Motivation Manifesto, 2014 book by Brendan Burchard.

animation-summary video by AlwaysImproving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXEfm8XyS94

4-minute summary

partial excerpts (antilibrary)

2014

The Declaration of Personal Power

Why, having been endowed with the courageous heart of a lion, do we live as mice?

We must look squarely into our own tired eyes and examine why we waste so much time sniffing at every distraction, why we cower at the thought of revealing our true selves to the world, why we scurry so quickly from conflict, and why we consent to play small

We believe the greatest of human powers is the ability to independently think for ourselves, to choose our own aims, affections, and actions. For in the hearts of humankind lives a natural instinct for freedom and independence, a psychological predisposition for self-direction, a biological imperative toward growth, and a spiritual joy in choosing and advancing one’s own life

To secure these Rights and this Personal Freedom, men and women of conscience must not consent to be controlled by fear, convention, or the will of the masses

We have patiently suffered long enough, hoping that someone or some kind of luck would one day grant us more opportunity and happiness. But nothing external can save us

We are too often lost in the abyss of unawareness. We regularly miss the energy and blessings around us, and the importance of this very moment

For this, we now declare: WE SHALL MEET LIFE WITH FULL PRESENCE AND POWER

The white space of a free day seems unfathomable because we have become hypnotized by a false but compelling need to respond to all the needs of others

For this, we now declare: WE SHALL RECLAIM OUR AGENDA.

Something inside is sabotaging our natural drive toward freedom. It whines

For this, we now declare: WE SHALL DEFEAT OUR DEMONS.

Most of us are not maturing as fast as we are able

We must remember we are not the sum of our intentions but of our actions.

WE SHALL ADVANCE WITH ABANDON

We are exhausted. All around us we see faces that look weathered, drooped, stern

Our supreme duty must be to rekindle the magic of life. For this, we now declare: WE SHALL PRACTICE JOY AND GRATITUDE.

We compromise too easily when life becomes difficult

we must have a strong refusal to break, choosing that mighty lift of courage, that soaring commitment to love, that grand ascent to the realm of character that is congruent with our highest values

WE SHALL NOT BREAK OUR INTEGRITY

We are not transmitting or receiving love as we were divinely intended to

For this, we now declare: WE SHALL AMPLIFY LOVE.

Generation after generation is failing to hold the line on the ideals and virtues of humanity.

For this, we now declare: WE SHALL INSPIRE GREATNESS.

Hurry has become the master.

For this, we now declare: WE SHALL SLOW TIME.

Most of these problems in our lives have been self-imposed. Yet even when we became conscious of them, we sought change in the most humble terms

Nor can we allow apathetic, small-thinking men and women to lay waste to our future

WE THEREFORE, as free women and men of courage and conscience,

solemnly publish and declare that our lives are—and, of right, ought to be—free and independent

On Freedom

It is the calling of each man and woman who draws breath to have a grand vision for our lives, and to, each day, claim the vastness of that vision.

Humankind’s main motivation is to seek and experience Personal Freedom.

That is ultimately what Personal Freedom is: liberty from the restrictions of social oppression and the tragic self-oppression that is fear

freedom can be achieved only by diligent will and volition. Seeking to ascend in life takes grit and resolve, struggle and courage.

On the ground of such personal liberation stand the world’s most noble figures: Gandhi and Frankl and King and Mandela were free even as they were imprisoned.

The ultimate narrative of the human species is its quest for more freedom and the related struggles to ascend to higher standards of living and relating.

such divine desires to overcome tyranny, oppression, and the limits of our own darkness and small-mindedness, we find recurrent hope for humanity

we owe previous generations—and, in respect, future generations—no less than to seek and find our own modern Personal Freedom. For this, we must awake each day in utter clarity that these are deeply momentous hours in our lives, when we will either shrink from similar greatness, preferring the approval of small minds, or stand on the shoulders of the noble and free people who refused to settle

THE DOUBTS ABOUT FREEDOM

I. We Shall Meet Life with Full Presence and Power

AN AFFLICTION IS STEALING JOY FROM THE WORLD’S people, poisoning what was meant to be a divinely inspired experience of freedom. It is a haunting absence from the present moment. Too many have checked out of their bodies and their lives. They are not attuned to the energy and circumstances around them, nor do they understand their responsibilities to those things in this very moment.

They are not sleeping but they are not conscious, alert, purposeful

Should we wish to be free and alive with full power, we must decide to bring the full might of our conscious mind to the present experience. We must choose to feel again. We must sense this life