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The Most Important Book You Will Read This Year

You may be familiar with author Daniel A Pink (blog & Twitter). As a right brainer, I loved his book,  A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future and I just finished his most recent book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. (Amazon affiliate links)

I downloaded the audio book for my last drive down to corporate headquarters in Portland, OR. I listened to the first half on the way down and the second half on the way back. Before my road trip was done I found a bookstore and bought two copies of the book. I’ve already given them away and will buy another two today. Maybe I should just buy them in bulk.

This is probably the most important book I can recommend for you to read this year. You will question every aspect of business management, your business model, organizational structure, parenting, schooling, even what you want to do with the rest of your life.

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, Daniel H. Pink says in, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, his provocative and persuasive new book. The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

We have reached a level where work and knowledge can be and should be intrinsically motivating (doing it is its own reward). Not all jobs of course fit this model but as the economy rebounds there is no reason to do a job you don’t want to.  In my last post I talked about the parts of your business you are least likely to give up.

Social media has changed the landscape driven by our collective shift in motivation. In my opinion, we have entered a new economy, an economy where money is no longer the only capital. Money may no longer even be the most important capital.

Fellow New Comm Biz author, Jason has posted about companies sucking their wealth from the new Bourgeoisie. Maybe we have reached a point where, money is a commodity, easily obtained. Maybe not for everyone but for the western world where a college degree doesn’t mean as much as it used to money is no longer enough of a motivator.

I have a lot more to write about this topic but first I suggest reading Drive, then my posts will make a lot more sense. If that’s really possible :)

Photo credit via Balakov

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  • Great! I actually just got Drive and A Whole New Mind last week, and plan to read them on my SXSW travels.
  • Paul we can compare notes when we get to SXSW.
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