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

Most people succeed because they are determined to. People
of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success
because they don’t know when to quit.
—George Allen, Football Coach
Every Olympic athlete, every leader, and every human
being has a certain little-known brain part in common: a
Quit Switch.
Some people, out of lifelong habit, throw the Quit
Switch at the first sign of frustration. Their workout gets
Don’t Throw the Quit Switch

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difficult, so they throw the switch and go home. Their day
of phone calls gets frustrating, so they throw the switch
and go for coffee with a coworker for two hours of sympa-
thetic negativity.
Everyone has a Quit Switch. Not everyone knows it.
Get to know it. Notice yourself flipping the switch.
You can’t quit and you won’t quit until you throw the switch.
A human being is built like any animal to persist until a
goal is reached. Watch children get what they want and
you’ll see the natural, built-in persistence.
Somewhere along the way, though, we learn about this
little switch. Soon, we start flipping the switch. Some of us
begin by flipping it after a severe frustration, and then
start flipping it after medium frustrations, and until finally
it is thrown in the face of any discomfort at all. We quit.
If you weren’t in the habit of throwing the switch too
early, you would achieve virtually any goal you ever set.
You would never give up on your team. You’d make every
month’s sales goal. You’d even lose all the weight you ever
wanted to lose. You would achieve anything you wanted
because you would not throw the switch.
The Quit Switch is something you can focus on, learn
about, and make work 
for
you instead of against you.
Whether you flip it early or late is only habit. The switch-
flipping habit is misinterpreted as lack of willpower, cour-
age, drive, or desire, but that’s nonsense. It’s a habit. And
like any habit, it can be replaced with another habit.
Make it your habit 
not
to throw the Quit Switch early
in
any
process. Do not quit on yourself as a leader or on
your team as producers. The less of a quitter you are, the
more of a motivator you become.

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53. Lead With Enthusiasm
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
All the world’s a stage.
You are a great actor on that stage.
So, when it is your turn to appear in a scene, be enthu-
siastic! Especially if you have something about which you
need to fire up your team. If you have something to con-
vince them of, try being really enthusiastic about what you
have to say, simply as a place to come from.
When your employee speaks in return, be enthusias-
tic. Glow. Sparkle. Radiate leadership and solutions. Pump
yourself up. Take it to an even higher level.
When you’re ready to get the team involved, don’t fade
out—remember you are 
acting
enthusiastic. You are an
actor, and a good one. Finish strong. Enthusiasm is conta-
gious. People love to be around it. It makes them smile
and shake their heads; it can even make them laugh with
pleasure at the dynamo that is you.
Most managers make the mistake of not doing this.
They act reserved, cool, and “professional.” They don’t
act “professional” because they 
are
professional; they do
it because they’re scared (about how they’re coming
across), and they think if they act cool they will be safe.
We spoke with Jeremy about a talk we had him give to
his team.
“You seemed a little less than enthusiastic about this
new commission system, Jeremy.”