We all want explanations for why we behave as we do and for the ways the world around us functions. Even when our feeble explanations have little to do with reality. Weโre storytelling creatures by nature, and we tell ourselves story after story until we come up with an explanation that we like and that sounds reasonable enough to believe. And when the story portrays us in a more glowing and positive light, so much the better.
Dan ArielyInteresting thing that is happening in American society is that people are starting to talk about money. I don't know how you feel about this, but for a long time, nobody was talking about money. It was a secret. And it's kind of very interesting because we do lots of stuff to portray to people about how much money we have, the clothes we wear and the cars we have and the house - they all kind of depict to other people, signal how much money we make, but we don't talk about it specifically.
Dan ArielyWhen we think about labor, we usually think about motivation and payment as the same thing, but the reality is that we should probably add all kinds of things to it - meaning, creation, challenges, ownership, identity, pride, etc.
Dan ArielyThe real issue is, how much goodwill do you invest in the work? And goodwill is not something that we can buy with money. It's very hard to buy goodwill with money.
Dan Ariely