Russian spy reveals powerful psychological secret to motivation

So I just finished reading the single most thrilling and exhilarating book I've ever read.

A real page-turner — I even stayed up until 3 in the morning several nights in a row reading it. Because I couldn't put it down.

It's called "The Spy and the Traitor" by Ben MacIntyre, and it's an incredible true story about the greatest spy in the Cold War.

It's the hair-raising story of Oleg Gordievsky, a Russian KGB officer who became a double agent working for the secret British intelligence service MI6.

Over many years, Gordievsky revealed vast amounts of top-secret Soviet intel to the British…

Which gave the West a much deeper insight into the Soviet Union and ultimately helped avoid nuclear war.

But to do this, Gordievsky took the ultimate risk. If he was discovered by the KGB, they would have no mercy on him and the consequences would be brutal.

And there were countless times when he was a hair away from being discovered.

The Soviet Union was a paranoid surveillance state — monitoring everyone under a magnifying glass, and looking for any excuse to execute a suspected traitor.

And Oleg Gordievsky was right in the "belly of the beast," walking a delicate tightrope balance for years, taking incredible risks and hoping he wasn't discovered.

So it's a real nail-biting and adrenaline-pumping sort of book, to put it lightly.

Anyway, one of the takeaways I got from the book is the power of fighting for a cause you believe in.

And how, when you have a strong enough purpose, you're able to overcome incredible obstacles — even the fear of death itself.

Because what motivated Oleg Gordievsky to take these incredible risks, time and time again, was his hatred of communism and his desire for a free and democratic world.

He was born as a child of communism, deeply indoctrinated from the start, and he came from a KGB family.

But as a young man, he started to grow suspicious of the "communist utopia" that he grew up in.

For example, he was stationed in East Germany when the Berlin Wall was erected.

And he noticed how it was only East Germans that wanted to flee to the West… but never the other way around.

And the only way to stop people from fleeing was to erect a sinister wall with armed guards around it — like a prison — and shoot anyone who dared to escape.

Seeing this, his belief in the "communist utopia" started to fracture.

Then he got temporarily stationed in Copenhagen, officially working as a Russian diplomat, but secretly a KGB spy whose job it was to gather intel about the West.

Instead, he fell in love with the West.

In Copenhagen, he saw the dramatic difference between Western democracy and Russian communism first-hand.

Unlike most cities in the Soviet Union, which were bleak, dark, and depressing…

Copenhagen was so happy and cheerful in comparison. It was clean, modern, and affluent. The jovial Danish people had nice teeth and beautiful smiles on their faces. The culture was rich and intellectually stimulating. People were vibrant and thriving.

Gordievsky spent countless hours in the library, reading Western books that were banned in Soviet Russia and giving himself a proper worldly education — so different from the propaganda he had been fed his entire life.

And over time, his allegiance started to change.

Then he got approached by an MI6 officer who offered him the opportunity to be a double agent and spy for Britain.

He accepted the offer, on the condition that they *wouldn't pay him* for it.

Because he wanted them to know that he wasn't spying for greedy or selfish reasons.

He believed in democracy and wanted to do everything he could to bring down the communist empire he had been raised in.

As it says in the book:

"?From now on Oleg Gordievsky would live two distinct and parallel lives, both secret, and at war with each other. And the moment of commitment came with the special force that was central to his character: an adamantine, unshakable conviction that what he was doing was unequivocally right, a whole-souled moral duty that would change his life irrevocably, a righteous betrayal."

So despite the incredible risk that this brought to his own life…

He did it anyway. Because he was fighting for a higher cause that he believed in with extreme conviction.

Goes to show the power of having a higher purpose.

Because if you're only motivated by selfish reasons, there's only so much you'll do.

Selfish desires are a very weak source of motivation. Much weaker than having a meaningful mission that you're fighting for.

Because if you have a strong sense of destiny that's pulling you forward — a righteous cause that you're fighting for — then you'll go through hell and back to accomplish it. As Oleg Gordievsky did.

But if your only goal is to "make more money" or to "buy nice things," then you'll run out of steam much sooner.

Those are fine desires to have, but you need something deeper to motivate you as well. A meaningful mission that you’re pursuing.

That’s the key to having powerful motivation that doesn’t run out.

-Beau D. Schultz

P.S. If you're looking for a thrilling and riveting read, I highly recommend The Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre. Beware though — you might get addicted and not be able to put it down. You've been warned. ;)