83. Motivation Myths

Intro: Duration: (02:30)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Welcome to the Human Capital Podcast, I'm Jeff Hunt. I love diving into topics on this show that reveal both the truths and the myths about what shapes our success. Today I'm going to challenge everything you thought you knew about motivation. What if the secret to success isn't about waiting for that spark of inspiration?

But it's something much more practical and attainable. I just finished reading a best-selling book that reveals how successful people don't rely on motivation. They build a process. My guest today is going to help me uncover how the daily grind, the consistent efforts, the small wins, all of these create a snowball effect leading to incredible achievements, both in business and in life.

As you think about motivation in your own life, how does your current approach to motivation influence your behavior and fulfillment at work and home? Do you find yourself waiting for the right moment to act, or are you actively creating a pathway to your goals? And how might your own patterns of motivation be impacting those around you, your colleagues, your family, or your team?

The book I'm referring to is called The Motivation Myth, How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win. And today, the book's author, Jeff Hayden, is joining me at the mic. Jeff has over 1 million followers on LinkedIn, and his diverse background includes being a ghostwriter for some of the world's top business leaders and entrepreneurs.

He's currently a contributing editor for Inc Magazine, where his insightful articles on leadership, productivity, and personal development reach millions of readers monthly. Hello, Mr. Jeff Hayden. Welcome to the podcast.

Jeff Haden:

Oh, thanks for having me, Jeff. It is absolutely my pleasure.

Topic 1. Motivation and how to find it (02:31)

Jeff Hunt:

I want to talk a little bit about your book, The Motivation Myth, and when I read your book, I was thinking about this whole topic of motivation.

I think what struck me a little bit is that There really are a lot of myths about motivation and what people think about it. And one of my reflections came in the form of an analogy. I'm a former rower, so I'm used to rowing these long, slender boats, either a four or an eight. I would be in the eighth seat, which was considered the stroke position right in front of the coxswain.

We'd be setting the pace of the boat. And every, every sort of workout or practice, we would start with a workout, and the workout would always include a pretty intense amount of running. And sometimes for me, the hardest part about running was literally putting on my running shoes. And that's the story or the analogy that came to me as I was reading your book.

And so I'm wondering if you can comment on that relative to motivation.

Jeff Haden:

Yeah, my basic premise In an overall sense, was that motivation isn't something that comes to you, you don't, you don't get a lightning bolt, you don't, it's not external, it's not something you find or that you have to find before you start, the motivation comes from the actual start.

So in your analogy of putting on your shoes, That's the start. And then the first 30 seconds, when it feels terrible, and you're not sure why you're out there, that also feels terrible, but then you kind of groove into it, and then it is all, it's, and then at the end, it was good, and you were glad you did it, and, and everything's peachy.

The problem with what most people do, and the reason that I really came to that place is that I'm lucky enough that I get to talk to lots of really successful people in all sorts of fields. And then I've talked to a lot of people who ask me about, hey, I want to do something, but I don't know what it is.

I can't find the motivation to get started and whatever. And I thought the people that were really successful, we never talked about motivation. They just talked about, they had something they were interested in. They decided to try it. They stuck with it, and then they got that really cool loop of action equals small improvement, which feels good, which is motivating, and it's just enough to get you to the next day.

Cause that's really all you need, is enough to get you to put your shoes on again tomorrow. If you can do that, then you're good to go. They didn't wait for the lightning bolt, there wasn't some passion that they suddenly discovered. Some of them did. Started on a path that they weren't even sure they were interested in, but they just decided to try it and they developed a passion through learning more about it, getting good at it.

I mean, numbers of people have said this, but basically nobody really quits anything they're good at. And nobody hates anything they're good at. It is fun to be good at things. You just have to get to that place. So your shoe analogy is very fitting because all you really needed was the willingness to put your shoes on and get started that day.

You don't need it. You don't need six months. You don't need the year. You don't need the Olympics. You don't need whatever competition you're trained or you're just, I got to do it again today. And so if you can get that drip going in that cycle going, then. You don't really need external motivation, and you don't really need to sit around and find your motivation, because you're creating it through your action.

Jeff Hunt:

And each time you do it, it seems as though the next time you do it, you do have a little bit more motivation. It's just a little bit easier, right?

Jeff Haden:

Yeah, the hard, the hardest part for people, it's not something new, but I, I call it the two-week rule, and it's basically, let's pretend that you had decided you wanted to be a rower, but you've never done it before.

Well, if that's something you're interested in, you have to say, alright, I'm going to do this for two weeks. And if you're not willing to commit to that up front, then you probably shouldn't pick the goal anyway, because it clearly doesn't mean that much to you. And the reason for that is. First time you went, uh, you probably feel super awkward, your timing is terrible, hurts your leg, your back hurts, there's all that stuff that comes from it.

And probably on the third day, you feel like you're worse at it than you were the first day because all those things fight against each other. But then by the end of the week, if you're objecting about it, you know, all right, my rhythm's a little bit better. My stroke here is a little bit better. I'm a little more consistent with this.

It doesn't feel quite as painful. I'm maybe a little faster. And by the time you get to the end of the second week, you have gotten enough of those improvements where you can say, I can see the path forward. It's a long way out there, depending on what your goal is, but I can see that what I am doing does work.

You have to give it a couple of weeks because there is nothing that is worth achieving that is easy enough that you can start one day and automatically be super better at it. And have that be motivating to you. You are going to struggle and feel like you're worse than you were when you started, but then you play it over.

Topic 2. Ignite motivation. Action, improvement, and success (07:35)

Jeff Hunt:

I love that and it's also so much correlated to a number of times I've brought up on this show how the best leaders have mostly gone through very difficult crises over their career and they've been able to overcome them. Leaders that are on a more straight line, slow rising trajectory, don't perform at the same level as those that have actually derailed at some points along their career journey.

So I really appreciate that. The other thing that you have in your book that I found kind of interesting is about that there's, in order to ignite motivation, there's kind of three components, which some of which you've mentioned, action, improvement, and success. But can you share a little bit about what those are for our listeners and how they work?

Jeff Haden:

Yeah. So for an analogy, and I'll flush out a little bit of what I've said. Let's say that we'll decide that you want to run a marathon. We'll use that. That's a, it's a really easy example to everybody can kind of relate, but you don't run up to this point. So you have to start running in order to someday run a marathon.

You can decide your own plan and program, but in most cases, when we pick our own program to do something, We pick what feels good, what we think we might like, particularly hard, and so you kind of dip your toe in a little bit because you're a beginner or whatever and you don't really see the improvement because you're not really working at it, you're just going through some motions.

And so the action part, it is really important that whatever action you're taking is actually difficult, whether in terms of number of repetitions or number of times you do it in a day or the actual exertion or the mental, whatever it is. It's gotta be difficult because otherwise, you're not going to improve.

And so I always, the best thing to do, I think in a case like that, if I was going to try to run a marathon, I would find someone who has run a few marathons. And I would say, look, I don't even run. So, if you were me, what would you do? Chances are they're going to tell you to start out with something that you think is impossible.

And that's okay. Because they're clear-eyed. Objective, they know what it takes, they're going to tell you the deal. If that feels impossible and you don't even want to start that, then you don't want to be a marathon runner in the first place. You have to want the work in order to want the goal. And so, find someone who will tell you, not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear, and then say to yourself, okay, that's what I'm going to do, and give it your two weeks.

If you do that, by three or four days in, the action will lead to some improvements. And that feels good and that's motivating and again, you start to think, okay, this is something I could do. And that feels successful and we all love to feel successful. And then you get your little drip that returns around to the motivation and then you can get your cycle going.

So, in any field or any pursuit that you have, the action is the most important part. You don't need any motivation. You don't, you, doesn't have to be a smart goal. Doesn't have to have personal meaning. I, in the book, I did this thing where I did a hundred thousand pushups in a year and I did it mainly, partly it was a marketing hook, but partly it was also just a, let me pick a meaningless goal that has no relevance to me whatsoever.

No one cares, but can I actually stick to it? And so I divided it by 365, found out I needed to do 274 a day. Started an Excel spreadsheet, checked it off, felt pretty stupid for a couple weeks, and then I started to kind of think it was cool. And then I started playing with it and somehow in the process I became, only to me, because nobody else knew but my wife that I was doing it, I became the guy who does 300 push-ups a day. And I somehow liked that identity, I don't know why. And so it carried me all the way through. So again, meaningless, no extrinsic value whatsoever, very little intrinsic value at first. But the action created improvement because I got to where I could do 75 push-ups in the set. I could get the whole thing done in 12 minutes.

I could roll some push up, which as you can tell, I'm kind of proud of, even though it's meaningless. So the action is what created the improvement, which made me feel successful, which is where my motivation came from. So, All of motivation comes, I think, from seeing something you're interested in doing or accomplishing, and figuring out a plan that will get you there, and taking the action and letting the improvement and the success help drive you along.

Jeff Hunt:

I want to come back to something that you mentioned that was really subtle and I don't want to glaze over it because I think it's actually very important. You just shared, Jeff, that your wife was the only one that knew, and sometimes it feels like people have these big aspirational goals, and they go tell everybody, and then they get like a little dopamine rush by telling everybody, and they diminish some of their motivation, and it's almost like we need to just shut up, and we need to try to go after these things, and let the results speak for themselves, Instead of telling people, so what are your thoughts about that?

Jeff Haden:

Well, there's a study where, let's be, I use, in the book I use the example of hiking the Appalachian Trail. It's this 2, 000-mile Georgia to Maine thing, and it's very aspirational for some people. And so, let's pretend that I decided that I was going to do that, and then I come to your house and you're having a dinner party and there's 8 or 10 people there, and I'd tell people, I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail.

So I start talking about the trail nickname I'm hoping I get, because everybody gets a trail name. And you know, the shoes I'm going to have and all this stuff. And the research shows that just the act of talking about that fulfills some of the wish or the fulfillment that you were looking for in actually doing it.

And so telling other people that you want, are going to hike the Appalachian Trail actually makes it less likely that you will in fact hike the Appalachian Trail. And so, there's a phrase, or there's a term for it, and I've, I've forgotten it, but anyway, it's, it just, telling people is bad. Now, there's a flip to that.

So, telling people I'm going to run a marathon to keep that to yourself. If you need accountability and you need peer pressure and you want an accountability buddy, the way to do that is to not say, Hey, check in with me in six months and see if I ran a marathon. The way to do that is to say, my plan this week is to run four days.

I'm going to run three miles each day. Let's check in Sunday and you tell, let's talk about that. So you want to be held accountable, not to the goal, but to the process. Because. That's what matters. And so that's the way to leverage peer pressure and accountability, is to say, hold me accountable to the process that I say I'm going to follow, not to the fact of I'm going to reach my goal or not.

And I'm not even sure, if that's helpful to you, then that's great. I'm not a fan of that either, to be honest. Because I think if you need other people to validate, if you need other people to encourage, if you need other people, I don't know. Let's say it's my wife. First time I go running if I've never ran and ruined a mile and a half and I come home and she's like, oh man, that's awesome.

That's great. No matter how much she loves me, she cannot do that for six months. She's gonna be sick of that. And I'm gonna feel like, wait, where did all my extrinsic motivation go? Why aren't people validating me anymore? If you need the external, then you probably don't have the internal that it's going to require to get there if it is a difficult goal.

So I really think. If you think about most people that have achieved big things, you only know they were on the path. It's why they seem like overnight successes. I just did the odd Dr. Evil air. They always seem like overnight successes because they didn't talk about it. And they just, suddenly they burst out and you go, wow, that is amazing.

And that's cool and they probably enjoy that part. But really, they just kept their mouth shut, like you said, and did the thing that they said they wanted to do, and let the intrinsic side of it be all that they needed. So, I really think if you can't find the intrinsic value in whatever it is you hope to achieve, and you need, definitely if you need more extrinsic than intrinsic, You're probably not going to get there because there is no one that can fulfill that for you.

It's unrealistic to expect them to do so. And plus, you're going to get used to it. If my wife still is gushing a month later, well, I'm used to her gushing. And if it's social media gushing, I don't even know those people. So how does that matter to me?

Jeff Hunt:

For sure. There are so many takeaways from this. And I think one of them that I'm just realizing is that oftentimes companies and leadership teams will set big aspirational goals.

And there's actually nothing wrong with that, but especially when you talk about financial goals, so you're talking about revenue, you're talking about profitability, they may say, well, we want to hit 150 million by the end of next year, or we want to make sure we're 22 percent EBDA or profit by the end of next year.

And I am constantly trying to remind people that Those are not actually your goals. Those are byproducts of the way you operate. So if you do a whole bunch of other things really well, and you come together as a team and you communicate well, you're engaged and you're also crystal clear around your vision and why you have that vision, then you might achieve that long-term goal.

So that's the other kind of reflection for me and what you're saying. Is you can have those, but then let's break them down and let's really only focus on the milestones and all of these actions are going to end up leading to the result that you ultimately want, correct?

Jeff Haden:

Yeah, it's milestones. And then it's also process.

So if you say we want 150 million in sales and word that divides into what 11, 12, whatever it is per month. Okay, that's cool. But how are we actually going to do that? What are the steps we will take? What are the things that I need to do every day that contribute to that? What are, how does all that tie together?

And so it, it all ultimately comes back to process. And so then, if that's you saying we want to hit 150 million and we're gonna break that down into 12 million a month, 12 and a half, something, whatever it is. And here's what thing we are all going to do in order to get there. Then your job as a leader is not to necessarily manage to that end goal or to monthly goal, but to the processes that you have all decided are the things that will get you there.

When I worked in manufacturing, job change over time was a really big thing. And so my crews were super fast because they worked at it and they figured it out and they didn't work harder than anybody else. They had just worked out systems and routines and you can call them best practices as you want.

They're really really good and so obviously people above would come and look and then say we need to spread this to other crews and the other crews would say yeah but that's not That wouldn't work for us. And I've always thought that the phrase that doesn't work for me or that wouldn't work for us is really your way of just saying, I don't want to do that.

We had something that was replicable. It wasn't that our folks had physical gifts or any other gifts that were different. We had something replicable. And so it goes back again to where if you ask somebody for advice, then you should be willing to take the advice, especially if you respect their, you should be managing to.

All right, if our goal is to have our job changeovers be this period of time, here are the things that we're going to do that. And we're going to manage those. And if we find ways to be even better, awesome. We'll incorporate that, but you're really managing the process and then you can validate the process.

So if you've got, I don't know, if part of your program was that every one of your sales reps is going to make 10 cold calls a day, let's just pretend, then you're going to manage to that and just, you're going to check here and see, hey, did you do your 10? How'd it go? What'd you learn? Differently. How can we modify that?

And you can also say, Hey, good job. You got your 10. So you've validated the process, which feels good to the employee. Because it's like, oh, okay, well, I know this 150 million is a kind of a nebulous goal or whatever, but I'm hitting what I need to be doing every day and I'm getting better at what I'm doing every day and that will get me there.

And so from a self point of view, you should be evaluating your process and did I do the things I said I would do? And then if you're a leader, you're looking around and saying, we've all agreed these are the things we're going to do. Let's manage those things. Instead of just a once-a-month meeting to see where everybody ended up and scold the ones that didn't do so well and pat the ones that did well in the back, so it, it becomes more of a, like the growth mindset instead of the fixed mindset if you think about it.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, one is much more motivational, inspirational, and engaging. The other is more punitive, rear-view mirror oriented. So I definitely appreciate that. Tell me

Jeff Haden:

One of them is, it's lag metrics versus lead metrics, really. Sure. Is the, what you did at the end of the month in terms of sales Well, okay, that's a lag, but the lead, what you need to do every day that will hopefully get you there. Lead metrics that will take you to the place that you want to be.

Topic 3. Motivation and high performance (21:21)

Jeff Hunt:

Why is specialization kind of a misnomer when it comes to, I'm going to even say fulfillment and high performance. So you think about specialization and motivation and being fulfilled and having high or peak performance. Thanks. Why is that kind of a misnomer?

Jeff Haden:

Well, I, for one thing, I think that everybody is capable of being more than one thing. And enjoys life better if they can be more than one thing. There's different ways you can approach that. You could say, Okay, I've got this, I've got this kind of, not short term, intermediate goal that's going to take me three to four years to complete.

You know, I'm going to work really hard at that. And then at the end of that, I'm going to do something else. That time wasn't wasted. You learned a lot of stuff. So there's that. And then there's also just the, I don't, we'll use, I'm a terrible example because I'm again, I'm decidedly average, but we'll still pretend that I'm worth being an example.

So I worked in manufacturing and leadership job, 20 years, became a ghostwriter, mostly wrote business management leadership books. Right away, I had an advantage over every other writer, because I can understand the business stuff that you were telling me as my client. You didn't have to teach me business.

We could move right past that. So, that past experience leveraged over into that, and then it leveraged into what I do now. And then, my wife and I also own a bunch of residential rental properties. She loves real estate, I do too. I do a lot of the work on them. I have a class A contractor's license just because it's helpful to us.

Seems kind of weird. I'm a ghostwriter, I'm a speaker. I write books, but I'm also before today, I was laying hardwood floor before we got on the phone. So, let's let our onlookers call. But all of those things actually, in a weird way, tie together. Because my business background helped me with the stuff that I write.

Helps me with how we manage our properties my wife's the same way She was a director of finance for a fortune 500 company now She puts people to sleep for a living she wakes them up too, but she puts people to sleep for a living, but she's super good at real estate analysis and investing and stuff like that and Weirdly enough they all tie together because her business background She is by far and away the most business savvy healthcare professional that she knows.

She wouldn't admit that, but I know that that's true. And that's a gap that she kind of filled because of her past. And so, that's a long-winded way of saying that having different pursuits and interests inform and support her in the future. Things and if you only do one thing and that is all that you do One I don't think you can be as good at that as you possibly could be if you brought some other stuff with you And two I just don't think it's as fulfilling because sometimes that one thing isn't going particularly well But if you have other areas of your life where you're also doing things, well, this one can be going Well, that one's not too great.

You've got some balance. You've got some mix So I and then there's also research like in sports You know, you look at kids, especially today, I know it makes me sound like a, you know, get off my porch old man, but the, you know, if it's seven, the kid shows interest in soccer, then that's all that they play.

And that's the focus. And yet, if you look at most world class athletes, they have, they've played a variety of sports and didn't specialize until much later in their life. And the other physical, mental teamwork, whatever things that they brought with them. Eventually made them who they are, as opposed to just slavishly.

This is all I do. And I grind and I grind and I grind. So I think that applied in many different ways, but I would still sum it up to say that all of us are, we are capable of more than we think, and we can have fun in a lot of different ways and life can be really fulfilling. And so why limit yourself to one thing?

That laser-like focus feel like that becomes a grind at some point and why not explore? I the word I use for it is instead of just being this why not be an and you can be a speaker and a writer and and a and a and a Venus Williams is where I got the and part from because she said that her dad wouldn't when they would ride to tennis tournaments He made them listen to like books on tape about foreclosures I'm 12 and I'm listening to this, but like their dad was like, you know, you're not just going to be a tennis player.

You are going to be other things. And we're starting that now. You look at her and obviously she's at the tail end of her career, but she has an architectural design firm and she has a clothing line and she invests in things. And she told me she hates the idea of thinking that every day she would only be doing one thing.

And so that's, that all, but that started from the fact that she was willing to say, okay, I don't want to just be a tenant player. I have time. So, my summary would be, why not be more?

Topic 4. Lighting round questions (26:29)

Jeff Hunt:

Okay. We're going to finish up with some lightning-round questions. Are you ready? Well, they're pretty easy. So what are you most grateful for?

Jeff Haden:

Wow. I would say my wife, my kids. And then in a broader sense, the fact that somewhere along the way, where there was my dad, my grandparents, whoever, grandparents, whoever taught me that working hard is actually a good thing in and of itself, regardless of where it takes you, and that there is a pride that comes from being willing to do something that most people wouldn't be willing to do.

I was mucking stalls with my grandfather one time, and they had been sitting way too long and it smelled so bad, I found him, God, this smells horrible, and he said, son. That's the smell of job security. Well, who wants to do that? But you want to do that. And I, I've converted that in later years to be, you know, one of the best ways to be successful is to look around and see what is it that other people won't do, but that does have value.

And if I do that, then I will immediately stand out.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Jeff Haden:

One was the fact that I needed to stop identifying solely with the people that I worked with. That worked for me rather than realizing that there are other levels and other goals and things like that and then the other was that no matter how generous helpful kind considerate whatever words you want to use you are to an employee who is in need they will never.

Thank you and appreciate it the way that you would like, so you better be doing it because you think it's the right thing to do and it's what you want to do if you're expecting it to pay off in some other fashion than it probably won't. Great lesson. It's like that thing that's kind of cold, but really it comes back to, I think this is the right thing to do, and then however it turns out is however it turns out.

But if I'm expecting to be, if I'm expecting, oh, wow, that's wonderful, thank you very much, it's probably not gonna work.

Jeff Hunt:

Hold the outcome loosely.

Jeff Haden:

Yep.

Jeff Hunt:

Who is one person, well, first of all, you've interviewed so many cool people, but who's one person you would interview that you haven't already interviewed, if you could, living or not?

Jeff Haden:

I actually wrote an article about this one time. It's called Dave Grohl is my white whale, because I've even gotten so far that, like, I'm friendly with his PR person. I know his manager. I've gotten so close, but I have yet to be able to come up with an angle or something that causes them to say, Yeah, that'd be good, let's get you with Dave.

Which is humbling, and it's my fault. It's not because he won't talk to me, it's because I haven't come up with a good enough reason why he should talk to me. So, that's the one I'll use, just because if nothing else it shows that no matter how hard you try, you only get what you deserve.

Jeff Hunt:

And keep trying. Now, you've written a ton of, uh, amazing books, many of which we don't even know you're the author of, but what, when you, and you've read, I'm sure, a lot of different books, do you have a top book recommendation right now when you think through all of the things to suggest?

Jeff Haden:

It's older, not old, but it's older, but Cal Newport's so good they can't ignore you.

I've always, I think I've given away 25 or 30 of those. I really, really like that one. It's a little bit of what I talk about with motivation, but it's also just the, you want to be somebody or you want to become something. And it's kind of how that works, which I think everyone is looking for. But we all have aspirations beyond whatever it is we might have.

And so I think that one is a really good book for that.

Jeff Hunt:

Summarizing everything today, what would you want to leave our listeners with? What are one or two kind of the most important takeaways?

Jeff Haden:

Probably the, the biggest would be, you, you alluded to part of it when you said I've interviewed, I have interviewed a lot of really successful people and my biggest takeaway from that, and I feel this is empowering rather than critical, is every one of them is a mixed bag.

There are people like, I've talked to Richard Branson three times. He struggles to maintain eye contact, which seems really weird to me. I scratch any highly successful person. And what you really find is a regular person who picked one thing that they really, really, really wanted to be good at, and they worked tirelessly to get there.

And so, there is no real difference between those folks and us. It's just that they worked really, really hard to become the thing that they thought that they wanted to be. And so, You know, what was it, uh, there's a guitarist for a band, Avenge Sevenfold. That's not his real name, but his stage name is Sinister Gates.

I'll make more time. He said, every one of us is some sort of F dub. And that is true for everybody. We all have our things, and we all have our weaknesses, and we all have our failings. And that is true for highly successful too, people too. And so if there's something you want to achieve that seems Kind of impossible.

The people that have achieved something similar to that, they are not really different than you. They don't have necessarily a better education, better connections, better financing, better. They just worked really hard at it and decided that they would stay the course and try to get there. And so that would probably be what I would want to leave people with is, pick something you're interested in, figure out a process that will get you there, give yourself two weeks, Let improvement and success be motivation.

Don't look for extrinsic motivation. Find it in yourself. And most importantly, instead of saying, I want to run the New York City Marathon, say, I want to become a runner. Because when that becomes your identity, when you're a rower, And not just a person who rose, then when it's your identity, then you almost don't need motivation.

You don't wake up every day and think, alright, really gonna try to be a good parent today. You're just a parent. You are a parent. It's your identity, and that's what you're going to do. And so it, it applies to leadership as well, and it's the difference between managing and leader, leading. You know, if you wake up, you don't have to think, okay, I'm going to serve the people that work for me, I'm going to be attentive, I'm going to listen, I'm going to communicate, I'm going to, you don't have to think about all those things.

You're a leader and it's what you do. And so, if you can become, if you focus on trying to become the thing you want, Then the results that come from that will get there. You don't want to be a CEO when you can, but what you really have to want to do is be a really good leader. And if you are, you'd have a shot at becoming a CEO.

If all you want's the CEO, then who knows? I'll leave you with one last thing along those lines. So I know a lot of rock stars. There's the Kirk Hammett's of Metallica, who, his real goal in life, he wants to play music with his friends. And, all the rest of the stuff, while he really enjoys it, it's a byproduct of it.

Then there are people who I won't name, who have told me, I wanted to be a rockstar, and I got there, but now, yeah, we go out every summer, we do the festival stuff, we do that, we make money, it's how I make a living, but I hate it, because I don't feel like a rockstar anymore. I'm just that guy. And so Kirk, his motivation was, I want to play music with my friends.

It's intrinsic. The other guys, it was extrinsic. I want all the things with that come with being a rock star. And so if you find the intrinsic, then you can pursue it for as long as you want. But if you only look for the extrinsic, it will only last as long as the extrinsic matters to you, which is usually really short.

Jeff Hunt:

Thank you for these incredible tips and this wisdom. Jeff's book is the motivation myth, how high achievers really set themselves up to win. Of course, it's available everywhere you buy books, especially on Amazon. We're going to put a link to it in our show notes. Jeff, thank you for coming on the show. I really enjoyed it.

Jeff Haden:

I appreciate it. Thank you.