August 15, 2014

by Jon Vogel, Partner, 215 Marketing
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I started reading quotes when I was a young kid. I’m talking AOL 56k dial up days. My parents had just gotten divorced, I was an overweight nerd, uncool as uncool could be, more fearful than I was confident, more lost than I was found.

The first quote I ever remember reading was by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Shallow men believe in luck; strong men believe in cause and effect.” For some odd reason, those words gave me clarity I didn’t even know I was looking for. I was addicted. I kept digging for similar content, started reading motivational stories and books and printed out thousands of pages of quotes and stanzas. I went back and highlighted the ones that applied to my life and memorized my favorites.

The messages embedded in the quotes inspired me. They gave me perspective it would take me three lifetimes to obtain. They helped me better understand how to get out of the hole that I had dug for myself. It’s going to sound cliché, but the time I spent absorbing the perspective of others taught me how to believe in myself. It told me that the world could be anything that I wanted it to be, and allowed me to develop my own perspective as I grew.

A quote, as is life, is nothing more than what you make of it, what you draw from it, and what you seek in it. Quotes for me are educated perspective, concise wit, and constructive clarity — things I think we all could use a little bit more of from time to time.

I post the motivational material I do because I am fascinated by the impact it can have on others. Motivational content can change the way people feel about themselves and the world around them. I love how perspective dispensed by the pen or tongue (or keyboard, for my generation) of another can strike people and render them utterly empowered. A quote can bestow ambition, hope, tranquility, comfort, amplification, closure, passion, direction, and anything else to you when you need it to. Quotes even have the power to provide answers to questions people didn’t even know they wanted to ask. Most of all, I post motivational content because it brings me self satisfaction, reaffirms my positive outlook on this crazy world, helps me re-prioritize, sharpens the chip on my shoulder, and tosses another log onto the fire that pushes me forward.

I’ve been ribbed by friends, teased by girlfriends, and even mocked online for posting this stuff — more times than I can count, actually. Ironically though, the same people who make fun of the motivational content are the ones who reach out to me the second things aren’t exactly going their way. And even if they won’t admit or acknowledge that they read what I post, they do, and I know it makes an impression on them.

What those people don’t understand is that quotes are my written coffee, and I know it’s the same for others. The rush one gets from caffeine is the type of intellectual rush I get when I read motivational material and it accurately captures where I was, where I am or where I want to go.

So why do I post all the motivational stuff that I do? It’s because I know that there are moments that people need to be picked up, need to be reminded of how special they are, need to be pushed to be better, need to be reassured that this is a life of choice, and that they can achieve anything they want to if they work hard. We’ve all been in those places — whether we admit it to others or not, and some of us will be there again. Social media is simply my platform to express how I feel, and maybe impact someone's life for the better in the process. It’s not gospel, it’s not fact, it’s not about likes, or comments — it’s just about sharing how I see the world.

So if you’ve encountered me on social media, let me apologize for always flooding your social media feeds with my #motivationalmonday quotes, pick-me-up posts, and sporadic inspirational babble.

But let me un-apologize if you’re bothered by said posts, because frankly, I don’t post those things for you, I post them for me, and for people who enjoy perspective lent to them by someone other than the man or woman in the mirror. Unfollow me and write a book if you possess all of life’s answers.