So let’s try something. I know that comments are dead. Heck, even Michael O’Neal just recently said that he doesn’t get hardly any comments on his shows anymore. But I want to do this just to try and get some engagement with you on here.

You see, I was just talking to a long time friend of mine and we were having a discussion about what motivates people to get up day in and day out. While I usually spring out of bed in the morning, he dreads having to go to work.

And believe me, out of all people, when I say that I know it can be hard to stay motivated. Because it can. At one point in our lives, we’ve all said to ourselves: “I can’t do this”, “it’s just not worth it”, and “I feel like giving up.” (That’s really just the nature of this entrepreneurial beast we find ourselves on.)

However, let me tell you what my friend and I realized. We thought back to our college days and thought about how many people didn’t make it through school. I mean, statistically speaking, from day one certain professors always said, “Look around you. Only half of you in this room are going to graduate. Only half of those people are going to graduate as an electrical engineer.”

And boy, was he right. Freshman year was horrible. My sophomore year wasn’t that much better. I still remember a ton of my college experiences like they were yesterday – and sucking so hard those first couple of years were definitely downers. I went through clinical depression 3 times in those first two years!! Then in my junior year – I readjusted my game. I changed my major from EE to EE Tech. Had I wanted to stay in that field, I would have gotten the same jobs as EE’s.

As time went on in that new major, the game got easier and easier. By the time I reached grad school, I was doing victory laps. I was so happy then. It was so simple at that time. I had mastered the game! But then… it was time to graduate.

And I wasn’t ready.

I didn’t have a job waiting for me. What I had was time to think. I started thinking about what was going to be the next game. I knew it had to be something that I could passionately work towards mastering. But what?

The focus of my masters was Entrepreneurship – so maybe I should learn more about that? Get some training wheel experience under my belt. Work for a startup or two?

So I did.

And now it’s  approaching 6 years since I graduated. Do I feel like I’ve mastered the game? Haha. Not quite. HOWEVER I will say that I feel like I make a good TA. Hence, the reason I rebooted New Inceptions this past year.

Thank you for being in my class. 🙂

Negative Feelings

Whatever “it” is that we feel like giving up on, be it a project, a goal we’re trying to achieve, or something else – realize that all of those negative feelings are just a test of the game.

I view it as the Universe’s way of “weeding out” who can do what – just like professors do to young students at college and university. (In engineering we had chemistry and physics classes that were notorious for doing this.)

We get these thoughts in our heads and by only overcoming them can we succeed.

When I got my undergrad degree (after 6 long years) I learned that I can succeed in whatever I want to do, I just had to find out how I could overcome those “anti-success” feelings. The same goes for you. Find out what motivates you, and let that be your way out.

What motivates is different from person to person. Maybe it’s a quotation. Maybe it’s a person. Maybe it’s family.

When I was in school, I knew that there were better things to come. And because of that, I worked hard every day cause I knew the payoff was going to be worth it. Was it? Well, not exactly the way that I expected it to. But hey, it did eventually lead me to my wife and best friend, Maria.

Action Steps

Yeah, I know this is a quick entry. But this one isn’t coming from me. It’s not about what I have to say. I really want to hear from you guys. Comment below in what motivates you.

What have you learned over the years that motivates you? That makes you know that all the work that you’re putting into whatever you’re working on will pay off?

There are no wrong answers. Don’t be embarrassed about anything. You could say that I should feel embarrassed by not finishing in the degree that I started in – that I proved the professor right. But I don’t. He was right.

This is simply an exercise to show that there many ways to deal with those negative feelings in our heads.

I look forward to your responses.