For the past week I have not been able to focus and get motivated to write a blog… so I decided to use “Motivation” as the subject for this article.

Motivation is the reason for acting, is a desire, a willingness to accomplish something.

As a young entrepreneur I used to work more than 16 hours a day.  I was motivated to succeed and to earn money.  At night I could not sleep because I was afraid that I would not be able to accomplish what I wanted. 

Now as an old entrepreneur I am still motivated, but money is not anymore my motivation; yes, I want to succeed but my motivation is to make changes, to create ideas and projects that will improve peoples lives.  Ideas that will last long after I am gone.

So how does motivation work?

There are two types of motivation, Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation:

Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation means that the individual's motivational stimuli are coming from within. The individual has the desire to perform a specific task, because its results are in accordance with his belief system or fulfills a desire and therefore importance is attached to it.

Our deep-rooted desires have the highest motivational power. Some of them are:

• Acceptance: We all need to feel that are accepted 
• Curiosity: We all have the desire to be in the know.
• Honor: We all need to respect the rules and to be ethical.
• Independence: We all need to feel we are unique.
• Order: We all need to be organized.
• Power: We all have the desire to be able to have influence.
• Social contact: We all need to have some social interactions.
• Social Status: We all have the desire to feel important.

Extrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation means that the individual's motivational stimuli are coming from outside. In other words, our desires to perform a task are controlled by an outside source. Note that even though the stimuli are coming from outside, the result of performing the task will still be rewarding for the individual performing the task.

Extrinsic motivation is external in nature. The most well-known and the most debated motivation is money.

Most of us believe that motivation is based on a reward or punishment system.  Daniel H. Pink says other wise in his book "Drive."  He believes that humans need to control their own lives, learn and create and therefore do better in their world.  The reward and punishment system may have worked in the past but now times have changed. 

Pink examines the three elements of motivation:

Autonomy:  it means that we all want to be in control of our lives

Mastery: is the desire to get better in something that matters

Purpose: is when we work towards something larger than ourselves

_After learning about the different types of motivation I realized that as an old man that I have gone from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation, money is not the main reason I get involved in projects, my motivation is to create and teach people what I have learned through my successes and failures. 

Hopefully I can help cultivate a new generation with principles, strength, that will become and promote a positive impact in this world.  

To finish I am sharing a question that Daniel Pink asks himself every night before going to sleep…

Why am I better today than I was yesterday?

It has been a week of sad news, so to bring the spirits up I decided to write about the wonderful things about life and reasons to be alive.

Where would I find a list of reasons? I decided to recruit my kids and nieces. I organized a nice dinner for them and gave them an important assignment… I asked them to write down on a note card their reasons to appreciate life.

At first, I found a lot of resistance… “Hey, you are going to make us work for you… write your own blog”, “not now"… and so on...

Finally they agreed to do it and began to get into the project. After writing their thoughts they had to give an oral presentation.

Slowly everybody got in the momentum and a great discussion began… an hour later we were still exchanging ideas.

Below are some of the great reasons that we came up to be thankful for:

• Something that we all agreed on as being the most important was family and being with the ones that you love!
• Memories created by trying new things and being able to look back on
• Little acts of kindness from random strangers
  
• Traveling and learning about new cultures
  
• Feeling the warmth of the sun
  
• An intelligent conversation
  
• Helping people, making a positive change in peoples life
  
• The sound of laughter and making people smile
  
• How the moon follows us
  
• Looking at the stars
  
• Waking up to new days
  
• Creating something
  
• Learning new things
  
• A new language
• Freedom
• Amazement
  
• Free food
  
• Cookies
  
• Wine
  
• Steak and fries
• Music
  
• Self esteem
• Health
  
• Will Power
• Independence
• Conversations
• Peace
• Comedy
• Human rights
  
• Nature
• Science
• Love
• Curiosity
• Adventures
• Imagination
• Feelings
• Puchi, Lupe, Lola, Chupa, Diana… our dogs
  

When the walls begin to close in on you, take a break; stop and look beyond the immediate problem and appreciate the great things about life, then is when your immediate problem diminishes.

If you have a chance to recruit somebody to remind you of the great things about life please do it!

Do you have your reasons to appreciate life?