I have been reading on how to train a dog. No reason. Okay there is a reason. I am trying to convince my wife that getting a dog would be a good idea. Even though I don’t know much about training a dog (especially the feral beasts on the local rescue website). One thing I’ve learned in the process is there are two main ways to train most animals on earth: punishment and reward. Reward is much more effective than punishment, generally, because it is way easier for an animal to associate, “When I do this one thing, I get a biscuit,” than it is for it to think back, “Okay, let’s see, I ate garbage, crapped on the rug, pee’d on their plants, tore apart their sofa and jumped on a stranger. One of those things got me this spanking. Or maybe this guy is just an a-hole. No way to tell. I guess I’ll just keep doing those things. Oh yeah. Now I have a little more anxiety when I do bad things which makes me want to act out and do them more.” So, reward is the way to go. It works with humans too. Not just humans, but yourself, supposedly.
I read that a lot of productive people use the reward system to get things done. If they have a monumental task ahead of them, or they have a new skill they want to learn, but it is challenging and difficult, they use the reward system. It goes something like this, “Okay me, if you focus on this massive, difficult project, I’ll let you eat that Snicker’s bar, or binge watch Netflix, or play video games or whatever you want, just do the project, okay?” I guess productive people talk to themselves a lot. Maybe the line between a productive person with a corner office and the schizophrenic person on the street is thinner than we think. I digress.
I thought I would put the system to the test. I had been in training for the past month. I had been learning a new airplane, which required a lot of focus and study. There were whole new systems to learn, flight limitations to memorize, and switches to flip to get the thing to do what it was supposed to do. Some people enjoy learning these things and have no problems getting motivated. Those people don’t realize the incredible movie catalog of HBO Max they have at their fingertips.
My checkride was fast approaching, when all of my knowledge was going to be tested. It was the culmination of a month of training, yet I was finding myself skidding to a finish. I had no desire to study or learn anything else about airplanes but instead was watching all the “Dirty Harry Movies” that HBO Max could offer. I needed a reward that would really motivate me. Then it hit me: McDonald’s has a new chicken sandwich that they say matches up against a Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich. I, being a passionate Chick-Fil-A evangelist (I once spent the last 20 dollars in my checking account on five spicy chicken sandwiches), could be the ultimate judge. But I would have to allow myself to go off my strict diet, AND I would have to pass my checkride. You see, in terminal B of the Denver airport, where I would fly out of, there is a McDonald’s and a Chick-Fil-A within a hundred feet of each other. It was the perfect place to do a taste test. For me to get there, I had to pass my checkride or be sentenced to another week in training Hell. The perfect reward system was in place.
So I spent my final week in training, focused, knuckling down, putting the nose to the grindstone, pulling my sh#% together to pass the checkride; knowing that at the end of the week, I had a special date with chicken heaven. And… it worked. I passed. I even did “very well,” in the words of my check airmen (sure my simulator landing was garbage, but so have all of my simulator landings since I learned how to fly; don’t worry they don’t translate to actual landings in a real airplane). I owe it all to a chicken sandwich, or should I say two chicken sandwiches, that were waiting for me at the Denver airport…
Who am I kidding? Yes. I passed the checkride. Yes. I ate the chicken sandwiches. Yes. The Chick-Fil-A sandwich was way better (sorry, McDonald’s, it wasn’t even close). But did the sandwich motivate me to succeed? No, I was going to eat the chicken sandwiches one way or another. What motivated me? Shame, fear of failure, fear of ridicule, and loss of income! In other words, punishment. Sure, I might have been motivated to study harder if I knew that backrubs and chocolate bars were waiting for me at the training center, but they have an airline to run, and ain’t got time for that.
Maybe rewards work great for training a dog but unlike dogs, humans have apposable thumbs and can reach the treat cabinet themselves. They can eat all the biscuits they want, whether they have been a good boy or not. I somehow doubt that Elon Musk is saying to himself, “If you just focus on a new kind of robot that changes global industrialization, I’ll let you eat that jar of Red Vines you’ve had your eye on.” But hey, if that jar of Red Vines is going to help you get your taxes done, I say use it. Whatever works. That’s the moral of this blog. Do what you have to do to get done what you have to get done. Yep. That’s it. All done. Beginning middle end. Complete.
*Stretches, stands up, hits publish and smiles and says to himself*, “Time for some chicken sandwiches.”
