Motivation is the key to all economic activity. The natural state for people is to be unmotivated, and we must incentivise with carrot and stick to get people to work reliably.
Entrepreneurs constantly come up against their own inertia. Being self motivated is such a challenge that there are entire industries built around motivating the entrepreneur.
Lately I’ve started up half a dozen new businesses, and I find myself greatly energized and pouring in all my energy day in and day out. How do I stay motivated? Because it’ sink or swim.
That’s always the way it’s worked for me. As Canada’s David Wilcox sings: “Well I can get down, and quit foolin around, when the weather gets rough, situation gets tough.”
As a teen I used to study for exams the night before. As an entrepreneur I can put in long bouts of months of concerted effort when my back up is against the wall.
So what I’ve done this time is to put my own back against the wall. I’ve set aside some savings, but am using all of the current monthly income in buying machinery and renovations and materials and new staff and R&D and had plunked down most of my liquid capital float money into pre-paying two years rent on a large 4 story shophouse.
There was a visitor here last week who hailed from the UK. A reader and manosphere participant. It was great to meet him – he is another brother from another mother. We only spent a few hours talking but he was quick witted and informed about anything and everything that came up, and there seemed to be instant sympatico. Despite privacy concerns I gave him a tour of the shophouse, and found myself bubbling over with excitement at every turn, explaining many of the goings on here.
I really am excited. I gave a local Indonesian buddy of mine the tour yesterday, and it was the same. I’m as enthusiastic as a mentos in a bottle of coke.
I don’t want to do anything other than what I’m doing.
I’m sure much of the energy and drive is because I’ve put myself in a sink or swim situation. All my income is pouring into this, monthly expenses are very high, many families and friends and two lovers and many future girls and possibly children and all my grandiose future plans are all relying on success. It’s sink or swim time.
Oh, and it also helps that the new businesses I’m pursuing demand a lot of education from me and are in areas that interest me, and require not only puzzle solving but a good deal of creative input. So that works well with my personality type, which takes pleasure in inventiveness but not so much in maintaining control over details ongoing. I like to start new things, but can get bored of them before they are optimized.
By the way, there is evidence that this is a genetic trait of the high-socio-sexual-score predisposed people. We like to move to new places and try new things and fuck a lot of people and we also tend to be creative and inventive. Just look at the entertainment industry, specifically music lyrics to hear that theme over and over. Far from being the social leeches and thugs that the socially-conservative-dad-strategy-society-wide-lifetime-monogamy-enforcer-Peter-Parker-secret-underwear-hero’s would tell you we are, we instead comprise a disproportionate portion of the cultural creatives and I suspect of the entrepreneurs also. Sir Nemesis of Just 4 Guys did a great long essay about the 7r allele and how it relates to socio-sexual predisposition among other things.
So I’ll leave it here. If you are looking for motivation, consider giving yourself no other option. Raise the background level of anxiety and go all in.
