Nir Eyal

In fact, the carrot is the stick.

The carrot is the stick in that even when I want to feel good, I want that delicious meal.

I want to make more money.

I want to have more love in my life.

I want all these things.

How does the brain get me to get those things to get off my butt and go pursue them?

It has to create a spark of pain of suffering in order for me to go get that, right?

So wanting, craving, lusting, desire, all of these things are psychologically destabilizing.

And that's what motivates me, what drives me to go get things.

Now,

We can persist through things a few different ways.

One of them is to grit our teeth, to suffer through it, and we'll get out the other end.

That can work for short-term projects.

It's more difficult to sustain them long-term.

And so here's the secret.

The secret is,

that people who are high performers in pretty much every conceivable industry, whether it's the arts, whether it's sports, whether it's business, these people have a very peculiar trait.

And it's not in all areas of their life.

It's the thing that they're very good at.

Somehow to them, the thing that for the rest of us looks hard is easy for them.