KEYS TO MOTIVATE

ANY STUDENT

DAVID EDWARD GARCIA

STUDENT MOTIVATION SPECIALIST
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3 Keys To Motivate ANY Student

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3 Keys To Motivate ANY Student

Are you dealing with lethargic, uninterested or uninspired students? Or

are you struggling to maintain your own motivation? This book is designed
to give you the tools you need to conquer motivational problems in your
students and in your own life.

David Edward Garcia provides three keys to motivation:

Find It You already have all the motivation and energy
you need to succeed in life, but you have to find it first, by
learning who you are as a person and clarifying your
dreams and goals.
Feed It Next, you need to feed your newfound motivation
through positive thinking. Learn to visualize your dreams in
order to make them a reality.
Fight for It Finally, and most importantly, you have to
fight for your motivation resist the urge to stagnate and
the pressures of life that are preventing you from achieving
your dreams.

By learning to use these three incredibly simple principles, you can start
making a huge difference in the lives of your students and in your abilities
as an educator.

3 Keys To Motivate ANY Student

"David Edward Garcia, you're right about yourself; you're just not
college material," my 12th grade English teacher fumed a few weeks
before my high school graduation.
The class had just completed an essay assignment under the imminent threat of
leaving school and entering "the real world." What was this "real world" and what had
I been living in all these years? I wondered ... had I been a figment of someone else's
imagination and attending an imaginary school this whole time? Furthermore, for a
make-believe world, mine had been severely lacking in make-believe girlfriends and
make-believe straight A's. How much worse was this "real world" going to get?
The teacher had asked the class to consider our futures. Some of us were about to
join the workforce, others would go to university, and many would do both. "Tell me
what YOU want to do," the teacher said. "Write down some of your dreams and your
fears. And let me know what you thought about my class. This isn't for a grade I'd
like to know what you honestly think. I promise I won't judge or be angry."
I lit up at the thought of a teacher-sanctioned opportunity to be honest with an adult.
I was used to authority figures sternly shushing me, and here was my English
teacher, actually requesting my honest opinion!
My classmates hunched over their desks, carefully setting down their thoughts and
feelings. I, on the other hand, was finished in a flash. I scrawled, "I don't think this
class helped me very much. I don't remember learning anything." Well, she'd
asked for honesty.
I wasn't trying to be ugly to my teacher, but I meant what I wrote. I had spent half the
school year studying Beowulf, and I couldn't fathom how that ancient epic could
possibly impact my life. To this day, Beowulf hasn't landed me a job interview or
comforted me in times of sorrow. It certainly hasn't transformed me into the world's
most eligible bachelor. Maybe someday Beowulf will come through for me in a crisis,
but as of now, I have yet to see a single return on that 100-hour investment.

My essay continued, "I want to go to college, but I'm scared I don't have what it
takes. I'm scared I won't do well."
The teacher collected our papers and proceeded to keep 97% of her promise to
refrain from judging her pupils. She made no comment on any essay, except for one
particularly inflammatory screed - mine. As she read my honest feelings and fears,
she turned an alarming shade of purple. Then, in front of the whole class, she
bellowed, "David Edward Garcia, you're right about yourself. You're just not college
material!"
I share this story with audiences all over the world,
and my listeners are always appalled that an

Only the individual

has the power to
change their life ...
every teacher and
every student who is
alive and breathing
already has all the
motivation they
need, even if they
dont know it yet.

educator would say something like that. However,

in my experience, her outburst was actually a pretty
mild one. My high school Spanish teacher once
sputtered, "Garcia, you go through life like you just
don't know you're not worth s#!+!" In a similar vein,
my eighth grade speech teacher delivered this little
gem: "I absolutely cannot wait for the high school
boys to kick your obnoxious little @$$."
And this litany of verbal abuse coming from the
adults in my life was by no means atypical. I can't
say I was particularly devastated or traumatized by
my English teacher's words. In fact, I wasn't even
surprised.

The truth is that I was a terrible student. I was hyperactive to the point of being
uncontrollable, and my classmates' laughter meant more to me than the teacher's
approval (or sanity, for that matter). Today, I would be diagnosed with Attention
Deficit Disorder, or its more specific cousin, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
At that time, though, I was diagnosed with a bad case of "Attention-Seeking Child of
Divorce."

Today, kids like me get medicine and therapy; I got the business end of a paddle.
Today's kids have teachers who attend conferences and workshops that teach
educators to diversify their educational approach in order to help students like me. I,
however, was repeatedly thrown in a windowless solitary confinement cell, known
euphemistically as "in-school suspension."
It's worth noting that many of the greatest entrepreneurs credit
ADD/ADHD with their success, even though, like me, they'd
grown up hearing that success in life hinged on the ability to
sit motionless in a chair eight hours a day, five days a week.
But in spite of the paddling, the confinement and the lack of educational support, I
was determined not to give up. I was and am a natural optimist, and it has carried me
through tough times my whole life.
I believe my involvement in sports aided and abetted my optimism. The chemical
cocktail that movement releases in the brain is so good it feels like it should be
illegal! My deep faith in God and my belief that my life had a purpose also sustained
me. Even as a near-failing high school student, I believed deep down that I was
supposed to travel all over the world learning languages and helping kids who faced
the same challenges that I had.
I made good on my promises to myself. After I graduated from high school, I went to
Europe. Even there, though, I found myself contending with European stereotypes of
Americans. My European friends told me, "Americans only think about their big
houses and big cars. Then they come to Europe not knowing a thing about European
culture or our languages, acting like they own the place." I heard the following
European joke over and over:
"David, what's a person who speaks three languages called?"
"Trilingual."
"How about a person who speaks two languages?"
"Bilingual."
"And a person who only speaks one language?"
"Monolingual?"
"Nope. AMERICAN!"
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There I was, caught between two opposing forces. On the one hand, I desperately
wanted to go to college and then find a job that allowed me to travel all over the
world. On the other hand, one side of the Atlantic was telling me I'd never make it as
a college student, and the other side was telling me that I wouldn't be able to learn
other languages anyway. It felt like everyone in my life believed that I wasn't cut out
for success, that I deserved a paddling instead of a diploma.
Rather than throw in the towel, I set out on a lifelong quest to prove to myself that I
could be the person I wanted to be and live the life I wanted to live. I have read
thousands of pages and sat through thousands of hours of seminars. I have studied
the lives and teachings of the great masters of success. All of this effort has helped
me realize the life I could only dream of as a lost and discouraged teenager.

I have synthesized all of my findings into three simple

keys to motivation, the driving force behind success.
These keys can help you and your students achieve any
goal, reach any level of success, and live the lives that
you were born to live.
But before I explain these three keys, I want to set the record straight on motivation.
I am a motivational speaker. People pay me to travel around the world and inspire my
audiences to perform at peak levels. Often, when I arrive at a new venue, my hosts
tell me, "David, we need you to motivate our teachers. They have no energy!" or,
"David, our students won't obey the rules we've set in our school. We need you to
motivate them to behave." For these well-meaning administrators, I have good news
and bad news. The bad news is that I cannot say or do anything that will make a
teacher or a student live a certain way. Only the individual has the power to
change his or her life.
The good news, though, is that every living person does have that power every
teacher and every student who is alive and breathing already has all the motivation
they need, even if they don't know it yet. People who truly have no motivation are very
sick or on drugs or medication that prevent their natural energy from flowing. This is
great news for most of the people I meet it means that that they already have the
energy to lead an exceptional life!
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My job, then, is not to create energy for you, but to help you channel the energy
you already have and to show you how to focus it mightily to help you achieve
mighty success. These principles can also be used to enhance the energy and
motivational levels of your students. Understanding and using these three keys to
motivation will result in drastic, positive changes in your life as an educator and in the
lives of the young people you influence.

The 3 Keys to MotivatiNG ANY STUDENT

Key 1: Find It!
We need to help our students find their inner genius and discover
their unique motivation, instead of tearing them down when they
don't conform to an impossible general standard.
One of the greatest gifts an educator can give his or her students is to help them find
their motivation. What is it that makes your students come alive? Every single person
is motivated by different external and internal stimuli. Some are motivated by fear,
others by positive feedback. Some are motivated by need, others by the desire to
excel. Some crave security and comfort, but others need excitement to get them
moving. What works for you and your students?
Psychology teaches us that every one of us is a genius in some way or other. If you
inspire your students to believe that there is a master of masters locked inside each
of them trying to get out, it will change their perspective for the better! Some students
may be mathematical wizards who struggle with reading instructions. Others may
devour novel after novel in their spare time, and then turn around and blow up the
chemistry lab. We need to help our students find their inner genius and discover
their unique motivation, instead of tearing them down when they don't conform
to an impossible general standard.
We've all heard story after story about high school and college dropouts that went on
to become the greatest successes the world has ever seen. I can only imagine how

many teachers might overlook Bill Gates, Frank Lloyd Wright or Tiger Woods in favor
of the kids who obediently memorized formulas and facts. The ability to accurately
recall the dates of ancient battles, to recite Shakespeare's sonnets, or to plug
numbers into the quadratic equation is all well and good, but it certainly doesn't
guarantee success in life. In fact, scholastic education only accounts for 25% of a
person's success! The other 75% comes from your attitude, beliefs and environment.
As adults and educators, we can't neglect that 75%.
We need to provide a motivational incubator where students can
grow and flourish; in other words, we need to help them find their
motivation.
Moreover, we need to bring our teaching methods
up to speed with the 21st century! So much of my
education was highly demotivational and useless
in my adult life. Indeed, the highlight of ninth
grade for me was dissecting a frog (sadly, not a
whirlwind romance or a special award, sniff sniff).
However, that hapless amphibian hasn't

Amazingly, most
people are only one
step away from
achieving their
goals.

contributed a single drop to my career or to my

personal satisfaction. In fact, I've never met a
single adult whose frog dissection experience
ever yielded lucrative financial, romantic or
spiritual rewards! I can't decide what kind of car to purchase based on memorized
proton and neutron counts from the periodic table, and I've never used the height of
a streetlamp and the length of its shadow to calculate the hypotenuse of the triangle
thus formed while stuck in the McDonald's drive-through. If a job interview ever
hinges on my ability to recite Hamlet's soliloquy word for word, I'll eat my hat. In other
words, we need to connect our lessons to the real world our students live in, not to
abstract and out-of-touch hypothetical constructs.
We shouldn't distract students from their motivation we need to
help them find it!

Studies show that public speaking is the number one fear in the United States. In
school, I had one rinky-dinky class that required me to cobble together a five-minute
speech that was the sum total of the training I received to overcome the greatest
fear in America. How about the fact that the average American household carries a
credit card debt of upwards of $10,000? Why don't we teach our children about the
psychology of impulse shopping or the crippling consequences of high interest
rates? Finally, when I contemplate the fact that over half of the kids in our schools
have divorced parents and yet can't recall a single class that taught coping skills for
children in single-parent or blended families, I realize just how out-of-date and
out-of-touch our system really is.
But enough ranting. We need some practical strategies for connecting education to
our students' lives and for helping them find their motivation.
When you help your students find their motivation, you turn on
light switches for them. You help them see where and why they
need to focus their innate energy. When your students find
their motivation, they become unstoppable.

There are many ways to approach this process, but one of the simplest is to ask your
students questions. Here are some examples of questions that may help them find
their motivation:

Finding Your Motivation: Questions to Ask

1. What are you good at? (What are your talents? What comes naturally to
you? What can you do that makes people say, "That's amazing!"?)
2. What subjects do you enjoy most at school? Which ones do you excel
at?
3. What is your personality type? (This is important a student who truly
hates public speaking may not be cut out for politics.)

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4. What's your story? (What makes you unique? What problems have you
overcome? What was your childhood like?)
5. What could you do the rest of your life and wake up excited about every
single day?
6. What kind of job would allow you to do this?
7. What kind of salary does that job pay?
8. Would the money you make in that job match up to your lifestyle needs
or desires? (Consider things like travel, hobbies and family.)
9. Would this job fulfill you as a person?
10. What are your values? (Think about things like family, religious worship,
leisure time, etc.)
11. How much education will you need to get this job? (Some jobs require
expensive and lengthy degrees! If you want to be a lawyer, for example, you'll
need three years of law schoolat least.)
12. How much time do you need to invest in your education?
13. What can you do outside of school to prepare for your dream job? (Are
there any internships, clubs or other classes you could participate in?)
14. How can you recession-proof your future career? (You'll have to teach
yourself how to show up on time, how to be a good listener and how to go the
extra mile. Indispensable assets are the last ones to be laid off. What are you
doing to learn indispensable skills now?)
15. Will your dream job be in demand ten years from now?
16. What second or third job would you consider if you couldn't achieve
your dream job? (I don't like to call this falling behind. Instead, I call it moving
forward. It's a bit like dating. If one person says no, it opens up possibilities for
a better person to say yes!)

Amazingly, most people are only one step away from achieving their goals.
Successful people typically master one skill so thoroughly that they can build their
dream life around it. If you hear the name Donald Trump, don't you immediately think

11

about business? If you think of Jim Carrey, you think of comedy! Jackie Chan kung
fu. Michael Jordan basketball. Of course, many successful people diversify and
develop multiple skills, but initially, it's just one that takes them all the way to the top.
Just think: you only need to master ONE thing to get started living your dreams!
Most things in life follow this one-step rule.
Struggling marriages are often one step

Finding your motivation

means that you will do
something you love to do.

away from being happy marriages.

Perhaps it's financial responsibility,
communication or something else just
one weak skill that stands in the way of
happiness and fulfillment. Prisoners are
often one skill away from freedom anger
management, communication or
forgiveness may be all that's needed for
them to turn their lives around.

For you, there may be one particular demon standing between you and your dream
life. Think for a moment. What is one skill you could develop that could help you
conquer that demon and realize your dreams? What is the one skill your students are
lacking that would help them succeed? FIND YOUR MOTIVATION!
Of course, it generally takes ten years to truly master a skill. I know, I know, there are
some prodigies who learn at an accelerated rate and some who are born with
freakish natural talent. And there are also others who need a little extra time to
develop. For the most part, though, you can bet that it only takes ten years to
become an overnight success. The good news for youngsters, however, is that they
have the time. They just need the right kind of teacher to guide them.
Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and roses for many people. Think about how
demotivational the daily grind can be. In the United States, more people die on
Monday mornings than any other time! Their brains simply cannot cope with another
demotivational workweek the stress of facing each Monday morning builds and
builds until the body can't take any more. By contrast, most Americans experience a

12

happiness increase of 10-15% on Friday. An entire restaurant franchise was founded

on the idea that everyone loves Fridays!
This demotivational mindset is a trap, and it can pull your energy and your happiness
out from under you if you're not careful. Finding your motivation means that you
will do something you love to do with this attitude, you'll never have to work a
day in your life. Every day will be full of play. Make no mistake, playing can be
just as challenging as working, but these sorts of challenges are energizing and
fun, if you've found your motivation.
I had to find my motivation all by myself. I failed
several high school classes, including Spanish!
How does a Mexican-American dual citizen from a
bilingual background fail high school Spanish?
However, I turned my own academic life around at
the age of eighteen when I found my motivation. At
that point, it was like a magic wand had been
waved over my grades F's magically became A's.
Previously, the only way I could sit still in class was
if I had fallen asleep, but suddenly I found myself
looking forward to spending all day reading in the
library. I started learning other languages, paying

Motivation doesnt
take care of itself,
we need to feed and
nurture it.

my bills and taking care of myself all this because

I found my motivation.
Remember, we cannot create motivation in our students. Fortunately, we don't have
to; they have the desire to move already! Our role is merely to help them channel all
that energy in a way that illuminates their own personal motivation. But our work isn't
finished after we unlock all this hidden energy we need to nurture it, which brings
us to the second key.

13

Key 2: Feed It!

Motivation doesn't take care of itself; we need to feed and nurture it.
Adults frequently tell young people, "These are the best years of your life you'd
better enjoy them!" Kids can hear the true meaning behind this advice: "Brace
yourself, because it's all downhill from here." I remember hearing this at a young age
and thinking, "REALLY?! I'm getting picked on, rejected and put down left and right, I
feel completely awkward, I have no idea how to talk to girls and they certainly aren't
talking to me, and this is the best it's going to get?!"

You will ultimately

live the life your brain
thinks you deserve.

Somehow, deep down, I had to believe that these

adults were wrong. Things would change, and my
life would get better. All I had to comfort myself
with were visions of myself exploring the streets
of London, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo, speaking
a message that inspired others, in their own
languages. I had to picture myself getting my
diploma, and then my master's degree, and
going on to make enough money to support my
dreams. This was how I fed my motivation.

Sure, youth is a wonderful thing. A young body is strong, a young soul is resilient,
and teenagers typically have fewer responsibilities than adults. But the truth is, the
best years of a person's life are always in the future. Life gets better as you grow up!
A forty-year-old body is more capable than a fourteen-year-old body, a thirty-year-old
brain holds a lot more wisdom than its thirteen-year-old counterpart, and an adult
bank account funds a lot more than that of a teenager. So why do we feel like our
best years are behind us at the age of twenty-one? Think about the Ironman triathlon
- a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, followed by a 26.2-mile run. Ironman is the
ltimate test of human endurance and physical ability. The toughest age bracket is the
35 to 40-year-old range these champions can blaze through the course in less than
eight hours! You'd be hard-pressed to find a teenager who could compete with these
middle-aged athletes. And yet most forty-year-old adults believe that their physical
peak is decades behind them. These are the same adults who believe that their teen

14

years were the best years of their life. When they tell young people this, they play
their part in a vicious circle of demotivation.
Instead of discouraging young people, we need to be truthful and
let them know that the best is yet to come!
Things get better and better as we grow up! Feed their motivation instead of starving
it. If you convince a teenager that everything will fall apart after the ripe old age of
thirty, then that teenager will grow up to be a demotivated, discouraged
thirty-year-old. On the other hand, a teenager who believes that things will continue
to get better will find that things do, in fact, get better. The human brain is an
amazing creation it will achieve its own expectations and realize the future that it
defines for itself.
As an example, if your brain pictures
you as a strong, healthy person, it will
compel you to eat healthy food and

I was motivated by the

bright future beckoning me
from my own imagination.

steer you away from empty calories.

Likewise, if your brain believes you are
old and unhealthy, it will propel you
downward into inactivity and poor
eating habits. You will ultimately live
the life your brain thinks you deserve.

Similarly, we all know someone who seems to attract drama and conflict. This person
tells us, "I just hate drama, but no matter what, it always seems to find me!" These
people tend to bounce from one drama-filled relationship to another in an endless
cycle. How about the men who tell us, "I just don't go out anymore. No matter where I
go or what city I'm in, someone always starts a fight with me, even though I'm not
looking for one!"? For both of these types, there's a good chance that they have a
deep-seated need for drama and conflict that won't be satisfied until these people
unconsciously seek out the very thing they profess to hate. When they find drama
and conflict voila! Their brain confirms their preconceived suspicions, and the
cycle continues.

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Have you ever known a size-zero, mega-skinny girl who is always complaining about
how fat she is? She constantly worries, "I'm so fat, I'm so fat; if I even think about
food, I gain weight." What do you think will happen to her in five or ten years? She will
probably transform into a much larger person, seemingly by magic! But there's no
magic at work; her brain simply did what it was designed to do it transformed her
into the person she thought she was. You see, your energy chases after your
thoughts and propels your life in the direction your thoughts lead.
We can game this system by feeding our motivation. We should direct our thoughts
into positive channels. Instead of thinking, "I'm so fat," "I'm so scared of failing," or "I
hope I don't go broke," we need to picture ourselves as strong and healthy, as
walking across the stage at graduation, or as a magnet for money and success. Your
brain is powerful enough to find a way to accomplish what you believe it's supposed
to! Feeding your motivation means creating positive thoughts for your brain to
transform into realities.
According to psychologists, the average person has

Decide right now

that nothing and
I mean nothing
will stand between
you and your
dreams.

about 50,000 thoughts a day, and 90% of those

thoughts are self-focused intrapersonal conversations
(psychologist-speak for you talking to you about you).
That's about 45,000 thoughts about yourself every
day. Of those 45,000 thoughts, nearly 80% are
negative for the average person. Think about this:
THE AVERAGE PERSON THINKS 37,500 NEGATIVE
THOUGHTS A DAY! Can you imagine? Are you telling
yourself 37,500 times a day that you shouldn't believe
all this positive stuff, that you're worthless, that there's

no point in trying to meet new people because you

know they're not interested anyway, or that the
chances of slimy green boogers tumbling out of your
nose are far too high to allow for any sort of personal
confidence? And remember, these numbers are just for average people if you're a
negative person, the onslaught is even worse. What person can perform at optimal
levels under such an assault of negativity? Or, to take a sunnier view of the situation,

16

if the average person can achieve some success with an 80% negativity rate, how
boundless are their possibilities if they could think 80% positive thoughts instead?
One of the greatest things you can do for yourself is to feed your motivation and
change 80% of your thoughts from negative to positive. Envision yourself as
confident, beautiful, happy, healthy and strong. Reject negative comments from
haters (and from your own psyche) that contradict your positive self-image!
When I started my journey toward an energized, motivated life, I had very little
money, bad grades and next to no experience but I had my motivation! When I
arrived at university, I soon found that many of my fellow classmates were academic
superstars. These young men and women were intelligent and talented; I was easy to
overlook. This didn't stop me, though I wasn't motivated by being the number one
student at school. Instead, I was motivated by the bright future beckoning me from
my own imagination. External praise is like a warm bath for the soul it feels
great, but after a while, the good feeling evaporates. On the other hand, internal
motivation is like a bowling ball. It gives you the ability to strike down whatever
barriers stand in your way. This is what I had and what I still carry inside me
today.
One of the best things we can do for students is to help feed their motivation. Show
them pictures of the world's great cities and tell them that the world is waiting if they
choose to go look for it. Show them university websites and walk them through the
application process. Let them imagine their first day as a college student. Ask them
to visualize their dream home and write down a plan for obtaining it within ten years.
Feed their motivation by asking them to believe in themselves. Don't be afraid of
creating arrogance life is an expert at deflating egos that get too big.
My own ego suffered in college, just as my 12th grade English teacher predicted it
would. Within a year of leaving home, I found myself broke, depressed and living on
food stamps. The only way I could eat was either by using food stamps or visiting the
community food bank. I've met people who tell me, "David, I just don't believe in food
stamps." I respond, "Neither did I, but I do believe in eating." Home was 1,000 miles
away, and with no money, I had no means of getting support from my family or
seeking professional help. To make matters worse, I was working and going to school
17

full-time, which often meant finishing a late night shift waiting tables and then
studying all night for an eight o'clock test the next morning.

Be a successful, motivated champion who feeds

encouragement to everyone in your life.

In spite of all this, though, when people asked me what I was going to do with my life,
I still answered, "I'm going to learn new languages and travel around the world." Let
me tell you, that inspired some demotivational responses from friends and family! If I
was lucky, I would only get an earful about how difficult it was going to be. More
often, though, people would rant and rave about how impossible my dream life was
going to be and how I should just give up then and there. My path to success was
indeed very difficult but difficult is not the same as impossible. Fortunately, my
motivation was so well fed that the challenges I faced seemed miniscule in
comparison. I worked and studied as hard as I could until I received my bachelor's
degree. Then I thought, "If I can get a bachelor's, why not a master's?" Sure enough,
before much longer I had finished a 96-hour master's program. After that, I finally
began living my dream in earnest I spent time in Brussels, Sao Paulo and Milan, all
the while studying French, Portuguese and Italian. It's been a wonderful journey, but
you know what? I'm not finished! I want to visit more countries, learn more languages
and meet more people! I am still motivated to live my dream, and I feed that
motivation every day!
I do not dwell on the past and its disappointments, mistakes and failures.
Instead, I focus on the future, and I envision it filled with abundance, love and
happiness, and always waiting for me just around the corner. Instead of
focusing on the 10% unemployment rate in the United States, I remind myself
that there will be ten million new millionaires in 2020, and I intend to be one of
them! Instead of worrying about hard times, I channel my energy toward
happiness and success. I cannot speak for anyone else's choices, but I can
speak for my own, and I choose to be happy and fulfilled!

18

Here's some more good news about motivation it's extremely contagious. Being
motivated and successful allows me to inspire other people through my motivational
talks. I'm so full of this stuff that it spills over! When you work with young people,
make this your aim as well feed your own motivation so much that it flows from you
and over into everyone you come into contact with. Do you know any deeply
unhappy people? These people not only talk about their unhappiness, they often try
to make others as unhappy as they are. Be the opposite be a successful, motivated
champion who feeds encouragement to everyone in your life. A great prophet once
said, "Your mouth will speak based on the overflow of your heart." So go ahead and
dive into the pool of abundance, happiness and tranquility! When you come out
sopping wet from the pool of blessing, let your positive energy overflow your own
heart and engulf the hearts of others. There is more than enough joy, love and
prosperity for everyone. Remember this and use this principle to help feed your
students' motivation!

Key 3: Fight for it!

Decide right now that nothingand I mean nothingwill stand
between you and your dreams.
The final and most challenging key to achieving your dreams is fighting for your
motivation. You need to train your students to be warriors. Arm them with the
weapons they need to slay the dragons of doubt, the demons of negativity and the
vampires of lethargy. The fight is the point at which motivation ceases to be a cheery
concept and becomes a day-to-day reality.
Life is cruel. Unless we are prepared to fight tooth and nail for our motivation, we will
become dreamy has-beens, the people who wail, "I tried all that self-help stuff, but it
never did anything for me!" When I say fight for your motivation, I don't mean that you
should fight with hateful people. This is counterproductive remember that engaging
with hateful people will fill you with hate. Instead, I mean that you need to be strong
and focused. Decide right now that nothing and I mean nothing will stand
between you and your dreams. This is the part where the going gets tough and
the tough get going!

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The beginning of any journey is always the most difficult part. Starting requires much
more energy than sustaining anything. For example, a jet traveling two hours will use
over half of its fuel getting off the ground and into the air. Human beings are no
different a new venture requires more energy and determination than maintaining
an established one. This is a biological fact. New skills, knowledge, behaviors and
habits require our brains to forge new neural pathways. The first few times you
attempt a new skill, you inevitably feel clumsy. This is because your brain hasn't
become accustomed to it yet and is working out the wiring for future attempts.
However, to borrow a term from the aeronautics
world, after those new neural paths are finalized, the
brain goes on "autopilot." Leaving the ground for the

The only fate

worse than death
is a life full of dead
dreams. You have
to FIGHT FOR
YOUR DREAMS!

first time requires an immense amount of energy, but

after success is achieved, maintaining that success
is like a captain flipping the autopilot switch your
brain will eventually learn to fly itself. But to get there,
first you have to fight!
While the brain is capable of adapting to new tasks,
it's also true that the mind and body gravitate toward
familiarity. Familiar, low-risk opportunities feel safer
and require less exertion. Think about the butterflies

in your stomach before a speech, or the feeling of

cresting the top of the hill on a roller coaster your
brain suddenly starts screaming, "just what the heck did you get us into?!" Your brain
has to work hard to create new neural pathways, against its instinct for familiarity and
security. Likewise, you have to work hard to make those pathways familiar you have
to fight against inertia.
Neurotransmitters are a bit like muscles; the more you exercise them, the better they
do their job. If you do something for twenty-one days, it becomes a habit. Do it for
ninety days and your brain flips the reset switch. If a smoker doesn't smoke for ninety
days, her brain is reset and she becomes a non-smoker. After a year of doing a new
activity, your brain literally takes on a new form and shape (this is called
neuroplasticity). You can have a renewed and reset brain, too, but you have to FIGHT
FOR IT!
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You have to continue fighting for your dreams until they come true.
That means if your dream is to go to university,
you have to keep fighting every day until you
have the diploma in your hand. If your dream
is to be happy, you are going to have to press
forward through all the sadness and gloom
until that inner glow of happiness lights up so
powerfully in your heart. If you want to drop
thirty-five pounds, you will have to eat and

Why would a fully

powerful, capable and
intelligent person
choose to settle for a
mediocre life?

train like a champion until you hit that goal.

When you want to change, your brain will
comply with your wishes while it likes to feel comfortable, it also needs stress and
challenges to grow. Even though feeling comfortable is, well, comfortable, it's not
necessarily the best thing for you or for your brain at all times. Sometimes you have
to get outside of your comfort zone so that you can grow as a person!
At first, you have to fight to activate your brain to push forward and reach new
heights. Your body will retaliate by resisting, but your brain is strong enough to
overtake your rebellious body and drive you forward toward your dreams. But
remember: you have to fight for it! Sure, it's not easy to fight and push yourself in new
directions. Just remember that it's much harder to stay stuck in the mud. It's even
harder to let months, years, or even a whole lifetime pass and then think, "I could
have done so much more, but instead I chose to be comfortable." It's incredibly hard
to see others loving their life from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to
sleep, while you think to yourself, "Here I am, stuck in a job I hate, spending all my
time paying bills and worrying." Imagine how hard it must be to know that you had
the power to live the life of your dreams, but instead chose to wither away in a
self-imposed prison of inertia as your dreams passed you by. Why would a fully
powerful, capable and intelligent person choose to settle for a mediocre life? The
only fate worse than death is a life full of dead dreams. You have to FIGHT FOR
YOUR DREAMS!

21

When you commit to the fight for your motivation, something interesting happens. The
most difficult problems become welcome challenges. The terrifying Goliath you used
to be afraid to confront becomes a friend you look forward to meeting. Success is
addictive, and as you achieve more and more, you become an unstoppable
motivational force!
I remember how difficult it was for me to

When you teach students

to fight for their motivation,
you teach them what makes
them unique, as well as
how to fight to polish, preserve and protect their
unique talents that make
them the best in the world
at being themselves.

start running as overweight, out-of-shape

child. I felt like there were knives in my
chest and any minute my heart was going
to explode. My shinbones felt like they
were on the verge of shattering, and my
knees felt like they were going to give out.
But after a few months, I noticed that I
could run a little further. And then, further,
and further still. I was practically bursting
with pride and euphoria when I ran three

miles, and then five miles, and then SEVEN

miles! I was on top of the world! It cost
months and months of incredibly hard
work to get to that point, but then
something magic happened. I started loving and needing to run and move. Decades
later, I still need to run my brain and wellbeing are dependent on it, in fact! At 10
o'clock at night, if I haven't had a chance to move, I lace up my shoes and hit the
pavement. If I have been traveling all day, the first thing I do when I arrive at my
destination is lace up and grind out five or seven miles. It's my drug of choice, and I
truly need the effects it produces. I used to dread exercise, but now I crave it.
When you fight for your motivation, success, happiness and abundance
become things that you need and cannot live without. But you have to FIGHT
FOR THEM!
When we try to help children and teens fight for their motivation, the greatest aid we
can give them is love. The prophet told us, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love
drives out all fear: because fear is tormenting. He who is afraid is not made perfect in

22

love." Love is the most potent force in the universe, and through love we can be
confident in our ability to face any obstacle blocking our success.
We need to empower our students by letting them know that regardless of their
performance, we will love and cherish them. They need to know that if they fall
down, we will be there to pick them up and get them back into the game. We need to
be sure that they know that the greatest fight of their life is just ahead, and they can't
give up or let down their guard. When they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that
there is a home base full of love and support, no matter what, it gives them courage
and strength! Fight with love!
2011 was an extraordinary year for me. I was invited to the largest Christian youth
conference in the country of Switzerland. The organizers needed a dynamic,
experienced youth speaker who was fluent in French. Somehow, they found me a
South Texas native who grew up five miles from the Mexico border. They asked me to
deliver three of the four keynote sessions, all in French. The Swiss National Radio
reported on the conference and sent a team to interview me. The interviewer clucked
at me and said, "Since you're American, I'm happy to translate for you." I looked him
in the eyes and answered in French, "That won't be necessary!"
In my first keynote address, I took the microphone and retold the joke I'd heard so
many times before, with my own special twist: "If you speak three languages, you're
trilingual. If you speak two languages, you're bilingual. But if you speak five
languages, YOU ARE DAVID EDWARD GARCIA! The auditorium erupted in laughter
and applause. I was deliriously happy and proud that I had finally reached a point
where I could turn a painful memory from my past into a positive message of
inspiration! I fought, and I WON!
When I was a child, I got into all sorts of trouble for telling jokes and stories and for
getting carried away by my own massive amounts of energy. But today, people pay
to send me all over the world. They tell me, "David, tell your jokes and stories!
Transmit massive amounts of your energy!" When I was a child, I got paddled; today I
get paid! When you fight for your motivation, your weaknesses become your
strengths, your pain becomes your power, and your sadness becomes laughter. But
to get there, you have to FIGHT FOR IT!

23

In the whole world, there is only one Hispanic South Texas guy who speaks the
languages I speak and holds the degrees I hold, who has traveled to the same
countries I've been to, who does comedy, missionary work and motivational speaking
like I do only one: ME! So, when people ask if I'm any good at what I do, I can
honestly tell them, "I'm in the best in the world!" And it's true, because I'm the only
one in the world who does what I do and is who I am.
When you teach students to fight for their motivation, you teach
them what makes them unique, as well as how to fight to polish,
preserve and protect their unique talents that makes them the
best in the world at being themselves.
And I'm just getting started on my path to success. A dozen languages doesn't seem
far-fetched to me. Seeing one hundred new countries isn't unrealistic. Going where I
want, when I want, with the people I want to be with doesn't seem unreasonable at
all. Life is a beautiful gift, and I am a masterpiece! And you also have just as much
happiness, tranquility, abundance and excitement ahead of you as I do! The students
you work with also have limitless potential! One of my high school classmates went
on to become one of the nation's top ten high school athletes of all time. Another
became the first Mexican-American NBA coach in history. Sadly, others in my class
followed tragic paths of violence, addiction and imprisonment. We had similar
educations and environments, but we made very different choices. Help your
students fight to make the right choices in their own young lives.
You never know who is sitting in your class the next female president? The inventor of
the cure for cancer? The possibilities are endless! But no one will hand you or your
students lifelong happiness and success nicely wrapped up in an Applebee's to-go box.

You can't call in and expect your dream life to be delivered to

you in thirty minutes or less. You have to FIGHT HARD FOR IT!

24

Conclusion
I remember all those motivational speakers I heard in high school that said, "If I made
it, then anybody can make it." This is not my message for the students I speak with.
Instead, my message is, "Together, all of us can make it! We can all be happy, live in
abundance and realize our dreams!" We all need to find, feed and fight for our
motivation to do this.
You and your students are superior beings, greater than any other species on
this planet. You can turn your life around, choose and navigate your own
course, and achieve every good thing that life has to offer you.

I wish you much happiness and unending success, and I pray

that you and your students enjoy the best life, for the rest of
your life!
David Edward Garcia

25

David Edward Garcia

Motivates students world-wide with his message:

"Motivated For Life!"

David is an international speaker who presents fluently in English, Spanish, and
French.
He delivers his message with a 100% family-friendly comedy routine and
motivational speech that has dazzled and moved audiences, from elementary
schools to high schools and college campuses around the globe.
He empathizes with students who face challenges because he was once considered
an "at-risk student" himself before defying the odds and graduating with a bachelor's
degree and then earning his Masters Degree.

YOUR AUDIENCE WILL LEARN:

How to stay positive when facing challenges

How to be free from negative influences
How to avoid destructive behavior cycles
Why education is THE KEY to your dreams
How to understand your true potential
How to get and stay motivated for life

"Audiences of every race and socioeconomic background will benefit from Davids
message that anything can be accomplished through education, courage, and
confidence. I have witnessed first hand his message transform our students." Dr. Jerri
Centilli, United ISD
"David captured our students attention immediately. He did a FANTASTIC job motivating
our students. I highly recommend his message!" Ruben Arguelles, Principal
"I have never seen anybody with the uniqueness of David Edward Garcia. He combines
his talent of multiple languages, comedy, and teaching to deliver an unforgettable,
inspirational experience." Dr. Marcus Nelson

Visit Davids website to learn more:

WWW.DAVIDEDWARDGARCIA.COM

26

WANT DAVID TO
PERSONALLY MOTIVATE
YOUR STUDENTS?
www.AYearOfAwesomeness.com