Imagine a three-year-old girl standing beside her mother in their garden in the early hours of the morning. Her mother, a science teacher, gently guided her tiny fingers to collect yellow and orange pollen from one flower and carefully transfer it to another.
Days later, those flowers would begin transforming into fruits and vegetables.
To the little girl, it felt like magic. Fascinated by the process, she returned to the garden every morning, eagerly checking on her flowers and waiting to see what they would become.
That little girl was me.
To my mother, it was simply a lesson in pollination, a basic scientific concept.
What neither of us realized was that this daily mother-daughter ritual was teaching something far more profound: how motivation and rewards shape human behavior, one of the most powerful ideas in psychology.
The excitement of discovery, the joy of nurturing growth, and the anticipation of seeing results created an enduring lesson about what drives human behavior and how meaningful rewards can reinforce it.
Many years later, those early mornings in my mother's garden continue to shape the way I think about my work. Today, I design reward programs for organizations. Much like my mother created the conditions for flowers to flourish, I help organizations create the conditions for people to thrive, perform, and achieve results.
Looking back, what began as a simple lesson in pollination became my first lesson in what motivates people to grow, perform, and flourish.
