Good Life Project - Motivation: Why You Can’t Change the One You Love [Best of]

Episode Date: December 29, 2016

Ever try to help someone who had absolutely no interest in being helped? It’s one of the most frustrating experiences we can have. Maybe it’s a family member or partner. Maybe it’s a close friend or colleague. Or even a customer or client. So many times, we end up banging our heads against a wall […]The post Motivation: Why You Can’t Change the One You Love [Best of] appeared first on Good LifeProject. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in the day, I was actually a personal trainer. When I left my career as a large firm lawyer, my next move was actually to become a $12 an hour personal trainer so I could learn a new industry. I was fascinated by the fitness industry, the wellness industry, had been pretty much a lifelong entrepreneur before then, and I wanted to understand what is the dynamic that is happening, not just from the level of management, but from the most basic point of service. So I became a personal trainer and worked one-on-one with a lot of clients and then eventually split off and started my own practice before I ended up then a little bit down the road from there, opening my first facility. And I will always remember this

one experience. I was building a practice where I actually visited people in their homes. And marketing is a kind of like a really fun human behavioral puzzle for me. So a lot of people despise marketing. To me, it's just kind of this fun puzzle, like how do we move the pieces around in a way to inspire people to take an action, behave in a way that is in some way beneficial for them. And it's not an easy thing to do, especially in the health and fitness world. And there's one big, big lesson that I learned really early on. So I had actually, I believe, I sent out a direct mailing and found a list of people in a great neighborhood and targeted demographics that seemingly would be great for me. And I got somebody to call, and they said they wanted to set up a first appointment to try it out.

So I got my gear together. I got my bag, and I'm wearing all my stuff. And I'm excited to go and meet a potential new client and see if I can help them. And I'm in a big building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And I take the elevator up to the floor, the elevator gets out. It's a really long hallway down to the end. And so I realized that the apartment that I'm going to is at the very end. And I start walking. And as I'm walking, even literally at the point of the elevator, I hear yelling.

And there's a gentleman. He's screaming. But I can't really make it out. And I don't really know where it's coming to. But he's angry. He's not happy. He's really cranky. And I start walking down the hall.

And I'm walking in the direction of the cranky yelling. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, somebody's really not too happy right now. And I'm getting closer to the apartment where I'm going to meet my potential new client here. And I'm realizing the yelling is getting louder and the crankiness is getting crankier. And I'm walking closer until I'm standing in front of the door where I'm about to do this session. And it becomes clear to me that the angry gentleman is behind that door and he's yelling at his wife. So I stand there for a moment to see if I can

actually kind of make out what's being said. And what's being said is this, you made me do this. I told you I didn't want to do this. You forced me to do this. I hate this. I'm not going to participate. I'm going to do nothing. He's ranting and raving about how pissed off he is that somebody who loved him dearly gifted him essentially a trial session to actually work with somebody who might help improve his life. He wanted nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing to do with it. So I'm thinking to myself, huh, do I just turn around and blow off the appointment? I can't do that because I'm a professional and somebody makes an appointment, I have to show up. That's my job.

So knock on the door, knock, knock, knock. Everything quiets down. You know, they realize, hmm, this guy's out in the hallway and a couple extra seconds, I hear some shuffling. Wife comes to the door, very lovely. You know, a couple in there, I would put them in sort of late 60s. And she greets me, she's super friendly. And I come in and I see off in the far corner in the living room, a gentleman, my future client supposedly. And he's in his sweatsuit and I try and be very, very nice and friendly and not let on that I've heard any of what's just been going on. And I kind of proceed to move through what I would have done with, you know, pretty much anyone else, but with the extra sort of knowing that this is somebody who really, really, really doesn't want to be here.

And we get to the end of the session and he says, you know, thank you and just walks away. And I look at his wife and she kind of rolls her eyes a little bit and says thank you to me also. And I know at that point I will never see either of them again in my life. And it was a really important moment for me because what it made me realize is that you can be astonishing at what you do, but until somebody wants to help themselves, it's going to be nearly impossible to help them. So a lot of people will ask me, how do I get somebody to do X, you know, to eat better, to move their body, to exercise, to stand, to consider a different job or career, contribute or volunteer, how do I get them to do it? And the answer is you don't get anybody to do anything else. So in this particular scenario, there was nothing, you know, there was no conversation, there was no argument that could have easily been had to make this happen.

You know, somebody has to come to a place where they become motivated to actually want it themselves. If you want it for somebody else, that may be sort of a short-term motivation. But to keep something happening sustained, to keep a behavior that you may not even love for a while sustained long enough for it to really benefit you, you've got to want it yourself. And what I learned through that experience is that I want to work with people who want it themselves or who are open to a conversation where they would consider intelligent arguments and intelligent reasons that would cultivate that wanting in themselves rather than being forced by somebody rather than being told by somebody else, this is what you have to do. You know, when somebody else imposes their will like that, it's probably more counterproductive

than productive, because now somebody is not going to do it, not just because they didn't want to, but because they're being told to do it. And as a parent, and I'm sure, you know, we have a huge community of parents listening, we all know this when it comes to kids. But the truth is we don't outgrow that. We really don't. You know, as witnessed by this couple in their late 60s,

for so many of us, kind of stays that dynamic for our entire lives. So when you're looking to go out and figure out how you want to contribute to the world, when you're looking to, you know, choose an organization or an industry or business or a company to work with, or when you're looking to create your own business or private practice, or just be of service, you know, one of the things that you really want to consider is, do they want it? Do they want the service? Do they want the potential outcome that you can deliver? Do they want it for themselves and not because somebody else is forcing them to do it?

Or are they at least open to the possibility and the conversation that would lead them to want it themselves? So I'm going to think about as you choose where to put your energies. Because if you choose to put your energy into a place or a path or a career to contribute your gifts to the world in a way where the vast majority of people are being told that they have to do what you have to offer, and they don't want it, or they're not open to the conversation around learning how to want it, you are not going to have a very rewarding career experience. Something to think about, to the extent that you can, what would happen if you built the way you contributed to the world around the opportunity to serve people who genuinely need and want what you're there to give?

Kick it around. If you found something valuable, entertaining, engaging, or just plain fun, I'd be so appreciative if you take a couple extra seconds and share it. Maybe you want to email it to a friend. Maybe you want to share it around social media. Or even be awesome if you'd head over to iTunes and just give us a rating. Every little bit helps get the word out and it helps more people get in touch with the message. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.