What are you motivated by?
Fear, Reward, Duty, Love
Fear, Reward, Duty, Love
Motivation has four states: fear, reward, duty and love.
You can be in one or more states at any time. Motivation shows up in your whole body as feelings and sensations. It then moves into the world as your actions. Magic happens when you turn motivation to purpose. It happens when you accept and appreciate sensations. When you connect the inner and outer worlds. And when you follow through with them until completion. I view motivation states as four interconnected pieces of the same puzzle. To be successful at what you do, you need each type to some extent at different times.
The reason many fail is because they limit themselves to only one type. Motivation can come from fear, such as fear of failure, fear of hunger, fear of loss or fear of missing out. It can come from reward, money, recognition, praise or awards. It can come from duty, knowing your place in the universe and acting on that basis. Finally, it can come from love, knowing that you, what you do and your place in the world are in total harmony. To know that these are different ways of looking at the same element: life.
Being motivated by either fear or reward alone is a limiting factor. It will not allow realisation of full potential.
Add the duty factor to motivation. These people study themselves, reflect on their purpose and measure their success on this basis. Being motivated by duty frees them from fear or reward. It propels them towards results and enjoying what they do.
The final factor that adds to considerable fulfilment is motivation by love. Many have love but they may miss the other factors. Many artists, non-profits activists and teachers are such people. But pure love may not lead to fulfilment.
The idea is captured well in the Japanese concept of “ikigai” as shown in the graph above. To understand it, start with four questions:
What do you love?
What are you good at?
What does the world need from you?
What can you get paid for?
For me and the team at Iratel Ventures, we have ikigai only when all motivation factors are present. We have full motivation and are on purpose when empowering and funding entrepreneurs. Only an entrepreneur has the love-motivation to impact billions of lives. Feels duty to their family, co-founders, employees, investors and customers. Reward of the achievement and building a successful business and community. And fear. The fear of not knowing where the next pay-check is coming from. The fear factor is so real that for many entrepreneurs it blurs the lines of what’s possible and what is not.
This is the seventeenth in a series of posts about our investment criteria and ecosystem resources which was also posted on LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from teams with crazy (but commercial) startups. Get in touch or attend our breakfast series. Finally, don’t forget to get your IV Score to prepare for your next VC meeting.