This has been one of my favorite books since I first read it ten years ago.

Our modern world, and particularly our modern school systems, seem to reject most of our basic human motivations. When our world doesn’t work with our instincts, existence can be rather miserable.

Pink describes our three deep motivations - autonomy, mastery, and purpose - and some of the science behind these drives. His writing style and personality make it hardly seem like reading real research, but the details are still incredibly informative and interesting.

Of course we have other drives like food and sex and money so on, but he clearly elaborates the reasons why following those drives alone will not provide satisfaction in life - a fact that most people who have experienced depression will already understand.

I myself was miserable for most of my life until I found ways to apply these deeper drives to my daily life and business.

I think this topic is important for everyone, and I put it on my mandatory reading list because we as individuals should know this, but we should also design our businesses and education around these concepts.

School and society might push us towards fulfillment of our physical needs, but there is definitely more to life. I would go further and say that focusing on our deeper drives will probably give us our physical requirements, more or less automatically. I know that putting my energy into the deep drives has given me basically all the physical things I ever wanted, and truthfully more of them than I know what to do with.

Understanding our drives seems to give us all we need to form a meaningful, fulfilling life, as well as a profitable business.

Highly recommend.