Page 132 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

source of strength. “Without heroes,” said Bernard Malamud, “we are all plain

people and we don’t know how far we can go.”

Heroes show us what’s possible for a human being to accomplish. Therefore,
heroes are very useful to anyone who is in the process of finally understanding
self-motivation. But unless we consciously select our heroes in order to use them
as inspiration, we simply end up envying great people instead of emulating them.

When used properly, a hero can be an enriching source of energy and
inspiration. You don’t have to have just one hero, either. Choose a number of
them. Put their pictures up. Become an expert on their lives. Collect books about
them.

My youngest sister, Cindy, as a shy little girl, always admired Amelia
Earhart. After Cindy reached her 30s, she revealed to me that she had been
taking flying lessons. I was stunned! A few weeks after that, the family went out
to a little airport outside of town to watch her fly her first solo. “I was so
scared,” said Cindy, “that my mouth and throat went completely dry.”

Flying has nothing to do with what Cindy does for a living—she just took
lessons and learned to pilot a plane because of the impression that her hero,
Amelia Earhart, made on her as a little girl.

“We grow into that which we admire,” said Emmet Fox.

Before he became a famous author, Napoleon Hill was struggling as a writer
and speaker. He had a friend whose restaurant business was not doing well and
Hill offered to give free motivational speeches at the restaurant one night a week
to help his friend increase his business. The speeches helped his friend a little,
but they helped Hill a lot. He began to gain a large following.

When I read about that part of Hill’s life, it gave me an idea. At the time I
wanted to be a full-time speaker and I didn’t know where to begin. I’d done a
few seminars and talks here and there, but there was no pattern or purposeful

direction to it. I decided to emulate Hill. I began putting on a free, open-to-the-
public workshop every Thursday night at the company where I was working as a
marketing director.

At first, the workshops were not well attended. I had to spend part of the
week begging people to come. Once the audience was two people! But week by
week the workshop’s reputation grew, and my own experience grew along with
it. Soon we had large audiences waiting to get in on Thursday nights, and I credit