What's up, everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of MorningBrew.

Welcome back to Founders Journal, my personal audio diary where I give you the business builder,

the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business,

a team, or a new product. Today, I am talking about what motivates each and every one of us,

and why we need to think really hard about it. Let's hop into it.

So recently, I was having a conversation with someone on the leadership team at MorningBrew,

and specifically, we were talking about how they interview people.

And because they've been in their career for a long time, they have a very structured process

for interviewing. And one of the things that they said is they always ask the same one question

to every single person they interview irrespective of role. And that question is,

what motivates you? Now, the reason they asked this question is because they are looking for

people just like them. People who have a huge chip on their shoulder. The reason that this

senior leader has a chip on their shoulder is because they want to prove something to the people

that they have been wronged by earlier in their career. The logic makes a lot of sense, right?

They see how much they are motivated by a desire to prove others wrong. And so they want to hire

people who have that same fire under their ass. At first, I thought to myself, wow, this question

makes so much sense. And looking for people who have a chip on their shoulder makes so much sense,

right? I see how hard this senior leader works. And also when I think about in the early days of

MorningBrew, part of my motivation was absolutely me having a chip on my shoulder.

I wanted to prove to others that had discounted my abilities, specifically in middle school and

high school, that I was enough and that I could achieve. But as I thought more about it and I

reflected on the conversation, it got me thinking, what is the cost of having a chip on your shoulder?

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