didn’t serve me very well.

When I tried to explore alternate paths, my mind

naturally simulated that my “failure” would extend to my new projects as
well. As long as my mind relied on this Interpretation to simulate the future, I
was stuck in a self-defeating cycle.
There’s another way of Interpreting my previous career at P&G: my
experience taught me a lot about how large corporations work, and I learned
more about what I’m good at, what I don’t particularly enjoy doing, and how
I want to invest my time. Working at P&G helped me discover a path that
didn’t work for me, so I stopped following that path and tried other things
that better fit my strengths and desires until I found one I loved—a major
victory and a huge life improvement.
Which Interpretation is “true”? Both are valid Interpretations. My mind
wasn’t malfunctioning when it created the first Interpretation, but that
Interpretation didn’t serve me very well. Reinterpreting the situation and
accepting the second version as “true” was much more useful—without it,
you probably wouldn’t be reading this book.
Reinterpret your past, and you’ll enhance your ability to make great things
happen in the present.
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 Motivation

BUT I DON’T WANNA!!!

—TWO-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN EVERYWHERE

Motivation is something that you probably think about all the time, using
phrases like “I’m feeling really motivated to get this done” or “I’m not
feeling very motivated to do this right now.” Since so many of us rely on the
term to explain our daily experience, it’s worthwhile to understand what
we’re actually talking about.
Motivation is an emotional state that links the parts of our brain that feel
with the parts that are responsible for action. Using the Onion Brain as a
basic model, Motivation is the link between the midbrain (which perceives
the world) and the hindbrain (which sends the signals to our body to take
action). In most cases, Motivation is automatic—our mind perceives a
difference between the way things are and the way we want them to be, and
the body automatically acts to eliminate the difference.
You can break down the experience of Motivation into two basic desires:
moving toward things that are desirable and moving away from things that
aren’t. Things that fulfill our Core Human Drives appear desirable, so we
experience an impulse to move toward them. Things that appear dangerous,
scary, or threatening are undesirable, so we naturally experience an impulse
to move away from them.
In general, “moving away” takes priority over “moving toward.” The
reason comes back to Caveman Syndrome—running away from a lion
automatically takes priority over cooking lunch.
Let’s say you have an exciting opportunity to start a new business. A
feeling of excitement may cause you to move toward that opportunity. At the
same time, if the opportunity requires you to leave a high-paying job, which
feels risky, you may be compelled to move away from the very same
opportunity, resulting in Conflict. As long as the risk outweighs the
excitement, you’ll hesitate, even if there’s very little chance you’ll ever be in
danger if you take the leap. This safety mechanism in our minds developed
for very good reasons, but today, most of the decisions we make don’t have
life-and-death consequences.
Motivation is an emotion—NOT a logical, rational activity. Just because
your forebrain thinks you should be motivated to do something does not
mean you’ll automatically become motivated to do that thing. (If only it were
that easy, right?) Very often, Mental Simulations, Patterns, Conflicts, and
Interpretations hidden in the midbrain can get in the way of making progress
toward what we want to accomplish. As long as there are “move away from”
signals being sent, you’ll have a hard time feeling motivated to move toward
what you want.
In the same vein, you can’t “motivate” other people by yelling at them to
work faster—all the drill-sergeant approach accomplishes is making them
want to move away from you. They may comply with you temporarily if they
perceive some threat to themselves if they don’t, but you can bet that they’ll
move away from working with you at the first available opportunity.
Eliminate the inner conflicts that compel you to move away from potential
threats, and you’ll find yourself experiencing a feeling of Motivation to move
toward what you really want.
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 Inhibition

Inhibition is the ability to stop: to delay our response until we are

adequately prepared to make it.
—MICHAEL GELB, AUTHOR OF BODY LEARNING: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ALEXANDER
TECHNIQUE AND HOW TO THINK LIKE LEONARDO DA VINCI

Believe it or not, most of your daily actions require very little conscious
thought.
Most of the time, our bodies and minds are on autopilot—our minds sense
the world around us, compare our Environment and actions against internal
Reference Levels, and act accordingly. Think about driving a car: with
practice, your body does everything necessary to keep the car on the road,
without requiring much conscious thought.
Every once in a while, however, it pays to ignore the autopilot and do
something different. If you stumble across a bear in the woods, the last thing
you want to do is run, even though that’s what your instincts may be telling
you to do. If you run, the bear is likely to decide you look like lunch and
chase you down.
Instead of running, it’s actually more effective to stand your ground and
make yourself appear as big and loud and threatening as you can. Appearing
to be a threat requires you to consciously inhibit your natural response, but
it’ll cause the bear to see you as a threat and decide to leave you alone.
Inhibition is the ability to temporarily override our natural inclinations. If
you’ve ever put up with one of your siblings (or colleagues) acting immature,
obnoxious, or annoying, Inhibition prevented you from doing something you
would have regretted later.
Willpower is the fuel of inhibition. As we discussed in the section on the
Onion Brain, the forebrain’s job is ambiguity resolution, decision making,
and Inhibition. Whenever we inhibit our natural responses to our
Environment, Willpower is at work. Our midbrain and hindbrain are the