carrot! carrot! carrot!

After reading some of the mini hoopla about the "tiger mom" and her daughter's rebuttal, I came up as I usually do, a big fan of the carrot versus the stick. (the idea that you can get a mule to move faster if you dangle a carrot in front of his nose than if you beat him with a stick.)

The carrot as motivator worked for me as a kid, worked for my own kids and works for audiences as well. Put another way, I believe in inspiration, aspiration over guilt and fear any day of the week. Here's why.

Guilt and fear may move an audience emotionally, but I'm not convinced it will move them literally. Think about it. Too much doom and gloom just makes us feel bad, scared and hopeless. Tell us what we can do to make something better, solve a problem, (and what the happy result will be) and we're up and out the door on our way to ACT.

If we make our kids, or our audience, feel bad about themselves, their situation, their future, how energized are they going to be to move in the direction we want them to go? Plus, how much more will we have to "beat" them to get them there? Yuch.

I say build them up. show them what they can aspire to and why and how they can get there. Then you stand in the background and cheer them on. Remind them of the "payoff" at the finish line. How much better does everyone feel? How much farther, faster, do you think they'll go?

How did Dorothy get back to Kansas?

A few weeks ago I was a presenter at the CFT (Center for Financial Training) conference in Newport RI, (and what a blast that was). Anyway, I happened to catch the last few minutes of The Wizard of Oz, one of my all time favorites. There was Dorothy, saying goodbye to the Scarecrow, clicking her heals together three times, and waking up in her own black and white life. How did she get there?

Here's a hint. It wasn't the shoes. It was her mind. My friend and business coach Marc Tannenbaum likes to say succeeding in business is a six inch game, it's all between the ears. Boy, is he right.

Dorothy had the power to go home all along. And it wasn't the Ruby Slippers that held the power. It was the six inches between her ears. All she had to do was believe that she could go home, and home she went. And so, I would posit, it is with us and all that we wish to do that we think is undoable.

I listen to people tell me, "I'm a terrible public speaker." and I think,"If you say so." What we believe we make real.

At the moment, we're being told that the economy is bad and it's only going to get worse. Here's what I think. I think we are some of the most creative, resourceful, hard working people on the planet. When we put our minds to something, we are unstoppable.

We rise or we fall. We succeed or we fail. We are good, we are great, we are mediocre. We find our way home. The power isn't in the shoes. It's in us.

go get 'em