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

part of the leader’s career.
“I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never
reach their maximum capabilities,” said Bob Nardelli,
former CEO of Home Depot.
If you’re a leader, be open to being coached. There’s
no value in going it alone just to prove you can.
77. Make It Happen Today
What would be the use of immortality to a person who
cannot use well a half an hour?
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
The ability to motivate others well flows from the im-
portance that we attach to the concept of today.
What can we do 
today
?
John Wooden was the most successful college basket-
ball coach of all time. His UCLA teams won 10 national
championships in a 12-year time span. Wooden created a
major portion of his coaching and living philosophy from
one thought—a single sentence passed on to him by his
father when Wooden was a little boy: “Make each day your
masterpiece.”

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While other coaches would try to focus their players
on important games in the future, Wooden always fo-
cused on today. His practice sessions at UCLA were ev-
ery bit as important as any championship game. In his
philosophy, there was no reason not to make today the
proudest day of your life. There was no reason not to
play as well in practice as you do in a game. He wanted
every player to go to bed each night thinking, “Today, I
was at my best.”
Most of us, however, don’t want to live this way. The
future is where our happiness lies. So we project things
into the future. The past is where the problem began, so
we also spend lots of time in the past. But every good thing
that has ever happened, happened 
now
, right now. Lead-
ership takes place now, too.
Today is your whole life in miniature. You were “born”
when you woke up, and you’ll “die” when you go to sleep.
It was designed this way so that you could live your whole
life in a day. Do you still want to walk around telling your
team you’re having a bad day?
When your people see you making each day your mas-
terpiece, they will pick it up as a way to live and work.
78. Learn the Inner Thing
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into
your own heart. Whoever looks outside only dreams,
whoever looks inside also awakens.
—Carl Jung
Learn the Inner Thing

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/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
Most managers and leaders in this country subcon-
sciously use a Western model of macho warfare for lead-
ership. It is an ineffective model.
Scott studied kung fu in Taiwan, and his instructor
taught him about inner forces in every human being that
can be called on to achieve great things. As Scott rose to
prominence as an attorney and a consultant, he credited
his martial arts training for much of his insight.
Scott recalls: I saw demonstrations when I was in
Taiwan and the United States of kung fu masters who, for
instance, set up three candles. They had a piece of clear
glass in between their face and the candles, so they couldn’t
blow on the candles. And they proceeded to, in what looked
like slow motion, move their fist toward the flame, and
from a distance of at least 12 inches, put out these flames.
One of my friends, a black belt in karate, watched the
demonstration with me. He turned to me and said, “Scott,
you’ve studied kung fu, haven’t you?”
I said, “A little bit.”
And he said, “How do they do that? I’m a black belt in
karate and one of our tests is we have to be able to put out
a candle flame with our strongest kick. We can come as
close to the candle flame as we can, and I had to train
hours and hours to do that. It’s physically impossible to
do it from 12 inches away with the strongest kick I have. I
could never do it with a slow-motion punch. How do those
guys do it?”
I replied, “Well, actually it’s based on something called
‘ki.’”
In this conversation, in this moment, now that I think
about it, I can now extend ki, and change my body posture

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slightly and be practicing the advanced martial art of aikido,
which I’m just doing as I became aware of it.
So with any activity involving a physical body, you can
be practicing a version of this martial art aikido. The basic
principles of extending ki include focusing on your one
point and thinking about that. In aikido, they teach you
that if you focus your attention on your one point, which
is a point 2 inches below your navel, you automatically are
centered.
That’s all you have to do. You can do it in a team
meeting. You can do it during a one-on-one performance
review. There’s no great mystery about it.
The aikido instructor does a demonstration where he
says, “Okay, focus on your one point,” and while you’re
focused on your ki point below the navel, he presses on
your chest but you don’t fall over. You’re very centered
and strong. Then if he lightly slaps you on the top of your
head with one hand (to change your focus) then pushes on
your chest with the other, you do immediately fall over
backwards.
And he says, “What just happened? You had your
awareness on your one point and, when you did, I couldn’t
push you over. And then as soon as I slapped you on the
top of your head, what happened? Your awareness went
up there to your head and I pushed you over without even
trying.”
I did this simple demonstration to my father, the
doctor—the world’s biggest skeptic—and he said, “There
must be a physical explanation for it.” But there was not. He
hadn’t moved a muscle in his body! Nothing physical. Just
his focus. And that was the difference between his being
grounded and centered and strong, and then losing focus.