Circumference Communication Blog

Saint Peters invites you to journey with him voyeuristically as he voyages across valley, mountain, and desert vetting breweries for weary travelers who may find themselves in step with the Saint.

The Saint labels you, reader, Gentle Ear because you graciously grant him your ear as he grunts his tales, judgements, and jests. He requests you to comment or even come along on his journeys. He also asks that you visit the establishments that have kindly served him and inspired the inscriptions you will read.

And this is the only time the Scribe will break the looking glass and step through to introduce himself. The I in these screens in Jonathan “Max” Peters, a public speaker who traverses the country. He is also a writer, ghostwriter, editor, layout person, and often a likable guy. He birthed the Saint when he realized that he had observations to share, yet too few people to share them with. So the Scribe shazammed, and the Saint walked forth.

The Saint concentrates on dens of iniquity, by which he means breweries and other drinking establishments throughout the United States. He samples only local brew and local food, and prefers to converse with locals. While beer will predominate in these screens, Gentle Ear should note that the Saint is a connoisseur of other libations, especially bourbon, America’s spirt.

The Saint also has his rituals. He prefers to begin a binge with a dark brew. He will likely then lisp to a high hop offering. The Saint needs the dark to settle his stomach and he feels the range from a porter to an IPA reveals the talents of the brewmaster. The Saint is also snobby about lights, pilsners, and fruit beer. And he looks with distain on what he call crap beer. As long as you’re stressing your liver, make it worth it. Life is too luscious to waste on piss beer, the Saint rants.

The Saint also searches for stories. Note his news, cheer is carousing, and nod to his naughtiness. Most important, enjoy his wit and sample his suggestions.

Enjoy the following epistles of the Saints sojourns. Read his synopses and judgments, and feel free to disagree. Comment on his chronicles, and observe his obsessions. But be warned that the Saint’s palette is developing, and other tastes pollute his judgments at times.

And patronize any proprietor who opened a room to the Saint, and courteously plied him along his path to Perdition.

(Saint Pete is Jonathan "Max" Peters, Ph.D. He travels as a public speaker and trainer throughout the United States. His motto is “Eat Local, Drink Local.” This blog diaries his journey. To learn more, check outCircumferenceCommunication.com)

The 16 Motivators: An Overview

(03/05/2014)

Are there universal motivators? Is what motivates you motivating others? And what happens when motivators don’t line up?

These are the questions Stephen Reiss, PhD asked. He began a massive study that now encompasses over 80,000 people in cultures around the world.

The first batch yielded over 500 identifiable motivators. Dr. Reiss then combined similar ones and worked the number down to less than 200. Then he got computers involved until he had 16 scientifically significant motivators that impact our personalities and how we deal with those around us.

He discovered that when we are highly motivated in certain areas, we assume that others are and should be similarly motivated. This causes blind spots that create disagreements and strife.

So it’s important to first understand what your high and low motivators are before marketing or even communicating with customers and prospects.

It goes like this: Society has determined that we should have three meals a day. If you are motivated by food, you will work extra hard to have more than three meals a day. You might snack between meals, maybe raid the refrigerator before going to bed. Food is important to you.

On the other hand, if you are not motivated by food, you will find the concept of three meals a day restrictive. You will seek to avoid all the time spent eating and thinking about eating. (Yes, there are such people).

Now watch what happens: How do you think the non-food motivated person judges the food motivated person? How successful do you think they’ll be in convincing the motivated person to quit eating so much?

Have you ever had someone tell you a diet is easy? Or look down their nose at you because you enjoy a certain food?

Now, check this out: What if society says that 60% of our waking hours we will be in contact with others. If someone is motivated by social contact, they want more than 60% of their time with others. Let’s say they want 80% of their time to be in social contact.

Isn’t it true that that person will learn traits that will make them attractive to others? Might they learn to be gregarious, humorous, and attractive? They’ll make sure they don’t smell, have a smile, and are generally pleasant to be around.

But what if someone is demotivated by social contact? What if they only want to spend 40% of their day in contact with others? What will they do to make sure that people don’t bother them? Be mean and surly? Make sure they aren’t attractive or smell good?

And what is the reaction from highly motivated social contact people? We send the social misfits to seminars on how to be nicer, how to work better with people, even emotional intelligence.

And it doesn’t work. Why? Because we’re teaching them to get more of what they don’t want. We are actually repelling them.

The thing is, this happens in marketing and customer retention every day.

In this blog, I will be discussing the words we use to motivate the different motivators. But this series will only be successful for you if you’ve identified your motivators and where your blind spots are. I encourage you to take the Reiss Motivation Profile. Let’s have a conversation now about taking the RMP and what the results will mean for you. Email me at JP@JonathanPetersPhD.com.

What's your take on this subject?