Internal Motivation VS External Motivation - The "Secret" To Monumental Success

By Richard Peck

The biggest problem for most people is they are externally motivated.

This means they focus on "things" external to them, such as cars, houses, clothes, technology (computers/phones), games etc. Whilst everyone is guilty of this to a certain degree, the best people are internally motivated.

Internal motivation sounds new-age woo-woo so I'll explain what it is.

Say you have a burning desire to fly. Or maybe you want to go to the moon and see what it's like to walk in zero gravity. Perhaps you're an artist. You could be a musician. Everyone has an underlying idea / ideal which makes their soul burn with passion. This is internal motivation.

In almost every case of monumental success (epoch defining), we find one core ideal lying at the heart of the individual's desire to risk their entire life upon a series of events that lead up to the eventual achievement of their goal. Some of the more pertinent would be Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hannibal and even Hitler.

To take these examples, we can actually examine them as we would other people...

Alexander wanted to see what lay beyond the "outer ocean". Ancient Greeks believed the world was essentially a donut with a huge "outer ocean" surrounding the land (they obviously had not discovered the Americas or the poles at this point). His conquests were simply his way of trying to get to this ocean and see what lay beyond.

Caesar wanted to be like Alexander. A vain and ambitious man, we already know that he was as shrewd political operator. Born into a demi noble (patrician) family 50+ years before Jesus, many contemporaries described him as arrogant. It wasn't until he was 32, however, that Caesar encountered a statue of Alexander the Great when he was service as Quaestor in Spain. It is reported (by Plutarch) that Caesar broke down and wept - when confronted, he replied "I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable?". Shortly afterwards, he returned to Rome to pursue greater political aspirations.

Hannibal invaded Italy in an attempt to subdue the fledgling Roman city state. In a time just after Alexander the Great, and around 150/200 years before Julius Caesar, Hannibal's "Second Punic War" was a huge upset in the region. Despite being best known for taking an army - with elephants - over the Alps, Hannibal's military victories far outshine this stunning feat. However, it would not have been possible had it not been for his father - Hamilcar Barca - who forced Hannibal to swear that he would destroy Rome when he was just 6 years old. Obviously, the young Hannibal took his oath to heart.

Adolf Hitler is interesting. Firstly, the raving madman many people seem him to be is a false post-war propaganda play. When you look at the man, you see someone fraught with internal conflict and a longing for acceptance in a world where he felt he was "special". What's vital about Hitler is the way in which his political ascent was triggered by his time on the Western Front. Upon hearing of the armistice in 1918, he was fraught with despair. Whilst this "trigger" was interesting, what actually lay at the root of his experience was an opera called Rienzi. The original manuscript has been lost (Hitler owned it and it was lost after the war)... but from what we know, it's Wagner's story about how a lowly Roman Plebian rose through the ranks of a corrupt government to lift his populace out of servitude.

The point of all this is that at the core of ALL massive success lies an underlying "trigger". This trigger is typically the ignition for something much deeper. This deeper ideal is what you really want but have either been told - or in many cases have identified yourself - as being something you can "never do". In other words, the "trigger" gives you a justification to actually pursue your true intentions.

The first step to becoming majorly successful is to first understand what you REALLY want out of life. As mentioned, if you want to "fly", there are many "ways" through which this can be achieved... becoming a pilot being one.

As most people never spend 2 minutes thinking about this type of thing, they never give themselves permission to consider it at all. This is why they live lives of silent desperation... consuming until they die.

Indeed, our modern world - devoid of heroes like they had in Ancient Greece - is now focused squarely on making as many people as high-powered consumers as possible. Everything will be fine just as long as you're a good tax & debt slave.

If you want to achieve monumental success, you WILL have to do "the work". Of that, there is no doubt.

However, if you want to be one of the "few" who truly make it, you need to consider what you really want. This is not something logical... you can't really "say" what it is. It's just a feeling you have. Again, everyone has one - the question is whether you have the courage to bring it to reality.