Why Do You Do What You Do?
What Drives You: the Fear of Failure or the Thrill of Mastery?
On The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish, episode #181, the guest Gio Valiante said something about asking people "why do you do what you do?" He was talking about finding out whether they're motivated by ego vs motivated by mastery. When somebody is motivated by mastery, they get super curious. They take failure as an opportunity to learn. If they are motivated by ego, they just want to look good to other people. They take failure as an embarrassment. What about you? Do you feel embarrassed after failure? Or are you invigorated? In another recent episode of the same podcast, the guest recalls proving Daniel Kahneman wrong. This got Kahneman super excited and happy. The guest was dumbfounded... who gets this happy about being wrong? Kahneman said that being proven wrong means you can learn something!
Listening to Shane and Gio riffing on this provoked two thoughts. First, you could ask this question when interviewing candidates for a job. It 'gets two birds stoned at once', because it also hits on the question of early influences (or could, if you steer it there). Secondly, it begged the question: what would your answer be if somebody asked you that?
What About Me? What's My Motivation?
For me, in the past when people asked me a question along these lines I would answer "I love to be creative, and to see my work out in the world making a difference and being useful." In more recent years, I would answer something like "I love creating products people use, but my real passion is to create the team that can produce great products." When you can attract, hire, develop, mentor, and promote great people who synergize together, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, the team is the product. That's what I love. If I take it one level higher, it could progress to "I love building teams that produce leaders who can build teams". I'm not quite there yet in my journey. Hopefully one day! In the past couple of months, a newer answer has been bubbling, boiling, and simmering underneath my consciousness. It's something I can't quite put my thumb on yet. I think it has to do with inspiration and creativity in making products, services, or even teams of my own choosing, rather than ones that are in service to somebody else's idea. I guess I'll figure it out as I go.
Parenthood ignites a new drive. The paternal instinct urges you to secure your family. You want your kids to have a good starting point in life. On the Founders podcast, #324, David Senra talks about lessons he leaned from reading 38 letters John D. Rockefeller Wrote to His Son. Rockefeller included a note saying parents heavily influence the environment in their child's development, but the child's future outcomes are not determined as parents and genetics. Outcomes are dominated by the child's attitude, mindset, and resilience. That's why kids need to practice handling failures and difficulties. It's a balancing act between starting them off well, and sheltering them from adversity.
So, whether professionally or at home, remain clear on your definite purpose so that you can persevere in times of struggle. Get excited about being wrong because that's an opportunity to learn. Help your kids fail forward so they'll be able to handle the real world. Miles est vita hominum.
Full disclosure - the image was generated, and the article was refined, using ai tools
