Motivation Tool Chest

Tools to help you achieve your desired lifestyle

Discovering and developing our natural talent is the power that motivates

motivation-tools.com

By Captain Bob Webb

Table of Contents

Motivation Booklets to Download

Our most helpful page: Tools to help you adapt to the 21^st century workplace.
Our most popular page on motivation: 7 Rules of Motivation What is takes to hang in there.
Our most popular page on education: What is Education.
Personal interest: The Search for Our Destiny.

Personal Motivation Tools

Education & Motivation

People who have a vision control their destiny and lifestyle. For people without a vision, their destiny and lifestyle is controlled by others.

Project Based Education. The right project can motivate anyone to excel.

Developing a productive lifestyle for at-risk youth.

My Quest for Jungle and Sea Adventure Lifestyle

Floating down the Amazon River by raft. Click on image for large view.	Crossing the Pacific Ocean in a dugout canoe with his cat Salty. 5,000 miles from Panama to Hawaii in 68 days.	Conquering 200 miles of jungle by 2-wheel drive motorcycle between Panama and Columbia. Photo: Boundary marker on Panama Columbia border.	Captain of a tall ship, Chief Aptakisic, working with teenagers.
My ports of paradise.		Adventure photos.
	I now work with Boy Scouts of America

My employment with the Panama Canal Company, Panama, and their leadership style made the above adventures possible. They gave opportunity and promotions to people with a vision. Their influence inspired all employees. My adventures were written up in the company's bi-weekly news letter.

The following, "Motivation in the Workplace," is my analysis comparing Panama Canal leadership with other employers I worked with.

Motivation in the Workplace

Visionary leadership that inspire and motivate, employees develop skills that create wealth for the organization and themselves.

21^st Century Workplace Leadership

Top leadership is visionary with the ability to inspire and motivate. He sets an example of the leadership policies he wants the staff to follow.
The workplace is a lifetime learning center, thereby, increasing the knowledge base of the organization.
Leadership that inspires enhances employee decision making skills which creates wealth for the organization and themselves.

Priorities

There are three priorities, CHEAP, QUICK and GOOD. You can have any two.

A good job quick - won't be cheap.
A quick job cheap - won't be good.
A good job cheap - won't be quick.

Note: A single priority increases efficiency. At the other end, if all three elements have equal priority the results are reversed, low quality, high cost, and difficult to finish. This is the result of rotating priorities, which means, no one knows what the goal is. Priority of the moment depends on current mood.

What is Your Leadership Style?

The below efficiency chart is based on leadership styles that inspire or kill creative thinking and the type of people that it will attract. Creative, innovative people are attracted to the upper levels. They like to brag about their contribution, therefore, leadership knows who is doing what. People at the lower level accept the status quo and are yes-people telling leadership what they want to hear. As a result, leadership does not know what is going on.

Leadership style in today's fastest growing organizations are at the upper level such as Google Inc.

High Efficiency

Do it.
Do it then tell me what you did.
Tell me what you are going to do and do it.
Tell me what you want to do and wait for a decision.
Don't do anything without my approval.
Don't do anything until I tell you.

Low Efficiency

Control leadership kills creativity, communications, blocking the ability to recognize needs or opportunity.

In addition to the web pages, the above topics and more are available in PDF format titled "Motivation in the Workplace."

Technology and Organization Policy

There are three types:

Creators of new technology
Leaders in adapting new technology
Slow to adapt new technology

Leaders of new technology have high efficiency work environment. Employees thrive on change.

Organization that are slow to adapt new technology have low efficiency work environment. Employees reject change until forced to accept it.

21^st Century Education & Leadership Trends: The 21^st century is bringing drastic changes in the education system and the workplace. Soon, students will no longer learn by following orders and workers will no longer follow orders without responsibility. Following orders without input or understanding why, results in low efficiency. In this environment, efficiency requires the workforce to unite as a team and share knowledge to achieve a common goal. Participants are inspired and motivated to learn. The learning tool - project based education - learning by doing.
How the Internet is Changing Society: The internet is creating a revolution, challenging, then changing long established theories. In the past, the print media had total control of published content. They only accepted articles from people with quality writing skills and from socially acceptable sources. Public opinions were created and formed by these people. This requirement prevented the experiences of blue-collar people to get their opinions and experiences published. The internet is changing all that.
Story of the website: This article compares my 25 years with the Panama Canal Company, Panama, where the leadership style motivated its employees. Then, after retirement my experience with abusive leadership environments in Guam. These dramatic experiences motivated me to research leadership styles and alternative education methods. In third world countries like Panama, they do not have education opportunities like in the United States. People that get ahead are self educated.
About the Author - Bob Webb: Bob's high school years was a disaster. Without a formal education he found success by taking action to fulfill his dreams and he used the power of self education to educate himself, learning without instructors. This is the foundation of success that is free to everyone.

Something to Think About
Today's teenagers are being academically stuffed while being motivationally starved. Students are motivated when topics relate to personal interest. Personal interest is achieved with hands-on projects.
"Give a person an idea, and you enrich their life. Teach a person how to learn, and they can enrich their own lives" - Author Unknown	Barriers People seeking to excel have continuous barriers to overcome. People who flow with the crowd are not confronted with barriers, they take the path of least resistance. Very often these people fall into a pit. It takes more self-discipline to crawl out of a pit than it does to overcome barriers. Maxing out credit cards is an example of a pit. Establishing a business is an example of overcoming barriers.
Financial Management! The skill that allows us to live the lifestyle of our dreams. Without this skill, we become a slave to our creditors.
Innovation, thinking outside the box.
Barriers Barriers are the result of a lack of experience, skills, or knowledge. To overcome them these issues must be addressed. The Box Inside the box represents the status quo, doing things the way they have always been done. Outside the box represents innovation, creativity, exploring ideas for a better way. Overcoming Barriers The Motivation Tool Chest website offers hundreds of ideas that will help overcome barriers.	Attach a Dream to Your Hero Everyone has a hero, but few attach a dream to them. Achievers have a dream with a hero that represents the person they want to be. People, who attach a dream to their hero, become achievers. People, who do not attach a dream to their hero, remain followers. Opportunity is attracted to people with a dream. They are the first to be hired, first to be offered opportunity, and first to be promoted. Bigger the dream the faster doors open. People without a dream are last to be hired, last to be promoted, and first to be laid-off in a force reduction. For non-dreamers, doors remain closed. "WHY?" People with a dream act differently than non-dreamers, dreamers develop an attitude that radiates energy; they have a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives. Radiant energy is an attitude that bosses like and to which they offer opportunity. This is how the impossible becomes possible. Full text, my story.

	The Search for Our Destiny Exploring and discovery awakens our inner self, creating a desire to learn more about the world around us, setting in motion a vision. A vision is the source of all achievement.
	The compass symbolizes our direction in life.	The sextant symbolizes our current position in life.

	The helm symbolizes skills needed for achievement.	The sail symbolizes motivation and persistent needed through storms and calms.

	The chart symbolizes our desired destination in life.	Projects and the associated opportunity is the ship that gets us there.
The Power of Projects Projects require a goal where students must search for a method, acquire skills and knowledge, accept failure and bounce back from it, and keep trying until the goal is achieved. They learn through experiences, more important, they learn how to research and apply knowledge. Success is measured by the complexity of the project and the ability to finish it. This type of education motivates one to learn more about the world we live in while creating a lifetime love to learn. The laws' of nature is the motivator and instructor. A booklet is available about projects at downloads.

The information published at this website is based on my experiences and my analyses. I did some research to learn what others were saying and could not identify with 90% of it. Coming from a different background, I came to different conclusions from popular theory.

In the website I tell about machinists, who are high school dropouts, making high wages. I also tell about machine shop foremen who are millionaires. Researches have asked for my source of information. This type of information is based on local knowledge, not compiled statistics. Statistics are compiled from extremes and dumped into a basket. Society reads the results, compares the blue-collar world to the white-collar world and concludes that there is no opportunity in the blue-collar world. The human factor is, people who make top wages have a career that is in harmony with their natural talent, in a work environment that inspires them to expand their knowledge.

Several locations in the website refer to street gangs. My resource on this is based on a seminar I attended titled "Understanding The Gang Mentality" by Deputy Richardson, Richland County Sheriff's Department Gang Task Force. It was held in Columbia, South Carolina, December 7, 2001.

motivation-tools.com
Contact Captain Bob at: captbobwebb@bellsouth.net
I welcome your comments.

Please be advised that I do not consult or give personal advise.
Also, I do not add, exchange links, or advertise .
The information is for your personal use at no cost.