Two inner forces can drive a person to use all of his capabilities. He can be competence-driven or achievement-driven. The former concerns itself with job or task mastery. A virtuoso violinist who continues to practice day after day is obviously moved by something other than a need for esteem and recognition. He works to sharpen his own skill, trying to do a little bit better this time than the time before, just as a teenager on a skateboard practices the same trick over and over again. The same teenager may not sit still for ten minutes to do homework, but on a skateboard he is relentless, driven by the self-actualization need, a need to get better that has no limit. The achievement-driven path to self-actualization is not quite like this. Some people—not the majority—are moved by an abstract need to achieve in all that they do.
— High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove