100 Ways to Motivate Others : How Great Leaders Can Produce Insane Results Without Driving People Crazy

All I Need Is a Routine
.”
Lyndon Duke, one of our top mentors and business
productivity coaches, once said that he had spent many
years lowering his self-esteem by bemoaning the condi-
tion of his chaotic apartment. He lived alone and was a
highly active business genius who worked many long and
joyful hours, but couldn’t keep his place clean. He told
himself that he was an undisciplined and disorganized per-
son. Soon, in his own mind, he was a slob. That is a perma-
nent characteristic: slob.
Finally it dawned on him that the only thing missing
was a routine. That’s all he lacked! He didn’t lack will-
power, good character, or self-control. Not at all! He sim-
ply lacked a routine.
So he made up a routine: “I will straighten things up for
20 minutes every morning.” Mondays, while coffee was brew-
ing, for just a few short and quick minutes, he would do his
living room. Tuesdays, his kitchen. Wednesdays, the bedroom.
Thursdays, the hall and porch. Fridays, the home office and
den. And each Saturday morning, for 20 minutes, he would
do a deeper cleaning of his choice. That became his routine.
The beauty of a routine is that it eventually becomes habit.
“At first, it was awkward and weird,” he said. “And I
thought to myself that it was so unnatural and uncomfort-
able that I would probably never follow through, but I
promised myself a 90-day free trial. I’d be free to drop it if
my theory was incorrect. My theory was that I only needed
a routine, and that once my routine 
became routine
, it would
be an effortless and natural part of my life.”
He was absolutely correct about all of it. When we
first visited him at his apartment, long after his routine
Create a Routine

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had become habit, we noticed how clean and orderly it
looked. We assumed he had someone come in to clean.
Then he told us about the power, the absolutely stunning
and amazing power, of making up a routine.
“I do it so naturally now that sometimes I don’t even
remember having done it,” he said. “So I’ll have to look
out at my living room to check, and lo and behold, it’s in
complete order. I had done it without thinking.”
If something isn’t happening in your professional life,
if you could be more productive if only you were “as disci-
plined as so and so,” then worry no longer. It isn’t about
you. It’s about your lack of a routine. Make up your rou-
tine, and follow your routine, and if you do this for 90
days, it will be so effortless and natural to you that you’ll
never have to think about it again.
Do you hate yourself because you don’t prepare for
your team meetings? There’s nothing wrong with you. You
just need a routine. Are you troubled by how your e-mail is
taking up your precious time and life as a leader? You aren’t
missing any kind of inner strength; you are missing a rou-
tine. Check your e-mail two specific times a day and tell
your people that’s what you do. Create a routine for your-
self. Follow your routine for 90 days. Then you’re free.
98. Deliver the Reward
Love is always creative and fear is always destructive.
If you could only love enough, you would be the most
powerful person in the world.
—Emmet Fox, Author/Philosopher

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The most important principle of motivation is this: You
get what you reward.
It’s true of every relationship. It’s true of pets, house
plants, children, and lovers. You get what you reward.
It’s especially true of team motivation.
Positive reinforcement of the desired behavior works
much faster and much more permanently than criticizing
poor behavior.
Love conquers fear every time.
Leaders who figure out, on their own, ways to reward
their people for good performance get more good perfor-
mances than leaders who run around all day putting out
fires caused by their people’s poor performance.
The reason most people don’t maximize this reward
concept is that they wait too long to put it into effect.
They wait to decide whether to reward people, and soon,
before they know it, a big problem comes up to be dealt
with. By then it’s too late.
Dedicate a certain portion of each day to rewarding
people, even if it’s only a verbal reward. Ten minutes at the
end of the day. Get on the phone. Send out some e-mails.
Reward. Reward. (Sometimes verbal and written rewards,
rather than financial bonuses and prizes, are the ones that
go the farthest in inspiring a person to do more.)
Obtain a copy of Bob Nelson’s excellent study of how
companies reward their people,