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It’s amazing how “motivation” now sounds truly motivational ONLY when packaged in the right container.

We no longer seek true motivation (drive to do something) but are more interested in flowery, poetic words dotted with punch-lines and rhyming highfalutin grammars – delivered by a container packaged in a 250k suit, who is in turn counter-motivated by the “Oohs” and “Aahs” and “tell ‘em-s”!

Ask 99% of listeners what the ~~poet~~ speaker said 5 minutes later…and you get more stuttering than actual takeaways.

Who is deceiving who?

Even those that can tell you one or two things they picked…ask them: are they hearing such words for the first time?

I’m not anti-motivation. Don’t get me wrong – in fact, I’m almost a motivation junkie.

What I’m against is the modern motivational system that totally defeats its original purpose.

We are now in a world where someone who started motivational speaking straight from NYSC (the Nigerian idea of serving your fatherland immediately after university/college) is paid hundreds of thousands of Naira to “motivate” executives, in order to boost their productivity…so that it can reflect positively in the company’s annual report.

Dude has never even sold a pen!

Yes, we are in a world where…when your friend gives you a very sound advice, it's just okay, but when a rich man or established motivational speaker repeats the exact same thing (with bigger grammar, of course), he’s suddenly “deep”.

Is it because your friend is on your level and easily accessible – no, seen around anyhow – so over-familiarity wouldn’t make him make “deep” sense to you?

More so, you’d rather travel miles to listen to a motivational speaker than sit down to draw wisdom from that old man in your area that has seen it all.

A world where...the 21st century motivational speaker is suddenly more correct that your parents that brought you up to the stage you now are – or the teacher that taught you some things you now know.

See…listening to motivational speakers isn’t bad at all. Only if you’ve made use of what you’ve been hearing all these years.

That’s my point.

And NO…motivation doesn’t have to come from polished speakers standing on podiums (pedestals, actually). It can come from anywhere, just like inspiration.

You don’t have to attach more credence to a rich man’s quote than you would the advice of a homeless man. That highly (or overly) decorated speaker doesn’t have to make more sense than that so-called failure (you can’t imagine how golden the lessons of a failure are!).

You’d do yourself a lot of harm to miss the message because you detest the messenger. Just remember the biblical Naaman and his Israelite servant girl (or Google it if you don’t know the story).

Motivation has just one purpose: to get you to act. To make you move.

Definitely not to make you feel good or sweep you off your feet. If good motivation comes with those, then that’s bonus…but words sweet to the ears shouldn’t override the push you need to take that next step.

Anyways, personally, I’d rather listen to a message that challenges my beliefs and makes me think deep, than get me hyper and over-excited (not like we don’t occasionally need those too though).

I’d rather you “dial my number” than tickle my fancy.

What about you? Would you rather be indeed motivated or merely entertained?

Leave your thoughts in the comments and let's continue the discussion there.

Thanks for reading, and talk soon.

Oludami Yomi-Alliyu

PS: If you by any means think today's post makes sense, kindly resteem, comment and upvote ;)