SUNDAY'S FOOD FOR THOUGHT- MOTIVATION

Hello everyone, hope you are doing great and if there is anyone sick, going through tough times or any kind of problem I want to encourage you that God knows where you are and he has not forgotten about you, trust him and look up to him. Today, I want to introduce something that I will be doing on Sundays called Sunday’s Food for Thought. It will be all about motivational posts, encouraging messages, constructive advices and many more of that nature. I would also like to invite everybody who feels and believes that he or she has a message with the kind that I have mentioned and that will be helpful to  us and the world at large to email me via bashworker@gmail.com so that he or she can do guest posting. Today’s Sunday Food for thought is about Motivation. Actually the post am sharing is from the book Over the Top by one of the world’s best motivational speaker and author Zig Ziglar and despite the fact that this book was written a long time ago but its message and the principles it presents still apply to our lives today if we really want that “Over the top” life. Read on and get changed.

MOTIVATION

For years I’ve had many people say to me that when they felt a little down, they would pop in one of my tapes, and it would give them a lift. I assumed they were talking about a psychological or encouragement lift, perhaps getting an idea that made their attitude a more positive one. That was true, but it goes farther than that. As I wrote about in an earlier book, there is now scientific evidence that a success message, enthusiastically delivered, can literally generate energy. Here’s the story that I shared in Ziglar on Selling.

Dr. Forest Tennant, arguably the number one drug authority in America, attended a four-hour seminar I conducted in Anaheim, California. I spoke from 6:30 until 10:30 pm to more than 2,500 people.

Dr.Tennant ran blood tests on five volunteers from the audience before I started speaking. When the session was over, he repeated the process. The endorphin and cortisol levels were up as much as 300 percent . His conclusions were published in the May 1989 issue of Meetings and Conventions magazine: “There is a biochemical basis for why people feel good after these talks. Something in hearing about success gives people an emotional charge that releases chemicals into the bloodstream and makes the body function better”.

These effects last no more than a few hours, but Tennant believes that regular doses of motivation will lead to better health, happiness and achievement: “I put it in the same category of helping your health as aerobic exercise, sleep and three meals a day.”

That’s exciting . Dr. Tennant is saying that inspiration can literally create the energy to do the job better and with more enthusiasm. Later tests conducted by Dr. Tennant not only verified the initial one but expanded his information base. He feels the message of hope and success, enthusiastically delivered, creates excitement and that floods the brain with endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and the other neurotransmitters.

He has proven scientifically that with positive input, you can literally create energy, endurance and creativity. That’s very significant. That’s the prime reason that unless I have a short studio insert, all of my recordings are done in front of live audiences. That way the listener picks up not only the information but the inspiration coming from the sheer excitement of an enthusiastic delivery and the response of the audience.

I hope you agree that when we need energy, it is far better to pop a motivational tape in the tape deck and listen to something inspiring on the way to and from work than it is to pop a pill in our mouths. The results from the tapes are all positive, and there’s no hangover.

At this point it is important that you understand the difference between motivation and manipulation. My friend and mentor, Fred Smith, says, “Motivation is getting people to do something out of mutual advantage. Manipulation is getting people to do what you want them to do primarily for your advantage.”

Fred tells how one night a psychiatrist friend chided him by saying, “You businessmen mistake manipulation for motivation. The difference is you can substitute the word thirst for motivation, but not manipulation.” He was saying that unless you are satisfying someone’s thirst, you are probably manipulating rather than motivating. I’ve found that to be a good principle for distinguishing the two. I can motivate with integrity when I bring into consciousness a genuine thirst; otherwise, in most cases, manipulation is the prostitution of motivation. It’s an attempt to get results without honest effort. Motivation is not a quick fix; manipulation can be.

MOTIVATION CAN BE BAD  

This brings us to a significant point in the world of motivation because there are many things that activate the brain to produce the chemicals I’m discussing. Loud rock music, inspiring patriotic songs, or songs of faith that have that same impact; so does the excitement of a highly contested athletic event. For some people pornography serves as the trigger. For others, the excitement of gambling activates the brain, which produces those chemicals. However, according to Dr. Tennant, the difference in being motivated with the type of information I’m sharing with you. You are charged up on ethical, more values that give direction and hope on how to be more, do more, and have more. That’s good.

Listening to loud rock music makes many people feel good because the music stimulates the brain, which is flooded with dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, and other neurotransmitters. The problem is that those recordings frequently encourage us, directly or indirectly, to do things that are of an unhealthy or illegal nature, like getting high on booze or drugs; some, such as gangsta rap, even advocate the killing of policemen. Think about the picture those lyrics paint in your mind killing a cop, burning a building, abusing women, or committing suicide. Ask yourself, Is there a chance that this could be one of the factors in much of the senseless violence and suicide we’re encountering in our society today?

William H. Philpott, M.D., says that rock music, especially hard rock, is disorganizing to the central nervous system because it comes to such an abrupt end, then starts over and has extremely disorganized patterns.

This thinking is reinforced by concerts pianist Stephen Nielson, who says that the “beat of rock music is agitative and antithetical, which literally works not to build harmony in the body but rather disharmony and possibly creates antisocial thoughts and actions within us. At the same time, the pure excitement of the beat floods our very productive brain with neurotransmitters, and as a result we’re energized and charged up to do some foolish things.”

The evidence is growing that repetitive listening to immoral, antisocial, or self-destructive music can be disastrous. Psychiatrist Louis B. Cady, M.D., who is a former concert pianist and an authority on the subject, states;

        Heavy metal rock music, the even more potent acid rock, and “gangsta rap” have an insidious and      devastating effect on the minds of young people. Most people don’t realize that youngsters’ brains are growing and developing until they are at least twenty-one years old. During this steady evolution of brain development, when kids and teens subject themselves to a constant “mental diet” of suggestions that sex, drugs, and criminal activities are not only acceptable but even desirable, they are actually accomplishing a sort of “self-brainwashing” where they begin to feel that even thoughts and feelings expressed in the lyrics of the music which they might initially not consciously believe begin to become the accepted way of thinking-where unlimited premarital sex, experimentation with drugs and alcohol and even dabbling in criminal activities seem to be a “normal” idea rather than a deviant from societal norms. Tragically, these lyrics of anarchy are driven even further into young people’s minds and their unconscious thoughts and fantasies by the heavy and rhythmic beat of the music. Another factor causing increased potency of these lyrics and music to do harm is the advent of the “Walkman” (currently, we have smartphones) type stereo where kids can literally program themselves during every waking moment or at least while the batteries still hold a charge.

P.S The rock music of the sixties and seventies bears no resemblance to the rock and rap music of today.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS

The right music can be a real picker-upper and keeper-upper. An article in the July/ August 1993 issue of Psychology Today says,

Play some toe-tapping tunes to toddlers and it may go straight to their brains. If University of California researchers are right, teaching music basics to babes opens their minds to science and math.

When neurobiologist Frances Rauscher, Ph.D., tested the reasoning ability of three-year olds, she found them sorely lacking. But after three months of lessons, they were snapping together puzzles and blocks quite adeptly. Dr. Rauscher believes music “exercises” basic inborn neural connections related to abstract reasoning.

In her studies, kids from three different schools all tested better after music regardless of socioeconomic status. They’d up scaled their brains with rhythmic beats learned on a keyboard- musical push-ups for the mind. “Consider music as a sort of prelanguage which, at an early age, excites the inherent brain patterns and enhances their use in other higher cognitive functions”

Rauscher recently played some Mozart concertos to Irvine collegians, and just as predicted, they whizzed through math homework afterward. It’s the linear and patterned format of his pieces like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik that put people in that mathy frame of mind. Mozart’s musical passages repeat themselves in a very logical and rhythmic way.

According to noted Hungarian music expert Dr. Klara Kokas, formal music training enhances performance in all other school subjects. She found that children who have received formal music training perform up to 30 percent better in all their other school subjects. The doctor’s findings revealed that the effort required to study music in the abstract enables children to master more easily such subjects as mathematics and languages. It is safe to say that some music inspires us to do better and moves us into a higher level of thinking and performance. However, across the board, the music that effectively functions that way is of the same rhythm as that of our bodies, the melodies, the marches, the patriotic and religious music, as well as the classics of Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven, and a host of the masters.

THERE’S MORE

An article in Sky Magazine, February 1993, points out that therapists say music is nature’s tranquilizer and that’s why many people turn to a favorite piece of music to help them unwind at the end of the day.

Perhaps one of the oldest examples of the impact of music is that of King David, who resorted to his harp to soothe King Saul of evil spirits. Pythagoras, the sixth-century B.C philosopher and mathematician, is often credited with founding the practice of music therapy, though he was most likely building on a still more ancient tradition.

Howard Martin, vice president of the Institute of Heart Math, a stress-management think tank based in Boulder Creek, California, says that for drivers with long commutes, music with a calming message is just what the doctor ordered. “If somebody has to deal with traffic jams, they can be losing energy if they constantly grumble and gripe through it. That energy drain accumulates over time, and people really do pay some dues of a mental and emotional nature which affects them physiologically as well”

The message seems to be clear. One of the ways to stay up-to have more control over our feelings and emotions, to be more enthusiastic and physically, mentally, and emotionally prepared- is to be careful about the music we hear. Soft, soothing melodies when we need to relax and wind down and a peppy, cheerful, upbeat, positive message in song when we need to get up in the morning and get started for the day can make a difference.

Ladies and gentlemen that’s today’s Sunday food for thought. Let us meet next week for another Food for thought. HAVE A NICE SUNDAY EVERYONE.