How to Maximize Your Motivation and Sustain Yourself in a Fast-Paced, Always-on World

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In your book, The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, you give a lot of advice on how to maximize our motivation and take care of ourselves in this incredibly fast-paced world that we live. What are two bits of advice you might have for us for how to thrive and sustain ourselves? Well, I guess the first one would be, once again, the all-life research base. Our cognitive abilities do not remain constant over the course of the day. They change, they change in material ways. Being conscious and intentional about doing the right kind of work at the right time of day can make a huge, huge difference.

“What people regret over time are things they didn't do. They didn't take that trip, they didn't ask that person out on a date. They didn't start that business,” says former political speech writer and best-selling author Dan Pink. “I think it's because we are slightly over-indexed on risk. We overstate the risk in many circumstances.”

On this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, strategic communications lecturer Matt Abrahams sits down with Pink to hear how we should all take more risks and how leaders can inspire others by focusing on the why instead of the how.

“There's almost incontrovertible evidence that sense of purpose is the most cost effective performance enhancer that organizations have,” Pink says.

They also discuss the power in taking breaks, which Pink considers part of performance, not a deviation from it. “What we know from many domains is that professionals take breaks. It's not that amateurs take breaks and the professionals don't, it's the exact opposite.”

Pink’s latest book is The Power of Regret, How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.

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