I’m very familiar with that research. I read “Punished by Rewards” by Alfie Kohn and “Drive” by Dan Pink, and they both cite the same studies and make the same

I’m very familiar with that research. I read “Punished by Rewards” by Alfie Kohn and “Drive” by Dan Pink, and they both cite the same studies and make the same arguments. I was already operating like you are when I was an employee. (I wrote another blog post about it.) I had already mentally ignored all rewards and extrinsic motivators and just focused on doing the best work I can (something fully in my control). I believe there is a nuance you’re not seeing when you say “... doing something for a living means you expect to be rewarded for it. According to the study, if you do something that intrinsically rewards you, you will eventually lose motivation to do it when you expect to be rewarded for it.” The intent is what matters. You lose intrinsic motivation if you do something for the reward. But you don’t lose it if you do it for its own sake. Running & growing a business is something that I believe I’m intrinsically motivated to do. The money from that activity is not the same type of reward (dangling of a carrot) that the research you cited talks about. The books I mentioned talk about why that happens: the carrot & stick approach feel manipulative to whoever is subject to then, which in turn cause loss of interest and lack of cooperation. When working for myself I won’t be subjected to any of that.