Category Archives: Money and finances

How Do I Motivate Myself and Others: Extrinsic vs Intrinsic

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By Andrea Knight, Copyright, 2022.

Motivation is something that is on everyone’s mind, from individual contributor to business owner.  “Quietly quitting” isn’t really a new concept, but it puts a spotlight on the demotivated employee.   How do we self motivate and how are we best motivated by others?  This varies on a case by case basis, however to start the conversation we need to take a brief look at intrinsic vs extrinsic motivators.

Here is a short video that I believe explains extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in a thoughtful way:

In Summary:

  • Extrinsic motivators are usually an external motivation, something coming from outside of us.  Some examples include fear, money, sex and food.
  • Intrinsic motivation is internal (honor, to find peace, curiosity, to make self or others’ better, caring)
  • Those with a masters degree or PhD may not be as motivated by fear and money alone, as I noted working alongside about 5 PhD’s in one job.  Instead highly educated individuals usually need a purpose, challenge or responsibility to feel motivated.
  • Sometimes when all else fails obligation will get you through the day or at work.

Some examples of Extrinsic motivators (video: “follower of rules”):

  • Earn an external reward
  • Avoid punishment or negative consequences
  • Money
  • Fear
  • Food
  • Praise
  • To please others
  • To impress others
    • To impress others is a strong motivator for some – ever been attracted to your boss? You’re a pretty good employee in that case aren’t you? However when applied to lifestyle creep it can put you into debt potentially, so be aware and careful. Use it when it serves you, not when it doesn’t.
  • Competing with another person
  • To be loved by another person
  • Sex

Some examples of Intrinsic motivators (video: “thinks independently”):

  • Curiosity
  • To improve yourself
  • To improve a process or something else
  • Morality
  • Honor
  • It’s fun and enjoy it
  • Passion
  • Mastery
  • Purpose
  • Satisfaction
  • Inner Peace
  • To feel accomplished
  • Success
  • Internal competition with yourself
  • To be happy
  • To feel good
  • To feel euphoric or get a high (mental, not drugs)

In reality most people, including highly educated individuals, need both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators at some point.  Some sources lean on intrinsic motivators, however you won’t always want to do the task, lift the weights, help out your boss, and do an hour of cardio, sometimes you have to just do it. Using a combo of any of the above, extrinsic or intrinsic, may help drive you to your next goal and succeed.

Example #2: Taking out the Trash

Another good example I read once was a father trying to motivate their kid to take out the trash. When the father asked, the child would mope, slowly make his way, and mumble the entire time. The child would rather watch tv or play video games. Eventually the father started paying his son $5 to take out the trash weekly. While that initially put spring in the child’s step, he eventually went back to taking it out slowly and mumbling the entire time by the end of the week. One lesson here is while extrinsic motivators such as money may cause some increased positive mood and spring in your step, eventually the child takes the money for granted. The chore still is undesirable and the child would still rather do something fun.

The second lesson is when an extrinsic motivator is applied, subconsciously the child may assume the chore or task is undesirable. Even as more money is applied, the same pattern resumes. If this subconscious thought of extrinsic motivation is applied to undesirable jobs, then as the adult gets paid increasingly more money, some may become more demotivated over time, equating more money meaning the job is even more undesirable or increased risk.

This is one of the reasons why an employer knows that increasing someone’s pay indefinitely won’t equate to more productivity (yes, it’s not all because of the CEO’s greed). It helps when the employee knows how to motivate themselves (intrinsic motivation) as money is not always an infinitely enduring motivation for everyone.

“I don’t feel appreciated”

Sorry to hear that Buttercup. From now on I want you to create a folder in your email labeled “appreciation”. Every time your manager or someone on your team emails you “thank you”, recognizes you for accomplishing a task, says “great job”, put it in that folder. If something is verbal or done in a meeting, write it down in an email, email it to yourself, and file in that folder. Include paid birthday parties to you or the team, verbal thanks, free Friday morning bagels, holiday bonuses, free tickets, and corporate paid for lunches. I promise you, besides your paycheck which is appreciation as well for your work, you are being appreciated in many ways. Set a calendar event to review that folder weekly or monthly. Let it sink in the 2nd time or third time. You’ll start to see the appreciation more and more around you, because it is there. Negative thinking and a victim mentality may prevent it from sinking in the first time. We have to retrain our mind sometimes to think more positively and notice our blessings.

“Why does it feel like salmon upstream sometimes? Why do I not want to work hard like I see other successful people do?” If you look at our most closely related living relatives, the great apes such as chimps and gorillas, what do they do all day? Sleep, eat, play, relax, climb, forage. Some other activities as well but you get the point. It isn’t “natural” to work a 9 to 5 for someone else, to do cardio on a treadmill without the reason being about food or sex, to drive your daughter to band practice, etc. We are going against what feels natural to us by being so driven to look good, be successful, make a lot of money, and have a ton of friends on instagram.

The Hard Truth

One thing to note, even if you are working your passion, or for yourself, sometimes you won’t be happy.  Throw out the need to be happy all the time to increase your productivity!  Sometimes you will be able to motivate yourself to get out of bed with the thought of coffee, to go to work for the money, to do a half hour of lifting weights, but sometimes you will be in a low mood and need to force yourself through it.  Don’t expect every chore, work environment or meeting to be a blast, sometimes we just need to get it done. When all else fails just obligation, such as needing to just show up at work at 9am, works. 

Having your expectations in the right place will help you feel less lost (why am I not happy at work?), and less disappointed.  Remember, those advertising on social media about their great lives still work or worked hard, and they are just showing you the flashy bits.  You’re not seeing the boring aspects of their lives in pictures, such as years in an office at a desk, you’re just seeing the best parts.  You didn’t see the hours and hours of sweat and weight lifting to get those perfect glutes and abs. You didn’t see the years of late nights to build someone’s business so they could afford that vacation or lakeside home.  You’re seeing the end happy result of hard work.  Think of that when all the usual motivators aren’t driving you that day, and you feel like you are not “living your best life”. For moments where I know something needs to get done but I don’t feel like it, I have a phrase etched in wood I look to that says “Suck it up Buttercup!” It makes me laugh and away I go to task. Go get it done!

Quitting Alcohol, Benefits and Supplements

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Photo source: Andrea Knight

Have you ever woken up after a night of partying and thought, never again! I’m quitting alcohol!

Then next week you do it all over again, 4-5 vodkas or beers later, and the next morning you say, I’m not drinking ever again! Why didn’t I learn from the last time?!

Do you wonder why your moods swing, and it’s like you can’t quite totally kick it for good?

For those of you that want the beauty, health and mental clarity benefits, not to mention the financial savings of quitting, keep reading.

*Alcohol is a Central Nervous System depressent and very addictive drug. It is also easily accessible (more available than toilet paper during covid!), and socially accepted.

These videos summarize why only 5 days of sobreity may not be enough to kick the habit, what happens to your body, and the benefits of quitting.

videos

Video 1: What happens to your body when you quite alcohol
Video 2: Day vs Night drinking
Video 3: Benefits of being sober: Should make sense after videos 1 & 2

If you’re not ready to quit, keep scrolling, this isn’t for you.

But for those of you that want the beauty, health and mental clarity benefits, not to mention the financial savings of quitting, here are the summarized supplements from the videos that may help you get through the symptoms, which may last for 2-3 months (if you watched the videos now you know why it takes so long).

  • GABA – to help calm, helps with the jitters and anxiety post drinking
  • L-Glutamine – helps excite the nervous system, get out of depression or lethargy after you have had glutamine rebound (videos explain alcohol suppresses this stimulant hence why it acts like a depressant, then the body overcompensates by boosting it temporarily). After the anxiety of the rebound you will want to rebalance glutamine in the body. Glutamine is in my protein powder, so I find this really helps with recovery.
  • L-Theanine – for anxiety and to protect from alcohol’s free radicals. Take during and after drinking.
  • Probiotics – to heal the gut, as the videos explain, take the longest to recover from alcohol’s effects (whole food method – dark leafy greens, pickles, sauerkraut, yogurt and kimchi to name a few). There are also supplements.
  • Watch out for your triggers – if restaurants are the main cause of your over drinking, you may want to choose counter serve without alcohol for a while. Don’t sit at bars if you can’t order a soda. Find other meetup groups to socialize with. Don’t keep alcohol in the house. Review your friends and how they trigger you or don’t trigger you. Yes, that may mean you may need a shift in focus in your friend groups.

In short, alcohol throws your nervous system and biochemistry out of balance. This can create all kinds of issues, including gastrointestinal, mental, cardiac, and on the central nervous system. Not to mention the increased chance of heart attack, stroke, weight gain and cancers.

Lastly, I’d recommend meditating when you can, using grounders such as black tourmaline, or a full chakra set, to help calm you and get spiritual assistance with your journey.

Best of luck!

*These statements have not been reviewed by a physician or medical personnel. Please review with your primary care physician any changes in diet and if you need additional help with alcohol abuse. This article is not meant to diagnose any issue.

Manifesting Money

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A great illustration was brought to me today during a reading. Someone came to me with the common question around manifesting money.

We’ve been through the visualizations, the law of attraction exercises, and deep diving into energy blocks.

Spirit then showed me to shift our thinking. After we have visualized the money pouring down or the rivers of money flowing to us, now it was time to think about the consumer.

They showed me this visualization. Imagine you are on the other side, surrounded by white and on a white cloud. Another spirit approaches you and says, “I need more money.” What would you think? Well, yeah, we all do, right?

Instead, rewind and start over. Instead imagine you are approaching other beings and saying, “You know I have this great thing, it will make you happy, relaxed, peaceful, euphoric, give you a break in your day….” or something that is appropriate to your product or service.

Then I see the consumer spirit being happy, interested and following you where you want to go. Being grateful for the service or product that provided upliftment the spirit is more apt to click the link, leave a positive review, buy more, etc.

So next time you feel you’ve exhausted the methods of pulling money or flowing money to you, think of the customers perspective. How is what you are selling going to help them? Then visualize them with feeling being happy, grateful, at peace, relaxed or something else.

Need a reading or energy healing? Follow the links to schedule a session today.

Don’t forget to like, share and comment on my articles! Thank you!

Andrea Knight

Copyright, Feathers, 2021, All Rights Reserved.

“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Kiyosaki Summary

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Photo Source: Andrea Knight, picture of Book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Kiyosaki

I’m sure most of you have heard of the book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Kiyosaki, 1998). This has been on my list for a while as it was usually recommended while searching for finance books. I like to read non-fiction more than fiction, and I do like to read a lot on finances, entrepreneurship, and stocks. I do have a background in Finance and Accounting for over 10 years and the book does have a few tips such as the difference between an asset and liability on a very high level to help the common consumer. The overall object of the book seems to be to think about work in your career in a different way, essentially he starts off telling the difference between the rich dad who had no college education and the Poor Dad, who was his biological father, that had a masters degree and worked for the government. The Rich Dad owned a number of his own businesses and he taught his son and the author of this book when they were very young that in order to be rich it would be better not to work for someone else. Here are a few highlights of the book that I found interesting and useful:

  • Buy assets not liabilities
  • Make your money work for you, not work for the money
  • Assets would be stocks, bonds, real estate, rentals, IOU’s, intellectual property, royalties
  • Liabilities are credit cards and a mortgage
  • Don’t buy luxuries unless your assets are to the point of bringing in enough money to cover it, that includes cars, homes, etc
  • Work to build enough assets that produce a consistent income so you are independent of working for others and not working for money
  • Those that work for someone else pay taxes first and then can use the money left over to pay for expenses
  • Those that own their own business can use the pre-tax money to pay expenses, and after they subtract their business expenses including rent, utilities, meals, travel, car expenses then they pay taxes
  • The rich protect their money from lawsuits through trusts and incorporating
  • Work on your fear of rejection and failure
  • The current school system doesn’t teach enough about the basics of finances and money
  • Use your mind and creativity to find and build opportunities
  • Let money work for you through buying assets that give you a return or having a business where others do the work
  • Those that work for someone else usually are too fearful to go out on their own, they look for security under someone else, and may never become rich as they will pay more in taxes and not invest in assets that generate an income, instead they plunge money into money pits such as mortgages and credit cards. They buy their luxuries before their assets are paying for them.
  • Continue to learn and develop your knowledge, take courses even after college
  • Keep a good network of intelligent people that know more than you do, lawyers, CPAs and other intellectuals
  • He makes other points as well but hopefully that is a good reminder to those that already read the book and a glimpse for those that may be interested in reading it

I should also note from a large picture perspective, and he does mention this in the book, that if you are a fearful, highly fiscially conservative person that is not willing to put in the work to get over rejection and fears of failure then working for yourself is not for you. Being successful in my own business over the past 7 years I wouldn’t say that I’m taking the large amount of risks that he is implying in some of these examples, but I’m open to continuing to work on myself and better myself over the years, and who knows, we’ll see how far that takes me. He talks about the advantages of working for yourself versus working for someone else and while he worked for someone else for a while to build his initial money he ended up launching on his own and he talks about the benefits of that. If you do end up continuing to work for someone else for a living I would say what you can get from this book is to continue to invest your money into assets such as stocks, bonds, and other income generating assets listed below so that you can build up a foundation that will give you returns rather than more expenses that will throw money out the door. I think if you take anything from this book he certainly tries to drive that information home, however much of the book is to try to convince you that working for yourself has many more advantages than being the person working hard to make your boss rich.

Interested in a reading about money, career or even love? My readings are here. Energy healing can remove blocks of abundance coming to you, you can find my energy healing page here.

References

Kiyosaki, R. T., & Lechter, S. L. (1998). Rich dad, poor dad: What the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and middle class do not!. Paradise Valley, Ariz: TechPress.