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Video: Finding your motivation at work

Most corporate workplaces are instruments of psychological torture [1], yet it can decades (even if you’re ultra-frugal [2]) to build up an escape fund [3].

Starting a business instead is risky, while even small passive income streams [4] can take years to establish.

You only live once, so for most people the answer must be to find a better job. But what do we mean by better?

What’s it all about, Alfie?

Interestingly, we’re not the only ones asking these questions.

In the wake of the credit crisis, Governments are exploring how the bonus culture in banking [7] led to wanton risk-taking and the abandonment of any sense of fiduciary duty. Obviously they’d rather it didn’t happen again.

Early findings back-up other research into the limits of using money as a reward in the workplace, as summed up in this fantastic video:

There aren’t any easy answers to these questions.

For a start, motivation at work is something you want to harness for yourself and your own plans, not a carrot that helps your employer keep the workforce in line on the cheap. Yet in the bigger scheme of things, selfishness is perhaps part of the problem, too.

I discovered the video via Financial Samurai [8], who muses that:

Purpose is something that can either be questioned before you start your journey or after. You can be a high school or college student who has no freaking idea what you’re supposed to do in life. Or, you can be a 20 year veteran in the workforce who has built a great resume, as well as financial security, but realize you’re middle-aged now and wonder if there’s more to life since you’ve already conquered insecurity, be it financial or otherwise.

Leaving your job has a big opportunity cost [9] – swapping to a new career or starting a business an even bigger one. Yet do nothing, and you can become a Reginald Perrin [10] for the 21st Century.

I’m happy to tell you all I know about saving [11] and investing [12] – and even making money – but I don’t claim to have got the career and purpose stuff quite right in my own life so far. Have you?