You're just going to have to figure out what it wants. What is its motivation?

If you’ve been involved in your own business, offline or online, you’ll know what the title is about.

The phrase is forever etched into my mind when it’s mentioned by Sir Alexander Dane (played by Alan Rickman) in the film Galaxy Quest,

when he’s trying to help the main hero of the film (Jason Nesmith) escape a nasty rock monster that’s out to get him:
Sir Alexander Dane: You’re just going to have to figure out what it wants. What is its motivation?

Jason Nesmith: It’s a rock monster.
It doesn’t have any motivation!!

Sir Alexander Dane: See, that’s your problem, Jason. You were never serious about the craft!

Perhaps the take away here is the motivation that drives us to do things.

I for one have had my fair share of excitement at the prospect of suddenly having lots of zeros in my bank account (with other numbers in front, I hasten to add!!!)…but that emotion can wear off quickly.

Especially when I find out what I have to do to get the zeros.

A case in point has been the recent hype surrounding Donald Trump’s new network marketing venture – the real possibility of gaining substantial amounts of money without too much effort, if you started before Mr Trump appeared on Oprah’s show.

I nearly signed up – but my stomach churned when I found out that the idea was to market a range of health pills, and eventually a whole host of other miscellaneous products. It’s not that I don’t believe in preventative medicine or network marketing – I do (& have nearly joined Usana on several occasions).

It’s just that in the case of the Trump Network, it’s not something that motivates me. I don’t want to promote a range of products which I don’t particularly want to use myself.

I am involved in network marketing, as well as internet marketing, and have my eye on one or two other marketing systems (hint: Google ‘GPT’!)….but I know that to really succeed, I have to be motivated.

Interestingly, Timothy Ferriss of The Four Hour Work Week has recently blogged about clearly laying out your worst case scenarios as a way of inoculating yourself againt their all too-often stifling effect of enabling you to fulfill your vision.

And there’s the key here – my motivatation is defined by my vision of what I ultimately want to achieve. It’s not enough to be motivated by money, or to be goaded by goals.

I need to have a deeper sense of where I want to go, and the practical sense to overcome the perceived obstacles that would try & prevent me from even starting.

Galaxy Quest’s rock monster just wanted to be free from the disruptive vibrations created by Jason Nesmith’s presence (honestly – it’s in the outtakes of the DVD!!).

Whilst I don’t possess Dr Lazarus’s powers, I do know that once I’ve figured out what I want, what my core motivations are, I’ll be in a much stronger position to survive the assailing rock monsters in my mind, to be set free.

PS: Yes, I’m a BIG fan of Galaxy Quest 🙂