"Reed ... Perhaps you can help motivate the unemployed? There are a lot of unemployed people out there who have given up and lost hope in their ability to find employment, and due to a lack of self-confidence they no longer trust their ability to seek out business ventures/opportunities on their own. Along with that many of them have become stressed out, negative and depressed. They have become their own worst enemy. Perhaps a great inspirational/motivational speaker such as yourself can give them the boost they need."
First of all, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am NOT the one to pat people on the butt and say “It’s going to be okay” in a soft, warm and fuzzy voice. That’s not where the source of my personal power comes from; therefore, it plays no part in the essence of the message I deliver and how I deliver it. The “HRJR Philosophy” is a bit more aggressive than that.
The essence of the “HRJR Philosophy” is more in line with the mentality that if there is something you want to have in life, you’re going to have to get up off your butt and go after it. Those who follow the “HRJR Philosophy” understand and accept that doing so will not be easy and that it’s not supposed to be. They understand that anything worth having must be earned through some form of struggle so that the victory is truly sweet and the prize well-deserved.
With that said, the root word of “motivate” is “MOTIVE.” Another word for motive is purpose. The purpose of any person who is unwillingly unemployed should be to seek employment. Additionally, the 2nd half of the word “motivate” is “ATE,” which is the past tense of the word “eat.” In other words, the purpose of any person who is unwillingly unemployed should be to seek employment so that they may have the means to eat. In short, they should have a purpose to find the means to eat!
I have no tolerance for quitters. I have no tolerance for people who “give up hope.” As long as you are blessed with the spirit to wake up and get out of bed, you have the means to get out there and grind and make that day better than the one before, and if it doesn’t turn out that way – SO WHAT?! Go to bed with the HOPE to wake up the next day and grind again.
I understand that times are hard. I make no joke of it, and do not take the harshness and humiliation of unemployment lightly. However, the reality is that times are hard for just about everyone on some level or another. In some way, everyone has some kind of cross to bear. Everyone has a sad story to tell; but people have choices, and based on those choices they can determine what the ending of that story can and will be. Based on those choices their story can either end like a fairy tale - happily ever after, or like a Shakespearean tragedy where all of the characters die at the end.
Let’s be real here. For many people, they don’t have a hard time finding a job. They are having a hard time finding the job they want. They are having a hard time finding a job that will pay them what they want to be paid. The key word here is “want.” People have a serious deficiency when it comes to distinguishing the difference between the things they want and the things they need. You might want a job that pays a lot of money; but if you’re unemployed, the reality is you NEED a job that pays money period. You might be qualified for the boardroom, but you might have to work your way up out of the mailroom.
For those people who find themselves with a “lack of self-confidence,” who “no longer trust their ability to seek out business ventures/opportunities on their own,” I can only say that the only place where they can find, cultivate, and exude “self-confidence” is within themselves! The operative word here is "SELF!" However, since "inspiration" is some kind of necessity here ... let's break down the word backwards ...
"ATION" - The result of an action or process.
"SPIR" - The root of the word "SPIRIT".
"IN" - as in "WITH-IN."
Now let's bring it back ... The result of "ACTING SPIRIT WITHIN!"
There is nothing I can say to a person to build them up and shine if they are not willing to flip the switch to the “on” position within themselves. There is nothing I can say to convince a person to “seek out business ventures/opportunities on their own” if they “no longer trust their ability” to do so.
Those who are the greatest at what they do are such because they believe in themselves more than anyone else does. Some people are successful despite the odds because they suffer from an affliction that I call “the Bumble Bee Effect,” which is more commonly referred to as “ignorant intelligence.” They succeed because they don’t know that they cannot succeed. I call it “the Bumble Bee Effect” because by all laws of physics, the bumble bee is not supposed to be able to defy the laws of gravity. Its body is far heavier than its wings’ capacity to carry it, but the only problem is that everybody except the bee knows this. The bee doesn’t know it’s supposed to be incapable of flight, so what does it do? It flies!
So … for those who allow the stress and negativity to get the best of them, they are in fact their own worst enemy. You see, there’s a difference between being knocked down and being knocked out; and even if you get knocked out, if you aren’t dead, at some point you are going to wake up and get up. The room will stop spinning and the stars and birds will stop circling around your head like in the cartoons. When that happens, you get up and you start fighting again. What does every fighter who loses a fight do? They either quit the sport or they go back to the gym and train harder for the next fight.
(MY motivator) Les Brown always says, “When life knocks you down – and it will – try to land on your back; because if you can look up, you can get up.”
Pastor Donnie McLurkin sings, “We fall down, but we get up. We fall down, but we get up. We fall down, but we get up – oh yeah – For a saint is just a sinner who fell down, but got back up.”
This is life. This applies to getting a job as well. The most important thing is to get something going on so you can have something coming in. You might have to take a job that you feel is beneath you. You might have to go back to school and get more education and training. SO WHAT?! You’ve got to do something!
There is no excuse for being unemployed if there are still jobs in the Classified section of the newspaper, and I have never seen one newspaper with a Classified section that said, “Sorry, we ain’t got nothin’ for you today – Holla back tomorrow!” Get out there and hit the bricks. I don’t care if the add in the paper says, “Mail in your resume’ – Don’t come to the office.” WHAT?! If you’re hungry you better be there to hand in that resume’ in person! What’s the worst thing that could happen – they won’t hire you? Well, if you don’t get the job - you can’t miss what you never had. On the flipside, how do you know whether or not that little blurb in the ad was a trick placed by that potential employer to filter out the hungry from the hacks?
Times are hard now, but those people who believe that to only be a temporary condition; who actively and consistently work towards changing that condition, those will be the people who will eventually find themselves on their way back to top, on the top … or beyond!
No matter how many times you might get knocked down, you will never be considered a failure as long as you get up one more time than you get knocked down.
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