Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose: Freedom as Motivation

From the story of Google’s brightest technologies to the destruction of Encarta at the hands of Wikipedia, ingenious and creative innovations of the 21st century have come about by breaking down the traditional ways of thinking about business. Giving people incentives and rewards or threatening punishment and take-down is no longer enough. Freedom versus control has been preached to us from every angle of our conscious: from our exposure to thought-provoking philosophical films like The Matrix, to our own heart’s best judgment about what we do and create. And even cooler is that scientific proof can back us up too.

These were just some of the ideas I took from a talk by Dan Pink on motivating the creative minds of today. Watch this entire video, it’s a short 18-minute presentation of ideas that will make you not only feel much better about what you’ve always known about the way your productive mind works, but motivate you to go out there and do something with it.

Dan Pink: Rethinking the ideology of carrots and sticks. [Presentation Zen via Trent Hamm]

Popularity: 8% [?]

Upcoming Tim Ferriss Fitness Book Wants to Turn You into Superman

Tim Ferriss announced today on his blog that he is seeking research assistants to help him put together his new book, tentatively titled From Rapid Fat Loss to Strongmen: A Guide to Becoming Superhuman. Don’t jump to take his working title as a sham; I was just as skeptical about his #1 NY Times bestseller The 4 Hour Work Week, which also has a somewhat misleading title but is actually packed with very useful tips for improving your live and cutting away from 9 to 5 madness, even if you don’t actually achieve the “four hour work week.” Check out his previous work here.

Ferriss says, on his new book:

I can show you how I safely do things outdated physiology textbooks tell you is impossible. This isn’t because I have some unique intelligence. It’s because I’ve tested the most basic assumptions of nutrition and exercise… and I experiment with outrageous alternatives that end up working.

Cut 2% bodyfat in two weeks? No problem. Drop 50-100 pounds in weight or increase muscular strength 30% in 48-72 hours? Not an issue. I’ve done the guinea pig shotgun approach so you don’t have to. I’ll spare you the 10,000 pages of literature on a given topic and give you the one unusual 1-2-3 method that produced unbelievable results.

Having put into practice a lot of Tim’s advice in his last book, I’m gonna trust him on this one. I am so stoked to see what the end product will look like and I will definitely get myself a copy when its released. Check out his blog for more information. Ferriss is a really interesting character and I’d encourage you to pick up The 4 Hour Work Week.

THE NEXT BOOK: From Rapid Fat Loss to Strongmen: A Guide to Becoming Superhuman [The Blog of Tim Ferriss]

Popularity: 35% [?]