What motivates you? That’s the question I’d like to ask in this
inaugural column on motivation. Are you motivated by fame, fortune
or fear. Or is it something deeper that fans the flames inside of
you? Perhaps you are like Jeanne Louise Calment whose burning desire
enabled her to do something that no other human being has done
before. A feat so spectacular that it generated headlines around the
globe, got her a role in a motion picture, and landed her in the
Guinness Book of World Records. A record that has yet to be beaten.
Jeanne Louise, however, did not initially motivate herself. It was
someone else who drew the line in the sand.
But, it became a line she was determined to cross.
In motivation we
talk about getting outside of one’s comfort zone. It is only when we
are uncomfortable that we begin to get motivated. (Usually to
get back into our comfort zone as quickly as possible.)
Born into the family of a middle-class store owner, Calment was
firmly entrenched in her comfort zone. At age 21 she married a
wealthy store owner and lived a life of leisure. She pursued her
hobbies of tennis, the opera and sampling France’s famous wines.
Over the years she met Impressionist painter Van Gogh, watched the
erection of the Eiffel Tower and attended the funeral of Hunchback of
Notre Dame author, Victor Hugo.
Twenty years after her husband passed away, she had reached a stage
in life where she had pretty much achieved everything that she was
going to achieve. Then along came a lawyer.
The lawyer made Jeanne Louise a proposition. She accepted it. He
thought he was simply making a smart business deal. Inadvertently he
gave her a goal. It took her 30 years to achieve it, but achieve it
she did.
Are you willing to keep your goals alive for 30 years? At what point
do you give up? Thomas Edison never gave up, instead he said, “I
have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Winston Churchill, during the bleakest hours of World War II, kept an
entire country motivated with this die-hard conviction: “We shall
defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the
beaches... in the fields and in the streets... we shall never
surrender.”
Many of us give up too soon because we set limits on our goals.
Achieving a goal begins with determination. Then it’s just a matter
of our giving them attention and energy.
To end the suspense, when Jeanne Louise was 92 years old, attorney
François Raffray, age 47, offered to pay her $500 per month (a
fortune in 1967) for the rest of her life, if she would leave her
house to him in her will. According to the actuarial tables it was a
great deal. Here was an heir-less woman who had survived her
husband, children and grandchildren. A woman who was just biding her
time with nothing to live for. That is until Raffray came along and
offered up the “sucker-bet” that
she would soon die. It was motivation enough for Jeanne, who was
determined to beat the lawyer. Thirty years later, Raffray became
the “sucker” when he passed away first at age 77.
When asked about this by the press, Calment simply said, “In life,
one sometimes makes bad deals.” Having met her goal, Jeanne passed
away five months later. But on her way to this end, she achieved
something else: at 122 years old, she became the oldest person to
have ever lived.
In future articles we’ll examine further the ways in which motivation
works. How to motivate ourselves, our employees, customers, friends,
loved ones and children. I would like to get your feedback on which
of these areas of motivation are of most interest to you. Please
email me with your suggestions.
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