4. Be the Cause, Not the Effect

Shallow people believe in luck. Wise and strong people believe in cause and effect.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

A masterful motivator of others asks, “What do we want to cause to happen today? What do we want to produce?”

Those are the best management questions of all. People who have a hard time managing people simply have a hard time asking themselves those two questions, because they’re always thinking about what’s happening to them instead of what they’re going to cause to happen.

When your people see you as a cause instead of an effect, it won’t be hard to teach them to think the same way. Soon, you will be causing them to play far beyond their own self-concepts.

You can cause that to happen.

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