Page 63 - Hard Goals

54 HARD Goals

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among the many products of this perk.” Notice how it’s basi-
cally an extrinsic payoff of working for them that takes the form
of intrinsically motivated work. Can you see why Google is able
to passionately set, pursue, and achieve such amazingly HARD
Goals? And generate such tremendous fi nancial returns?

YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE
AND EAT IT TOO

Diana Sproveri was a talented screenwriter. After growing up
on the East Coast and doing the New York writer scene for a
while, she decided to move to Hollywood and give screenwrit-
ing a go. As I said, she’s got talent, so it wasn’t long before she
was getting work. In fact, a while back, I sat with her on the set
of the Nickelodeon show “True Jackson, VP” while they were
fi lming the episode she wrote (tween television isn’t really my
bag, but I’ve got to admit, it was pretty funny). But as good a
writer as she is, her connection to screenwriting wasn’t heartfelt.
A lesson for us all is to understand that being good at something
is not the same as loving it. And so Diana sat herself down to
assess her Shoves and Tugs.
When she made herself describe a time when she recently
felt totally “on fi re” and unstoppable, she surprised herself with
her answer. During her son’s naps and after his bedtime, she
had been fi ddling with her family’s cake and cookie recipes.
She’d always loved baking, but lately she’d really been taking
it to a new level—trying to keep the extraordinary old-world
fl avors but adding the presentation of great art and in a form
that would actually work for parties. Sounds simple enough, but