Motivation
topic on 4 shows · 12 statements across 9 episodes
Startups For the Rest of Us 
the Knowledge Project 
Masters of Scale 
Lenny's Podcast
12 statements about Motivation, every show
Valiante: Confidence and motivation matter more than intelligence in predicting performance
“Of all the variables that psychology measures, the two that I think are the most important are confidence and motivation, right? Confidence and motivation. People think it's intelligence, but it's actually not.”
Valiante: Core adult drive is rooted in formative childhood experiences and trauma
“When you ask somebody, why do you do what they do?
[3511] Dr. Gio Valiante: On a surface level, they're going to give all these answers.
[3513] Dr. Gio Valiante: It's like, oh, because I love it.
[3516] Dr. Gio Valiante: If you actually have deep conversations…”
Milkman: Fresh starts only provide temporary motivation for one-off actions
“But a big problem with fresh starts is that all they do is they give us a temporary boost in motivation. So they're actually really great moments to do something that's sort of a one and done.”
Shankar: Goal Motivation Predictably Slumps Between Initial Start and Final Stretch
“We don't have stable amounts of motivation over the course of goal pursuit. This is some research by my friend Ayelet Fischbach. She calls it the middle problem. So basically what happens is we have a huge burst of motivation at the outset of a goal. We all ca…”
Shankar: Set Week-Long Goals to Minimize Predictable Mid-Project Motivation Slumps
“So what Ayelet recommends is to actually just make the middle periods of time as short as physically possible. So rather than setting a year long goal, which we might feel an instinct to do because we want to set a really ambitious goal. And so we're like, let…”
Berger: Pure discipline is merely a short-term coping strategy
“It's not that discipline doesn't work, right? But it's like people pleasing. It's a short term it's a short term coping strategy. Like discipline will get you in the gym for a week, but it's not going to get you in the gym for a year, right? The people who are…”
Gurner: High performers run on obsession, not prolonged forced discipline
“When we are at our best, we're not slogging through. And great People are obsessed and they're not slogging through either. They are driven. They are motivated. They are deeply, deeply engaged. And so I find that oftentimes when we over rely on discipline, tho…”
Dr. Lembke: Dopamine Primarily Drives Motivation, Not Pleasure
“Well, it was originally thought that dopamine was primarily related to the experience of pleasure, euphoria, getting high, but a series of important experiments suggest that dopamine may be even more important for motivation, that is our willingness to do the …”
Balcetis: Motivation counteracts body weight effects on distance perception
“When people are more motivated to exercise or to make it to that finish line, that motivation can, in a sense, compensate for that effect of their body on their perception of distance. So that even highly motivated people, people who are highly motivated, even…”
Committed people stay motivated by looking ahead; uncommitted people by looking back
“And what she has found is that people get a burst of motivation or, you know, and performance increases. People engage in the goal-relevant activity at that halfway point if they look towards the finish line. Look towards what separates where I'm at right now …”
Walling: Bootstrapped startups die from lost motivation, venture-backed from lack of money
“Venture funded companies fail or shut down when they run out of money, but bootstrap companies shut down when they run out of motivation.”