Where does determination go?

Last Friday I recorded a podcast on motivation and forcing yourself to get stuff done. Unless you’re a totally disaffected screwup, self-motivation is easy. The reality of the situation is that even though it takes only takes you to motivate you, everyone else is working against you trying to throw you off your course.

I was complaining to my wife this morning about not being able to take care of anything yesterday because I spent my time dealing with bs and being completely distracted by crap. Crap can consume you, when your desk is completely clear of crap you actually go out to seek it out. So my dear wife, six months pregnant, was sitting there patiently waiting for me to lean closer to the dashboard so she can slam on the brakes and throw my whiny ass through the windshield.

“What the fuck happened to me?”

I used to be able to watch 16 hours of taped classes the night before a midterm and ace a two hour test in under 30 minutes.

Then I realized that my entire day yesterday broke down into about an hour of actual work and about 5 hours of bull that I should not have gotten myself into to begin with.

Here is what I actually believe in: I have this tremendous mountain of partners, friends, associates, helpers and my 9-5 (well.. 8-1 really) ought to be filled with trying to get them the most out of what they do with us and work on the things they actually need. I’m fortunate to give a crap so people tell me all the time what they can use to be even better. I was talking about all this last night with the bar none most supportive partner I have. I always feel like I owe this guy something, and I outright told him he ought to get paid for what he does. His response was: “I am paid.”

“I am paid… the more resellers that you have the more profits, the more monkeys that you can hire, which makes the product better, and makes my life easier / better / more profitable”

He is not alone in that sentiment, nearly everyone I talk to that is already paying me wants to pay me more. All day, every day, I get people on my doorstep just waiting to give me money for something I can do for them. That’s what keeps me going.

But there is this one thing about me, which I blame my parents for, that at the very core of things I am a nice guy and I hate to see people get screwed. I hate to see people waste their time, get blatantly lied to, mislead, disrespected and not valued for what they do. So I spend my time, which in terms of fiduciary duty I ought to be spending on my business and my clients and my blog and my readers and my podcasts that people not just love but make their livelihood on, banging my head against the things that will never change, helping the people that would love nothing more than to see me fail. Why, why, why?

Truth is, no matter where you are and who you are, people will have no respect for you or your time when they have stuff to get done. They will burst into your office, wardial your phone, email you every 2 minutes in between sending SMS messages to you. Why? Because they have to get stuff done and in some way you stand in the way of it.

So today… I am trying something new. In about a week I’ll update you on my progress and see if I get anything more out of my few hours of work a day.