I dunno - I think that it makes some good overall points, but paints too black & white a picture that, if you follow it literally, will eventually lead to a breakdown where you can't accomplish anything.
I think a better perspective is to think of yourself as having a "discipline budget". (This is actually born out by a lot of fMRI studies, which show that when you will yourself to do something unpleasant or difficult, your brain expends a lot of glucose, and when glucose levels drop below a certain level, you simply can't exert any willpower at all, and often end up making questionable judgment calls without any awareness that you're doing something stupid.) And then your conscious job is to figure out how to spend that discipline budget in the way that will give the greatest returns to you - recognizing, of course, that no matter what you try to achieve there will always be parts that are unpleasant and that you just need to power through. But then, this also recognizes that you are not superman, and sometimes you have to drop the difficult stuff and re-charge just as your natural self.
When you think like this, you pick your projects and profession carefully. You understand that you better pick something that you mostly enjoy, because most of the time, you're going to be running on cruise control and it's a lot easier to do that when you're going downhill than uphill. But you also understand that even if you do that, there are going to be some things that you have to do that are just work, they're not going to be fun, and you might as well get them done with without fussing or stressing about them.
Isn't that what being your authentic self is about, anyway? Understanding who you are and what you're good at and then choosing a place within the world where that naturally fits, but also understanding that the world is not automatically going to mold itself to your preferences and that no matter where you choose to go, you're going to have to do some shaping of yourself as well.
Running any company, of any size usually has more 'uphill' bits in it than 'downhill' bits. I used to think otherwise but over the decades this one factor kept staring me in the face: it was so much fun in the beginning, where did that go? And then I realized that it was fun in the beginning because it was the beginning! Everything was fresh and new, nothing had entered maintenance, no technical debt, all sales and hardly any support and then little by little normality crept in and what was effortless became a serious effort indeed.
I think it takes about 3 years to establish an actual business and by the time you're there most of your 'motivational energy' will have burned out or dissipated and you'll be going on discipline exclusively for the majority of the time.
There's nothing wrong with that, that's where the money is made.
And that's why many people choose not to run businesses, and that's fine too. Some make money in other ways, and some don't mind that they don't have a whole lot of money.
If you're succeeding in your businesses, that probably means that it's close enough to "enjoyable" for you to make it worth your while (if not - man, I'm sorry).
I knew folks at Google who had zero interest in ever founding a company. Why? Because they knew exactly what it entailed, and figured they wanted to spend their budget on things like hard technical problems or dealing with office politics rather than on building a business. Ultimately, I decided that wasn't what I want, and a good portion of the reason why is that I wanted the challenge of stretching myself in ways that I couldn't inside a large corporation. But that's a choice as well - I looked at the schleps needed to have some level of sustainable self-determination within Google vs. the ones needed to have some level of sustainable self-determination in a company, and decided I wanted the latter. I don't actually disagree with any of the facts you've put out, I'm just pointing out that one shouldn't immediately leap from those to the article's conclusion.
Do you have any references to the fMRI studies? I've never gone to the source for that sort of thing, and would appreciate a lead in getting started (not really sure where to even start looking).
The idea that we can biochemically run out of what powers willpower is a neat one. I feel like that implies there's something we can do to just replenish it, but making assumptions like that about complex things like brain chemistry is a great way to look smart while being not-smart.
I think a better perspective is to think of yourself as having a "discipline budget". (This is actually born out by a lot of fMRI studies, which show that when you will yourself to do something unpleasant or difficult, your brain expends a lot of glucose, and when glucose levels drop below a certain level, you simply can't exert any willpower at all, and often end up making questionable judgment calls without any awareness that you're doing something stupid.) And then your conscious job is to figure out how to spend that discipline budget in the way that will give the greatest returns to you - recognizing, of course, that no matter what you try to achieve there will always be parts that are unpleasant and that you just need to power through. But then, this also recognizes that you are not superman, and sometimes you have to drop the difficult stuff and re-charge just as your natural self.
When you think like this, you pick your projects and profession carefully. You understand that you better pick something that you mostly enjoy, because most of the time, you're going to be running on cruise control and it's a lot easier to do that when you're going downhill than uphill. But you also understand that even if you do that, there are going to be some things that you have to do that are just work, they're not going to be fun, and you might as well get them done with without fussing or stressing about them.
Isn't that what being your authentic self is about, anyway? Understanding who you are and what you're good at and then choosing a place within the world where that naturally fits, but also understanding that the world is not automatically going to mold itself to your preferences and that no matter where you choose to go, you're going to have to do some shaping of yourself as well.