take action, the results can motivate you to say “this is what I want, and I can do it.”

Once you tell yourself “I can do this, and it’s worth doing for my future,” and you take more and more action, you’ll gather the momentum to carry you on to do even greater things.

Newton’s first law tells it all: An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.

Laziness is that outside force, and you must cut the weeds of laziness before they overtake your garden of life.

Discipline yourself to be the best you can be.