00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 57. I'm Heather hymen from sweet tea, social marketing. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to reach others is key. And one way to be inspired to do just that is to listen to this,
00:00:29 the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. You know, the truth is if you, if you're honest and you're forthcoming and you give people the expectations, and you're very clear on that, that helps create motivation because people aren't confused. They are frightened. They are worried about consequences as much. They see their reality. If you, if you have a chance to be open and honest with people,
00:01:05 welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calm and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact.
00:01:37 And tonight's Saturday night special. I talk with you about why it's never a good idea to try to motivate others. How instead you can create motivation without actually trying to motivate people and why this matters for so much of what we choose to. If you're listening to this episode in March of 2019, I'm running a sign up this month for my inspired stewardship school productivity for your passion course,
00:02:08 I'm starting up a course in April, and this is going to be the beta launch for it. Meaning this is going to be the lowest price this course will ever be. I'm looking for 25 people who are really interested in diving in and understanding their mindset, their personality, understanding their tools and techniques that they use for productivity and launching this course with me to be the best course that we can have for solar preneurs are side hustlers.
00:02:34 People that are struggling with living out their calling because of their use of time. If that's you go to inspired stewardship.com/beta for information about how to get on the list so that you can be part of this course in April, Let's talk about motivation. And we talk all the time about being motivated to do things about how maybe we were not motivated to do something.
00:03:02 If you're in any sort of leadership role or you try to work with other people. I bet you've talked about trying to motivate people to do something, trying to motivate people, to act a certain way, to think a certain way, to do a certain thing. You know, thinking about a business environment, we try to motivate our employees to do a good job,
00:03:24 to show up, to work, to follow the rules, to do various things. And I've heard people talk about motivation, especially in a work environment, kind of in that, that system of well, you know, they they're getting paid. They should be motivated. And the truth is that a lot of what I see here around this idea of motivating people is really not a good idea because we think about motivating other people.
00:03:53 We think about taking people and motivated them to do a certain thing, to become a certain way to act a certain way. And yet the truth is whenever you think about it, we really can't ever motivate another person. It's comparable to the idea that we can't change other people. You know, the truth is change and motivation come from inside of someone.
00:04:20 So it's never a good idea to seek, to motivate others because the truth is the minute you begin to seek that as a goal, you've set yourself up for failure because you're not in control of their choices. You're not in control of their actions. You can't make those choices for them. You can't force someone to do something. Even at the point of if you really went so far as to hold a gun to someone's head and say,
00:04:47 you must do this. They still have a choice. They still can say, no. Even if there's a terrible consequence, this is why you see employees do things that get them fired. Sometimes it's not only about their, their actions. It's about the fact that their choice is there. Even if their choices bad one, they can still choose it.
00:05:10 So if this is true, if motivating other people is sort of a hopeless task of motivating other people is something that we shouldn't set out to do. Then how do you go about creating motivation without motivating people and Elena, and I'm, they talked about creating a motivational environment, creating a system around people that encourage them to do the right thing, to do what you're seeking them to do,
00:05:39 to become motivated, to take action without actually trying to motivate people. And I would argue you that's the secret. That's the key. You know, the truth is if you, if you're honest and you're forthcoming and you give people the expectations, and you're very on that, that helps create motivation because people aren't confused, they are frightened. They are worried about consequences as much.
00:06:07 They see their reality. If you, if you have a chance to be open and honest with people, if you can share your passion and excitement for things, people are more likely to get on board with it. And honestly, having strong expectations for people, holding people accountable, to doing things and being well-performing, but being clear up front on what those expectations are,
00:06:33 taking a role where you support people and you seek to help them and you seek to coach them and help them grow as opposed to one where it's sort of a gotcha moment or this feeling that no matter what they're going to get it wrong and there's going to be drastic consequences. So it's an interesting balancing act because you do have to hold people accountable. You do have to have high expectations.
00:06:59 You do have to be open and honest, but you also have to be caring and kind. You have to work with people to make the environment interesting and fun, make it, match their personality, give them an opportunity to have autonomy and make their own choices, but also give them the reality of how their choices affect the larger picture so that they can see how,
00:07:25 what they do fits into the larger mission fits into the larger picture. Because see, that's one of the things that happens as demotivating people feel like they're kind of locked in a little cubicle, just doing their own thing, as opposed to being part of a larger mission. These are the things that lane talked about. These, these characteristics that all humans want to have.
00:07:48 The, the idea that the truth is we want to have a bigger mission. We want to have autonomy. We want to have freedom. These are the things that motivate us. And so you have to create an environment where people have that to create a motivational environment. And this really matters for everything you do. This matters in your family. This matters in your church.
00:08:14 This matters in your workplace and your business. This matters in your home life. It doesn't matter whether you're leading a group or leading yourself. It matters at all levels because the truth is we always are interacting with other people. And we're always able to create an environment that builds other people up and creates motivation for other people without trying to step out and motivate them.
00:08:41 Or we're able to create an environment that's de-motivating to people that causes them to feel like they have no choice. They have no power. They have no autonomy. They're frustrated and trapped. And when you feel that way, you naturally become less motivated. You naturally want to leave that environment. Every interaction you have with every single person, you have the choice to be a giver or a taker.
00:09:08 You have the choice to be someone with a positive attitude or someone with a negative attitude. You have the choice to be somebody that's honest and upfront or somebody that's manipulative. And that seeks only to get their own benefit. You have that choice in every interaction that you live. And I choose to live in a way that I hope is motivating to others.
00:09:34 And I hope you do too. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, please, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes
00:10:09 rate. All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.