Chapter 1, "The Basics." Think you know what motivation is? Let's find out. In my experience, most people that manage to roll themselves out of bed in the morning and engage in some activity besides staring at a wall all day are motivated people. How do I know that? Because they're moving with a purpose.

Psychology has a much broader definition for motivation than most of us. Someone might think of the motivation behind a morning jog is the desire to be happier and get in shape. However, a psychologist would want to add a few more things to that list of possible motivations. You might run because you're late and you're in a hurry. A tiger is chasing you. You're afraid if you don't, then you might die of a heart attack someday. It's cold, and you want to get inside quickly. You want to be fast enough to join the track team. Your friend told you that if you run around the block barefoot, he'll give you $5. The list goes on.

Motivation is anything, internal or external, that moves you to action. It doesn't have to be a high-minded internal desire, and the action doesn't necessarily have to be something productive. Motivation can be an instinct, a biological urge, an emotion, a reward, a punishment, a habit, a compulsion, you name it.

Why am I telling you this? Well, your child is probably rolling out of bed and spending their time doing something, like video games, for example. If that's the case, then, believe it or not, the issue is not that they're unmotivated. The issue is just that they don't have the motivation to do the thing you want or need them to do, like their homework that's due tomorrow.

As it so happens, that is a much easier problem to solve. Here's a graph for you to look at. Isn't it lovely? This particular graph illustrates one of the two major approaches to motivation-- red line. Let's break it down. On the x-axis, the horizontal, we have the number of interactions. That's simply the number of times you've attempted to motivate someone. When the red line is on the left-hand side, that means that there have been very few interactions and not much time has passed. When it's more towards the right, that means that there have been many interactions and more time has passed.

On the y-axis, the vertical, we have results. This is simply the thing you're trying to accomplish. When the red line is closer to the top, the results are high, life is great, and things are happening. When it's closer to the bottom, the results are minimal or nonexistent. Sometimes the results can even be the opposite of what you want. Make sense? Cool.

Everything you ever wanted to know about red line motivation-- red-line motivation is by far the most commonly used kind of motivation out there. A red-line motivator's go-to question is what can I do, give, or take away that will produce a result, a change in behavior now?

Red-liners love carrots and sticks, rewards and punishments. It's all about control. If a red-liner wants you to do something, they will find the sweetest carrot they are willing to give and dangle it in front of you until you start chasing after it-- money, video games, love and acceptance, et cetera.

Alternatively, they will find the scariest punishment they can and throw it at you until you move-- losing privileges, yelling, withholding love and affection, et cetera. They will bribe, manipulate, control, and coerce you to try to get you to do what they want. Basically, red-liners seek to reduce human motivation to its most basic elements. They assume that people avoid pain and effort and that they will only work hard if moved upon by an outside force or a biological urge-- hunger, sleep, sex, et cetera.

Red-liners see human beings as little more than animals responding to stimuli. Trained rats in a cage will press a lever over and over if you give them food. A yappy dog with a shock collar can be conditioned to stop barking. Similarly, a red-liner believes that you can motivate humans by tapping into that same desire to avoid pain and seek out pleasure.

And it works. If you offer to give your potty-training toddler a piece of chocolate every time she successfully uses the toilet, then she will start going to the bathroom more consistently. If you incentivize your employees with substantial bonuses, they will work harder to get that payout.

Alternatively, if you put the fear of God in your teenager before handing them a car keys, they will likely drive more cautiously. If your boss tells you that the next person who turns in a late report will be fired on the spot, you will see tardiness rates drop significantly.

Psychologists have known for nearly a century that people will respond to the right rewards and punishments. They call it conditioning. Meanwhile, kings and rulers have understood this basic truth for millennia. You have to admit, it's a rather elegant idea. If you want more of a particular behavior, reward it. If you want less, punish it.

However, nowadays, we have decades of scientific research showing that the carrot and stick philosophy we hold dear actually has quite a few holes. Parents, teachers, and managers are gradually discovering that people, particularly people with Asperger's, don't always respond to external influences in the ways we would hope or expect. What's going on there? Well, as awesome as carrots and sticks can be, they come with some pretty serious drawbacks.

Problems with red line-- let's pretend for a moment that you are suddenly in a tragic accident that caused you to be irreversibly paralyzed from the waist down-- no more walking, running, jumping, or wiggling your toes. Would you be sad and upset? Would you be sad and upset for a long time? How about for the rest of your life?

Now, let's try another question. Imagine that today you win the lottery in the amount of $10 million, and because this is your imagination, let's say that you receive all of this money tax free. Would you be significantly happier? Would you be happier for a long time? Would you go so far as to say that you would be happier for the rest of your life?

In both of the examples above, you probably assume that their effects on your emotional being would be significant and long lasting. And that's where you would likely be wrong. In a classic 1978 study, three psychologists investigated and measured the happiness levels of paraplegics and lottery winners. They found that less than a year after experiencing one of these life-changing events, both the lottery winners and the paraplegics had mostly returned to their baseline levels of happiness. We would normally expect lottery winners to be much happier than regular folks. However, they were, on average, only slightly happier.

Similarly, the paraplegics were only slightly less happy than others. For the most part, they were just as content with life as they had been before that fateful tragedy befell them. Human beings are truly incredible at adapting to almost anything. Given enough time, both positive and negative changes in our lives can quickly become our new normal. When this happens, they no longer have a significant impact on our day-to-day emotions.

Scientists call this phenomenon hedonic adaptation. It crops up everywhere. You buy a fancy sports car, and its shiny, new features excite you for a while, but months later, it brings you little, if any, joy. You move into an old rundown apartment, and its outdated appliances and off-color decor bother you for a while. But months later, the annoyance barely registers.

You get married to your sweetheart. So, of course, you're blissfully happy for a time. However, a couple of years later, you have more or less returned to your original level of happiness. What does hedonic adaptation have to do with motivation? Well, it means that any reward or punishment consistently used to motivate your child will quickly be adapted to and thus rendered ineffective.

For example, let's say that Margaret, a mother of three, has a son, little Johnny, who isn't waking up for school. As a red-liner, she would go into his room, flip over his mattress and tell him that if he's late for school he loses all video games for the day. Well, as you would expect, that's incredibly effective the first time. He scurries out the door, and she's quite pleased with how well it worked.

However, with every subsequent mattress flipping after that, she would notice that it doesn't work quite as well. And eventually, it might start producing the opposite effect. She would have to keep upping the ante and putting in more work in order to try to get the same result. She needs to find a scarier stick.

The more Margaret uses this red-line approach, the more Johnny goes into defense mode and lives in a state of fear. He's shut down and angry. Any semblance of trust or mutual understanding in their relationship has been destroyed. In fact, he might even start missing school just to assert his independence and regain a feeling of control.

As shown in the red-line graph, each new attempt to motivate will produce fewer results and, in the long term, will continually require a sweeter carrot or a scarier stick in order to maintain its original effectiveness. As a parent, unless you have unlimited power and resources-- doubtful-- a red-line motivation strategy is simply not sustainable long term.

By now, you may be thinking, well, of course, Johnny would be ticked off and defiant if you punish him like that every day. But what's wrong with carrots? Aren't rewards like gold stars and ice cream a more positive and nice way to motivate someone? To that, I say yes and no. Carrots come with their own set of issues too. Allow me to illustrate.

Problematic rewards-- a chaotic cacophony of laughter, banging, and shrill exclamations came from every corner of the preschool classroom. Small children were wandering from place to place or talking with their friends while others sat playing with toys or drawing with markers. A small group of researchers observed the chaos as it unfolded.

They had been there for the past several days compiling a list of all the children who typically spent their free time in the art corner drawing with markers. Tomorrow, they would be moving on to the next phase of their experiment. As is usually the case with psychological experiments, the researchers randomly separated their list of artistically-inclined children into three groups.

The first group was shown a fancy good player award, complete with a blue ribbon, and were told they would receive it as a reward if they drew a picture. The second group of children were not told about a possible reward. They were simply asked if they wanted to draw a picture. And when they finished, the researchers surprised them with the good player certificate. The third group was invited to draw a picture and then sent on their way when they finished, no reward promised or given.

Two weeks later, the researchers returned to the preschool to see if their rewarding children for drawing had any effect on how the art-loving children now spent their free time. We would normally expect that those children who were rewarded would draw more frequently now that the behavior had been reinforced. But that is not what happened. The children in the second and third groups-- unexpected reward and no reward-- still spent roughly the same amount of time drawing as they had before.

However, those children in the first group-- the expected reward-- drew significantly less. Plenty of paper and markers were set out and easily accessible, but now that there was no shiny certificate being offered, the art supplies seemed to have lost their appeal. Contrary to what we would expect, introducing an expectation with a contingent reward attached actually decreased the rewarded behavior instead of increasing it. Why? Because human beings are incredibly adaptive.

When this new drawing experience taught the children that drawing a picture equals compensation, they got the message loud and clear. The children used to draw because they enjoyed it for its own sake-- intrinsic motivation. Now they will only draw if they're expecting to receive some kind of reward.

To give another example, let's imagine that Margaret, a mother of three, offers to pay her son Johnny an extra allowance so he will finally brush his teeth and wash the dishes. Granted, it might actually work. But in the process, Margaret risks teaching her son that personal hygiene and basic home maintenance are tasks that people should be compensated for. Now it'll be a lot harder to convince him to ever do it again for free.

To give one more example, if Margaret offers her daughter Suzie a special treat or gold star in exchange for cleaning her room, then Suzie may stop appreciating cleanliness for its own sake. That will make for a tougher transition when Suzie becomes an adult who is expected to maintain a clean house without being rewarded for doing so.

Red-line tactics tend to increase effort, enthusiasm, and compliance in the short term. But using them also establishes a long-term pattern of undesired consequences that is very difficult to break out of. Short-term results, long-term consequences.

When rewards are awesome-- it's worth noting that the cancelation of intrinsic motivation didn't occur with the unexpected reward group because the children did not know the reward was coming. Thus, they could not logically view that reward as their reason for drawing in the first place. Instead, it was seen as a happy accident, a stroke of good fortune that they should receive this prize for their drawing. They would have done the drawing regardless.

In instances like these, rewards can be awesome. They can add to and potentially enhance whatever motivation was already there. When I was younger, I loved going out and secretly raking up my neighbor's leaves during the autumn months. I would often spend the whole day walking around the neighborhood with my plastic rake in tow. I loved feeling like I was doing something nice for other people. I loved being outdoors, and I loved feeling accomplished. Once in a great while, someone would catch me, and they would insist on giving me a few dollars. But I never went out expecting to get paid. It was fun.

Later in life, I found myself running my own work business. I would mow lawns, rake leaves, shovel snow, whatever people needed. Oddly enough, I remember actually dreading going to work on most mornings. It was the exact same kind of outdoor physical labor I once enjoyed. But my perception of the work had changed. I was no longer doing it because I wanted to. I was doing it because I had to. It wasn't fun anymore. It was a chore.

Here's the bottom line-- as soon as someone starts working to achieve a reward or avoid a punishment, any possibility of intrinsic motivation will be nullified. It's possible for both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to be associated with a single task. But only one can be the primary motivator. If there is ever a conflict over that central title, then the extrinsic will usually crowd out the intrinsic.

Not to say that rewards, praise, and warm, fuzzy feelings are terrible. They can actually be pretty awesome, but only if-- one, the reward is not the primary reason for showing up and doing the thing. It's either unexpected, like the appreciative dollars my neighbors occasionally gave me, or seen as subsidiary, like a doctor whose primary reason for working every day is to help people. If he didn't need money to live a comfortable life, he would still happily work for free. Two, the reward is naturally embedded within the task itself, such as feeling excited about doing something kind for others.

When to use red-line motivation-- let me be clear. Choosing to use red-line carrots, sticks, and other if-then methods of motivation is not inherently bad or wrong, nor is it always good and right. Red line is simply a tool that is uniquely suited for specific kinds of situations.

A hammer is great if you need to drive a nail into wood. It's less than ideal if you're trying to perform surgery. The problems arise when you encounter a situation that requires a tool, you look into your toolbox, and you discover nothing but a single lonely hammer. You'll probably end up using the hammer because, after all, it's better than nothing, right?

If, however, you happen to be in a situation that requires a more delicate touch than a hammer can provide, you may inadvertently do more harm than good. This is what happens when red-line tactics are used in situations for which they are ill suited.

What are those situations, you ask? Well, there are quite a few. Red line is an extremely specialized tool that is well suited to a narrow range of circumstances. There's been a great deal of research done on this subject. And if you want a full on deep dive, then I would recommend you start with the book Drive by Daniel Pink. It's an amazing treatise written on the subject of motivation.

That said, here's the short and sweet version. The "Should I Use the Red Line" checklist-- one, is the task boring, monotonous, and/or routine? No? Don't use red line. Yes? Then, maybe.

Move on to number two. Number two, does the task have any potential for intrinsic motivation, i.e. is this a task that someone might choose to do because they want to? No? Maybe. Move on to number three. Yes? Don't use red line.

Does the task involve creativity or intellectual skill? No? Maybe. Move on to number four. Yes? Don't use red line. Number four, is the task related in some way to morals, ethics, or some kind of greater purpose? No? Then, maybe. Move on to number five. Yes? Don't use red line.

Number five, does the task involve some degree of challenge or variety? No? Move on to number six. Yes? Don't use red line. Number six, could you change the task in some way to make it more challenging and interesting? No?

OK, if you made it to this last question and you've answered no, then go ahead and use red line. Just be sure to use the principles taught in chapters 7 and 8. Yes? Maybe? Haven't tried yet? Don't use red line. There's a much better way to motivate your child. Yes, really, it's called-- drum roll, please-- blue-line motivation.

Blue-line motivation-- you need only look at young children to see our innate human nature in action. They run, play, and explore the world with bright eyes and active minds. They are creative, curious, and purposeful. You see the same thing when you look at adults. People all over the world frequently volunteer time and money, master new skills, and work on projects for hours because they want to, not because their boss tells them to. In fact, people often continue in these pursuits even when it is difficult or painful. So there must be more to motivation than just carrots and sticks.

That's where blue-line motivation comes in. Blue-line motivation is all about holistic influence. This means that a blue-liner recognizes people as whole, complex human beings who are often intrinsically motivated. They know that people are so much more than animals that simply avoid pain and seek out pleasure.

A blue-liner will tap into this innate drive by approaching people and situations from a place of trust and love. They sincerely believe you can and will make good choices for yourself and others. They assume that you're not necessarily unmotivated. Rather, they are open to the possibility that you might just be scared, stressed, missing resources, or lacking understanding, et cetera.

A blue-liner will not try to force things to happen or control you from the outside with carrots and sticks. They will work with and catalyze the natural intrinsic motivation processes that already exist inside you and within the situation. However, the blue-line path comes with one costly trade-off. A blue-liner will need to put in most of the work on the front end, and they will see few, if any, results for the first while. That's just how the organic process of intrinsic motivation works.

Blue-liners are 100% OK with that because they understand that once you hit the tipping point, i.e. the point where you're intrinsically motivated and you truly choose it for yourself, then the whole system will become largely self-sustaining. Blue line is essentially the opposite of red line. As more time passes, red line requires more and more work, whereas blue line requires less and less. In the end, both approaches to motivation require work and effort. There's no getting around that.

The trap of red line is that it looks so easy in the beginning, while it's actually the more difficult out of the two. The work is still there. It's just hidden. A red-liner will undoubtedly find more and more of it as time passes and they slide further down the slope. They have to keep working endlessly and putting in more effort as they attempt to produce the same result. Blue-line motivation, on the other hand, can get to a point where the parent-- or teacher, therapist, whomever-- can step back and watch their child soar.

So rather than insisting on results now-- red line-- a blue-liner will take time to talk to you, listen, hold the space, discuss your personal motivations, and give you what you need. They will trust that, in time, you will make good choices for yourself once you're ready. Granted, this can be a long process that requires plenty of trial and error, patience, and effort. But it's all worth it because a blue-liner knows this endeavor will pay off in the long term.

A red-liner is like a carpenter using their tools to shape, manipulate, and polish an inanimate block of wood in order to produce a specific result. A blue-liner is more like a gardener, using their tools to adapt the environment and add the necessary resources in order to give the living plant what it needs to grow and flourish on its own.

Let's go back to the example of little Johnny who is struggling to wake up for school. His mother, Margaret, wants to use blue-line methods. So she won't threaten him, bribe him, or flip his mattress. Instead, she will take an additional 10 to 15 minutes to sit and talk with him, get him a glass of water, rub his back, listen to his concerns about school, and assure him of his own capability.

And she's not lying to him. She knows he's fully capable of waking up on his own. She doesn't need to force it to happen. She just needs to remove the blocks and provide nurturing guidance to the innate motivation that already exists inside Johnny. The blue-line approach might mean she needs to wake Johnny up for school 10 to 15 minutes earlier than usual to provide time for her to sit with him and help him wake up. If so, that's worth it because it's time well spent.

It might also mean getting a sleep study or providing the school with a doctor's note while she takes the necessary days or weeks to work with Johnny one step at a time. In a few months' time, Johnny will be waking up on his own, no problem.

The essential elements of blue-line motivation-- when you're looking to cultivate the blue, intrinsic, self-sustaining kind of motivation, then there's three key ingredients you need. They are as follows-- capability, belief, desire. I'll briefly define each of them, and then we'll spend the rest of this book exploring in detail how to implement each element.

One, capability. This may seem fairly obvious, but you'd be amazed how easy it is to forget that this is a factor. If your child does not have the time, energy, resources, emotional capacity, knowledge, skill, et cetera to accomplish the task at hand, then it doesn't matter how motivating you make it. It's never going to happen. Or at the very least, it won't be done properly.

So why do we forget this so often? It happens because of an innate cognitive bias called the curse of knowledge. Yes, really. Basically, with the way your brain works, once you know and understand something, it becomes far more difficult to imagine what it was like before you knew it. Later, when you're teaching that concept or skill to someone else, you may accidentally skip over obvious steps, use words and concepts that they don't understand, or you may just take it for granted that they already know how to do x, y, z. You tend to project your knowledge and understanding onto other people and assume that they already know and understand what you do.

For example, here's an experience related by one amazing mom in our A+ support group. We'll call her son Ron and her partner Bob. My partner, Bob, discovered that Ron was still paying our car insurance for an old car he no longer owned. He had $40 auto deducted from his checking account every month. When Bob discovered it, he told my son that he needed to cancel the insurance because he was paying for a car he no longer owned. For months, my son assured us he had canceled the insurance. But still, every month, the auto withdrawal notice would come in the mail.

Then, several months later when we asked him about it again, he assured us he had called the insurance company. He hadn't, but he was probably embarrassed to admit it. Supposedly, the insurance company told Ron he couldn't cancel by phone and that he needed to come in for an appointment. I asked him when the appointment was scheduled for, and he gave us a date.

To my knowledge, our insurance company is only open for appointments Monday through Friday, but the date Ron gave us was a Sunday. I said nothing. I later looked up the phone number of the insurance agent, gave it to Ron, and told him all he needed to do was call her. Apparently, that was all he needed. The charge was officially canceled the next day, and we never saw another notice in the mail.

Turns out the auto withdrawal letter that came in the mail did not have the phone number of the insurance agent on it. Bob had told Ron to call the insurance agent but assumed he would know how to find the phone number. Ron was too embarrassed to ask how, so the whole vicious cycle started-- procrastinate, avoid unpleasant interaction with parents, repeat over and over again. Gosh, it took me a while to catch on. I often have to stop and ask myself, how on Earth would Raun know how to do x if he has never done x before or seen it done?

Two, belief. There are two kinds of belief that need to be present when fostering blue-line motivation. If either of them are missing, it won't work. Number one, belief in capability. It's one thing for you to know your child has the capability, but it's quite another for them to know and believe in their own capability. If your child genuinely believes that they can't do math, then any attempts to motivate them or persuade them that math is really important will only stress them out more and possibly cause them to shut down or get angry.

Alternatively, let's say you have some serious misgivings about your own competency when it comes to managing your finances. Finances will probably cause you a lot of stress, and it's unlikely that you will feel motivated to sit down and get it done. While it's entirely possible that you could balance your checkbook without too much trouble if you gave it a try, as long as you continue to doubt your capability, you will remain blind to that possibility. You will be more likely to continue procrastinating or you might even give up altogether. In order for someone to feel motivated, they need to feel capable and competent.

Number two, belief in results. Let's say that Margaret asked Johnny to do his math homework a particular way and he either-- 1, doesn't believe doing it that way is even humanly possible; 2, does not believe that mom's way will accomplish his desired result; or 3, does not believe that doing the homework and getting that result will ultimately get him where he wants to be.

If any or all of those are true for Johnny, then chances are excellent that he won't want to do his homework, the way mom asked him to. Again, because of the curse of knowledge, it's easy for Margaret to assume that when she asks Johnny to try a new approach to his math homework, he automatically understands exactly how A leads to Z, and he shares Margaret's worldview. She may also erroneously assume that Johnny trusts her completely and wholeheartedly. So when she promises A is going to equal Z, Johnny should immediately take her word for it.

Not surprisingly, Johnny, like many other human beings, does not possess that kind of radical, no questions asked kind of trust, even with his mother. So if you have a child that trusts you enough to take a leap of faith blindfolded, then consider yourself blessed, or cursed depending on your point of view.

However, if you happen to be the parent of a child whose trust is less automatic, then it's important for you to remember that your child may lack the experience, trust, and understanding to know that what you are saying is true. Additional effort will be needed to overcome and move past that block to motivation.

Three, desire. If you're motivated, then you genuinely want something, right? You have personal, moving, and emotional reasons for moving forward. You see a purpose for acting and believe that the time, energy, and resources you're expending are worth the expected result. That's desire in a nutshell. Desire is what most people think of when they hear the word "motivation."

And don't get me wrong, it's important. However, it's no less important than the other two essential elements. When all three are present, then motivation is the natural result. When one or even all three are missing, then motivation is scarce.

Eliciting someone else's passion and desire can be a little tricky because we all want and care about different things. However, when you can successfully stoke a burning desire in someone's heart, it's a beautiful thing to behold. This book will show you how.

An overview of the rest of the book-- way number one, motivate with spoons. In this chapter, we'll talk about the secrets of motivating someone who is tired, overwhelmed, and deep in defense mode. Way number two, motivate by adding resources. Here we'll cover the specifics of identifying and addressing capability blocks that impede motivation.

Way number three, motivate by adding direction. In this chapter, you'll learn about the importance of having specific, attainable, and clear objectives in order for your child to feel motivated. Way number four, motivating like a scientist. In this chapter, you'll learn about the greatest block to belief-- assumptions. You'll also learn how to overcome them.

Way number five, motivating with just your mind. Here, you'll learn the unseen ways that your thoughts and beliefs will inevitably impact your child's success, for better or worse. Way number six, motivating with control and choice. In this chapter, you'll learn the essential importance of choice and how to offer options and autonomy to your child so that they can be genuinely motivated.

Way number seven, motivating with connections. Here you'll discover the simple process of creating motivation in order to make previously undesirable tasks more palatable. Bonus-- in this final section, you'll learn the secrets of conquering the age-old enemy of productivity-- procrastination.