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Hi Team,

The next area of teamwork I would like to explore is "Team Performance" and to start, I get to discuss one of my favorite topics, motivation.

What motivates people has been studied for thousands of years and motivation is at the very heart of human psychology. Many of the worlds most famous and successful people have build their empires on understanding, teaching and monetizing human motivation. My personal interest in motivation started when I was studying to be a physical education teacher and my favorite subject was "The Psychology of Sport", which analyzed motivation in sport. Then working as a phys-ed teacher for four years a big part of the job was motivating kids to participate in sport and physical activities.

The biggest problem in trying to summarize the topic of motivation, is that there is just so much information out there that it's hard to even know where to start. (Try Googling motivation and you get 1.4 billion results!)

Three years ago when I was starting my "business coaching journey", my coach David Guest asked me a simple question, "what gets you out of bed each morning?"  My answer, after thinking about it for a few days, was
 "I absolutely love the process of building and renovating houses." 

Motivation starts with necessity, ie finding out what really matters to you? (Is your dream more valuable than your sleep?)

"Necessity is the emotion that makes great performances, it creates a must instead of a preference. Necessity demands that you take action",  Brendon Burchard.

Understanding your ambition and finding what matters to you is what gets you started down a particular path; which is often the easy part. But maintaining the effort day in day out for years requires real discipline and attitude. The only way to keep up the required effort long term is for your ambition and discipline to become a habit and part of your daily routine.

"Ambition is what gets you started. Routine and habit is what keeps you going",  Jim Ryun.

Sustained long term motivation requires a great deal of personal persistence and a positive and supportive environment. So living and working in a positive environment makes it much easier to stay motivated. But what makes it even easier, is that motivation is contagious. When you are part of a highly motivated team it is much easier to stay motivated yourself and to motivate other team members.

The primary role of a coach is to keep the whole team highly motivated. 
Here is a summary list of  "what motivates team members?"

1. Trust, that is built through openness and common experiences.
2. Engagement, by knowing what you are doing is making a difference and is being recognised.
3. Transparency, by everyone knowing what's going on.
4. Fun, by creating an enjoyable environment.
5. Thoughtful delegation, by allowing people to make their own decisions and be responsible for their actions.
6. Positive feedback, through praise and recognition to help people to be the best version of themselves.
7. Camaraderie​​​​​​​, by breaking down barriers and working together. 

"The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting",  Max Levchin.

A couple of the best books on the topic of motivation that I have used for this email are;

• "The Motivation Manifesto" by Brendon Burchard.
• "Awaken the Giant Within" by Tony Robbins.

Please remember the site BBQ at Omar St, 2.00pm this Friday.
Thanks for reading,
David