Anthony Robbins AWAKEN THE GIANT... - Lemma Coaching

The third and most powerful way to motivate people is through personal development. By helping your
employees to grow and expand personally, they begin to feel passionate about life, people, and their
jobs. This makes them want to contribute more. They do it out of a sense of personal pride rather
than pressure from the outside. This doesn't mean you shouldn't have an incentive program; just
make sure you have the most powerful incentive of all, which is to help people expand and grow.
"Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur
and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided."
JOHN LOCKE
SCHEDULE YOUR REINFORCEMENT SO CHANGE LASTS!
When you're beginning to establish a new behavior or a new emotional pattern, it's very important that
you reinforce yourself or anyone else you're trying to establish these new patterns for. In the
beginning, every time you perform the desired behavior (for example, pushing a plate away with food
still on it), you need to give yourself acknowledgement— pleasurable reinforcement of a type that you
truly will appreciate and enjoy. However, if you reinforce the behavior every time thereafter,
eventually your rewards will no longer be effective or appreciated. What at one time was a unique and
enjoyable surprise will become an expected norm.
Because of my commitment to help those in need, whenever I go through airports, I invariably give to
those who request money. I'll never forget one particular gentleman who had staked his claim in a
particular spot in front of a terminal I frequented. Every time I came by, I gave him some money. On
one morning, I was very rushed and had no money in my pocket. As I walked quickly by, I smiled and
said, "Hello! I'm sorry, but I don't have any money today." He became angry because I was no longer
giving him something that he once was thrilled to receive from me.
You and I need to remember that the element of pleasant surprise is one of the most enjoyable
experiences that a human being can have. It's so much more important than most of us realize. This is
the very reason why, if you want a behavior to last long-term, it's invaluable that you understand and
utilize what's known as a variable schedule of reinforcement.
Let me give you a simple example from dolphin training. In the beginning, to train a dolphin to jump,
trainers wait for the dolphin to jump on its own. They catch the animals doing something right and
then reward it with a fish. By doing this each time the dolphin jumps on its own, the dolphin eventually
makes the neuro-association that if he jumps, he'll get a fish. This pairing of pleasure to a behavior
that the trainer desires allows the trainer to condition the dolphin to jump again and again.
Eventually, though, the trainer will give the fish only when the dolphin jumps higher. By slowly raising
the standards, the trainer can shape the dolphin's behavior. Here's the key: if the dolphin is always rewarded,
he may become habituated and will no longer give 100 percent. So, in the future, the dolphin
is rewarded sometimes after the first jump or perhaps after the fifth, or after the second. A dolphin is