Page 59 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

spoke. I remember them jumping to their feet and cheering when I was finished.

It was the most remarkable night of my life. Somehow I had reached people in a
way I’d never reached people before, and their own expressions of joy lifted me
higher than I had ever been.

It was that memory of that moonlit night, driving in my car, that came back
to me 10 years later after I’d spent weeks repeating to myself the question,
“What makes me happy?” Now I had the picture, but I had no idea how to act on
it. But at least I knew what my true life was, and I knew that I wasn’t living it.

Then one day one of my major advertising clients asked me to hire a
motivational speaker for a big breakfast meeting they were having for their sales
staff. I didn’t know of anyone in Arizona who was any good—the only
motivational speakers I was familiar with were the national ones whose tapes I’d
listened to so often in my car, people such as Wayne Dyer, Tom Peters, Anthony

Robbins, Alan Watts, and Nathaniel Branden. But Alan Watts was dead—and
the rest were probably far too expensive for our little breakfast.

So I called Kirk Nelson, a friend of mine who was sales manager at KTAR
in Phoenix, and asked his advice. “The only person in Arizona worth hiring is
Dennis Deaton,” he said. “He speaks all over the country, and he’s usually
booked, but if you can get him, do, because he’s great.”

I finally reached Deaton in Utah, where he was giving seminars on time

management. He agreed to come back to Phoenix in time for our breakfast and
give a 45minute motivational talk.

Kirk Nelson was right. Deaton was impressive. He held the audience
spellbound as he told stories that illustrated his ideas about the power that people
have over their thoughts, and the mastery that they can achieve over their
thinking. When he finished speaking and came back to the table where we had
been sitting, I shook his hand and thanked him, and I found myself making a
silent vow that someday soon I would be working with this man.

It wasn’t long after that that he and I were indeed working together. It was at
a company called Quma Learning, Deaton’s corporate training facility based in
Phoenix, Arizona. Although I began with Quma as its marketing director—

creating advertisements, video scripts, and direct-mail pieces—I soon worked
my way up to the position of seminar presenter.

My first big thrill came when Deaton and I were both invited to speak at a
national convention of carpet-cleaning companies. It was the first time I had ever