Oct
06
Johnny Talks About Motivation
I heard a story a while back that was really awesome, but I forget where I heard it and I forgot the specifics of the whole thing. I’m going to try to tell it anyway. So let’s everyone lean back in our chairs and take a sip of coffee while I fuck up a perfectly good allegory.
A young man hears about a master living high in the mountains, near a large blue lake and a crystal stream, who teaches… I don’t know… kung fu, I guess. Like, this guy is the most super awesome kung fu guy in the world and everyone wants to learn from him because he can catch flies with chopsticks and dodge bullets and become, like, invisible and shit. I mean, he’s better than David Carradine and Remo Williams put together.
So this kid goes up to see the master and the master is wading in a stream or something, and the kid says, “I want to learn kung fu from you.” And the master says, “Fuck off, kid, I’m fishing. You don’t really want to learn from me.”
So the kid leaves. Meditates on the whole thing a bit. Studies more kung fu. Watches The Karate Kid, even though it’s about karate. Gets all mad at the evil sensei who wants that blond kid to sweep Daniel-San’s broken leg at the end.
He goes back to the master and says, “Master, I really, really, really want to learn kung fu from you.” And the master is still in the stream up to his ass with one of those floating live bait things next to him and he looks up and says, “Dude, you don’t want it badly enough. And you didn’t even bring me any donuts.”
So the kid goes back. Works harder. Learns more. Watches the rest of the Karate Kid movies and even some Steven Segal movies. Watches Hard to Kill, decides that even though it’s hard, he wants it badly enough to kill Segal anyway. Meditates on his passion for kung fu. Makes long lists of why he wants to learn from the master. Hires a debate coach to form airtight arguments for why he really, really wants to learn kung fu. Studies neurolinguistic programming. Then he hikes up the mountain again, this time with a giant box of donuts for the master and a few hundred dollars of strip club funny money inside of a singing Hallmark card with a bow on it.
Again the master is in the river when he arrives, and he looks up and says, “Oh, Christ. Not you again.”
So the kid goes into his reasons why he really really wants to learn, pulls out all the stops, uses his NLP techniques and matches and models the master’s body language, uses his sales training to work on a hard sell, gives him the Benjamin Franklin close technique, and the master rolls his eyes, grabs the kid by the face, shoves his head under the water, and holds it there.
The kid starts to push up, but the master holds him down. So the kid pushes with his legs. Thrashes. Kicks. Starts to panic, punches at the master, tries to swim out, claws, scratches, grabs rocks and tries to brain the old guy with them. Finally he manages to grab a branch off of the shore and beats the master with it and finally, panting, emerges and staggers back.
“You don’t want badly enough to learn from me,” says the master. “Go home. Then, when you want to learn as badly as you wanted to breathe just now, come back and we’ll talk.”
See, this is the element of the last six months of “The Johnny OBS Project” that I can never accurately convey no matter how hard I try. I can write about what I did, and try my best to explain to you fine folks exactly the steps I took to go from zilch to over $6k per month in half a year.
I can tell you about my attitude, my mindset, my philosophies on branding your personality, giving back, and my thoughts on being genuinely cool instead of being a dick. But what I can’t explain to someone who has never experienced it is the drive behind it all.
Let’s look at where I was in late March of this year.
It was a tense time. I owned around fifteen rental properties, and only one of them was a good investment. I was essentially the sole breadwinner for a family of four. I had three major clients, and all were in jeopardy. One was using me less due to the economy, one was in the process of being sold to someone who wouldn’t use me, and one was tanking. All three of those “bad client things” eventually went to completion, and led quickly to me billing none of them anything at all.
I had to do whatever it took or it would mean financial ruin. Maybe bankruptcy. It’s not dying in a ditch, but it’s not fun either. I was the kid being held under the water, and I was going to do whatever it took to survive.
It was bad. It actually freaked Naomi out, because I was so desperate. I’d ask her questions like, “How long will this take to make money?” and “Can I try this one thing yet? Okay, how about now?” I had to make myself back off lest I give her a panic attack. But, when I was alone, I filled every minute with my pursuit of… of whatever. It started with the niche websites; I spent every night writing keyword-filled articles, launching new blogs, reading new material, Stumbling and Digging my own stuff, making Squidoo lenses and Hubspot hubs, writing articles for the article directories and linking them back to my stuff, tweaking AdSense, trying AdWords.
I wrote my non-niche blogs, contacted other bloggers, sought out guest posting spots, joined forums and networking groups, surfed directories, crunched my Analytics data, refined my sites, bugged Naomi every minute, wrote e-books, Googled for new material, went through the Thirty Day Challenge in two weeks.
I once heard Tony Robbins say this thing where he asks, “How long would you give your average toddler to learn to walk before you gave up and stopped him from trying?” And the answer of course is that if the kid is able-bodied, you never stop; the kid keeps trying until it happens. And it’s no wonder that just about everyone in the world who is able to walk does so. That was me. How long was I going to keep at it? As long as it took.
I woke up every day at 6am and would work until 11pm. I’d take maybe 2-4 hours per day on average to eat, go to the gym, hang out with my family. Seven days a week during most weeks.
It didn’t feel like work I needed to do. It felt like thrashing under the surface, doing whatever was necessary to get up for air. I wasn’t panicked all the time, but I knew it was do or die. And that panic? Yeah, there was some of it. A lot of sleepless nights. A ton of stress and fear.
This isn’t a set of instructions. If you’re doing well, maybe you don’t want to burn any bridges to light a fire under your ass to make your online business work. I’m not telling anyone what to do in this particular post. I’m just trying to explain what I think is the difference between a really strong desire and a burning necessity. Do you WANT your business to succeed, or do you NEED it to succeed? Is it a desire or a requirement? Is it a way out of an unpleasant situation, or is it the air you need if you’re to keep breathing?
People have asked why my business worked, and I’ll tell you why: Because it had to. It HAD TO. There was simply no other option.
We don’t get our wants in life. We get our musts, our have-to’s.
I don’t think you should make your situation dire if it’s not already dire. But if you really want to succeed, you’re going to need to find a way to stop thinking of it as something you’d like and start thinking about it as something you need.
Then, when you feel as if your head’s underwater, don’t wait to drown. Kick and thrash like a motherfucker. Fight like your life depended on it. And you just might be surprised if your need is strong enough.
P.S: Okay, I hadn’t intended to make this one so heavy. Let me know if you have any questions I can answer next time — preferably ones amenable to dick jokes and farting noises?
Fucking awesome, Johnny.
This works, folks. Being desperate and needing it REALLY badly works. When I came back from Russia and was homeless in the middle of winter in New York with $50 to my name, I busted my ASS finding a way to support myself. 10 months (and a lot of help from Naomi and others) later, I’ve got my thing up and running.
Sure, there’s a downside to panic and fear lighting a fire under your ass. The stuff you set up tends not to be optimal. But it’s easier to tweak later on when you actually know what the hell you’re doing than to go out and Build The Thing. Starvation and homelessness won’t help you tweak, but it’ll sure help rocket you to the place where the biggest worry on your mind is the tweakage.
If your hair’s not on fire, you probably don’t want it bad enough. :D
Thank you for this blog post, I think I needed to hear what you are saying. I am in the process designing a new product and need to take the big step to make it a reality. Thank you.
The challenge on this one is to extract a practical lesson. Do I suggest canceling your insurance and burning your house down in order to get motivated? No. But there must be other ways to make it urgent.
Maybe this one is more of a thinker than something with a to-do takeaway.
Johnny, on a side note, The Karate Kid is currently being remade with Jackie Chan and Will Smith’s kid. I know, I know. I’m predicting that nothing inspirational or quotable comes out of it.
Good post. Needs some quotes from Kill Bill to be truly perfect!
How are those transformers treating you these days?
Please tell me that’s not true, Josh. Because if it is, the producers may not have realized that they have walked into a cliche, knocked it over, then tripped and fallen into it, covering themselves with sticky, oozy, slimy cliche matter.
It’s true, Johnny. If I was the sort of weenie who left links in comments, I’d show you one of the 50 billion pages it’s on. And he’s not going to be Daniel, but “Dre.” As in, “Dre-san,” I imagine.
It’s called “The Kung Fu Kid,” but is proudly a remake.
Even better, I keep hearing rumors that Total Recall is going to be getting the treatment.
Can you imagine? It’ll be full of fake futuristic commercials and lots of blood.
Next up: Steven Seagal in “The Aikido Kid.”
Master Steven: “To master your Chi, first you must master the art of getting chicks onto the casting couch.”
All right, Johnny, last one then I have to go get some work done:
You might get a kick out of the book “Fraud” by David Rakoff. He’s a writer sort of like David Sedaris–but more bitter, Jewish, and Canadian. He takes some pretty funny writing assignments, my favorite of which was attending a new age retreat taught by Master Segal.
He makes a hilarious observation about this gentle retreat being taught by the only martial arts star who feels the need to torture his victims before fighting them. I can’t remember which movie it was, but he was making someone play that hand slap game before it was really on.
Anyways, Fraud by David Rakoff.
A. Johnny, you’re an inspiration. For me it’s not a business thing as much as it’s a Get My Life Back On Fucking Track thing.
B. god i hope that jackie chan/will smith karate kid remake never sees the light of day, though a total recall remake does sound a little lol-worthy.
Yep yep. Nothing lights a fire under your ass like desperation or frustration, preferably both together. I can identity with this, more than I want to admit.
It’s a little uncomfortable remembering how some of us start out, but a wise idea not to forget. Loved this post, Johnny. Thanks for sharing.
Excellent post! So true, having your back up against the wall certainly provides motivation for forward propulsion. Your post has inspired me to create urgency in my online business. Congrats to your success!
As someone with some money in the bank and unable to get off my ass, I wonder how to light such a fire without setting my house on fire. For example, I could ask my elderly parents to hold on to my entire cushion until I absolutely need it, but even that isn’t the same as facing ruin.
I have to admit, I’ve never heard any of those “Dick jokes” that you mentioned in your post. But I’m sure I’d enjoy them if I did.
I don’t have a child and a spouse depending on me to bring in enough money to keep them from starving. I do, however, have an old house and a mortgage . . and winter is coming. And do you want to talk need? I want/ NEED to to make this thing happen so much that I DO feel like I’m drowning! I have no money coming in. I’m barely sleeping, trying to come up with answers. And the prospects scare me senseless. But I keep at it because I need to. I can’t see beyond it. It may be the death of me – if winter isn’t – but I love it too much to let it go. Yep, I understand you completely.
Great post. The hard part of lighting a fire under your ass is keeping it lit after you have a nice cushion built. Steve Jobs worked his ass off to get his company up and running and successful. Why he’s a real master is because he has (essentially) kept that fire going. Probably has something to do with loosing Apple for a while. I know that would piss me off.
@Brad hell yes! that would piss me off mightily too, and i am not easily pissed off.
Johnny, I can so relate to this post! When I quit my full time marketing job to start my freelance copywriting business, failure was not an option. I’m pretty sure that, if I had to spend one more year working 9-to-5 for corporate America, I would die. That was five years ago and I’ve never looked back. I absolutely agree with your want vs. need comparison. Although you might succeed if you want it bad enough, single-minded determination kicks in when you need something so much that your life (or livelihood!) depends on your success. Thanks for sharing a piece of your soul.
Dude – I swear, ever since I turned over the rock you/Naomi/Dave Navarro/et al were hiding under (undoubtedly some kind of conspiracy), it has been one damned epiphany after another. I’m a member of Project Mojave, BTW, and I was thrilled to see your tweet that your Z2B Course is going to be included. Shanks!
So today I find this post, and it is IDENTICAL – okay, not exactly identical – to what I have been thinking about in the last few days. Specifically, I have always struggled with that question the coaches/psychologists/business guru cats always ask: “What do you want?” Are you kidding me? That is a HARD question! I mean, I can think of lots of things I want, but I know the point of this question is to elicit the ONE thing you REALLY REALLY want more than anything else. Knowing that thing is then supposed to magically focus all your energies and make it just a fucking coast down the hill into your new-found fulfillment, dreams realized, bills paid, kickin’ it on your real or metaphorical white sand beach in the tropics. Even the folks with enough integrity to tell you that it’s gonna be a shit-ton of work STILL make it sound like figuring this elusive what-I-want thing out will make that work somehow effortless. After all, you’ll know what you want!
Well fuck me cuz if I haven’t tried to answer that question a million different times using a million different frames of reference and still come up with nothing remotely like the confidence, singleness of purpose and flow they told me I was gonna have.
I realize now that not knowing what I want has been the single most debilitating thing in my life, and the irony is that it’s completely fucking NORMAL not to know what you want. And the debilitation is not from not knowing what I want, it’s from thinking that I’m supposed to know what I want. Bullshit.
So yesterday I had this epiphany, fueled in no small part from all the reading I’ve been doing of you and your mates (and those worksheets Dave Navarro just released sure as hell haven’t hurt). What if I changed the question from “What do I want?” to “What do I need?” And I’m not talking about needing to be loved (I do and I am), nor am I talking about needing to be understood, fulfilled, heard, or any of those (perfectly legitimate) needs.
I’m talking about material needs. Like, the bottom two stacks on ol’ Maslow’s pyramid. You know what I’ve never done, in my entire life? Made a monthly budget. (The crowd gasps!) Yes, it’s true. Never once in my life have I sat down and simply figured out how much I NEED every month to cover my expenses plus enough to live a little. Okay, I’ve done the sitting down part. I’ve done the pen and paper part. I’ve even done the open-up-Excel part. But I haven’t gotten any further than that. Why? Ooof… that would be a long monologue, and I don’t want to burden your lovely readers any more than absolutely necessary. And why is probably a fuck of a lot less important than I want it – God how I want it – to be.
But it hit me: how ridiculously simple! If you want to get off the job train and get on the entrepreneur train, then you’ve gotta have a clear road map. At least I do. I even knew that before and couldn’t come up with the road map because I couldn’t figure out “what I want.” But NEED? Shit – that’s easy! I need $X,XXX per month. A-G have to be paid on the 1st. H-M have to paid on the 15th. And N-Z have to paid on the 24th.
It’s weird but there is something that is so… calming about this knowledge. I have suffered from years under the weight of feeling like I had to be great, the best, the KING. And it’s gotten me basically a string of abandoned, potentially successful careers in everything from music to sales to graduate school in the humanities. It SUCKS. But this little switch – I don’t have to do ANYTHING except earn enough to cover my basic needs, FOR NOW – has lifted about 8 billion metaphorical pounds off my metaphorical chest and dropped me into a much less scary reality than I could have ever imagined.
Thank you so much, brother. For being real, for being brutally honest and brutally forthcoming about your own travails. It means more than any business advice I could ever receive. I NEED to do this.
Much love,
David
P.S. I guess it makes you a weenie or something to leave links in blog comments – :-) – so I will just mention in non-link form that I listened to a presentation by Merlin Mann of 43 Folders about “getting started” which was given at a conference somewhere. You can find it at 43 Folders dot com. It is a wonderful complement to what we’re discussing here. And it’s only like 25 minutes long. And the dude is funny as shit. Voilà. Peace
David, someone called me a weenie once when I left a link in a comment. I never got over it:) I can’t be objective about it, so it’s possible that the practice is completely acceptable and I just can’t let go of the weenie fixation.
I’m listening to that Merlin Mann right now. You’re right on all counts.
Great post.
However, if you’ve ever seen someone drown,
(or been in that situation yourself as I have)
then you’ll know that for someone drowning, they
can kick and thrash and struggle as much as they
can, but they’ll still drown.
That’s the situation when you need someone to
throw you a life line.
Desperation can be a great motivator, but if you’re
really in over your head, all the desperation in
the world isn’t going to cut it.
Naomi, If you can remember, most of the life lines that were thrown to me had lead weights attached and I still survived.
By the way, the comment above wasn’t Naomi Dunford.
Sorry, I forgot how that would look.
Sorry for the wrong assumption. I apologize.
Rock on, David. Rock the fuck on.
Point A: you people need to quit dissing Jackie Chan or I will go all Five Point Exploding Heart Palm on your asses.
Point B: Naomi-not-Dunford has a good point, and I think there’s a Plan B. If you’re not panicking and freaking out, do something little. Most of us have a pretty good idea of some of the pieces, so start making those. A blog or an email newsletter. Start building a little village that thinks you’re worth talking to. Do an ebook on something you’re good at.
Then when you do get thrown in the deep end, you don’t have to figure out every damned thing from scratch, and you’ve got a few assets.
That’s more or less what I did, and it worked for me. So it’s an option if you want to do your own thing but the gun’s not at your head.
I seem, though, to be more motivated by reward than punishment, which I think is fairly weird.
Yeah. Jackie Chan kicks ass. And doesn’t take himself seriously either which is a major bonus.
And I agree, when you’ve got some basic skills, you can panic a bit more constructively. At least that’s what I’ve found.
I get your point with this and I agree that you have to really go for it in order to create something big for yourself…..but I am getting stuck on your idea that it is a good thing to be acting from a place of fear and desperation…..you have to really NEED it in order to get it.
Do you really believe that you do not get what you want in life??
Maybe we are just coming from a different perspective in how we define words, but I tend to feel that really wanting something is enough and is a much healthier place to be creating from…When you need something there is an edge of crazed desperation behind it…like a addict jonesing for their next fix.
How can you be clear on what you want when you are in that space? You are running away from your discomfort rather than towards something that will feel good to you.
I will out myself here….I am a big hedonist so I am all about focusing on what feels good to me. The best way to put a fire under my ass is for me to get really clear on what I want and then to think about how I am going to feel when I get it. Then I act on all the opportunities and ideas that come to me from that place. yes…I still fall down and have to try something different every now and then, but I am not losing sleep over anything.
It sounds to me like you knew what you had to do, and you knew that you would succeed eventually. I think that is the key here. Knowing that you will succeed. Knowing that you will do whatever you need to do in order to get there. You don’t have to be desperate for that……you just have to trust that you can have anything that you want.
Rock On!
Leah
Hey Leah,
Well, again, this isn’t a prescriptive post. I’m just telling you what happened with me, not suggesting that anyone destroy their life in order to improve it. But I do think that there are different types of people in the world, and some are motivated purely by pull, like you and Sonia. But a whole hell of a lot of us, whether we like it or not, are motivated more by push.
I can want the hell out of something and think on it and think on it and believe it and believe it and STILL have to muster the will power to get up and move in that direction. But if something is chasing me? If I’m going to experience some significant pain if I don’t move? Whether it’s what I’d like to believe about myself or not, the truth is that that will move me faster and farther.
Pleasure and pain are our twin driving forces, and I guess it just depends which is stronger for you.
(Now, before everyone thinks I think you can ONLY be driven by pain, read this, from Tim Brownson’s site: http://www.adaringadventure.com/blog/wordpress/life-coaching/look-up/ )
I’m pretty sure you people have a sitcom in the making here. Or a movie. Something important seems to be going on, but the true value from my point of view is in the company.
Knowing we’re not along is important to keeping oneself motivated. If you feel like the only loser out there, you’re probably right, and likely to stay put. But when it’s clear that your trials are just part of the maze that everyone else walks through, that’s when desperation turns to motivation. When viable options begin to take shape.
Thanks for another great post JBT.
Thank you for that. I loved the story. You definitley can work to a wrap up.
I will probably continue to follow for inspiration.
http://tayappention.net is mine. Not much there yet.
Cheers.
I can say that the adage “impossible is nothing” will work perfectly when we in have to situation.
Hi Johnny,
Thanks for your reply and the other post that you shared.
I hear you and agree that everyone is different. “Find what works for you and do that” is what I say.
I wanted to shake things up a bit by offering a different perspective. There are tons of people who think that the ONLY way to get shit accomplished is by struggling, and thrashing about, and they never take any action until they are scared enough and uncomfortable enough to do it. I just want to say it doe not HAVE to be like that.
Peace, out…
Leah
Wow. Just, wow. Fantastic Article Johnny. I’m now sadly aware of my own motivation levels… not nearly high enough for success. Now I need a “How to kick your own arse when you aren’t going bankrupt” article… any ideas?
(haven’t read any of the above comments yet, so sorry if it’s already been asked!)
Ok, now i’ve read the comments… /sob.. NO REMAKING TOTAL RECALL!!!! /tantrum….
LMAO!
Johnny, you’re freaking motivating!
Excellent post! My immediate reaction was, “My God, That’s exactly how I felt 8 years ago when I started my business.” You’ve captured that driven feeling perfectly.
And it certainly is powerful. Yes, I did make a profit in my first year and the business has continued to grow ever since. I still felt driven for the first couple of years, but to a lesser degree each year.
Its brilliant when you get past that stage, but beware – that’s when complacency can set in. Having a bit of a fire in your belly is always a good thing.
TOTALLY right my man. If you want change, you gotta have a good enough REASON for change. Problem is, most of us are just too damn comfortable.
I think you can take this a step further and when people are wallowing around in self-pity at how bad it all is and jeez I hate my job and this sucks and that’s awful… I turn to them and I say “Brilliant. You’ve reached that crucial point where you’ve GOT to change. Don’t you realise, you NEED this?”
Okay, I might not say it exactly like that, but I certainly gently coax them along this line of thinking… all the big, positive changes that have occurred in my life have resulted from being beaten with shitty sticks. Period.
Exactly. I sometimes do these barf-inducing workouts from Crossfit.com. Crossfit has an expression among people who do it that says, “I don’t like Crossfitting. I like HAVING CROSSFITTED.”
Same exact thing. I don’t want to go through that again, but I appreciate why it had to happen.
Naomi K: “panic more constructively” is genius. I love it.
Wow, this post was so inspiring and put into words what I’ve been feeling about myself. I started to write comment here, but it turned out so long that I turned it into a blog post on it’s own ( http://www.phddepression.com/2009/10/my-decision-to-commit-academic-suicide.html )
If you don’t want to read it, here’s my attempt at a summary…Since I started my PhD I’ve found myself regularly falling into what I call “PhD Depression” – I don’t feel depressed in my life outside of the PhD, I’m really happy there, but all things PhD make me miserable. This isn’t an everyday thing, it comes and goes, but I hit an all time low a few months ago.
Like you, that desperate low moved me to action. That action lessened my desperation, which, in turn, lessened my action.
My conclusion – You said what I’ve been thinking, but too scared to admit, I have to just do it. I have to put it all on the line if I’m ever going to this (start a business).
Thanks for the inspiration.
I’ve been thinking about this post for about 24 hours now. You’re right – it is a thinker. I guess my reaction to the sort of desperation you were facing would be to go on out and get whatever sort of minimum wage job I could find in order to continue eating. The problem with that is, of course, minimum wage jobs don’t usually lead to financial success down the road in the way your hard work did…
Woah. Look what happened to this fucking site. Nice.
Dava, that’s the trick. It’s tempting to look for a modicum of security even if said security sucks. Since I’ve never had a normal job, that possibility was actually MORE daunting to me than to just keep on with what I was doing. I’ll bet it’s harder if you know how to get a “real job.”
Although this is at the end of a long stream of comments, which means no one will probably read it, I’m going to agree with Sonia.
I have huge respect for what you did, Johnny. I had a similar situation- wife was sick, like really sick, chronically sick, medical bankruptcy sick, and I was the sole provider, and I needed to make it work.
But I didn’t do that. I had a part-time job, and worked the business really hard. But not THAT hard.
And I encouraged myself with worst-case scenarios. “I can always get a job.” “If this doesn’t work I’m not doomed. It’s going to be okay.”
Some personalities respond well to the “do it or die” phenom. Some don’t. Some people just get paralyzed, and need a different way to do things.
So, for the folks who need what Johnny dished out- eat it up! It’s definitely a hugely valid point.
And for those for whom the Art of War just seemed like an insane ranting that didn’t resonate at all, and instead find that compassion and support and ease actually help to open up creativity and flow, well then, that’s an option, too.
Just sayin’.
I totally read that comment, even though it was at the end of a long string of comments.
Word.
@Mark Silver : So did I. Thanks for your contribution to the conversation!
Thanks for reading and the appreciation. One edit. I wrote “Art of War” above. I was, of course, (you read my mind, didn’t you?) referring to S Pressfield’s “War of Art” which just pissed me off. I mean, I took his point, sorta. But, it’s just not my shtick. I love support.
I love the post Johnny. We need that kind of kick in that ass. You might think you want it and are trying hard, but f*ck that. Try harder. Push yourself. Don’t feel sorry for yourself because it is taking long. Patience is half the battle and patience blows. In a world of getting answers and everything else right now, all we want is instant gratification (speaking of gratification…). Nice work Johnny! I needed the motivation.
Go get ‘em, Casey!
(You should imagine that in the voice of Burgess Merideth, who played Rocky’s trainer.)
As long as the lead weight’s only on one end of the lifeline, and the other end is securely anchored above water, you should be able to manage.
I’m fascinated by the diverse range of views and opinions. Who’s your “go to” guy?
Great comment about success