Daniel Pink | "Drive" into Your Future

Daniel Pink’s latest book “Drive” is in Amazon’s Top 100, in 12th place a week after release. Pink’s exploration of what motivates us is music to my ears. I’m not sure it pays the bills, as free lancers struggle to make a living wage, but new paradigms take time.

Pink wrote radical-change “Free Agent Nation” a few years ago.

“Panes of Love” via Flickr’s 5533Pink’s right in saying that many of us — including me — are working for ourselves. The reality, especially in a global economic meltdown, isn’t quite as glamorous as Pink envisioned. Creating sustainable free agent income and benefits models remains challenging in most states of America.

Outside the US, the challenges are easier to solve. In America, you’re supposed to be “on your own.”

The Wall Street Journal interviewed Pink about “Drive”. 

I say “yes” to this passage: ” …  we’re seeing the weaknesses of that older approach to motivation. If you look at the last decade, it’s been one of almost breathtaking underachievement. The economy seems to be lurching from boom to bust, and so I think we’re recognizing the limits of this approach today.”

Investors who put $10,000 in stocks on Dec. 31, 1999, have $9,090 now, while the same amount in 10-year Treasury notes would have grown to about $18,000 following a 6.1 percent annualized return, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. via Business Week

For one moment, let’s look at business performance achievement for the last 10 years. Pathetic, especially under a Republican administration and an unfettered Wall Street, pretty much doing what it wanted. Beyond a dramatic redistribution of personal wealth in America, the nation lost ground on most financial fronts.

Back to Daniel Pink and the right brain analysis of Anne of Carversville, which Pink claims is a core fundamental of 21st century lifestyle and business. 

According to the WSJ, “Drive” focuses on motivation in three elements: 1) autonomy, the desire to direct our own lives, 2) mastery, the desire to continually improve at something that matters, and 3) purpose, the desire to do things in service of something larger than ourselves.

I’ll get my hands on a copy of “Drive” pronoto. It sounds like great reading and I’m eager to understand the science behind the conclusions. Anne

Excerpt of “Drive” via WSJ

“Drive is the rare book that will get you to think and inspire you to act. Pink makes a strong, science-based case for rethinking motivation—and then provides the tools you need to transform your life.”
-Dr. Mehmet Oz, co-author of YOU: The Owners Manual