slightly contrarian view.

don’t rely on motivation. Rely on discipline. motivation ebbs and is generally reliant on external signal, i.e. its reliant on the dopamine hit of reward, that makes it susceptible to external influences.

I work with over 50 startups, and the founders that seem to have the most success are the ones that are extremely disciplined - they are ‘routine machines’ - everything runs like clockwork, they make decisions factually based on data and minimise the impact of their emotions on the decisions they make. additionally they show a focused passion for solving the specific problem their business addresses, for them, its not about other peoples acknowledgement as much as it is about solving the puzzle perfectly. they see the signal of success in terms of their business value and revenue growth over any subjective ‘pat on the back’

TL;DR - emotional support is a vanity metric; you’ll know if you’re doing the right thing by the health of your balance sheet.