Argggggggggg matey! With all the Somali Pirate talk lately, I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about one of the best motivations in the world, the same Motivation driving these pirates. While it sounds glamorous, the pirate life is actually miserable. Putting your life on the line every day to steal from others gets old really quick, and there is only one reason they continue down this path. Desperation. The same reason crack dealers keep dealing, car thiefs keep stealing, and prostitutes keep hooking. When your options are limited, you do what it takes to survive.

The global economic situation has knocked the wind out of a lot of people and for all the horror stories we hear, it can be extremely valuable to look back at history and realize the number of businesses that were started during recessions, oftentimes by people who lost their jobs. Some examples, courtesy of InsideCRM.com:

Hyatt Hotels
Burger King
Ihop
Lexus Nexus
Microsoft
CNN
MTV
Trader Joe's
Wikipedia
General Electric
Sport's Illustrated
Hewlett Packard

While the businesses are all different, the concept was the same. They saw a niche that was available, and their founders took chances. Instead of mourning about his struggles at Harvard, Bill Gates founded Microsoft. Les Garland didn't settle for being an average DJ. He took his innovative concept of a VJ to the TV screen and gained thousand of followers by starting MTV.

You have a choice. Settle for your current situation, whatever it is, or take a gamble and start something new. One of the key lessons from the Medici Effect is that quantity of ideas directly correlates to quality of ideas. Thomas Edison is still the world leader in number of patents granted, so it is no surprise that he pulled out some amazing inventions such as the lightbulb. Don't fear failure, learn from it and come back stronger the next time.

So if your situation is not what you envisioned as a kid, get up and do something about it! Find your niche, perfect your art, and change the world!

Good Luck!