Why Vin Diesel Took the Movie, XXX

When Vin Diesel read the rough first draft of the script for the movie XXX, he wasn't impressed. So the director got him on board by casting the vision. He said, 

''Xander Cage is a nihilist. Xander Cage is the least likely to save the world. Xander Cage doesn't care about the world. Xander Cage is recruited by the CIA to save the world, and in the process he learns patriotism and the value of life.''

Coming not long after the 9/11 terrorist attack, you can imagine the impact of this theme. Vin Diesel caught the vision and dedicated himself 100% to the project, preparing himself with an ''extreme-sports version of weightlifting for three months,'' including moto-cross, snowboarding, speed climbing and some Navy Seals training in San Diego.

To do anything significant with our lives, we've got to catch a vision and let it drive us. I challenge you to ask yourself, "Where would I like to be in ten years? What would I like to be doing?" Write it down. Then, think of short-term goals that can help get you there. It's so much easier to get excited about keyboarding and literature and a part-time job if we can figure out how doing well at those might help us in the future. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright August 16, 2002. Facts from Vin Diesel: From nightclub bouncer to action hero 'XXX' appeal, August 12, 2002, People.com, CNN.)

Discussion Questions

1) What motivated Vin Diesel to take the part?
2) How can catching a bigger vision help us get motivated for our daily tasks?
3) What are some long-term goals you'd like to achieve over the next ten years?
4) What are some short-term goals you could set to accomplish these goals? 

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Love Diamonds to Sell Diamonds

Harry Winston was one of the world's greatest diamond salesmen. Once someone came into his store to look at diamonds, but his best salesman couldn't make a sale. Then Winston himself came in and began to show the diamonds. Winston became all caught up in the diamonds, saying things like, ''Just look at this one! Can you see the colors, its sheer brilliance?'' In the end, he made the sale. Upon being asked how he was able to make the sale, Winston replied, ''You see, I love diamonds.'' 

What does this have to do achieving success in our chosen field? The more we believe in and love what we're doing the more successful we can be. This week, let's learn to love what we're doing so that we can do what we love. (© Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved)

Discussion Questions

1) Why do you think Harry Winston was able to make the sale?
2) Do you think Winston always loved diamonds, or that he grew to love diamonds?
3) How can we develop more of a passion for the things we need to do?
4) What are some things you're already passionate about that might could be useful in a career?

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You've Got to Be Inspired

Bobby Richards, the Olympic pole vault champion, said, ''Show me someone who has no inspiration, and I'll show you someone as good as dead. Show me someone with no challenges, no goals, no great aspirations, and I'll show you someone who won't do anything in life. You've got to be inspired.''

Divide into four teams. Give each team a puzzle with approximately the same number of pieces (at least 100). Unknown to the students, puzzle pieces should be switched to the wrong boxes before passing them out. Thus, they will be looking at the wrong picture to try to figure out how to put it together. Just let them figure it out as they go along. Give about five minutes to see who can get the most pieces together. The team with the most pieces connected wins. 

Debriefing: What was your strategy in putting together the puzzle? Were any of your strategies frustrated by having the wrong picture before you? The larger the puzzle, the more important it is to have the right picture before you. Having the wrong picture can make it frustrating. 

What do you think this has to do with life? The clearer your picture of where you're going in life, the more purposeful and livable life can become. What kind of marriage do you want? Once you can picture it, you can determine what qualities (not just physical) you'd want in a mate to make it happen. What kind of job do you want? Once you can picture it, you can begin to see what kind of preparation you need to get there. 

Bring a plastic bowling ball and some plastic bowling pins. Tell them that we're going to bowl, but we've figured out a way to remove all the the potentially disappointing and frustrating aspects of the game. We've taken away the pins! Have several volunteers come up to try out your new game. They bowl the ball from one end of the class to the other, but are given no goal to shoot for.

Next, set up some pins and let the same people try it the traditional way with the pins. 

Debriefing: Which is more fun? Why? It's the goals that make games fun. What might this tell us about people who try to live life with no long-range goals? (They don't see purpose in their present activities. When we have long-range goals it's easier to get into the activities of the present that will lead us there.)

Divide into groups of 8 to 10. Give each group an object. Instruct them that their task will be to try to sell the object to the class for a use other than that for which it was intended. Give them an example by holding up a pencil and advertising it in this way: 

"Here's something that everybody needs. For the low, low price of $4.99 you can have your very own ear-wax removal kit! First, put a little hydrogen peroxide on the flat end. Wait five minutes and use the lead end to pick out the pieces of wax. Finally, lay the pencil on its side and carefully line up each piece of earwax on the pencil so that you have a nifty display to show off your great accomplishment to your little brother or sister." 

Give each group a couple of minutes to discuss what they want to sell their object as and how they will try to sell it to the class. Then, let each group do their presentation. 

Debriefing: It took motivation for you to get up and try to sell your product to the class. What you just did would be extremely difficult for many of us to do. Yet, some salesmen are so persuasive that they could sell an air conditioner to an Eskimo. Why is motivation important to a successful salesman? How do you think salesmen get motivated each morning to go out and receive rejection after rejection until they finally make a sale?  

Teacher Hal Urban began to notice that students were being crippled by an epidemic of excuse-making. One day, he warned his class that large numbers of students were being infected by the disease EFWIC. Yet, he told them, nobody seemed to realize they’ve got the disease. They looked at him quizzically. He explained that EFWIC stood for “Excuses For Why I Can’t.”

Next, he tacked butcher paper to the door and announced, “Every time you catch yourself making an excuse today, or hear anyone else making one, I want you to write it down.”

This activity alerts students to how their excuse habit keeps them from achieving success.

Motivation Brings Success

Nobody can be successful if he doesn't love his work, love his job. (David Sarnoff, RCA)

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Total commitment is the common denominator among successful men and women. Its importance cannot be overestimated. (Dr. Joyce Brothers, Psychologist)

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The very first step toward success in any job is to become interested in it. (William Osler)

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Oil tycoon J. Paul Getty ranked enthusiasm ahead of imagination, business acumen, and ambition.

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The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm. (Thomas J. Watson, Jr. IBM)

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Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find a way. (Abraham Lincoln)

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''Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible.'' (http://www.successtories.com/)

Helps You Avoid Misery

Motivation starts with a sense of desire...When you want something, you become motivated to get it.  (Denis Waitley)

Desire is the seed from which all achievement grows. (Hal Urban)

No matter who you are or what your age may be, if you want to achieve permanent, sustaining success, the motivation that will drive you toward that goal must come from within.  (Paul J. Meyer)

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. ( Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

In football, many people think that the team with the most star players wins. Just pay top dollar for the best players and any decent coach can watch them win from the sidelines. Malcomb Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, disagreed. Instead, 8 months ago, he endured criticism for trading four draft choices, two firsts and two seconds, and paid millions for a leader, head coach Jon Gruden.

According to Glazer, ''We were waiting for the right man, and the right man came.'' Yesterday, (January, 2003) his decision was justified when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers destroyed the Oakland Raiders 48 to 21, claiming the trophy for football's yearly final showdown, the Super Bowl.

What are some of Gruden's leadership qualities that enabled him, at 39 years of age, to be the youngest head coach to ever win a Super Bowl?

If you've ever seen Dr. Phil on his super-successful TV show, you'd think that he's always been a smooth-talker, someone who'd be the life of any party, the type anyone feel perfectly comfortable speaking one on one to. After all, he's a counselor, right?

Actually, Dr. Phil considers his one-on-one skills to be a deficit. In high school, he was very quiet, finding difficulty in starting conversations. After completing his Ph.D. in Psychology, he went into a private practice and found difficulty counseling people one-on-one. He considered himself a failure at that approach. Even to this day, in his own words,

"If I have something structured to do, you put me in front of 10 million people with an agenda, a job to do, that doesn't bother me at all. You put me in a cocktail party making small talk, and I'd rather get a root canal." (Jan Carl, "One-on-One with Feisty Dr. Phil," ET Online (August 26, 2002), available from http://www.etonline.com/celebrity/a12001.htm .

Work Ethic - Gruden works long and hard. According to an Associated Press report, ''Gruden's players sometimes feel like chess pieces maneuvered by a man who never stops scheming. He rarely sleeps more than three hours a night…and he wakes every morning at 3:17 a.m.''(1) (Don't try to emulate this one! He simply doesn't require much sleep.) Shortly thereafter, he arrives at the team's training complex, not returning home till about 10 p.m.

Why does he do it? To impress the owner, players and assistant coaches? No. He simply loves football. ''He does it because there's nothing he'd rather do than study film and find holes in an opponents' defense.''

According to defensive tackle Warren Sapp, ''When you're sleeping, he's working. When you're working, he's working. And when you're off, he's still working. That's the way he lives.''(2)

(1) Jon Gruden's a Bargain Even at Twice the Price monday, January 27, 2003 Associated Press http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76623,00.html  (2) With his passionate coaching style and involvement with both Super Bowl entrants ... GRUDEN MOTIVATES BUCS AND RAIDERS Date: 01-23-2003; Publication: The Dallas Morning News; Author: JEAN-JACQUES TAYLOR / Staff Writer

Yet, Gruden says he never feels tired, and he attacks each day as if his hair were aflame. ''His energy is unreal,'' Lynch says.

''Everything is just bam-bam-bam high intensity,'' says his wife Cindy. ''He's so programmed to work like a maniac, he knows no other way…. One time we brought a movie home, and I went up to put the kids to bed. When I came down, he was previewing the movie in fast-forward. I was like, 'Can't we just watch it at regular speed?'''

(Coach Chucky The Buccaneers' Jon Gruden has all the qualities of the perfect NFL coach: He's tireless, hypercritical and, occasionally, scary as hell Date: 09-09-2002; Publication: Sports Illustrated; Author: S.L. Price)(Written by Steve Miller from the above sources, copyright January 29, 2003)

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Harry Winston was one of the world's greatest diamond salesmen. Once someone came into his store to look at diamonds, but his best salesman couldn't make a sale. But then Winston himself came in and began to show the diamonds. Winston became all caught up in the diamonds, saying things like, ''Just look at this one! Can you see the colors, it's sheer brilliance?'' In the end, he made the sale. Upon being asked how he was able to make the sale, Winston replied, ''You see, I love diamonds.'' What does this have to do achieving in our chosen field? The more we believe in and love what we're doing the more successful we can be. (© Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved)

The very first step toward success in any job is to become interested in it. (William Osler)

From Bobby Richards, Olympic pole vault champion: ''Show me someone who has no inspiration, and I'll show you someone as good as dead. Show me someone with no challenges, no goals, no great aspirations, and I'll show you someone who won't do anything in life. You've got to be inspired.''

Channel Your Motivation to Discipline

Mike Singletary is one of the top professional football players in America, having been named Defensive Player of the Year twice. You'd think he must be huge to overpower others and make so many tackles, but he's actually rather small for a person in his position (6ft. tall, c. 220 lbs). So how does he make so many tackles? It's all in his preparation for the game. He watches game films of his opponents methodically, often running a single play fifty to sixty times, watching every player so carefully that when the ball is hiked, he can predict where the ball is going before the play develops. He can tell by the way one player is standing, by knowing the plays the coaches tend to call for when the time is running out. He shines on the field because of his incredible discipline when no one is watching. (Reworded from Hughes , © Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved)

Let Failure Motivate You

Phil loved football. As an adult, he vividly remembers a junior high game that changed his life. His well-funded school team played a rag-tag Salvation Army team. In Phil's own words,

"We were bad-ass. We had the black jerseys, the black helmets, and here were these kids wearing rolled-up jeans and loafers for football shoes. They beat us like we were clapping for a barn dance. At that point I really got interested in why some people, with all the advantages of the world, don't do well, and those with no advantages can be absolute champions."

"I started getting interested in what makes people do what they do." "Why were those kids who had none of the advantages so good, and those of us who had all the advantages weren't so good?"

"I thought if I could ever figure that out that would be an overwhelming edge in life. I started studying success."

His motivation was so great, that by the time he hit college, he'd already read all his father's graduate school texts in Psychology. He went on to get his Ph.D. in Psychology and become one of the most famous Psychologists in the country, watched by millions each day on his talk show: Dr. Phil.

When some people experience defeat, they just get mad. When Dr. Phil experienced defeat, he learned from it and got smarter. I suppose that's often the difference between those who ultimately succeed and those who ultimately fail.