Research Info

http://www.thesykesgrp.com/MotivateOthersChaos01.htm
http://www.leadershipconsulting.com/motivation-how-great-managers-do-it.htm
http://www.writersvillage.com/character/Motivator.htm

‘motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it’
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Inquiry Paper

Inquiry Topic: Motivation

Working Inquiry Question: How do leaders use language to motivate people.

I want to research different techniques used to motivate people. The reason I chose to look in to motivation for my inquiry project is because I love sports. In sports it doesn't matter how talented a team is sometimes they just can live up to their potential and I believe that the reason for this is because they don’t have the right person leading and motivating them to work their hardest. I personal have a lot of experience with this from playing sports my whole life. I've many different coaches throughout my life and some were just able to get me to perform at levels I didn't think that I could. When I began playing football my sophomore year of high school I had a coach that was able to get the best of me so much so that it looked like I was going to be the clear cut favorite to be the starter my junior year. The summer going into my junior year he was switched to the offensive side of the ball and I never really performed the way I knew I could. I liked the coached that replaced him more, personally, but he just never motivated me to get better, and I felt comfortable where I was at. I really want to how people are able to motivate other people, specifically in professional sports because coaches have to be able to motivate adults who are already making money regardless of what happens. I know you have to be self-motivated but it’s not enough sometimes. The thing that I know about motivating or motivators is that I believe the person is born with it, but the thing that I want to know is what is it that that person does that makes people want to try their hardest for them. I came up with this topic while watching a football game involving a team that has a lot of individual talent but can’t put it all together and win. As I was watching it I just thought that they don’t look like they want to win. The only question I have about this topic is whether or not there are specific techniques used to motivate others.

What techniques are used by leaders to motivate others to try their hardest?

Thoughts On Writing

Writing That Moves You

"The lord lives among us

The young uns hunger become a means to get it

By any ways necessary, under pressure

Children feeling lesser, with the steel up on the dresser

Killin' will aggressors, destiny’s children

Survivors, soldiers, in front of buildings they eyes look older

Hard to see blessings in the violent culture

Face against weapons, sirens, holsters

That ain't the way that Langston Hughes wrote us

Soul controllers on the shoulders of Moses and Noah

We go from being Precious to Oprah

Cultivated to overcome ever since we came overseas

Today and the way that you can see we determined

Solar keeps burning, shawty’s know to keep learning

Lesson’s in our life, but life stripes that we earning

Took gramps' advice that Christ is returning

Like a thief in the night, I write the beacons of light

For those of us in dark alleys and parched valleys

Street kids spark rallies of the conscience conquerors of a contest

That seems beyond us, even through the unseen

I know that God watches

From one King's dream, he was able to Barack us

The prophets, nothing can stop us

Believe!"              

For this assignment I used the lyrics from the second verse of Common’s song The Believer. The song is about who young African Americans in the ghetto. In my opinion his purpose in writing this song is to give hope to young black kids, by telling them that even though they might not be in a favorable position right now that they can make it out. Even though I didn’t grow up in this kind situation this song still moves me because I know people who did. The reason that the words from this song has so much power because that’s the kind of life he came from, and I feel like writing is always more powerful when the writer has been through what he’s writing about. It starts off by saying that the young kid’s hunger and want causes them to try to get what they want by any means necessary. He later states that it’s hard for them to see blessings in the culture that they are raised in. Another thing that he mentions is that we can go from nothing to something and that we have been cultivated to overcome since we were brought overseas. My favorite quote from the entire song is when he says “I know that God watches, From one King’s dream he was able to Barack us”, Which means that one of us was able to become the leader of the country, all from one man’s dream.

I feel that the order of his words in this entire verse was purposeful, and goes with the theme of the verse. What I mean by this is he starts of by saying the negative things that poverty leads the youth of our community to do and ends with a line about the first Black President. This goes along perfectly with the metaphor “We go from being Precious to Oprah” which means you can start at nothing and end up one the most influential people in the entire world. He also uses some rhetorical techniques in this verse. He uses a euphemism when he says “the young uns hunger a means to get it by any means necessary” which really means that the kids rob and take the things they want. The way he says “from on King’s dream” is a some kind of rhetorical technique, because it sounds like he just saying that from a king’s dream but he specifically means from Martin Luther King jr.’s   dream. This is a very deep song and I would love to analyze it line by line but I could only point out the things that I felt was the most important.

This I Believe

Overall Belief Statement: I believe that there are important lessons learned from playing sports, and I believe that learning to lose is the most important lesson.