Every day, salespeople, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people realize their dreams. How do they do it? How can you? What is the secret of their success?

Is it personality? Is it heredity? Is it education? All these are a part of it, of course. But, there is something more important than any of these--motivation--the burning desire to succeed.

As mail order sales success nonpareil, Joe Karbo, author of The Lazy Man's Way to Riches, "In a world that is constantly changing, there is no other skill--or set of skills--that can serve you as well, over your lifetime, as the fine art of motivation."

Yet how many of us can say we have mastered that art?

How to get motivated isn't part of any school or university curriculum. Think back. No teacher mentioned it, no catalogue lists it, no textbook outlined its how-tos. Yet considering the role it plays in your success in the educational system--and everything that comes afterward--you'd think it would be taught at every grade level, just like math and history.

Maybe it's omitted from standard educational curriculums because stoking yourself up for your work is supposed to be one of those thing-like sex and getting along with other people-that everyone is supposed to automatically know how to. But if so, the number of books and workshops devoted to improving one's love life and winning friends--not to mention motivation--shows how unwarranted such an assumption is.

If it were up to you to design such a course, what would you want it to teach? What would you want to learn?

What science says about motivation, and the basics of motivating yourself in the first lesson? How to draw on your own natural fund of motivational energy in the second? Would you like to have moved on to techniques for jump-starting energy and enthusiasm by the third?

You don't have to wait for Steven Covey and Zig Ziglar to start Motivation University. You'll find the three chapters of Part I have been written with your needs in mind. Consider it your "Motivation 101," the crash course in fundamentals you never got in school. One that's as easy to follow as Cliff Notes. Part II provides you with guidance through the thought and works of the world's greatest motivators.

HOW THIS BOOK WILL HELP YOU

If you are reading this, you are looking for additional motivational oomph! It might be in response to a nagging dissatisfaction, a general feeling that you aren't getting enough done. Or, you might have something very specific in mind: A fundraising quota your charity wants to meet, a swimming championship you want to win, a complicated report you continually putting off, or a difficult habit-like smoking you want--to break.

Whatever your reason for seeking greater motivation, you have come to the right book. Showing you how to acquire motivation, how to sustain it--and how put it to use to solve your problems--is what this book is about. In these pages are gathered everything you require to become a master motivator like Napoleon Hill or Steven Covey--a mini-workshop in a book. You'll even learn how to generate the motivation for "that awful stuff" you hate doing and keep postponing!

If you recognize yourself below, then Motivation 101 is the book you've been looking for.

Are you someone who is:

+ Seeking to inspire and energize yourself?

+ Seeking to maximize professional or athletic performance.

+ Yearning to realize a personal dream--saving for a European vacation, becoming a writer, earning that Ph.D.

+ Trying to get back on your feet after losing a job--or critical income--during an economic downturn.

+ Looking for the "get up and go" it takes to stop stalling on unpleasant office and household projects.

+ In need of a quick motivational pick-me-up for a fateful confrontation or event--a meeting with an unhappy client, bar exams, pitching your dream project to a likely backer, or a statewide track meet.

+ Having trouble getting started and committing to a major career or lifestyle change--instituting a job search, entering recovery, losing weight.

+ Challenged--as a manager, small business owner, CEO, recovery counselor, educator, or team leader--to inspire and energize other people.

If so this book will show you how to:

+ Analyze any task--and develop--the exact degree of required to complete it.

+ Fuel your drive by identifying and using your own "personal motivators."

+ Uncover and erase negative associations that demotivate you, and turn you off to your goal.

+ Use "instant motivation" techniques to jump-start enthusiasm.

+ Tap your natural cycle of motivation.

+ What all experts agree is the number one motivational secret.

Plus, these skills will stay with you permanently because the exercises they are based on have been authenticated--both in the research laboratory and in daily life. Now you can join all those who have already benefited from this motivational know-how and applied it to bettering their own lives. Simply turn the page to begin.

Jean Marie Stine

3/10/2002