Many people only act when something becomes urgent, using the adrenaline spike of a deadline to power through. Joe describes a famous investor who wouldn’t do anything until it became urgent — and then his entire team learned to manufacture urgencies to motivate him. The result was ever-deepening burnout.
This pattern mirrors caffeine dependency: at first the urgency-adrenaline feels productive and even thrilling. Over time, you need more of it just to function. Eventually, it stops working entirely and you crash. The belief underneath is “without urgency or self-punishment, I’ll never get anything done” — but Joe points out that children and animals are naturally active without any urgency. It’s our nature to do things.
The trap has an ironic quality: if you’re already burnt out, urgency-based motivation does temporarily work, which reinforces the belief that you need it. The alternative is finding intrinsic motivation through enjoyment, inspiration, or vision — which requires first addressing the burnout itself.
“People will use it as a form of motivation rather than say enjoyment or inspiration or vision or any of those things to find their motivation.”