Daniel Pink: Motivation

My definition of motivation would be a form of encouragement or reward causing someone to succeed at a task. After watching Daniel Pink's TED talk, he had changed my view of motivation. I learned a lot about how people think through his talk. The biggest thing I took away from his talk was that people do not perform as well, when they have a reward at stake; in fact, people that are not going to be rewarded usually tend to do better. Daniel had many facts and statics to support his idea. It was very persuasive and surprising. I have always thought I would do better if I was going to be rewarded. It is very interesting because we read a part from his book Drive after the talk. The sample of the book just went into more depth of his whole theory. I found it very interesting because even with preschoolers, the ones that were not being rewarded were the ones who succeeded. This has completely changed my ideas because I have always thought just the opposite. It has made me start thinking about what really motivated me in life. Most of the time, I do things, and make sure they are done well for self-satisfaction. I do things to know I can prove to myself, that I can do whatever I want. Sometimes, I think my motivation is to show other people what I can do. I always want to prove people wrong, and I think that is one of my biggest motivations in life. My dreams also motivate me. My dream is to go to Duke, and every time I do not want to study, I remember that every A is just getting me closer to Duke. Daniel's style of talking was very different than the other two talks I have watched. We watched a different video in class than the one that was online, but yet they were both very different. With the one on YouTube, he didn't really show his face. He drew everything out, which in a way made it more interesting and easier to understand. When we watched the actual TED talk, he was very enthusiastic, and passionate in the way he was speaking. He used a lot of facts and statistics to back up his information. His style was so different because it was all based on research. It was a little harder to connect with him because he did not really have any personal stories. At times I was also a little bored, just because it was a little hard to follow. I think this relates to education in a big way. Grades are a great example of rewarding or punishing students for their work. Those grades will later get the child into college, and the college they go to will help get them a job. In my world life revolves around grades because it is what will get me further in life. Like I mentioned earlier I want to go to Duke, but i need good enough grades to get in. The talk has made me wonder, how would students perform if it was for themselves and not a grade? If it follows Daniel's theory, then everyone would perform much better. His talks were very interesting and have really made me start to think about what truly motivates me.