Make more enemies

“Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.” - Tim Fargo        

Another day, another battle with yourself. And here we are. It is time to fight…

Wait, what? Why are we fighting? To break this down, we need to go into a bit of a thought exercise. We are in an ongoing war of motivation. If we aren’t motivated to eat, we starve. If we aren’t motivated to bathe, we stink, and other things. If we aren’t motivated to take care of our health, we typically die sooner, but in a lot of cases, just add physical, emotional & mental suffering to ourselves.

None of this seems fun, but follow me. If we aren’t motivated to work, we go down the rabbit hole even further. Because with no work, we are rarely given resources that are meaningful to us. Sure you can get handouts. Sure you can have someone provide you food, clothes, etc. But a lot of people who don’t work for the thing that they get, tend to not be satisfied. They may be satisfied with whatever provisions they are getting, but overall, they are stuck in a place, most of them don’t want to be. When you work, and you earn, even if it is small, it is yours. You are doing something, and getting the earnings. You are then using those earnings to acquire, build, and cultivate things that mean something to you.

You can read tens of thousands of posts, books, articles on how to motivate your- “self”.

And yet, for the purposes of this writing, we are going to motivate our “self”, by finding an enemy. Let’s start with a quote from one of the greatest competitors to play sport.

“Oh, I hated him. And that hate carries even to this day.”

Jordan had such a fierce rivalry with Isiah Thomas and the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons of the late 1980s that the bitter feelings from those days still persist to even now.

Michael Jordan was a fierce competitor, and if you didn’t have the fortune of watching the documentary, “The Last Dance”, it is well worth the investment, even for an episode. Jordan spoke many times about how someone would look at him wrong, or an off hand comment, or a newspaper article that was slightly critical about him or his team, and he was set off! He would target that person, quote, or thing, and he would create an enemy. And his number one goal? Destroy that enemy. Conquer them. Make them regret even looking in his direction, or questioning him.

But how does this translate to business or life? Simple. It’s time to dream up some enemies. Most of us aren’t motivated by friends. Sure we can be motivated for a few moments, but for a sustained period? It’s hard. Because we are “friendly”, and you can’t get mad very easily at someone you are friendly with. If you can’t get mad, you can’t tap into a ‘fire’ that would burn inside of you, when you are looking at your enemy.

I read, “enemies don’t expect anything from you, and neither do you. Instead, they are the fuel and motivation for your hustle and success.” And this is the crux of the situation, it is time to focus on creating MORE ENEMIES!!!

Now let’s set some guidelines for our “Making Enemies Exercise”.

#1 - We don’t want real enemies. If you don’t get this, don’t go any further. We want to make them up in our heads.

#2 - They should be tangible, even though they are made up. Maybe your enemy is your co-worker, maybe your boss, maybe the company in your sector, maybe it’s some other significant person to you. The goal of this is to imagine, and yet not to work too hard to do it.

#3 - Create a scenario - This is your enemy! You have the who, now add the what. What did our fake enemy do to you? Or what are they planning to do? (This is where the magic happens)

#4 - Add more enemies - Yes, I said plural. Because for most people, to really dive into this, you will have lots of things going on in life, and one enemy for your job, may not be the same enemy for your fitness goals. You need to think about each one, so that you are motivated properly.

#5a - Beat them! - Now it’s time to go to work. Put in the work. You have imagined these people, scenarios, etc. How are you going to defeat them? What are the extra steps, what is the extra work you’ll have to put in? How are you truly going to elevate yourself to that next level?

#5b - Retire them. - Sometimes your enemy is no longer sufficient for you. Thank them for being the fake target of your ire and motivation and retire them. Find new targets, and keep increasing.

Some words of caution. Our imaginations and minds are powerful. If you do pick a real person, please don’t get mad at them even if you had to in your motivating actions. Use this as a tool in your arsenal. Some folks use this part of the time, some use it all of the time. You have to find what works best for you.

We always have an enemy. Whether it’s time, your neighbor down the street, some policymaker you don’t even know, or a number of other things. The concept is there no matter what. It’s now up to you, to leverage it, to help you “motivate” your ‘self’ past the battle lines of whatever challenges you are working on.