More Than a Push: Part Two – The Stage Play

Imagine a stage play where the lead actor never leaves their character. Even after the curtain closes, they continue the performance—backstage, in the hallway, in the parking lot. The audience has gone home, but the actor remains in costume, repeating lines, staying in posture, afraid that stepping out of the role might mean losing the identity they’ve come to embody.

This is what motivation can look like in education and other careers when it becomes performance. Let’s be clear here: this is not performance as engagement or a simple measure of whether someone is doing their job, but performance as professional currency. Professional currency is the value a person believes they bring to their job based on how much they show, give, or prove. It’s the ‘credit’ we think we earn by being ever-present, ever-providing, and ever-performing. For many educators and other professionals, particularly those engaged in identity-driven or justice-centered work, motivation becomes inseparable from the expectation to 'show up strong'—to prove that their presence is earned constantly, their purpose is justified, and their value is intact.

We often confuse this ongoing performance with passion. We applaud it. Reward it. But what if it isn’t sustainable? What if the need to always appear driven is masking a quiet depletion, or worse, an unspoken fear that rest signals weakness?This article explores motivation not just as a psychological trait, but as a performative and cultural expectation—an invisible contract that often demands more than it gives back. And it begins with a necessary question: Is motivation truly equitable—and can it become harmful?

The Education and Training Landscape

In education and many mission-driven sectors, motivation is rarely just personal. It becomes cultural currency: a way of signaling value, alignment, and worthiness to institutions, communities, and ourselves.

While my previous reflections centered on how motivation can shift into emotional pressure in culturally responsive classrooms, this article takes the next step. Here, I want to examine motivation as a performative, often transactional force—a silent system of expectations that operates not only within the individual, but across race, role, and institutional design.

The guiding question I’ve been wrestling with is this: Is motivation equitable, and can it become harmful? It’s a question that deserves further research, because we don’t often interrogate motivation. We celebrate it. We reward it. But we rarely ask who pays for it, and how.

The Performance of Being “Called”

For many educators, particularly those doing identity-affirming or equity-based work, the idea of being “called” to the classroom becomes more than a reason to teach; it becomes a cultural expectation. You’re not just here to teach—you’re here to save, to heal, to represent.

This expectation is rarely stated, but deeply felt. And it can quietly turn motivation into a performative tool—a way to validate your presence in spaces where others are allowed to just “do their job,” while you must constantly demonstrate your emotional commitment.

That emotional labor carries a cost. And again I ask: Is this version of motivation equally distributed—or is it more often demanded from those teaching at the margins?

Motivation as a Systemic Mechanism

What if motivation isn’t just a personal trait, but a systemic mechanism?

In many school systems, workplaces, and nonprofits, what gets rewarded is not just competence—it’s unrelenting drive.

- The teacher who works past exhaustion.

- The leader who performs with passion even when they are empty.

- The Black woman who must “show up strong” to be seen as worthy.

These behaviors are often labeled as “motivated.” But what if they are really signs of over-functioning within a system that refuses to shift?

And what happens when motivation becomes not an internal compass, but a form of compliance with harmful norms?

From Cultural Currency to Internal Compass

Here’s where I believe emotional intelligence can reorient us. Motivation must be decoupled from performance and redefined as alignment with purpose, boundaries, and self-awareness.

I’ve seen this clearly through my work with emotionally intelligent men, my podcast on ancestral legacy, and my research in identity-driven education. What emerges again and again is this:

- The healthiest leaders are not the most visibly motivated.

- They are the most aligned, the most emotionally present, and the most honest about when their drive needs rest.

This reframing allows motivation to evolve from a proof of belonging to a strategy for longevity.

Conclusion: A Case for Interrogating Motivation

Motivation is not neutral. It is shaped, distributed, and sometimes weaponized.

The question we must now ask as educators, leaders, and scholars is not just how to cultivate motivation, but how to critique it.

- Is motivation truly equitable?

- Can it unintentionally reinforce systems of overwork, invisibility, or burnout?

- And how might redefining motivation lead to more sustainable, inclusive learning environments?

This is the next step. Not just modeling emotional intelligence—but interrogating the invisible scripts we’ve inherited about what it means to care, to lead, and to endure.

What does motivation cost you—and who decided it should be that expensive? It’s time we stepped out of costume—not because the play is over, but because the role needs rewriting.