49give your own dream the time and space it needs to for-
mulate itself, you’ll spend the better part of your life
simply helping others make theirdreams come true.
“All of man’s troubles,” said Blaise Pascal, “stem from
his inability to sit alone, quietly, in a room for any length
of time.”
Notice that he did not say some of man’s troubles,
butall.
Sometimes, in my seminars on motivation, a person
will ask me, “Why is it that I get my best ideas when I’m
in the shower?”
I usually ask the person, “When else during your day
are you alone with yourself, without any distractions?”
If the person is honest, the answer is never.
Great ideas come to us in the shower when it’s the
only time in the day when we’re completely alone. No
television, no movies, no traffic, no radio, no family, no
talkative pets—nothing to distract our mind from con-
versing with itself.
“Thinking,” said Plato, “is the soul talking to itself.”
People worry they will die of boredom or fear if they
are alone for any length of time. Other people have be-
come so distraction-addicted that they would consider
sitting alone by themselves like being in a sensory-dep-
rivation tank.
The truth is that the only real motivation we ever
experience is self-motivation that comes from within.
And being alone with ourselves will always give us mo-
tivating ideas if we stay with the process long enough.
The best way to truly understand the world is to re-
move yourself from it. Psychic entropy—the seesaw mood
swing between boredom and anxiety—occurs when you
allow yourself to become confused by massive input. By
being perpetually busy, glued to your cell phone, out in
Don’t just do something...sit there