Page 96 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

the moon, the power of that thrilling promise alone energized all of NASA for

the entire time it took to accomplish the amazing feat. In his book about the
Apollo 13 mission, Lost Moon, astronaut Jim Lovell called Kennedy’s original
promise “outrageous.” But it showed how effective being outrageous could be.

In his book Passion, Profit, and Power, Marshall Sylver recalls seeing a
billboard in Las Vegas put up by one of the casino owners who wanted to
become a nonsmoker. The billboard read: “If You See Me Smoking in the Next
90 Days, I’ll Pay You 100,000!” Can you see the power in that promise?

I once promised my children that I would send them to camp in Michigan.
They had been to the camp near Traverse City before, and loved it. When you
live year-round in Arizona, there’s something magical about the water and
emerald forests of northern Michigan. It was an expensive camp, but when I
made the promise, I was doing well financially, and I was confident that they

could all go.

Then as the summer neared, I’d run short of money and had to rearrange my
priorities. My speaking schedule had replaced much of the commissioned selling
I was doing and it looked like camp might not be in the picture.

I remember specifically talking to my son Bobby, who was 8 years old at the
time, about how times were temporarily hard and how camp didn’t look like a
good possibility any more this year. He was in the front seat of the car and I’ll

never forget for as long as I live the look on his face. He said very softly, so
softly that I could barely hear him, “But you promised.”

He was right. I didn’t say I’d try, I didn’t say it was a goal—I promised. And
the feelings I had at that moment were so overwhelming that I finally said to
him, “Yes, I did promise. And because you reminded me that it was a promise, I
will say to you right now that you’re going to camp. I’ll do what it takes. I’m
sorry that I forgot it was a promise.”

The first thing I did was change jobs, and my first condition on accepting my
new job was that my bonus for signing was the exact amount of money it took to
send my children to camp. It was done.

66. Make somebody’s day

To basketball coach John Wooden, making each day your masterpiece was