The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink

I heard about this book from  NPR's Best Books and thought, "Why not?" I think I'm like most people, that there are things in my life that I regret. But so much of American culture these days encourages us to live life with no regrets. But why? Pink urges us to look at that statement and see that maybe it is incorrect. Maybe we do need to have some regrets. How else will we know how to improve ourselves? But there are ways to avoid regret. . In this book, Pink goes through the four core types of regret and talks about ways that we can avoid foundation, boldness, moral, and connection regrets. It is these regrets that we should focus on when making decisions; in five years, ten. Otherwise, "satisficing" is good enough. To undo regrets, you can apologize or try to undo action regrets or "at least it". For both action and inaction, practice self-compassion, normalize (zoom out several years), or try to work through them whether by talking with others or writing it down somewhere.

Three and a half stars

This book came out February 1, 2022

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Drive by Daniel H. Pink

It seems to be common knowledge that people work better if they have some sort of carrot that they're striving toward. Say, monetary compensation. But there is a LOT of evidence that seems to point out that this is one of those "known facts" that just isn't true. We reward the good and punish the bad, but is this really the best way to encourage people? How would this explain things like Wikipedia or Firefox where people are being neither tangibly rewarded nor punished. Instead, they participate because it's good for the programmer community, it will boost their knowledge, and because it helps boost their creativity and it's fun ("flow").

Even more surprising, studies have shown that incentives often cause people to do <i>worse</i>. But not all extrinsic incentives are bad. Mixing rewards with inherently noble tasks usually keeps people working. 

The ingredients for genuine motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If people have these (either already set in place or can create them for themselves), they tend to work harder.

Pink also discussed "Type I" people (intrinsically motivated, more concerned about the happiness found in doing the project) vs. "Type X" people (extrinsically motivated, done for personal gain).

There's a nice chapter-by-chapter review at the end. 

Is it riveting? Not really. Did I forget that I had listened to it before? Yes, I did. But some of the ideas are interesting and it is something to listen to.

Three and a half stars

This book came out December 29, 2009

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own