Contrary to most beliefs, you really can’t motivate another person. Inspire, yes. But true motivation must come from within and over the past 25 years I’ve found that the higher a person’s feelings of self-worth (self-esteem) the more motivated they become. If I were speaking to a group of people in a room and my job was to motivate them, the first thing I would do would be to organize them into a support group so they could talk about their personal issues that they may have been keeping bottled inside themselves and as they talk about their issues and release them, they’ll start to feel better about themselves and will automatically become more motivated. This also applies to coaches who claim to be great motivators. The most successful coaches are those who provide an internal mechanism for players to talk abut their personal and team-related issues. And once they do, their performance level will increase considerably.