Ask HN: What motivates you to do well in your career? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What motivates you to do well in your career?

6 pointssolipsist4 comments

2011 has officially started and most people have to go back to their jobs in just a few days. What motivation, or even inspiration, do you have in your job or career? How can you find something new in the coming year to motivate you even more than you are currently?

View on HN

Simple:

My country made me fight a war that I didn't want to take part in. I plan to immigrate to a better country for my kids so they wouldn't get enlisted and shipped to warzone without their consent.

A good career seems like the only way to achieve such goal.

Honestly, for me, it has a lot to do with a general feeling of having something to prove. Not just to other people, but to myself. I grew up dirt poor in rural southeast NC, but never felt like I was any less capable or important than anybody else. But I haven't done anything to make a mark on the world yet, so I feel driven to do something, to "be somebody" or whatever you want to call it.

If you've seen that old movie "Vision Quest" I guess you could say that I feel a bit like Louden Swaine did. Except I'm already a lot older than that character was in the movie.

Well, the way I look at it is this.

We are born, and we are going to die. We (mostly) define what goes between the middle.

I'm motivated to be better today than I was yesterday.

I'm inspired by a challenge. This year, i want to launch 12 companies. Am I going too? unlikely. Is it going to be a wild ride? Oh yeah!! Am I going to learn more and be more awesome next year? hell yeah.

I can't really explain it. It's not the money, it's not proving others wrong or even displaying my abilities to others. If I'd have to loosely describe it, I'd have to say that it's a drive to be really good at the things I do, so much so that I don't have to deviate from being myself when confronted with new ventures or opportunities (ala Greg House).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com