[00:00:00] Sharath: There's always what I'd call a jujitsu point in a system, right? Where there's a role. There's a kind of person in the system who is very close to tipping, right. They really want a better outcome on the motivation side. But something is conspiring against them.

Clement: Today we speak to Sharath Jeevan, one of the world's leading experts on how to practically re-ignite the inner drive or intrinsic motivation in our lives.

He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Roehampton University for his contribution to the field in 2017, was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2014 and was recognized as one of the United kingdom's 10 leading social entrepreneurs in 2019.

But when it comes to his work in deeply understanding intrinsic motivation, he gained firsthand experience through funding STiR Education in [00:01:00] 2012. STiR is the world's largest initiative to improve interest stigmatization, specifically in education. It now supports 35,000 schools today across India, Africa, and Southeast Asia. That basically equates to 200,000 teachers and 6 million children with a better understanding of their own motivation in life.

Sharath: Social entrepreneurship is a prime example. We're almost weaned away from intrinsic motivation and trained to really do things because there's something at the end.

Clement: What's especially interesting about Sharath's story is his experience as an entrepreneur himself. Prior to starting STiR, he held a senior corporate role at eBay, and then launched his own startup, a social network platform called ContactDetails.com -- this was before the Facebook era!

[00:02:00] Here to dive deeper into the connection between intrinsic motivation and entrepreneurship, is Sharath Jeevan.

Laura: What is intrinsic motivation? What is the definition for you of what that is? Because I think those two words, intrinsic motivation just seems to encapsulate so much of the work that you do and, and, and who you are. And I just would love to hear what you have to say around that definition.

Sharath: Thanks, Laura. And yeah, I think for me that the real definition of intrinsic motivation is about doing something...really because it's inherently rewarding and fulfilling in its own right. Not because of the external reward or status or money or any other kind of benefit you receive from pursuing that thing. So it's kind of doing something for its own sake, in a nutshell.

And it sounds very simple, but I think in, in many areas of our life, and I think social entrepreneurship is a prime example, [00:03:00] we're almost weaned away from intrinsic motivation and trained to really do things because there's something at the end. I think that's my sort of mission in life, if you like, is to try and change that balance our lives and see if we can...see if we can challenge ourselves as people, as societies, as organizations to rethink that and apply that to how we live and work really more generally.

Laura: And why do you think it's so hard to align this motivation with the actual work that we do or our everyday lives? And, and I mean, I think that that's a challenge that so many of us face.

Why do you think it is such a challenge?

Sharath: Yeah, I think what we've done a lot of, in many areas of life stories, Laura, is we've sort of confused what motivation thinking would call the true motivators, right? And with what it would call hygiene factors. So hygiene factors, that's a strange name, but it's really something where basically if that thing is not there, it will demotivate you.

Right. So let's say, you know, Uh, decent working [00:04:00] conditions, right? If you're an office where you can't hear, you don't have space to put your laptop down, if people constantly disturbing you, that's clearly...