A lot of times, people ask me, “Jon, how in the world are you so motivational?”
People don’t really ask me that, but sometimes when you need an idea for a blog you start it with, “people ask me” and then you make up a question you want to answer.
But if they did ask me that, do you know what I’d tell them? This:
5 ways to be motivational on the Internets
1. Get a sunset or sunrise photo.
Best case scenario is if you can’t really tell what time of the day it is in the photo. Maybe you night owls hate the morning and a photo of a sunrise makes you want to leg sweep me like the Cobra Kai. Maybe you morning birds see a sunset and imagine all those lazy people who aren’t up early grinding coffee beans and doing push ups.
2. Add a mountain, vista or better yet, a mountain vista, overlooking an ocean.
You get an eagle in there and you’re going to blow up the Internets.
3. Don’t put a person in the image.
A lot of you are thinking, “What about if I had someone standing on the edge of that vista raising their hands over their head in sheer joy and/or hope?” Wrong. I want to be able to imagine me in that photo, not some random person wearing a fanny pack. I don’t know why I added that random fanny pack detail but that brings us to step 4.
4. Mention something random.
Want to amp the motivation? Want to take things to the next level, which by the way is the level people who are motivational are always taking things to? Want to get out of your comfort zone? (Another highly used phrase.) Add something random, like a fanny pack or a queso reference. That keeps people on their toes. 99% of my motivational statements have hidden messages about melted cheese in them. That’s not true, or is it?
5. Launch a full FONTal attack.
See what I did there? I dropped the R and added uppercase. Boom. Mix up your fonts. Go with a handwritten font that says, “Hey good friend, this is your buddy Jon Acuff writing you a personal message on a postcard I found when I was cleaning out my grandfather’s closet. I think he got it that time he went to Paris with my grandmother while they love sick kids trying to escape the small mountain towns of Tennessee.” Did you feel that? I did. Add some fun fonts. Look, I’m being playful. Add some serious ones when it’s time to get real. The first and last rule of being motivational is, you can’t have too many fonts.
Those are gold. I should turn them into a class or a resource you get when you subscribe to my email list. Just gold! If my new book Do Over doesn’t sell like hot cakes I still have a bright future ahead of me. How do I know? Look at this one I created using my own advice!
