Dan Pink – Drive

By Dennis | Published: June 4, 2010

“The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”

Is actually not surprising to me at all. I have heard the first 1.5 hours of the audio book and find myself annoyed by the repetition of the same argument over and over again. Extrinsic motivation (mostly.. paying someone to do something) can have negative effect on motivation, performance and creativity.

Well this is something I experience day by day. I cannot force myself to do creative work just because I am paid for it, I rather perform best when I feel like doing so. When I am in a creative flow and you just can’t buy a creative flow.

Anyhow, as it seems this book is rather directed to business owners and managers who stick with the classic business models. Not to a student who spends lot of his time to work on projects he deeply enjoys.

Has anyone read this book? Are there any thrilling insights in the later parts of the book? I am definitely not motivated right now to read/hear any further ;)

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  • Oliver

    I used to held the same belief, until my mentor taught me his trade secret. ;)

    What we get to see is the finished result of the work. What we don’t get to see are the 10-15 drafts a piece of work goes through. What professionals like Stephen King, or any other artist for that matter, do is do the first draft while giving themself permission to produce absolute rubbish. They just hammer it out WITHOUT editing or judging or trying to make sense.

    Then they let it rest for AT LEAST a day, without looking at it. This is where your unconscious mind goes to work.

    Later, they come back with fresh eyes and ideas and edit the piece.

    Sometimes going through multiple iterations.

    The thing is, at school we are taught to write while paying attention to spelling and grammer and trying to get it nice and perfect. Editing was frowned upon, at my school at least. But the problem is, both require different parts of the brain. One is logical, but the creative part is emotional.

    If you can let go and just force yourself to write (design, whatever) for 10 minutes, you will get into the flow. Your brain has to warm up first… which can’t happen if you’re constantly switching back and forth between being creative and judging/editing, …

    I have to show you a great video he did on this, but it’s private so I cannot share it here. :)