I think its clearly false that motivation is an inherent trait. That would imply that demotivation is also inherent, which I think is even more obviously wrong.
That doesn't mean that motivating people is also easy. They're not equivalent.
Motivating people requires understanding their psychology, their values, what they want from their life, etc, and then applying that knowledge to create a workplace culture that feeds all of that. Demotivating them just requires not understanding any of that, or ignoring it in favour of feeding your own ego or psychology. It's a lot easier to demotivate.
No, motivating people simply requires giving them more money (performance bonuses, stock options, thirteenth salary/end-of-year bonus...). DUH. OBVIOUSLY.
People in management positions always try to weasel their way out of paying their people more. (Well, not always, not all of them do, but you get my point.)
Unless you work on truly cutting edge stuff (by which I mean the likes of SpaceX and its equivalents in different industries), motivation is money.
It's as simple as that. No need to twist yourself into all kinds of pretzels.
No, it's not the coworkers (which, by the way, are not your friends unless you meet outside of work), it's not the job as such (very few people outside of art actually enjoy doing their job as an activity after say 10 years of doing it), it's money.
Money is the primary motivator (by far). You work for money. End of story. Anyone saying otherwise is a bs artist.
I work for money because I need food on the table and a place to sleep. It doesn't motivate me much more than that. In fact, I wouldn't even call it motivation. It's a requirement to live.
There have also been studies that have found that money stops making people happier or more motivated once their yearly salary exceeds a certain amount (the equivalent of 700.000NOK here in Norway).
Some people are primarily motivated by making as much money as possible, sure, but most people I've worked with have found someplace else to work once their current job stops being interesting.
and if you could only de-motivate people, eventually everyone in your team would be de-motivated.
There are all sorts of things like depression, cynicism, past experiences, etc. that can lead to someone have a lower baseline of motivation. It's also highly contextual, which I think is what you're saying and I 100% agree with. Some people thrive in role A and would want to bang their head against a wall for 40 hours in role B. Others vice versa, others would be meh in either, etc.