Motivation 1)

So I always try to start my day off with a visit to the hughtrain and also a quick visit to creating passionate users and I was particularily interested today on the latters discussions about helping people become more than what they are. This is fundamentally what many of these forward-thinking bloggers are telling us we need to do in order to sell our products (from toilet paper to fine art) to a loyal customer/fan base - and I think they've hit the nail on the head. Psychology 101 tells us that what motivates people on a very basic level is the desire to have our needs fulfilled in this order:

Physiological; Safety; Love; Esteem; Self actualization.
(Maslow's Hierarchy of needs)

By trying to Inspire every cusomer (or better yet every person) that crosses your path, you tap into both the Esteem and Self actualization needs on a fundamental level. This motivates people, and excites people - a very useful tool if you are trying to sell yourself, your book, your idea, your product, etc... but wait, there's more.

By trying to help people become better in daily interaction, we can help make the the world around us a little better- good for our own self-actualization, and motivational for ourselves. And that's why these ideas are effective. Basic psychology.

And that's why it's great to be a renaissance man/woman. If you find so many things challenging and inspiring - it becomes much easier to inspire others. So here's to wrinting a novel, learning a new instrument and basically doing anything you haven't done before!