Motivation: Don’t work so hard at the wrong things.

Motivation: What’s Yours? What works?

A comment about motivation being “all that matters” really got me going this week. It didn’t motivate me. It irritated me. Worse, it was in the first line of a self-help book. I suspect there are many self-help books out there that intimidate or try to shame people into fulfilling their dreams. 

I wrote a self-help book and I want to dispel a couple of ideas that are potentially dangerous. My book is called Do the Thing! It’s filled with tricks and tips to manage time and pain, cut stress and boost energy. Toward the end of the book, I include a surprise which I will boil down to the rich creamy point here: motivation is not everything. Work is not everything. To succeed, you need much more than motivation and someone hanging over your shoulder shouting at you to work harder. You need to work smarter, acquire skills, build alliances and take time off to recharge.

You see the symptoms of the rush to greatness everywhere. People are pushing so hard and trying to do too much. I see the problem on Facebook a lot. Idealized versions of our lives are on display there.

Meanwhile, a startling number of people think they’re the only ones who are working hard. They don’t want to support loafers. They don’t want their tax money going to undeserving people. I wish more people who got social assistance actually could goof off. Instead, their working as many hours at Walmart as they can. The “sharing economy” is really the “gig economy” and it seems everyone has to have a side hustle to get by.

I was reminded of this listening to one of my podcast recommendations this week. The 5 A.M. Miracle mastermind Jeff Sanders has a health scare. He’s a motivated, active and healthy guy who got a wake up call recently. A trip to the hospital in an ambulance reminded him that all work and no play makes Jack a dead boy. Listen to Mr. Sanders’ podcast here.

The other podcast recommendation I have for you this week comes from The Joe Rogan Experience. Joe interviewed journalist and documentarian Sebastian Junger. He talks about the dangers of affluence and the importance of movement and being social. (That’s where I got some of the ideas for this episode.) Go to the source at this link.

Key Question: What’s your motivation?

Is you dream to find fulfilling work? To control your time? To travel? To make enough money at what you love that you’ll still have time with your family and friends? (Don’t tell me you want to win the lottery. We all want that but, aside from buying a ticket, there’s nothing you can do to make that happen.)

Fear, anger and spite can get you going, but what will keep you motivated for the long-term? What inspires aspiration in you? What legacy do you want to leave? Are you working for security in retirement, putting off all fun until you’re old? 

I’ll tell you what motivates me. It used to be fear of failure. Once you fail enough, that’s not as scary as you might think. In fact, if I’m not careful, I could fall into resignation on that score. No, what motivates me now is that I don’t want to fear bills. I don’t want to fear for my health. I want to get paid for what I’m good at and do what I enjoy. I’m tired of being fearful. What motivates me as an entrepreneur and as an artist isn’t bravery. It’s becoming successful enough that I can do things for my family and not live in fear of the next VISA bill. 

I’m working on it. Despite that major tax bill I’ve complained about on the podcast, (Hear about that here,) I’m taking some time off from a couple of my side gigs so I can focus on writing and publishing books. That’s my long-term plan so I can retire from manual labor, anyway. That’s why I need to concentrate my energy on it. 

I hope this topic has stimulated your thinking. What motivates you? Are you doing what you need to be doing? Are you getting enough sleep and recharging with rest and information?

Let me know what motivates you in the comments at AllThatChazz.com.

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~ Robert Chazz Chute is a manual therapist whose focus is stress management and rehabilitation from injury. His clinic link is MassageTherapyScience.com.

Best known for This Plague of Days, he is a writer of SFF, horror, crime thrillers and some non-fiction. His blog about writing is ChazzWrites.com and his author site for readers (with links to all his books) is AllThatChazz.com.

Do the Temporal Milestone Thing

Today on the All That Chazz Stress Relief Podcast we’re talking about completing goals using shorter temporal milestones, the power of consistency and focusing on process. I also have another podcast to recommend to you.

Find Joe Rogan’s interview with Henry Rollins here.

See Joe Rogan’s interview with Dr. Rhonda Patrick here.

You’ll find lots more ideas to manage your time, stress, pain and energy in my book, Do the Thing! The Last Stress Management Book You’ll Ever Need.

Available here:

Amazon US

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

If you dig the plethora of tools, tips and tricks in Do the Thing!, please review it. 

Find all books by this author at AllThatChazz.com.

Hey! Don’t take health advice from a podcaster. If you are in pain or otherwise in need, please consult a healthcare professional, of course! 

I am not puddin’. I am a jungle cat.

McDonalds used to have crap coffee. It tasted so bad, I thought it was a mistake. Then I tried it again and it tasted just as bad. Then they wanted to compete with Tim Hortons and Starbucks and improved. On my next try, I thought the McDonalds’ coffee wasn’t bad (and it was all I’d consume there.) However, after drinking it, I’d always feel awful and sleepy soon after. I found out why: It’s the mold we’re drinking in cheap coffee.

As a writer, I’m incredibly sedentary. I’m drinking, and chewing, kale shakes with some positive results to combat becoming puddin’. When I eat cookies, cakes and carbs, I feel lethargic. Knock back a kale shake and I feel energetic and focussed. But I missed the coffee. I drink almond milk as coffee, but was overloading on aspartame.

Next addition to the arsenal? Coffee, but not your dad’s coffee. Strong coffee filled with slimming MCT oil, coconut oil and unsalted creamy butter loaded with the kind of fats that are healthy for your brain and make you feel full.

I’m working on brain and body hacks using Bulletproof Exec. I can’t afford shipping in coffee, but I do have access to fire roasted coffee that seems fine. (It’s the mold and mycotoxins often found on coffee beans that make you feel like crap and when I drink the fire roasted stuff, I feel fine. I experimented with the butter (ghee) and MCT oil and coconut oil today. WIth a little bit of Xylitol (or stevia) it’s okay. It doesn’t taste as great as a latte loaded with sugar and cream, but the options I’m working with now might save my life, so there’s that.

Scoop.it

Flick That Switch: Be the Change You Want to See

This afternoon I took my son to see Here Comes the Boom, a fun little movie with Kevin James and Joe Rogan. It’s an extremely unlikely story about a 42-year-old biology teacher competing in the UFC to raise enough cash to save his high school’s music program. Henry Winkler plays the music teacher, a guy so endearing, who wouldn’t want to save him? It’s worth a few laughs and it’s sweet. It must have been okay because the moment I sat down I spilled half my son’s Slushie down my ass. I stayed and watched and got into it, though my left cheek didn’t heat up until I got home and had a hot shower.

The thing is, there’s a moment in there that made me cry (not the Slushie thing). I won’t spoil it with details. If you see it, though, it’s the moment Kevin James asks the gorgeous Salma Hayek, “How did you do this?” She replies, “I called him!”

Cut to Joe Rogan, the generous guy. I happen to know that Joe Rogan is exceedingly generous in real life: Hundred dollar tips to waiters for a bagel; helping his friends out; being kind to strangers. Like that.

And my heart said, “Chazz, you gotta be more Rogan.”

I have to do better. I’ve paid my dues and it’s time to be a success. I’m going to make that happen. I want to be the guy who does well enough to be more generous, to inspire others more , to help out more. I will, because I’m also the guy who gets things done. You know how I do that? Deciding. Then decide to do it again, and again and again and so on. The only way up that mountain is one step at a time, moment by moment.

I’m launching a bunch of books soon: non-fiction to inspire other writers and fiction to help people forget their troubles. That’s one part of what’s coming. Stay tuned. In the meantime, be more Rogan.

 

PODCAST: The Forays in Self-consciousness Edition

A starving of artists and a choking of friendships: things are going to get weird. This week I also worry about trying not to bother Joe Rogan too much while still campaigning to get comedian Mike Schmidt (from the 40 Year Old Boy podcast) on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. I also update you on the #IndiesUniteforJoshua campaign. To donate, please go here and get perks for your generosity!

Check out my page at Quotations Diary! It’s fun. No, really it is! Much more fun than this monotone, deep and despairing podcast in which I talk to myself for 40 minutes or so. I should really write more and talk less. God, I hate myself. Also? Kind of self-conscious. But listen to the podcast and I’ll explain.

I also have my new author page at Amazon’s Author Central in which I reveal the truth of my army of ninja assassins.

Your free weekly Self-help for Stoners podcast is available on iTunes, or you can download the Stitcher app for free and stream it to your device so you don’t have to hook up to your computer like an impoverished computer person from the 1990s. Cables are so last decade! Enter the promo code SELFHELPSTONERS here and bam! You’ll be entered into a draw to win a $100 cash card for the pleasure of joining Stitcher Radio.

To check out my books, you could go to Smashwords or Amazon or pretty much any digital book platform if you search for “Robert Chazz Chute.” That was easy. Want the printed, dead tree version of Self-help for Stoners featuring actual ink? Buy the paperback here.

Thanks for listening to my comedy/narrative podcast full of stuff and nonsense!