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 01
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The 04
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MOTIVATION
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Myth
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How High Achievers Really 14

Set Themselves Up to Win 15

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JEFF HADEN 19
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PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN N26

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01
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08 Portfolio/​Penguin
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
09 375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
10
11
12 Copyright © 2018 by Jeff Haden
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse
13 voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for
buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright
14 laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form
15 without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to
continue to publish books for every reader.
16 Most Portfolio books are available at a discount when purchased in quantity
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sonalized covers, excerpts, and corporate imprints, can be created when
18 ­purchased in large quantities. For more information, please call (212) ­572-​­2232
or e‑mail specialmarkets@penguinrandomhouse.com. Your local bookstore
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can also assist with discounted bulk purchases using the Penguin Random
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participating retailer, e‑mail B2B@penguinrandomhouse.com.
21
Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
22 [Insert CIP]
23 Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
24
Book design by Daniel Lagin
25S
Portions of this book were revised from content that was originally
26N published in Inc.com.

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 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
To my wife, who is better, smarter, and kinder than I ­am . . . 09
and who constantly inspires me to want to be better than I am. 10
And to my kids, who are already better people 11
than I could ever hope to be. 12
13
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S25
N26

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9780399563768_Motivation_TX.indd vi 9/22/17  6:07 PM
 01
02
CONTENTS 03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
INTRODUCTION 12
You Can ­Do—​­a nd ­Be—​­So Much More Than You Think 1 13
14
CHAPTER 1
15
Motivation Is Not the Spark 11
16
CHAPTER 2 17
The Greater Your Focus, the Lower Your Chances of Success 39 18
19
CHAPTER 3 20
Your Goal Must Always Choose Your Process 65
21
22
CHAPTER 4
23
Happiness Comes to Serial Achievers 97
24
CHAPTER 4.5 S25
Wishing and Hoping Is the Most Unrealistic Approach of All 127 N26

vii

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 C ontents

01 CHAPTER 5
02 To Gain Incredible W
­ illpower . . . Need Less Willpower 131

03
CHAPTER 5.5
04
One Question Provides Nearly Every Answer 171
05
06 CHAPTER 6
07 Why Work Smarter When You Can Work Your Number? 175
08
09 CHAPTER 7
You Don’t Need a Coach; You Need a Pro 211
10
11
CHAPTER 8
12 Do More by Doing Less 235
13
14 CHAPTER 9
15 The Bottom Line 261

16
17
18 Acknowledgments 265

19
Index 269
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22
23
24
25S
26N

viii

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 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
THE MOTIVATION MYTH 09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
S25
N26

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9780399563768_Motivation_TX.indd x 9/22/17 6:07 PM
 01
02
INTRODUCTION 03
04
You Can ­Do—​­a nd ­Be—​­ 05

So Much More Than You Think 06

07
08
09
10
11

W hen I worked in manufacturing for R.R. Donnelley, the

world’s largest commercial printer, I ­desperately—​­and I
do mean ­desperately—​­wanted to become a plant manager; the
12
13
14
closest I came was running manufacturing operations for a small, 15
privately owned company. I spent years trying to get ­one—​­just 16
­one—​­short story published; the closest I came ­was . . . Well, I 17
never came close. (Looking back, deservedly so.) I have dozens 18
of failures to my name. I’ve tried and failed, over and over. 19
Even worse, I’ve let many goals go without even trying to 20
achieve them. I thought about them, I dreamed about them, I 21
imagined what it would feel like to accomplish ­them . . . but I 22
never even got started. 23
In both scenarios I spent a lot of time trying to rev myself up 24
into a motivated state. I’d been told success was all about S25
N26

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 T H E M O T I V AT I O N M Y T H

01 ­mind-​­set, and I wanted to lock in the optimal psychological

02 state before the rubber met the road. We can all remember those
03 times when we were hit with a lightning bolt of inspiration,
04 whether to work out or to start learning ­French—​­and we can
05 also remember how that urge never produced any action.
06 I was in the grip of an insidious myth. I thought motivation
07 was a prerequisite to starting a tedious learning ­process—​­a spark
08 necessary to get me going. But motivation is really a result. Mo-
09 tivation is the fire that starts burning after you manually, pain-
10 fully, coax it into existence, and it feeds on the satisfaction of
11 seeing yourself make progress. The problem with waiting for
12 motivation to strike is that it almost never comes with enough
13 voltage to actually get you started.
14 Granted, sometimes motivation will strike like a hammer.
15 Minutes or hours later, though, you’ve lost your enthusiasm,
16 partly because a ­lightning-​­bolt burst of motivation is like a sugar
17 rush: It feels great but is impossible to maintain, and when you
18 come down you actually feel worse. ­Rah-​­rah speeches and inspi-
19 rational quotes and ­fire-​­walking challenges may help you pic-
20 ture yourself at the top of the mountain with your arms raised
21 in triumph, but the effect is fleeting. After the glow is gone,
22 you’re left standing by yourself at the bottom of that same moun-
23 tain, hugely intimidated by all the steps you need to climb.
24 So you sit, and dwell, and sulk, and wish, and hope, and
25S maybe even think about saving up for Tony Robbins’s next
26N ­seminar . . . but even that sounds too hard.

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 Y O U C A N ­D O —​­A N D ­B E — ​­S O M U C H M O R E T H A N Y O U T H I N K

01
HOW SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE APPROACH
02
MOTIVATION
03
I’ve met plenty of successful people. Yes, many of them are 04
smart. Yes, some of them are creative. Yes, they’re often tal- 05
ented. But none of those traits is crucial to their success. The 06
gene cards we are dealt are just a starting point; nearly every 07
successful person I know started on the downside of advantage. 08
Humble beginnings can create the perfect foundation for suc- 09
cess, because starting at the bottom creates almost endless op- 10
portunities to enjoy small successes. 11
Confused? That’s okay. The key is to understand how moti- 12
vation works. 13
There is only one recipe for gaining motivation: success. 14
Specifically, the dopamine hits we get when we observe our- 15
selves making progress. 16
Not huge, ­life-​­changing successes. Those come all too infre- 17
quently, if ever. If you want to stay motivated, if you want to stay 18
on track, if you want to keep making progress toward the things 19
you hope to achieve, the key is to enjoy small, seemingly minor 20
­successes—​­but on a regular basis. If you’re trying to learn a lan- 21
guage, it’s fun when you realize you can count to twenty. If 22
you’re trying to learn an instrument, it’s fun when you realize 23
you can read simple sheet music. If you’re trying to learn to 24
code, it’s fun to realize that silly little program you wrote actu- S25
ally works. Small successes are ­f un—​­and motivating. N26

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 T H E M O T I V AT I O N M Y T H

01 That’s why you already have everything you need.

02 That’s why motivation isn’t something you have. Motivation
03 is something you get, from yourself, automatically, from feeling
04 good about achieving small successes.
05 Success is a process. Success is repeatable and predictable.
06 Success has less to do with hoping and praying and strategizing
07 than with diligently doing (after a little strategizing, sure): doing
08 the right things, the right way, over and over and over.
09 It’s easy to look back on a path to greatness and assume that
10 every vision was clear, every plan was perfect, every step was
11 executed flawlessly, and tremendous success was a foregone
12 conclusion.
13 It wasn’t. Every extremely successful person I know never
14 expected to achieve as much as they have. (Many still can’t be-
15 lieve it.) Almost to a person, one day they woke up and were
16 stunned to see how far they had come.
17 Why were they so surprised by their success? They were
18 busy doing. They didn’t focus on what they did not have. They
19 focused on doing the work, day after day after day, to get them
20 to where they hoped to go.
21 When you consistently do the right things, success is pre-
22 dictable. Success is inevitable. You just can’t think about it too
23 much. No obsessing allowed.
24
25S
26N

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 Y O U C A N ­D O —​­A N D ­B E — ​­S O M U C H M O R E T H A N Y O U T H I N K

01
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND
02
SUCCESS
03
The motivation myth makes us unhappy for two reasons. First, 04
it leads to a sin of commission. A person who ­self-​­identifies as a 05
failure, who regularly quits before reaching the finish line, is a 06
chronically unhappy person. But it also causes a sin of omission. 07
We aren’t mindfully enjoying one of the most rewarding experi- 08
ences on earth: slowly growing stronger, or more skillful, or 09
more wise. 10
Like when my grandfather bought a racehorse. 11
I wasn’t even a teenager, but even I knew it was a terrible 12
decision. A racehorse was a luxury he and my grandmother 13
surely could not afford. But at least ongoing costs were low, be- 14
cause he lived on a farm. That’s a justification I’m sure he floated 15
by my grandmother. 16
Over the next year he would scrape together entry fees and 17
race the horse with little success at small local tracks. One was 18
no better than an open field rutted by the pounding of hooves. 19
Another featured an announcer who placed his PA system on 20
the back of his truck and powered it with a generator that almost 21
drowned out the sound of his voice. (I can still remember him 22
saying, “As you folks know, in Virginia it’s illegal to bet at a 23
­racetrack . . . but if you folks mosey away from the track and on 24
down to that big old oak tree over yonder, I’m sure someone will S25
N26

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 T H E M O T I V AT I O N M Y T H

01 be happy to accommodate you.” And I can still remember the

02 muscles in my father’s face tightening in response.)
03 Then one day the impossible happened. After somehow
04 talking one of the better jockeys into riding his ­horse—“somehow”
05 surely including slipping the man an extra forty dollars, a
06 princely sum for the ­ride—​­his horse finished in second place fin-
07 ish at the now ­long-​­defunct Goochland Races, held at the county
08 fairgrounds less than ten miles from where my grandfather
09 lived.
10 After the race he stood at the finish line and held up the
11 small silver plate so we could take his picture. Then we led the
12 horse back around the sandy track toward the barn area as some
13 of people on the outside of the rail congratulated him.
14 I was only twelve, but even I could see a noticeable differ-
15 ence in the way he walked. For those moments he stood taller,
16 carrying himself with a clear sense of accomplishment, dignity,
17 and pride.
18 Only years later did I realize why my grandfather had bought
19 the horse. He desperately wanted to be someone. He wanted to
20 matter.
21 That’s a wish we all share. For the most part, that’s why we
22 change careers, or start businesses, or play an instrument, or go
23 back to school. That’s we run for local office, volunteer at a char-
24 ity, or are active in church.
25S We want to ­matter . . . but when we focus solely on mattering
26N to other ­people—​­when we focus on seeing the reflection of our

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worth in the eyes of ­others—​­the difference that feeling makes in 01

our lives is often fleeting. 02
By the time we got back to the farm, my grandfather’s glow 03
had faded. Sure, he was still happy, but all the external benefits 04
of that small ­success—​­the smiles, the words of congratulation, 05
the nods from friends and ­strangers—​­had disappeared. 06
At the end of my grandfather’s racing journey, he was left 07
with what we are all left with, no matter what we may have 08
accomplished and no matter how much praise or recognition we 09
may have received from others. The accomplishment, no matter 10
how amazing, is just the cherry on top of the fulfillment cake. 11
If your goal has long been to build a business that does $10 12
million in sales, the second you hit that target you feel ­amazing—​ 13
­but that moment of achievement is just one moment. If your goal 14
has long been to run a marathon, the second you cross the finish 15
line you feel ­amazing—​­but that moment of achievement is just 16
one moment. 17
The road to a target, to a goal, to a finish line is filled with 18
countless hours of work and determination and ­sacrifice . . . and 19
countless opportunities to feel good about what you have accom- 20
plished, each and every day along the way. 21
A slice of satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness can be 22
found in the ­achievement . . . but the real source of consistent, 23
lasting happiness lies in the process. My grandfather wasn’t in- 24
volved in the process. Granted, he bought the ­horse . . . but then S25
he jumped to the end. He skipped all the steps in between: N26

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 T H E M O T I V AT I O N M Y T H

01 training the horse, conditioning the horse, developing the horse’s

02 speed slowly but surely, teaching it not just how to run but how
03 to race.
04 He didn’t give himself the chance to enjoy the daily doses of
05 fulfillment that come from engaging in the process. Accomplish-
06 ing something, no matter how small the task, makes us feel bet-
07 ter about ourselves. That’s why to‑do lists are so popular. (Many
08 people write down really easy ­tasks—​­or tasks they’ve already
09 ­completed—​­just so they can scratch them off.)
10 Incredibly successful people set a goal and then focus all
11 their attention on the process necessary to achieve that goal.
12 They set a goal and then, surprisingly, they forget the goal.
13 Sure, the goal is still out there. But what they care about
14 most is what they need to do ­today—​­and when they accomplish
15 that, they are happy about today. They feel good about today.
16 They feel good about themselves, because they’ve accom-
17 plished what they set out to do today, and that sense of accom-
18 plishment gives them all the motivation they need to do what
19 they need to do when tomorrow ­comes—​­because success, even
20 tiny, incremental success, is the best motivational tool of all.
21 When you savor the small victories, you get to feel good
22 about yourself every day, because you no longer feel compelled
23 to compare the distance between here and there. You don’t have
24 to wait for “someday” to feel good about yourself; if you do what
25S you planned to do today, you’re a winner.
26N When I was training for long cycling events, I often rode up

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 Y O U C A N ­D O —​­A N D ­B E — ​­S O M U C H M O R E T H A N Y O U T H I N K

mountains. I always hated the ­climbs . . . but I loved completing 01

them, and years later I still love knowing I completed them. 02
Think about anything you’ve done that was extremely hard, and 03
how you felt afterward, and you’ll know exactly what I mean. 04
For years I missed out on the happiness and fulfillment that 05
come from accomplishing all the little steps in my various ­goal-​ 06
­achievement (actually, ­goal-​­failure) journeys. 07
You don’t have to. 08
But it won’t be easy. ­Success—​­lasting, fulfilling, meaningful 09
­success—​­never is. 10
Want to start a business? Don’t be fooled by the work‑at‑home 11
hype. Launching a successful business will make you wonder 12
what the words “free time” could possibly mean. 13
Want to rise to the top of your organization? Don’t be fooled 14
by the ­work-​­life-​­balance fluff. Tremendous effort and dedication 15
are required. 16
Want to run a marathon? Forget some ­sixty-​­day shortcut 17
system that promises maximum results from minimal input. 18
Life doesn’t work that way. 19
To accomplish anything worthwhile, and especially to 20
achieve a goal others say is impossible, you have to work your ass 21
off. There are no shortcuts. The only way is the hard way. 22
Yet there are plenty of ways to make the process fun. There 23
are plenty of ways to make the process uplifting. There are 24
plenty of ways to enjoy every step of the ­journey . . . as well as S25
that final step onto your personal podium. N26

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 T H E M O T I V AT I O N M Y T H

01 Want to be happier? Want to be more successful at every-

02 thing you choose to pursue? The paths to both are one and
03 the same.
04 You don’t need to wait until you can find more time; you
05 have all the time you need. You don’t need to wait until you can
06 find more money; money never drives success. (Though if you so
07 choose, money can be the result of success.) And you absolutely
08 do not need more motivation.
09 You don’t need to wait to find your passion; if you follow this
10 book’s program, your ­passions—​­plural intended, as you’ll soon
11 ­see—​­will find you.
12 You will stand strong. You won’t back off. You won’t back
13 down. You’ll make smart decisions. You won’t focus on what you
14 don’t have, because what you do ­have—​­however little it may
15 ­seem—​­is more than enough.
16 And you will find that the process, not just the result but the
17 process involved in becoming something that you once dreamed
18 of, will also make you feel awesome about ­yourself—​­each and
19 every day.
20 Some people are successful. Some people are happy.
21 You can be both.
22 Here’s how.
23
24
25S
26N

10

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