#367： The Motivation Myth
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Brett McKay sits down with author Jeff Hayden to discuss his new book, The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up To Win. In this episode, Jeff explains what the motivation myth is and why it's so alluring. He then walks us through specific tactics you can start doing today to help tap into this genuine catalyst for achieving your goals.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Well, it's
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a new year and you've likely set some new goals for yourself and you just need some
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motivation to work on them, right? So you read motivational quotes on Instagram, listen
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to motivational podcaster, yell at you for 30 minutes while you commute to work and you
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repeat affirmations about crushing it every morning and night and you start feeling motivated,
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really motivated. You start to take steps towards accomplishing your goal, but then a few days
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later, you're not feeling so motivated because you're not feeling it. You stop working on
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those goals and then you start feeling guilty about not working on your goals. So you return
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to reading motivational quotes on Instagram to help pump yourself back up to get going
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again. Sound familiar? Well, if so, my guest today argues that you've likely fallen into
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the motivation myth. His name is Jeff Hayden and his latest book is The Motivation Myth,
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How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win. And today on the show, Jeff explains
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what the motivation myth is and why it's so alluring. We then discuss the real secret of
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lasting motivation and no, it's not reading motivational quotes or listening to motivational
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speakers. Jeff then walks us through specific tactics you can start doing today to help tap
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in this genuine catalyst for achieving your goals. If you're a motivational junkie that doesn't
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have a lot to show for all your inspired intentions, this episode is for you. After the show's
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over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash motivation myth. And now Jeff joins me via
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clearcast.io. Jeff Hayden, welcome to the show. Thank you, Brad. It's an honor to be with you.
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So you got a book out called The Motivation Myth, How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win.
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Tell us a bit about your background and what was the impetus behind writing The Motivation Myth?
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Well, I'm going to answer part of that question. My background is really boring.
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We're going to skip right on past that and get to the fun part. Although, all right, I'll give you
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a snapshot. I worked in manufacturing for 20 years, decided I wanted to write instead,
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worked really hard at it as a side hustle, got to the point where I thought I could take a chance.
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I bet on myself and have done fairly well with it. So the impetus for writing the book, I was sitting
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with Kirk Hammett, the guitarist in Metallica, and I know that's a shameless name drop. And we were
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talking about their 40 years and 100 million albums sold and all of that cool stuff. And I said,
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you know, it must be really neat to have started out with this goal in mind and actually be there.
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And he looked at me and he said, dude, I never cared about being a rock star or anything else.
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I wanted to learn to play a guitar better. And I wanted to be able to play well enough that I could
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play with my friends. And that's still what he cares about. And so I thought about that. And then
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I thought about all the people that I know who feel stuck or stagnant or who haven't been able to
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reach any of the goals or dreams that they have. And almost every one of them will tell me, well,
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I haven't found my passion yet, or I haven't found that motivation that I need, or I haven't.
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It was always this, they were waiting for some lightning bolt to strike them. And then I contrasted
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that with Kirk. And I'm lucky enough that I've gotten to talk to a lot of really successful
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people. So I thought, you know, I've talked to Richard Branson, Venus Williams, Roger Penske,
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Jessica Alba, Jimmy Johnson, the NASCAR driver. I've got this huge list of people and none of them
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ever talked about a lightning bolt of motivation or inspiration that started them on their path.
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They all just said, I'm interested in this. It seems like fun. It seems like it might be rewarding.
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Seems like something I might want to do. Let me go start that and see where it leads.
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And so that really is the impetus behind writing the book. There are so many people that sit and wait
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for that big dose of motivation or passion or inspiration to strike. And what really works is
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if you just create that on your own, and we can talk about how you do that, but that's the main
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premise of the book is that you don't have to wait for motivation. You can create your own.
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Right. I mean, so what are, so besides that idea, that motivation, you don't need to wait for
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motivation. You can create it. I mean, what are some other myths about motivation that we have?
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And why are those myths? I mean, that's the more, like, that's one thing, but the more important
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question is like, why, why do we believe them? And like, why are they so alluring?
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Part of the reason is that it is tempting to rationalize that the reason you haven't done
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something that you really want to do, or if you're sitting around thinking, wow, I would like to
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accomplish something great, whatever that might be. It's easy to think, well, I just haven't figured
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out what that is yet, or I haven't found that motivation that I need that will get me there.
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So that's a tempting rationale that you can use that can let you sit and say, well, maybe I'm,
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maybe it's better if I wait because I need to wait for that. And you know what waiting does,
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it just means you're sitting, you're stuck in the very same place. But that out of the people that I
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talk to, that seems to be why they're stuck. They're waiting for motivation because it's something
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that's going to occur to them. Right. And the other, I mean, the other problem with motivation,
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you talk about this in the book is that motivation is a feeling, right? And like feelings, like we all
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know are fleeting. Like you can feel happy one moment, then sad the next, and then you're not sad.
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And I think the same thing goes for motivation too. Oh, absolutely. If you look at someone who has
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achieved something really big and you think it's easy to think, well, but yeah, they had this special
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something that I don't have, whether it's talent or experience or connections or the list could go
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on and on, but they've got something special. Really. They didn't have something special when
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they started, they got to a special place because they put in the work and the effort and the time
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to achieve whatever it was they wanted to achieve. So that motivation side of it, where
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it's like, wow, if I, as long as I'm motivated, I can keep going. That doesn't sustain you across
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that huge journey that you have to take between here, which is I'm starting out to do something
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new and there, which is where you've achieved something really big. It doesn't carry you across
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because it's a feeling that you can't sustain. What you can sustain is every day doing what you
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set out to do, accomplishing that, maybe not your huge goal, but what you wanted to do today that
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will get you there. And then feeling good about that success, which gives you the motivation
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tomorrow to get up and do it again, then you're successful. Then you feel motivated to do it
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again. So it creates this really cool virtuous cycle or loop of success, gratification, and
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motivation. And you get these little doses every day. So you don't need that big feeling because
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you're going to get little drips of feeling every time.
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Right. So let's, okay. So we want to get into this virtuous cycle where you do something,
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you experience a bit of success and that motivates you to keep going. The question is like,
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how do you bootstrap that? How do you get that going when you like, because like it's the chicken
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or egg, like, I don't feel like doing this thing. So I'm not going to do the thing. So how do you
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force yourself to do the thing, even though you don't feel like it?
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Well, hopefully whatever it is you've decided to do is at least something you're moderately
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interested in, although it doesn't have to be. And we can talk about that in a second,
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but what you have to do. And the only way to get past that bootstrap part is you have to say,
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okay, if I want to, I don't know, let's use the classic example. I want to train to run a marathon
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and I've never run one. I've never run a mile even. You have to get through that week to week
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and a half period where it feels insurmountable and it's really hard. And so what you have to do
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is commit to yourself that no matter what, I'm going to create a plan for my first week and a
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half to two weeks, and I am going to follow that plan. And if I get to the end of the two weeks
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and I decide this is not for me, okay, you can make that decision if you want to.
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Invariably though, if you get to that two weeks, you will have improved a little bit. You'll feel
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a little bit better about what you're doing. You'll have internalized the habit a little bit
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and then it won't seem like such a hard thing to keep going. But there is that commitment that you
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have to make to yourself where you just say, you know what, I am not going to stop for that two weeks.
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I'm going to give it that long because those first few days are awful. You know how that goes.
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Right. So I guess the success you're experiencing in that moment then isn't
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that you ran for two weeks. It's like, okay, you experienced this because I ran today,
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right? Like you, you try to really savor that and that feels good. So you do it the next day.
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So, I mean, that's kind of the interesting, like, it's kind of a weird paradox. Like,
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so you talk about in the book, in order to stay motivated, you have to forget about your goals
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or don't focus on them as much. But at the same time, you have to create really small goals that
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you're trying to go after that aren't, that aren't like really related to that big goal. I mean,
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they are related, but they're not. Yeah. That's that we're back to that here and there thing.
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If you want to run that marathon and you've never really run it all, when you go jogging the first
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day and you stagger your way through your first mile, if you look at your whole goal, which is to
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someday run 26.2 or three or whatever it is miles, it is way too far from here to there for you to
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even imagine getting there. And instead of being motivating, it's incredibly defeating. And in all
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likelihood, you will give up. So the first step in achieving anything big is to figure out what that
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is and what it looks like, but then to say, okay, that's my goal. Now I'm going to focus on the process
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that will allow me to get there. And it's almost like you set the end goal aside and say,
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I know that's out there, but it's somewhere in the horizon and it's soft and fuzzy. And I can't,
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I'm not even going to think about that. I'm going to think about today and tomorrow
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and accomplishing those things. And if you keep going and you keep following your process and
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you revise and adapted some to make it fit you and to make sure that it's even as successful as it can
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be. Someday you pop your head up like a gopher and you look and you say, wow, I'm actually really
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close to where I was trying to go. And of course, that's a really fun and motivating moment,
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but then you have to put your head back down and say, I'm not going to worry about that.
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I'm just going to keep focusing on my daily tasks. Here to there is the quickest way to feel
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defeated and to quit. If you focus on it, if you just focus on today and you do what you have to do
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today, you're golden. Okay. So you're not saying don't make goals. You're saying make,
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make the goal and the goal directs the process and the process is what you should focus on.
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And then you forget it and you focus on process.
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Right. So it's kind of like that, was it Thoreau or Emerson said something like that,
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where it's like build your castles in the cloud, then build the foundation underneath it or something
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like that. Yeah, exactly. He said it much better than I just did. But that is the premise.
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So yeah, this is interesting. This idea that, okay, you set goals and kind of forget about them,
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get caught up in the process. And you talk about this interesting research. So it kind of goes
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contrary or against the grain of most, you know, goal setting advice or success advice is that,
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okay, you make a goal, you need to tell as many people as possible. So they'll hold you accountable.
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And then you actually have highlighted research like, no, actually, it's going to make you
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less likely to do the thing you said you were going to do. So what's going on there?
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Well, the difference is in how you describe what it is you want to do. So I live in Virginia,
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midway roughly on the Appalachian Trail. It's this long hike, 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine,
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and lots of people do it every year. And it's one of those like bucket list kind of things for hikers.
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So if let's say that you decide you want to hike the Appalachian Trail, if you tell your friends,
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hey, I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail, they'll say, oh, that's really cool. What's involved?
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And then you start talking about, you know, the pack you'll have and the nickname you're going to get
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on the trail. And you start talking about all the experiences that go along with that.
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Research shows that the feelings that you get from talking about it actually make you feel like
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you're part of the way there, which means that you are much less likely to actually do that because
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all that gratification that you might somehow have gotten has gone away. So while you think you're
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telling people, hey, hold me to this because peer pressure is a wonderful thing. And, you know,
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I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail, which you're actually doing. I mean, there's there's
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research. At the end of research, the researchers say when other people take notice of an individual's
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identity related behavioral intention, this gives the individual a premature sense of possessing the
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inspired to identity. So that's researcher speak, which I can't write that way. But in my words,
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it means that you're already getting a big kick out of people thinking that you're hiking the
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Appalachian Trail. So they're actually less motivated to actually do it.
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So the key to that, if you feel peer pressure is important to you and you want people to hold
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you accountable, then don't tell them what you can tell them your goal, but then right away say,
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and so here is what I'm going to do for the next X period of time in order to get there and share
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what your process is. And then you say to them, hold me accountable to my process. So if you're doing
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the trail and your process is OK for the next week, I'm going to hike four miles a day. And on Saturday,
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I'm going to do an eight mile hike up this mountain. Tell people that and then say, hold me accountable
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to that. Don't say I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail because you're already experiencing some of
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the fun. It's like that research that says that people get some major satisfaction out of planning
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a vacation. And it's almost it almost makes them as happy as having taken the vacation. It's kind of the
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same thing. It's aspirational. So if you like peer pressure, share your process with people and tell
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them to hold you accountable to that. Gotcha. So again, focus on the process. OK, let's talk about
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the process a bit. So how do you go about developing a process that one, facilitates motivation,
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and to lead you to achieving that big picture goal you have? Probably the easiest way is I don't know
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if you know the Monty Python movie Life of Brian, but there's the scene where Brian is telling the
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crowd that they're all individuals. And one person raises his hand and says, I'm not. We are all
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individuals. But at the same time, there are all these perfectly good wheels out there that we don't
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have to reinvent. So the easiest thing to do is pick someone who has achieved what you want to
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achieve. And forget about all the things that they brought to it, like, again, education, experience,
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money, whatever it might be, and just focus on what they did to get there. Create, figure out what that
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process is, and then follow that. At some point, yeah, you'll deviate a little bit, you'll revise it,
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you'll shape it a little bit to suit you. But in large part, what works for other people also works
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for us if we give it a chance. If you fall prey to the, yeah, but I'm special and unique, and I've
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got all these special qualities about me, so my process has to be unique to me. Well, you're never
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going to get there because you're going to make something that you want to do and not things that
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you need to do. So for me, the best way is to just look around and say, who has done this,
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and who has done this really well, and I'm going to follow their process. I don't have to be them,
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but I will do the things that they did. Gosh, this is the chapter in the book you have. It's
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find a pro and not a coach. Yep. Yeah, and I've gotten a lot of pushback on that, especially from
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people who are executive coaches. Of course you would, right? But the point is, the point that I'm
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making is, let's use my marathon example again. Say I decide I want to run a marathon. If I go to my
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local gym and talk to the trainer there and say, hey, I want to run a marathon, his process is going
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to be to assess where I am now, talk to me about my goals, talk to me about things that are unique
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to me, and then he's going to create this customized plan that will theoretically get me there.
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But what it will do is take into account all the things that I say that I can't do or don't want to
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do, and I will end up with some plan that basically is sugar-coated. What I did when I decided I wanted
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to ride this Gran Fondo, a Gran Fondo is like a mass participation cycling event. It's not a race,
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but, well, people do race. And it was 100 and some miles and 11,000 feet of climbing, and it was this
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disastrous thing that I had no business of thinking of trying, which was the perfect reason to try it.
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And I had four months to train, so I went and got a guy who's a local mountain bike professional who's
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won national championships and almost maybe Olympics. And I said, hey, I want to do this
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thing. I got four months. If you were me, what would you do? At first, he looked at me, laughed,
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and he said, well, I wouldn't even try. And then he said, no, but seriously, if that's all the time
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you have, here's what you need to do. And the first day I went riding, I had to ride for two and a half
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hours, which was hot death for two hours and 29 minutes of it, because I had not written at all.
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But in the course of that, by pushing myself and doing what I had to do and not what I kind of
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wanted to do, I actually got there. And so to sum that all up, I realize it's kind of long-winded,
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but to sum all that up, a pro is a person who has done the things that you want to do or done that one
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thing that you want to do. They know what it's like. They know what it takes. They know the steps,
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and they will tell you without any sugarcoating, here is what you have to do. A coach oftentimes
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will coddle you and sugarcoat it and try to customize it for your own special needs and
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all of that kind of stuff. And you're much less likely to get there because you're starting out
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with limitations that you think you have, which you really don't. I think our biggest limitations
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are self-imposed ones. And if you find a way to get past that and just say, tell me what I have to
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do and I will do it, you can go a really long way. Yeah. It's an interesting point. Yeah. Coaches
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might sugarcoat things. They want to keep you as a customer. Well, there is that part of it too,
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but they're also supposed to be kind and cuddly and responsive to your needs. And none of those are
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bad things in and of themselves. But if you're trying to do something really, really big and you
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want to do it in a relatively short period of time, there's not a lot of room for sugarcoating.
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Right. I guess if you're going to look for a coach, look for a coach that says, yes,
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I fire people, fire clients all the time. If they're not doing what I say, that that's a good
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sign of a coach who was going to help you become a pro. Yeah. I did. I did a thing. I've been doing
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a series. I write for Inc magazine and I've been doing a series where I take a successful person
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who fitness is a part of their, of their success. Not that they are athletes necessarily, but the
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fitness helps them with whatever their profession or their goals are. And so I, I got hooked up with
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Jimmy Johnson's triathlon trainer. And I said, okay, what do I do for this week? And he, he emailed
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me the schedule and I emailed it back and said, seriously. And he said, well, if you don't want
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to do it, we don't have to do this. I thought, okay, that's true. I don't know why I'm whining.
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I asked for this. Why am I complaining? So you're right. People who are willing to say,
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if you're not willing to do what you need to do, then probably this isn't the best use of our time.
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Yeah. That's the perfect person. Right. So let's talk about this process more. So you
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establish your process. You, you figure out your goal is, say your goal is to run a marathon. You
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come up with a program for yourself to get that goal and then you forget about it. What can you do
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to ensure that you follow the process on a day-to-day basis? Is it about, you know, scheduling it on your
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calendar? Is it creating a ritual that people talk about a lot? What can you do on a day-to-day basis to
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ensure you follow the process? There's a lot of stuff. I would say that the first place to go
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is to look for any area that would cause you to, to lose the willpower side of it. I think we all
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have a finite amount of willpower. And so if you're making tons of decisions throughout the day that
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require you to actually make a decision that needs some willpower associated with it, then by the time
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you get to whatever it is you have to do that may be really hard, you might be out of oomph.
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I like to, at least from my point of view, I like to do things, whatever is most important to me for
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that day. I like to do it first. Now that this is a personal goal, that might be hard to do, especially
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if you have a job in a profession and stuff. But I guess the best way for me to say that is this is
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one case where people are unique and individual. So if I take a step backwards and deconstruct and say,
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what in the past have I done? If I've done something successfully, what did I do to create
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the environment to make sure that I did that? And apply that to whatever it is you're trying to do.
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And then the other part of it is to do the Simon Sinek, what is my why? Why am I trying to do this?
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What is the reason? If you're trying to get, I don't know, if you're trying to get fitter because
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you want to look better, that may be a goal that works for the Kardashians. For the rest of us,
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looking better is too fuzzy of a thing. So maybe you pick out, I want to complete this.
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I don't know. I want to run a, I want to do a small triathlon in the process of doing that.
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You will look better because you will get fitter. Or maybe it's, I want to lose 15 pounds, or maybe
00:21:07.980
it's, I want to be healthier because I want to be a better parent to my kids. There's all kinds of
00:21:11.540
reasons for why, but finding that why is a really important thing. And it carries you through those
00:21:17.420
little loans. So what does refining the process look like? So you say you're working the process,
00:21:21.960
but it's not giving you the results you were hoping, like, should you refine on a daily basis,
00:21:28.800
a weekly basis? What does that look like? If you've gotten the process together, like say you've,
00:21:34.820
say you've gotten a pro to help you create a process, or say you've just really worked hard
00:21:38.860
to create, to deconstruct someone else's process and follow it, then you need to give it more time
00:21:44.720
than you think. It's really tempting to say, wow, this isn't working because again, you're following
00:21:49.220
back on that special thing. So there, I, to me, if you start something on, on a process you've been
00:21:55.140
given, or if your pro gives you guidance, if you don't give it, I don't know if you, if your journey
00:21:59.320
is going to take you six or eight months and you don't give it at least a month to shake through it
00:22:03.200
and find out where you stand, then I think you're making a mistake and you're, you're probably going to
00:22:07.860
rationalize the changes you make rather than making them for positive reasons. But there does come a time
00:22:13.600
when you can look and say, I wonder if I'm getting as much out of this as I can. With the cycling
00:22:18.020
example, I was in my early fifties when I did that and I'm 57 now. So I was in my early fifties
00:22:25.200
and the conventional wisdom was that as you get older, you need more recovery time, which I think
00:22:31.500
is true in most cases, but I actually do better with fitness things if I have less recovery time.
00:22:37.580
So I basically wrote six days a week instead of three to four to five. And my body responded better
00:22:43.320
to that. So there is some experimenting you can do, but you have to experiment objectively.
00:22:48.480
So if you're, again, if we use a fitness thing, if you're lifting weights and trying to get stronger
00:22:52.540
and your gains have started to plateau, you can change your process slightly, but then actually
00:22:58.940
look at the results that you get to identify not how it feels. So if it feels easier or it feels better
00:23:06.580
to work out a certain way, but that's not getting you the goal that you wanted, well then I don't care
00:23:12.580
about your feelings. I care about your outcome. So I think the rule of thumb is wait longer than
00:23:19.400
you think to revise a process because it may just be a matter of time that is what you need.
00:23:26.800
Or the problem could be like, you're not even actually doing the process, right? You think
00:23:32.380
And most of the time that is what happens. It's, you know, yeah, I'm supposed to be doing these
00:23:36.060
things, but if you really objectively look at it, you're not. There's that. That happens with like
00:23:40.640
diets all the time. Would people actually track what they eat? I think the, I think research shows
00:23:45.960
they take in like 25 to 30% more calories than they thought they did. And, you know, all of that
00:23:51.400
stuff is off. So you have to have a process that's clear enough that it has objective measurements to
00:23:58.640
say, Hey, I did these things. And then you can look at the outcome.
00:24:02.480
So let's talk about some other tips you put in the book about how to stick to the process.
00:24:06.780
And one of them I found really interesting is this idea of you don't say I can't, right? But instead
00:24:15.100
you say, I don't. And that actually can have a big effect. Can you talk about that a bit?
00:24:19.600
Yeah. There's this, these researchers did a study and they broke people into groups and there was
00:24:25.860
this simple temptation that they were all faced with. And so they gave them a cope. They gave each
00:24:31.860
group of coping mechanism. So one group was told to say, I can't do whatever that temptation was.
00:24:37.520
Another was told to say, I don't do whatever that was. And then there was a third group that didn't
00:24:42.160
use any kind of strategy at all. So the participants that said, I can't gave into the temptation over 60%
00:24:50.460
of the time. The I don't people only gave in about 36% of the time, which is a pretty clear difference.
00:24:56.320
So then they went a step farther and they gave them each a, they told them to set a personal health
00:25:02.160
goal and like a fitness goal. And then said, when it comes time to do your workouts, if you're
00:25:07.940
struggling, you, one group said, I don't miss workouts. One group said, I can't miss workouts.
00:25:13.160
And one group was given no coping mechanism at all. So the results of that after two weeks,
00:25:19.420
eight out of 10 of the, I don't people stuck to their goal. They didn't miss workouts.
00:25:24.280
Here's where it gets funny. Three out of 10 of the people that had no coping mechanism,
00:25:30.400
they stuck to it. So still, okay. Only one out of 10 of the, I can't miss a workout group
00:25:37.320
actually stuck to their goal. So saying I can't was a worse tool for sticking to something and not
00:25:45.480
doing anything at all. And the reason for that, I can give you more research speak, but I'll,
00:25:50.060
I don't want to bore you with it. But the basic premise was I can't relates to a choice like,
00:25:56.920
because I can't, but you know what, actually I can, I want to, and maybe this time I will.
00:26:02.740
Whereas I don't was more of an identity thing. There wasn't a decision there. It was like,
00:26:07.600
I'm not that kind of person in simple terms. If you're a parent, do you ever have to sit there
00:26:14.120
and decide whether or not you're going to take care of your kids? You're a parent. It's your
00:26:18.340
identity. That's what you do. There is no choice. So by applying, I don't to certain things,
00:26:25.260
then in time that becomes part of your identity. And you're a person who doesn't do whatever that
00:26:31.460
thing may be. Now you can use that for negatives. Like I don't, I don't know, I don't take drugs or,
00:26:37.140
you know, I don't kill people or something silly like that. Or you can do it in a positive to say,
00:26:41.080
here's something I want to always do. And I'm the kind of person that's always going to do that.
00:26:45.260
So I don't miss workouts or I don't eat, you know, at the buffet for two hours, or I don't,
00:26:52.180
whatever that might be. So I don't is the best way to look at that because it internalizes and
00:26:58.160
it's part of your identity and it's part of becoming something new. And I think that's the
00:27:03.340
coolest thing about trying to achieve a big goal. If you're going to run that marathon, when you first
00:27:09.460
start out, you're a guy that's trying to jog, but at some point along the way, as you progress,
00:27:14.780
you become a runner in your mind and in the mind of people around you. And when that's part of your
00:27:19.900
identity, you're an I don't person implicitly. And it makes it much easier to keep going because
00:27:26.480
that's part of who you are. It's not something that you do and have to force yourself to do.
00:27:30.860
It's part of who you are. And that's, that's really the power of the I don't when you're trying
00:27:36.080
to stick to a goal. And that's the whole, I mean, that should be the main goal with this focus on
00:27:40.180
the process thing is get to that point where it just becomes part of your identity. You just do
00:27:44.600
it automatically. Yeah. It will never be totally automatic, but it gets really close. You know,
00:27:50.760
you go from Kirk Hammett goes from a guy trying to learn to play guitar a little better to being a
00:27:56.320
musician. That is who he is. You know, I, I started out a guy that was riding a bike and felt terrible
00:28:01.920
about it. And at some point, however, gently or mildly I, it was, I felt like a cyclist recreationally
00:28:09.000
sure, but I felt like a cyclist and I felt like I belonged both to a community of people that do
00:28:14.300
that. But that was also an identity I had in myself that helped me. I don't know. It actually made me a
00:28:19.220
little more confident and made me feel better about myself because I had gotten to some place and become
00:28:23.380
something. And I, I think that's a really powerful thing. You can set out to achieve a goal
00:28:29.320
goal and achieving the goal is fun, but it's almost like buying a new house within a couple of months.
00:28:35.260
Your new house is your old house and it's no longer as exciting. But if you become something,
00:28:41.120
then you can achieve a goal, but you still get to carry that. But this is the kind of person I am.
00:28:46.040
This is the kind of things that I do. If you are a good parent, you carry that around within you and
00:28:50.700
that makes you feel good about yourself. You can do that with all sorts of other pursuits.
00:28:54.620
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one of the pitfalls of setting goals. Like you set the goal and you talk
00:29:00.340
about this in the book and I've experienced my own, my own life. It's like you accomplish the goal
00:29:03.500
that you set and then it doesn't feel as good as you'd hope it would. And it's sort of a letdown.
00:29:09.440
And it's like, why do I keep going? And you, you, you see this with success, like, you know,
00:29:12.760
the Metallica guy, right? It's like, why is he like, he's sold rock, you know, arenas, stadiums.
00:29:18.360
He's like, he keeps going like Warren Buffett's like, why does Warren Buffett keep making more
00:29:22.420
money? It's like, well, making more money isn't the goal. He just, he enjoys the process a lot.
00:29:27.140
Yeah. And that's Kirk said, he gave me examples that I won't name of some people that he knew
00:29:32.640
that, you know, musicians who had had very successful bands did really well for a while
00:29:37.220
and it kind of faded. And now they're out on like the summer, you know, festival tour type stuff,
00:29:42.740
which is playing six flags, excuse me. They're playing six flags.
00:29:45.980
Yeah. Which is still cool, but he says that he knows some that hate it because they wanted
00:29:52.840
to be rock stars. And so now they're not really rock stars and they're playing six flags, like
00:29:58.460
you said. And so they don't really enjoy that because the goal was to be a rock star, which
00:30:02.720
is not something you can really wrap your arms around. Whereas, you know, musicians, maybe
00:30:08.200
you're high, maybe you're doing really well, then maybe you're playing clubs or something.
00:30:11.460
But if you enjoy playing music and you see yourself as a musician, you're going to go play
00:30:15.260
where you can play and you're going to feel good about that. And that's, you're exactly
00:30:19.260
right though. You can achieve the goal. And once you're done and you get over that momentary
00:30:23.820
glow, you are left with whoever you are. And if whoever you are is the kind of person that
00:30:29.100
enjoys the process and enjoys those daily, Hey, I set out to do this and I did it and I feel
00:30:34.300
good about myself. And I work, you know, it's the front porch thing. I worked hard today.
00:30:38.560
I did the things I wanted to do. I feel good about myself. It was a good day. You can carry
00:30:45.600
So you have another section in your book about becoming a serial achiever. And it's not,
00:30:51.100
I thought this was interesting. So first of all, what do you mean by becoming a serial
00:30:54.000
achiever? And how's that important to keeping that motivation going?
00:30:57.820
Well, that's a, it actually early in our conversation, you asked me about some of the
00:31:01.840
myths of motivation. And that is another one that many people have. They assume that you
00:31:06.680
have to choose one thing, whether you find it or whether that lightning bolt strikes you,
00:31:11.080
that you will do. And that becomes your life's purpose and your life's activity.
00:31:14.880
And you'll carry that the rest of your life. And so a lot of people won't start something
00:31:20.640
because they think, well, but I really can't see myself doing that for the next 40 years. So
00:31:25.240
I don't think I'll do that. A serial achiever is someone who says, you know what, I'm going to be,
00:31:29.920
I'm using air quotes now, like Dr. Evil, but I'm going to be an and I will be a person who is a,
00:31:36.300
you know, a writer and an entrepreneur and a cyclist and whatever it may be. And you can do
00:31:42.960
those in conjunction, which is a lot harder because most of us don't have time to follow
00:31:47.900
five or six different pursuits at the same time. Or you can set out and say, you know what?
00:31:53.220
I think I'd like to run a marathon and I'm going to work at that. And so I'm going to follow my
00:31:56.580
process. And when I get there and I run it, I can look around and say, that was really cool. Now I
00:32:01.760
think I'd like to go run the Boston marathons. I'll trade for that. Or you might look around and
00:32:06.480
say, that was really cool. And I really enjoyed it. And I feel good about that. But I've started
00:32:10.400
to have an interest in whatever else it may be cycling. I think I'm going to go to that.
00:32:15.920
People assume that switching to some other pursuit means that you wasted all that time that you put
00:32:21.520
into the initial pursuit. And that's, that's so far from correct because you carry all the
00:32:28.400
experiences with you. You carry some of those skills with you. You carry the knowledge that you
00:32:33.780
know how to follow a process and, and achieve something really big, which is a confidence
00:32:39.000
inspiring thing in and of itself. You bring all those experiences with you to whatever it is you do
00:32:44.400
next. So if you decide you want to try something and you spend five or six years achieving a certain
00:32:50.780
level of skill and accomplishment, it's okay to then look around and say, you know, this was really
00:32:56.340
cool. But I think I want to do that. When you started art of manliness, did you picture yourself
00:33:01.760
doing podcasts? There weren't even podcasts. They didn't exist, right? You didn't have an idea.
00:33:06.520
So you cruise along, you're doing your thing. You look at that and you say, you know what?
00:33:10.220
I think I want to learn how to do podcasts. I want to learn how to interview people better. I want,
00:33:14.020
I want to, I want to provide something to my audience in a different format. And I'm going to learn
00:33:18.600
how to do that. That's cool. There's nothing wrong with that. So the idea of serial achievement is just
00:33:24.380
that your life can be broken down into different stages where you accomplish a number of really
00:33:29.340
cool things that you're interested in and you carry all those with you. And if our goal is to be happy
00:33:35.560
and fulfilled, which I hope it is, then why would you give up a chance to spend four or five years
00:33:40.900
feeling happy and fulfilled if you had the chance? Are there any people you've interviewed and talked
00:33:46.300
to over the years with your work that are, you know, good examples of serial achievers?
00:33:50.620
Venus Williams is a really good one. Clearly she's a great tennis player, but she has a design
00:33:57.220
company where she does interior design for hotels and health clubs and places like that. She has a
00:34:02.420
clothing company where she designs clothing and things. She's gotten a master's degree in some
00:34:07.740
kind of design. You know, she's the perfect example of an and because she's a tennis player and an
00:34:13.840
entrepreneur and a student and a designer. And people criticized her for taking time off years
00:34:21.460
ago to follow some of those pursuits because it's like, wait a minute, you're a tennis player. You
00:34:24.900
should only be a tennis player. And she said, you know, my life is not just tennis. My life is my life
00:34:29.280
and it should follow the paths that I want to take. Kirk Hammett does the same thing. He started a pedal
00:34:34.260
company of guitar pedals because he likes the creative side of it. He doesn't need the money. There are all
00:34:39.340
kinds of examples of those people. If you look at almost every successful entrepreneur, they are
00:34:43.940
doing a variety of things. They're not maniacally focused on just one. And if you look at the people
00:34:49.600
around you that are just happy in their lives, they have several things that they do, all of which
00:34:55.780
combine to lead them to this happier place. So let's talk about this idea of working your number.
00:35:02.320
This kind of goes along with sticking to your process. What do you mean by work your number
00:35:07.220
and how does that boost motivation? Well, there are some things that you can do that really are
00:35:13.060
just a process or just as, how do I say this? They really, the outcome is based on just doing a number
00:35:19.060
of repetitions and getting the right number. That started with, there were a couple of young ladies
00:35:23.840
that started a company and they were complaining because it said it took them like one, I don't know,
00:35:29.680
the one out of every five calls they made to land a new customer. And that was really frustrating
00:35:34.720
and defeating. And I said, you know, you can look at it the other way around. If you know that one
00:35:38.520
out of five will land a customer, if you create a process that you can contact, you know, let's say
00:35:44.600
you need four new customers a month, you can contact 20 people, then you're probably going to get your
00:35:49.080
forward. So you've got that. And then along the way, you can refine how the conversation goes.
00:35:55.220
You can be better at closing. You can, you can make your process better so that maybe your strike rate
00:36:00.180
is better, but if you know your number, why not just work your number? And so you could use that
00:36:05.800
to accomplish any goal that requires just a certain number of repetitions. And to prove that I did this
00:36:12.800
really silly thing. I decided it would be fun to do a hundred thousand pushups in a year. So I broke
00:36:18.460
that down into 374 a day. I also did sit-ups along the way, but I did half as many sit-ups because I
00:36:23.840
just hate sit-ups. There was no tangible outcome to doing all those pushups other than I got in better
00:36:28.860
shape, but I just wanted to prove to myself that I could rack up a really big number by deconstructing
00:36:34.720
it and making it a small number per day. And the cool thing is along the way, I learned a little bit
00:36:39.700
about myself. I learned what triggers caused me to not want to stick to a process. I learned how to
00:36:44.400
overcome some of those things. I learned how to construct my day so that it made sure that I
00:36:49.060
accomplished that. And so I did my hundred thousand pushups. Sounds like a lot, but it really was just
00:36:54.060
374 days. So if you can break something down into numbers and say, if I do this many of this thing
00:37:01.880
on a regular basis, I will over the sometime period accumulate a lot in order to achieve my goal,
00:37:11.260
then it's a really simple way to approach it. Like I'll give you one other example. If I decided I
00:37:16.500
wanted to ride that Grand Fondo again, I've ridden enough now and I haven't ridden a bike in
00:37:21.200
six or eight months now other than casually. But if I decided I wanted to go do that, I know that I
00:37:27.000
need to put about 2000 miles in my legs over a four month or so period and I'll be fine. So that
00:37:35.240
would be my number. So I would just create a process that says, okay, I'm going to get that
00:37:38.840
much cycling in and I know it'll be good. Sounds really weird, but it's a really simple way to
00:37:44.880
approach something and it gives you a very clear path to follow. I love it. Well, Jeff, this has been a
00:37:50.420
great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:37:54.180
Right for Inc. So if you go to inc.com and search my name, there's about 1500 articles there.
00:38:01.960
I'm a LinkedIn influencer, which is the only time I'll ever be on a list with Richard Branson and
00:38:06.580
Bill Gates. So if you go to LinkedIn, I'm there. And then my website is jeffhayden.net. Somebody,
00:38:13.300
I cannot imagine there is a Jeff Hayden out there that has accomplished anything worthy of having a
00:38:17.480
website, me included, but nonetheless, there's somebody's got the .com. So I'm jeffhayden.net.
00:38:23.260
Awesome. Well, Jeff Hayden, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:38:27.560
My guest name is Jeff Hayden. He's the author of the book, The Motivation Myth. It's available
00:38:31.240
on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash motivation myth
00:38:36.800
where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:38:50.360
Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,
00:38:54.620
make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. If you enjoy the
00:38:58.360
show, you've got something out of it. I appreciate it if you take one minute or two to give us a review
00:39:01.600
on iTunes or Stitcher. Helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you. Please share the
00:39:05.560
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