Motivational Maps are operating in 12 countries but not the United States of America, which is clearly a tragedy. Why? Because I – with reservations (and the same is true of England, my home!) – love America. Oddly, I have never been there; yes, I have been to Canada (and they have Maps), and yes, stood at the Niagara Falls with the border just there in front of me. But no, I never crossed. My wife has been; my two sons have been; and my youngest son was the only Brit to win an award at the Empire Bar Mock Trials in New York in 2010. What an experience he had there, which he loved – but, I digress.
As I was saying, but I haven’t been. But so many of my heroes are American. I watched Rawhide in the Sixties and Clint Eastwood has been a hero ever since. The first pop album I ever bought was Pet Sounds and the Beach Boys have been one of my all-time favourite music bands ever since. And as for poetry and literature, where do I start? And more importantly for this discussion the influence of the great American personal development gurus on me.
First, Brian Tracy – a master teacher (admittedly, he started off a Canadian) – but then there’s Joan Borysenko, Wayne Dyer and a host more. And this leads to the Maps because in my studies of some of these incredible people I came across Abraham Maslow and Edgar Schein, two great academics whose work has profoundly affected so many, and who became for me the root of developing Motivational Maps. It was looking at their work, together with the Enneagram, that enabled me to see how to construct a motivational profiling tool.
And having said the Enneagram: that 3000 year old personality diagnostic may well have remained invisible if not for the pioneering work of Americans like Helen Palmer and Richard Riso who disseminated what Claudio Naranjo brought to California in 1971. In the good ‘ol American way they systematised what was an oral tradition, and in doing so made it available to millions. I was one of those millions, and when I saw it I realised how the pieces fit for motivation.
Thus America and Motivational Maps are really partners; they go together like a hand in a glove; they fit because the core ideas of the Maps actually derived from America itself and I am proud of that fact. And so as I now through Hugh Liddle, the superb sales coaching guru, get interviewed on blog radio for America I am almost in America – I am coming across some airwave or internet ether and I can almost smell America. So close.
Now all we need is one or two or three of those truly enterprising American spirits, those self-starters, those indomitable commercial warriors to try the Map, realise that yes America does indeed need it, and then begin the journey to convert the country and bring Motivational Maps home. A dream? Of course, but that’s exactly why it’s perfect for America, isn’t it?
The Mapping Motivation Series 