How do intrinsic and extrinsic motivation differ?

In my fourth year of university I was doing a chemistry degree, and I knew I didn't want to go into chemistry partly because it didn't feel good. It didn't feel like the right step. I wanted something more social. And I remember having partaken in the milkround, which is where you get to be wined and dined by the bankers and the consultants and everything else. I remember thinking, "I should be a banker." My dad was a banker and my brother was a banker. And so I kind of explored that path a little bit because I thought maybe that's what is expected of me or where I should end up. And thank God I didn't get a job in banking, which is maybe telling in itself, but I think it would've destroyed me.I really think it would've been awful for me.

Instead, I did a summer away in Hong Kong. And I was speaking to a family friend who worked for EF Education. And she said, "Look, this is a great company. We're an international language school company. And we care about people's cultural exploration as well as their education and you could do some really cool stuff here". And I thought, I've never really heard of them. And is this really something that people will look at me and be like, "Oh, that's a cool job". But I applied anyway and I interviewed and they were really great. I got a job as a project manager in web at the time. And I'm just so happy that happened.

It was one of those chance things that happened, but ultimately they sort of moulded a job to me. And although it wasn't a company that like everyone knew about and was like, "Oh, you do that," and it wasn’t a job that people could talk about that everyone could understand. It wasn't any of those things, which did frustrate me a little bit with the extrinsic motivation side of it, but ended up being so good for me and kind of started me off on this amazing career in tech. That I'm so grateful for and did really well in. So I think that for me is a really good example of the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations.