The Three Layers of Motivation
When I look closely at why people do the work they do, I find three layers of motivation. Layer 1 is intrinsic: the person simply likes doing what they do. Layer 2 is locally extrinsic: the people immediately around the person (family, friends, teammates, coaches, bosses, etc.) give them positive feedback. Layer 3 is broadly extrinsic: the broader world gives the person positive feedback. And when I look closely at people who are unhappy with their work, people who struggle with motivation, or people who aren’t performing to their fullest potential—it’s often because they are lacking one or more of those three layers. That’s the theme of this SIX at 6.
Our Boy Is In His Head
Last December, Trea Turner signed an 11-year $300 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. He proceeded to play some of the worst baseball of his career. He started the season batting second and incrementally dropped to the bottom of the lineup. As his performance plummeted, the Philly fanbase’s support of him did too. I was at a game on July 24th against the Orioles, and every time Turner came up to bat, he got booed. Eight games later, Turner went 0-5, dropped his batting average to a career-low, and in the bottom of the 12th inning, he made a fielding error that cost the Phillies the game. Two days later, a fan known as “The Philly Captain” posted a video. “Let’s not boo Trea Turner,” he said. “Let’s give him a standing ovation every time he comes to bat. Our boy is in his head, and he needs some love.” The next night, every time Turner went to bat, Phillies fans gave him a standing ovation. With a boost from Layer 3, in his third at-bat, Turner hit an RBI single. The next night, he hit a game-winning home run. Since the ovations, Turner has played some of the best baseball of his career. Since the ovations, he has led the MLB in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs, and RBIs. Turner bought billboards around the city that said, “Thank You, Philly.”
A Really Fundamental Idea
Josh Waitzkin was a chess prodigy, but he quit playing chess around the age of 18. “I was a naturally creative, aggressive chess player,” Waitzkin explained. “My style was to create chaos on the chessboard, and my strength lay in finding hidden harmonies.” With this style, Waitzkin won the U.S. Junior Chess Championship at the age of 11 and became an International Master at age 16. Then, Waitzkin got a coach who forced him to play like the world champions, Anatoly Karpov and Tigran Petrosian—“the most positional, conservative chess players.” When he was forced to play a style that didn’t align with his natural proclivities, Waitzkin said, “I lost my love for the game.” When he lost Layer 1, Waitzkin quit playing chess. Shortly after, he took up martial arts. He trained for just two years before he won his first national championship in martial arts. Asked if he took anything from chess into the martial arts, Waitzkin said he leaned into his unique physical and mental traits. “And in my observation of competitors in any discipline, this a really fundamental idea,” he said. “Those who succeed at the highest level, I think, basically manifest their unique character through their discipline.”It Can’t Fill You Up
If you had to part with one of the three layers, Layer 3. Many people talk about chasing Layer 3 metrics (recognition, celebrity, awards, etc.), getting it, and realizing that it didn’t feel like they thought it would. In 1997, at the age of 27, Matt Damon won his first Academy Award for Best Screenplay (“Good Will Hunting”). After Damon won the Oscar, he went home, sat down on his sofa, and looked at the award. As he looked at it, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a heartbreaking thought: “I remember very clearly looking at that award and thinking, ‘Imagine chasing that, not getting it, and then getting it finally in your 80s or your 90s with all of life behind you and realizing what an unbelievable waste of your life.’ It can’t fill you up. If that’s a hole that you have, that won’t fill it.” “My heart broke,” Damon said. “I imagined another one of me [not getting that award until I was] an old man, and going like, ‘oh my god, Where did my life go? What have I done?’ And then it’s over.”
I Fundamentally Don’t Like That Question
The comedian Hasan Minhaj performed stand-up comedy for 10 years, one month, and nine days before his parents saw him perform stand-up comedy. Hasan is the son of Muslim Indian immigrants. His parents left their homes, their parents, their siblings, their friends—everything and everyone they knew—to immigrate to the United States to give their children a better chance at a better future. From their perspective, Hasan’s pursuit of a career in comedy meant that they had sacrificed so much for so little. They didn’t see comedy as a sophisticated art form. They saw it as a dive bar sideshow, cheap entertainment for drunks and lowlifes. “My parents felt like they invested so much in me,” Hasan said, “and now I’m performing in basements for drunks. To them, it was like, ‘You’re so much better than this.’” Hasan was a smart kid. He got good grades. He excelled on his high school’s Speech and Debate team. His potential seemed unlimited. “We’ve seen you put your mind to academics,” Hasan’s parents would say to him, “and you do so well. Why are you doing this? Why are you throwing it all away for comedy?” So, Hasan says, “for my first decade as a comedian, it was real rough between me and my parents. We didn’t talk a lot.” For his first decade as a comedian, Hasan didn’t have Layer 2. He didn’t need it because he had a strong first Layer. Before he became a big-time comedian, Hasan was asked if he thought he was going to become a big-time comedian. “I don’t like that question,” he said. “I fundamentally don’t like that question.” Because that question implies that he is only doing comedy as a means to some end (money, fame, Layer 2 or Layer 3 validation, etc.). “No, no, no,” he said, “The set I get to do tonight at 7:20 PM is the win. I get to do comedy—I won. It being predicated on doing X or being bigger than Y—no, no, no. To me, it’s always just been about the work.” Ten years, one month, and nine days into doing stand-up, in 2014, Hasan was hired as a correspondent on The Daily Show. The host at the time was Jon Stewart. His parents, Hasan said, “held Jon in the same esteem that they held [the journalist] Dan Rather. Jon is a guy who’s actually doing something good for society. He doesn’t just tell jokes to drunk people in a basement at 2 o’clock in the morning.” After Hasan was hired, he told Jon, “my parents know you.” “Jon didn’t understand the magnitude of what that meant,” Hasan later said. “It was a huge deal. I had been doing stand-up for 10 years, one month, and nine days. And to finally have something where your parents know what it is,” to finally have Layer 2, “it was just — it meant everything to me.”
The Work Is The Win
Ryan Holiday once told me, “The work has to be the win.” You control Layer 1, not Layers 2 and 3. “So ultimately, you have to love doing the work. You have to get to a place where doing the work is the win and everything else is extra.”