Instigative Motivator

[captain_slinky]

It's taken nearly 40 years, but I've finally realized (through the support of my darling wife khristle that I am a very motivational person. My enthusiasm for my various projects and hobbies spreads to those around me to the extent that once I lose interest, so does everyone else.

For instance, iron_trash. A cooking competition community that I created back in the day, it EXPLODED in popularity and even got the LJ Spotlight for a week! Dozens of participants each week making trashy meals like some Velveeta-covered version of Iron Chef, with *me* as the Master Of Ceremonies. Once I cut the community loose and opened it up for anyone to issue a challenge, it went DEAD.

When we have the occasional Game Night Party, people flock to our house. No booze, no drugs, just a family-friendly Game Night where nobody is really interested in playing games till I MAKE them play games.

I have a dozen young women (who all started this journey as little girls) who have attended my "Summer Geek Camp" year after year and come with us to the Emerald City Comic Con every year because I instigate and motivate them to embrace this stuff.

I'm very good at telling people what they should do in order to have fun. People see how happy a thing makes me and they want to be happy like that? Is that it? Or is it just that nobody remembers how to do stuff on their own any more for their own enjoyment?

Comments

[snarky-imp.livejournal.com]

I've found that fun usually needs a spark to get it going. It also needs someone to keep it going or it fizzles all too easily.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

WAY too easily, especially for a guy like me who leaps from idea to idea with the frequency of a cheap ham radio!

[aurora77]

For some people, all they need is a little direction. A lot of people are afraid that other people don't want to do what they want to do. And so they just dink around and do what everyone else is doing, which is usually just talking, because talking is safe. They'll often do that until someone presents some fun activities.

[aurora77]

I've found that our Game Nights usually don't take any prompting, once people show up. But for other types of parties, I think about providing little hints and having activities available that people can just fall into. At one party, I had a box of random silly things to wear, some squirt guns, some fun crafting stuff, and people just picked right up on it and ran with it. They made some of their own fun in ways I wouldn't have expected. I just provided them the tools and a safe place to do it. :D