The Business Engineer

The Business Engineer

The Power of Counter-Motivation

Gennaro Cuofano's avatar
Gennaro Cuofano
Aug 07, 2025
∙ Paid

To me, positive motivation is overblown; what’s instead way more powerful is a sort of “anti-motivation” or counter-motivation. Let me explain.

Counter-motivation represents one of the most potent psychological forces available to human achievement.

It's the alchemy that transforms external doubt into internal fire, converting skepticism into rocket fuel for extraordinary performance.

When someone declares you'll never amount to anything, something primal awakens, a defiant energy that can literally move mountains.

And this is true, not just at an individual level, but also at an organizational level, premised that you’re able to build that counter-motivation element into the company’s culture.

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