The Art of Manliness - #491： Everything You Know About Passion is Wrong

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:18.400 passion is a word that's been thrown around a lot these last few decades people have a vague

00:00:23.060 notion that passion is a very good thing and that they're supposed to find it in their work

00:00:26.800 and lives but beyond passion as a buzzword its realities are actually very little discussed

00:00:30.680 and seldomly well understood i guess they set out to correct this deficit in their new book

00:00:34.780 the passion paradox a guide to going all in finding success and discovering the benefits

00:00:39.320 of an unbalanced life the names are brad stolberg and steve magnus i had them on the show last year

00:00:43.800 to discuss their book peak performance today we talk about the parts of passion that rarely get

00:00:47.960 talked about it has both a positive and a negative side how the advice to find your passion isn't very

00:00:52.900 useful and the three things you need to really grow your passion we also discuss why going all

00:00:57.380 in on your passion too early can lead to long-term failure how passion can lead individuals to cheat

00:01:02.260 to get and stay ahead and why embracing the six pillars of the mastery mindset can help negate

00:01:07.020 the negative sides of passion and harness its positive powers we end our conversation discussing

00:01:11.160 how it's okay to have an unbalanced life and what to do if you can no longer do the thing you're

00:01:15.500 passionate about we simply stop being passionate about your work after the show's over check out

00:01:19.520 our show notes at aom.is slash passion paradox all right brad stolberg steve magnus welcome back to

00:01:34.440 the show thanks so much for having us we love the show so it's great to be back so you guys got a new

00:01:38.840 book out last time we talked about peak performance and why even in the mental game and work performance

00:01:44.820 sort of the rest is important to recover we talked about the stress adaptation recovery process

00:01:49.260 even our mental game this one is about passion which gets a lot of talk on the interwebs sometimes

00:01:55.540 it's a good thing sometimes a bad thing you guys take a very nuanced look at it so let's talk about

00:02:00.160 brad like what how is this book the passion paradox how is that a continuation of what you guys started in

00:02:06.100 your first book so the the first book was as you said really about what are the the core principles

00:02:12.620 required to achieve and sustain peak performance so none of the hacks that are gonna make you feel

00:02:20.100 really good for a few days and then you get bored or you burn out but much more what are what are the

00:02:24.940 fundamental foundational pillars that a whole a whole career and lifetime of performing really well

00:02:30.300 can rest on and what steve and i realized at the end of that book was that there was this stone that

00:02:37.000 we left uncovered almost because it was too big of a stone it needs its own book and that's that's the

00:02:42.360 book that we end up we ended up writing which is passion nearly all of the peak performers that we

00:02:48.200 interviewed for the book the individuals that we coach both in business and in athletics the vast majority

00:02:54.400 of them have this inability to feel content it's like a drive that is a never-ending well and this drive

00:03:02.480 is often celebrated but this drive can also lead to all kinds of problems and when steve and i started

00:03:08.900 looking at the research on passion what we found is that the the word currently is used in a very

00:03:14.980 positive connotation fine follow your passion and everything else will be blissful you'll have a great

00:03:20.040 life but tracing the word back it wasn't always like that at first the etymology of passion comes from

00:03:24.960 passio which means to suffer and the passion paradox the title of the book is just that that will

00:03:31.160 passion can be a wonderful life energizing force a gift that can help propel you to great things

00:03:37.460 if you're not careful it can also become a curse and sometimes being passionate can feel like both

00:03:42.660 things at once so that's the passion paradox then yeah it's a gift and a curse well i mean steve you

00:03:48.040 know as i said people talk a lot about passion sort of you know you read entrepreneur books uh you know

00:03:53.340 going for your dreams but like i feel like when people talk about passion in this positive way that we're

00:03:58.480 that they typically talk about like they're saying different things so what what does that positive

00:04:02.580 what does that positive passion look like yeah so what we found in our research is exactly that that

00:04:08.940 there's two types of passion almost like a positive and a negative but in research world they call it

00:04:15.520 obsessive and harmonious like the positive side is when you're doing an activity you're pursuing an

00:04:23.440 activity or a job because you enjoy that activity in and of itself right when your goal becomes the

00:04:30.620 path and your path becomes the goal kind of i think the biggest thing is you have control over it on the

00:04:37.880 negative side the obsessive side what happens is you start pursuing that activity for external rewards for

00:04:45.560 validation you're you almost become like blind to any sort of a downfall or negative impact that it could

00:04:53.360 have on you and you know the way i like to separate it is it's almost like that passion becomes the

00:05:00.560 controller so it's no longer you're pursuing this because you want to it's almost like you're pursuing

00:05:06.900 it because you have to so speaking to that point you guys talk about some of the biology and psychology

00:05:13.000 that goes on whenever we feel passionate both in that positive and negative sense so like brad what what

00:05:18.240 goes on what goes on in our brain and in our physiology whenever we feel like that positive

00:05:24.080 passion so what's interesting is that when we feel the positive passion or the negative passion what's

00:05:30.900 happening in the brain is actually quite similar and that is there's a enormous release of the

00:05:36.240 neurochemical dopamine and that is the neurochemical of desire so it's not so much associated with the

00:05:43.500 achievement of a reward but it's associated with the pursuit of an award it is also the neurochemical

00:05:50.680 that is implicated in lots of addictions so another really interesting thing that came up on the nuance of

00:05:57.700 this topic is that passion resembles addiction in so many ways the definition of addiction is the relentless

00:06:05.160 pursuit of something despite negative consequences now if you're training for the olympics or if you're an

00:06:11.600 entrepreneur starting a company where you know the odds are 99 against you that can often feel like

00:06:17.980 the relentless pursuit of something despite negative consequences at least despite negative probabilities

00:06:23.100 there's also quite a strong linkage between the feeling of passion and mental illness an example that i

00:06:29.240 always like to use is if you think of an olympic swimmer who is spending six to eight hours a day

00:06:35.620 staring at a line in a pool and if they miss a workout they become very anxious about the fact that

00:06:41.380 they miss the workout there are stories of olympians that when they're traveling they're waking up at two

00:06:45.100 in the morning because they have to get their workout in that's very similar to obsessive compulsive

00:06:49.440 disorder where the obsession is the olympics or the the mastery of a pursuit and then the compulsion

00:06:56.140 is swimming the difference is that society celebrates olympians and we call that a productive passion

00:07:02.080 whereas if you had the same passion for even maybe video games are now considered an addiction

00:07:07.420 suddenly it's a negative thing so again that's the paradox that there's this there's this part of

00:07:12.380 it like steve says which is do you control your passion or does it control you but there's also

00:07:17.240 this part of it well what direction is it pointed in if i'm playing video games nine hours a day

00:07:22.180 because i want to be a professional gamer depending on what community i'm in that might be seen as

00:07:26.840 something that needs psychotherapy if i'm swimming nine hours a day because i'm pursuing the olympics

00:07:31.660 i'm a hero so it's it's this really fine line same thing with entrepreneurial pursuits you know

00:07:37.760 there's there's there's a level of optimism that the behavioral scientist dan kahneman has called

00:07:43.280 delusion and to be a good entrepreneur you have to be a little bit delusional so these are the

00:07:48.660 interesting topics that we we wanted to explore because it's just not so straightforward so it sounds

00:07:53.440 like passion be either be positive negative so it's pretty much the same thing the same sort of

00:07:58.320 things that desire to to achieve something but it can be positive or negative depending on context

00:08:03.760 right so if you're a professional gamer and you're like in a family of doctors well that's your passion

00:08:09.500 for your video game is going to be seen as negative but then also it can be negative or positive depending

00:08:14.860 on whether you have control over the passion yeah exactly that's well said so there's if we're going

00:08:21.840 to be like really logical and i love how you just broke that down there's what direction are you

00:08:26.060 pointing your passion in so is it pointed in a productive direction or a destructive direction

00:08:30.360 because you could really be passionate about like scoring your next hit of math and that is

00:08:35.000 certainly not positive let's assume that you're pointing it in a productive direction then the next

00:08:40.580 layer is do you have control over it or does it have control over you so let's talk about this

00:08:46.340 idea of finding your passion because there's a lot of books written about that and we've also had

00:08:50.220 guests on the podcast like cal newport wrote a book called so good they can't ignore you we kind of

00:08:54.100 made the case like following your passion can be kind of dumb sometimes and you guys talk about that

00:08:59.640 finding your passion and again the the advice you give is is nuanced so you know steve when people

00:09:05.400 typically spit out the advice of finding your passion what do they mean and how is that sort of typical

00:09:11.560 idea of finding your passion can lead you that that sort of negative passion yeah you know i think the

00:09:19.080 best way to look at it is actually a comparison to love right so we have this idea that you know

00:09:27.040 there's a soulmate out there for us that there's this one person that you know will fill our holes 0.76

00:09:32.860 and our relationships and make us a better person well that idea i love didn't exist in the until around

00:09:40.980 the beginning of the 20th century right when romanticism started taking over and you know we saw all these

00:09:47.720 disney movies getting made and stuff and that kind of puts this idea of soulmate into our mindset well

00:09:54.440 the same thing happens in with passion so we had we developed this idea in the 20th century that there's

00:10:01.880 one fit for our activity or job that we'd like to desire and that's what researchers started calling

00:10:09.860 the fit mindset of passion where there's one thing that we need to do or that

00:10:15.200 when we start a new pursuit we should instantly feel passionate about it and it turns out that if

00:10:22.740 you look at research and surveys and stuff almost 80 percent of people believe in this fit mindset view

00:10:30.040 of passion that they need to feel this instant connection right that they need to go find something

00:10:36.220 that they're passionate about and it turns out that not only is that wrong but there's negative consequences

00:10:43.140 for that right and and some of those are that if you think that you have to find a passion that

00:10:49.980 anytime you pursue something the first sign of challenge or the first sign of adversity that shows

00:10:57.480 that oh this might not be uh easy this might not be the thing that i'm in love with doing is people

00:11:03.980 will turn away so we're more likely to give up we're more likely to move on so instead kind of what we've

00:11:11.040 found and what we you know professed is instead of find your passion dabble in things that you're

00:11:17.700 interested in and then see if they can develop into passions this is so okay there's the dabbling part

00:11:23.980 so but how do you let's say you've how do you recognize when you think there's something there that you

00:11:29.140 could become passionate about and like once you do how do you grow it in a way where you don't have

00:11:35.500 those downsides of like the fit mindset of passion where uh you have some adversity or you maybe you

00:11:41.540 have a time you kind of get bored with it that you don't give up right away yeah so that's a good

00:11:47.480 question so you know what you find with is first you have to have that mindset right of okay passion is

00:11:54.200 something that can grow it's not something that is fixed so that's step number one once you have that

00:11:59.840 is you know we're really good at this when we're young right we're really good as kids is dabbling

00:12:05.980 in different things that we're interested in and then figuring out and finding the things that we're

00:12:10.620 pretty good at and the things that we enjoy over time and it turns out that you know we can almost

00:12:16.440 predict those to degree based on if they fill kind of some basic needs and what a group of psychologists

00:12:23.760 and researchers developed this theory which is called self-determination theory that says we need

00:12:29.040 basically three main things to keep us satisfied right so if we're pursuing a passion or a job if

00:12:35.940 we have these three main things then it's likely that that we'll enjoy it and develop and all that

00:12:42.880 good stuff and those things are number one is competency so what that means is we need to be able to feel

00:12:49.360 like we're making progress like we're becoming competent right the second one is autonomy so we have to

00:12:56.440 have some sort of degree of control right so if we're in a job or if our passion is something

00:13:03.340 that a boss dictates everything and we have no freedom or expression then the likelihood of us

00:13:10.020 developing into something that is a positive passion for us is very low so some sort of degree of

00:13:16.520 autonomy and then the third and final thing is called relatedness which means that we need to feel

00:13:23.160 connected to either the other people who are pursuing this with us let's say a job or that this has

00:13:31.460 something bigger than ourselves some greater meaning so this passion might be towards impacting the greater

00:13:37.880 good of of humanity or something like that so it's those three things those three needs that we really

00:13:44.020 need to be be filled uh competency autonomy and relatedness yeah the competency factors i think is what cal

00:13:51.520 newport talked about in his book that oftentimes the thing that makes you passionate or like about your

00:13:56.620 works like you're good at it and like getting good at something that takes time and it might take years

00:14:01.660 before you get good at it and i thought that really changed the way i looked at passion getting good at

00:14:06.080 something can bring you satisfaction and enjoyment in the long run yeah and i think i think you know

00:14:11.080 steve made the point a little while ago about the the the relationship to romantic love and it's pretty

00:14:17.900 similar right like anyone that's been in a long-term relationship knows that love kind of grows as you

00:14:24.220 nurture it and if you're good at nurturing it and that often results from good communication in a

00:14:29.640 partnership then then the love grows and it's been widely reported recently in buzzfeed and in the

00:14:36.120 atlantic that particularly in the millennial generation less people are finding love and in people

00:14:41.980 hypothesize researchers hypothesize that this is because there's this expectation

00:14:46.000 that i'm going to meet the perfect person and now that there's all these online dating apps

00:14:51.160 such as tinder and okcupid it feels like the playing field is so big so therefore of course i

00:14:57.480 should keep searching otherwise i'm going to settle and i think the same exact thing is true for passion

00:15:02.240 we're so interconnected that it feels like oh if i can't find the perfect thing for me in the universe

00:15:08.120 then i'm going to keep on searching and i think having that bar set so high just keeps you searching

00:15:13.900 okay so you dabble with different things you find something that provides competency autonomy and

00:15:21.520 relatedness and you find that and you keep working at it and you can sort of nurture that good passion

00:15:26.060 and avoid the downsides of a fit mindset passion but another idea you hear when people talk or write

00:15:31.640 about passion is this idea you got to go all in from the beginning right you got to burn boats

00:15:35.680 and just no escape hatches available if you really want to pursue your passion what does your research

00:15:42.540 say about that brad so um it's kind of a theme of this book is everything that you've heard about

00:15:48.340 passion is wrong research says the exact opposite that the best way to cultivate a passion and to do it

00:15:54.560 in a way that can can stick with you for a long period of time is to do it gradually there's this

00:16:00.240 there's this notion that steve and i came up with uh around keeping your day job and what this

00:16:05.500 means is just that so as you said you're dabbling in your interest you find something that you're

00:16:08.540 competent in maybe it's writing maybe it's blogging could be podcasting could be woodwork and everyone

00:16:14.400 all the self-help books are going to say all right you found your must so you should quit your job and

00:16:18.820 go all in not true what ends up happening when you do that is suddenly you need to have an income

00:16:24.560 and that creates an enormous pressure most people don't perform well under that pressure and even if

00:16:30.420 they do perform well under that pressure it forces them to perhaps expedite the the path

00:16:36.380 and also to take on work that they might not otherwise want to take on so the example there

00:16:41.940 is someone that becomes passionate about writing quits their job and then suddenly they have to

00:16:46.460 churn out you know nine listicle articles every week just to pay rent this is also true not just in

00:16:52.360 creative pursuits but in more standard conventional corporate pursuits so there's some research that's been

00:16:58.640 covered in the harvard business review that shows that entrepreneurs who start their companies

00:17:04.920 is a side gig while keeping their day jobs are about 33 percent more likely to have successful

00:17:11.520 companies five ten years later on and the reason for that is is is exactly what i just said in the

00:17:17.180 creative pursuits if you're starting the company on the side you have much more freedom to take

00:17:22.520 meaningful risks whereas if suddenly you've got to pay the bills you can't take those risks and a huge

00:17:29.000 part about starting a passionate pursuit is the ability to have some freedom and autonomy to take risks

00:17:34.160 no i love that advice and like i've seen it play out my own life you know the art of manliness i

00:17:39.660 started this when i was in law school as a part-time thing and it took about three or four years before

00:17:45.640 i could do it full-time and even then like i was still hedging my bets considerably until i was finally

00:17:51.860 okay yes i can do this so yeah whenever i have people ask me for advice like hey should i just like

00:17:56.220 go in i'm like no just keep your day job and wait a few years before you know this is a sure thing

00:18:00.760 totally it's it's funny that you say that so i know in in my own case um let's see i applied to

00:18:08.500 journalism school in high school when i was 17 for college i didn't get in so like any other 17 year

00:18:14.600 old i'm like oh guess i'm not going to be a writer came back to writing when i started triathlon and it

00:18:18.820 was cool to have a blog i wrote a blog that nobody read except for me for two years got a lucky break

00:18:25.200 had an article published wrote unpaid for the huffington post for another year started writing

00:18:31.000 like 50 articles for men's fitness all while having another job and it wasn't for a good six

00:18:36.780 years of writing that writing became even a somewhat sizable proportion of my income and it wasn't until

00:18:43.360 eight years in a published book that now i actually call myself a writer i loved it eight years ago but it

00:18:48.520 was a very gradual process and i'm pretty sure that if i would have gone all in i would not have ended up

00:18:53.380 where i am all right so i like that idea it's because it's counterintuitive you have to be

00:18:57.160 conservative to uh take big risks it reminds me of we've had nasim talib on the podcast and his barbell

00:19:03.440 strategy where he's like you know you sort of investment strategy but also strategy towards life

00:19:08.020 is you have one thing where it's like very conservative and and then you have another part

00:19:13.040 where you like take lots of risk but you can do those risks because you have that conserve those

00:19:16.520 conservative assets there with you exactly i think nasim talib talks about being an accountant and a

00:19:22.200 rock star at the same time right right oh and he all i mean he highlights people like uh you know

00:19:26.920 a lot of famous poets and writers like they had really boring jobs like bankers right and and they

00:19:32.140 did their writing on you know they moonlighted their writing but they reasoned they could do their

00:19:36.280 writing is because they had the boring the boring job okay let's talk about this idea of we found our

00:19:43.600 passion we're nurturing it it's coming along we're staying in the rails on the sort of that positive

00:19:48.340 passion but how can even positive passion start going awry steve yeah so it's interesting because

00:19:56.040 no one sets out to have obsessive or negative passion right it all starts out from a good place and

00:20:03.520 and when we started looking at people who had this you know negative side of passion they all started

00:20:10.020 out with either being brilliant entrepreneurs or like exceptional athletes who were trying to change

00:20:17.580 the world or improve their team's performance to a great degree but then ended up being derailed

00:20:23.900 and what tends to happen the reason you go towards that negative side is is two reasons is one is that

00:20:32.440 the external markers of success the external rewards start becoming predominantly the thing that you're

00:20:40.220 looking at so it becomes more important to you know um make a certain amount of money or win the game

00:20:48.200 then it does to you know originally that you enjoyed it and what you were trying to do in your mission to

00:20:55.560 change whatever that's number one and then number two that happens is your identity becomes wrapped around

00:21:03.540 what you do so you can't separate that hey i am let's say a runner versus i am a person who runs and is

00:21:14.300 trying to make the olympics like there's a difference there and when our identity becomes wrapped up into it so

00:21:20.200 far then if we lose let's say we lose a race or we fail or our book launch fails or our you know next

00:21:29.920 business opportunity fails it's not just that i failed at my job it's that i myself am a failure

00:21:36.840 so when you get those things tied together when you get your identity wrapped around what you're doing

00:21:42.400 and you get failures and these downsides what happens is it creates this obsessive passion

00:21:48.380 where your goal becomes almost to survive and make sure that you know you keep the appearances of that

00:21:55.340 everything is being successful so you start to have this fear of failure this playing not to lose

00:22:00.660 this fear being the short-term motivator and what happens again if you look at it from a business

00:22:07.260 standpoint if you look at it from you know people like jeff skilling at enron who was extremely brilliant

00:22:14.720 at the start of his career and you know touted passion as a virtue then cheated cook the books and did all

00:22:22.560 this stuff or if you look at from an athletic standpoint an individual like alex rodriguez who

00:22:28.480 was a phenomenal player as a youth phenomenal playing in the mba or mlb when he was 19 20 years old

00:22:36.460 great player but succumbed to using steroids later on the research backs that up if you tend towards the

00:22:43.880 obsessive style passion you're more likely to cheat you're more likely to plagiarize you're more likely to

00:22:50.840 bend the rules because winning or accomplishing this external goal is more important than anything

00:22:58.180 else we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show but

00:23:04.860 that's again this is another fine line because those external goals i mean don't they kind of play a role

00:23:09.420 in motivation and i mean so how do we how do we still have use those external goals for motivation which

00:23:16.120 which is nice to get those dopamine hits that you see your book doing well or you get a's you get

00:23:22.040 accolades from people but without falling into the trap where it becomes the end-all be-all yeah so i think

00:23:27.900 that it like you said it's tricky and it's nuanced and as we write in the book that unless you have

00:23:33.740 extensive zen meditation training it's very hard to not care about those external validators and those

00:23:42.840 markers of success what steve and i believe in born out by our reporting and research is that so long

00:23:50.600 as you keep about 51 of your motivation coming from within then you're safe so as long as the majority

00:23:58.860 of your motivation comes from within because it should feel good to succeed it feels great to write a

00:24:04.400 best-selling book i'm sure it feels great to have a top podcast it feels great to get promoted

00:24:08.620 the the thing is that as great as that feels the work itself and what you're doing or at least some

00:24:16.020 greater purpose for doing it needs to always be greater and this does not happen automatically

00:24:21.400 right it's not just like i can tell myself oh i'm gonna i'm gonna make sure that my drive stays from

00:24:26.120 within it's actually something that has to be practiced because as steve said what happens is that

00:24:31.520 if you're not careful even if your drive starts from within or you've kept your drive from within

00:24:36.220 there are so many external barometers that that really like take a claim in your psyche and very

00:24:43.480 quickly they can get a hold of you and suddenly you thought you were driven from within but you're

00:24:48.180 actually a slave to getting the promotion or a slave to recognition or a slave to hitting the next you

00:24:53.400 know 2 000 twitter followers or whatever it might be so another common notion that we dispel is that

00:24:59.900 passion isn't just this one-time thing it's not like oh i have my passion i'm driven from within

00:25:03.940 now everything's going to be good but it's actually it's an ongoing practice and there are concrete

00:25:09.240 steps that you can take to help keep your drive predominantly coming from within i mean yeah the

00:25:15.400 other downside and you talk about this in the book of using external markers that yeah you'll experience

00:25:19.820 that dopamine hit we'll call it and it feels good but like you get used to it and you have to move

00:25:25.540 on to something else and it's always you're never satisfied basically yeah i mean as we talked about

00:25:32.960 earlier i think brad mentioned it is that passion and addiction are close cousins right

00:25:37.840 so it's no no different than you know being a drug addict where you need more more drugs more

00:25:43.920 frequently etc etc to satisfy things the same thing happens when you're looking at pursuing your passion

00:25:51.660 and you know utilizing external rewards for it is we need bigger performances you know i i think we can

00:25:59.480 all relate to this in our own life you know as a writer i can remember the first time i got something

00:26:05.360 published and being ah through the roof you know nowadays it's not that big of a deal like i'm not

00:26:12.020 going to get any dopamine hit from doing that so what you really have to do is again step back and separate

00:26:19.660 things so that you don't go down this almost like vicious cycle of needing more more more which can put

00:26:26.320 you on this path to obsessive passion and that obsessive passion can make you or cause you to

00:26:31.620 make choices you might regret later on so how do you funnel that passion that's energy towards the

00:26:38.560 positive where you're motivated from an internal source how does that happen brad yeah so again i think

00:26:45.820 it's key for for listeners to hear and not hold themselves to such a high bar where suddenly you don't

00:26:50.760 feel good i mean we felt great when you reached out to us and said you wanted to have us on the podcast

00:26:54.480 and we make sure that that that stays a even if it's a slim but a slim minority of motivation

00:27:01.260 so based on all the research and reporting that we did in our work coaching entrepreneurs executives

00:27:07.760 and athletes steve and i developed something that we like to call the mastery mindset and the mastery

00:27:13.880 mindset has six pillars all of which are fairly mindset based but that have concrete practices

00:27:20.380 underneath them that are a part of practice of passion and keeping it harmonious so the first

00:27:26.480 pillar is this notion of drive from within which we've talked a lot about how do you keep drive from

00:27:32.320 within we like to call it the 24 hour rule so this is any time that you have a huge success

00:27:38.280 or if you have a terrible failure give yourself 24 hours to celebrate the success or grieve the defeat

00:27:46.160 but then after that 24 hours get back to the work there's something about getting back to the work

00:27:52.060 that that just comes with all of this humility if you've had a great success and you get back to the

00:27:58.800 work you're very quickly reminded that wow like i have to start again and this is hard but i like the

00:28:03.840 work if you had a bad failure anyone can tell you that getting back to the work it just almost fills that

00:28:09.780 gap because you're like okay i can try again i can do this what i really like about this is the work

00:28:13.680 itself not the outcome the second part of the mastery mindset is to to have this notion of process over

00:28:21.180 outcomes so you might have this big grand outcome which is to publish a book or to start a business

00:28:27.000 or to become a vice president at your company or to have some kind of groundbreaking scientific

00:28:31.740 breakthrough but once you have that outcome that outcome goal should become this north star that

00:28:37.120 you're shooting for and you should have all of these small process markers that are under your

00:28:41.460 control along the way so did i write 500 words a day did i did i challenge myself to speak more at a

00:28:48.440 meeting the difference is that when you're focused on the process you're validating and measuring

00:28:52.900 yourself on all things that you can control whereas if you're super focused on outcomes then things are

00:28:59.120 outside of your control uh another huge part of the mastery mindset is this notion of embracing

00:29:05.020 embracing acute failure for chronic gains so again if your long-term goal is mastery is developing a

00:29:13.240 lifelong passion suddenly failure isn't like this end-all be-all terrible event it's actually an

00:29:18.760 opportunity to learn to gain more information so you can keep on going uh and then the last three

00:29:24.440 elements of the mastery mindset are to have this best goal of getting better so if your goal is to get

00:29:30.660 better then any success isn't an end point and any failure is just information and then to be present

00:29:37.040 and to be patient so again it's drive from within process over outcomes embrace acute failure for

00:29:43.940 chronic gains the best goal is to get better cultivate presence and be patient and um that process over

00:29:50.800 outcomes made me like the thing that came to mind as i was reading that as you were talking again was

00:29:54.940 like you know great coaches like bill walsh who you know he wrote the book uh the score takes care of

00:30:00.700 itself where he established these these metrics these processes that the san francisco 49ers are going

00:30:05.900 to do and it didn't matter if this the game you know they won the game as long as they did these

00:30:11.420 things these own personal benchmarks they'd be okay and like he turned this team it used to be like the

00:30:15.400 worst team in the nfl turned it around one super bowl like the next year same thing with john

00:30:21.300 wooden he had the same sort of out the same sort of mindset process over outcome yeah and what's

00:30:27.000 interesting is like if you look back to like original buddhist text or stoicism like we're talking

00:30:33.380 like you know bc uh before the modern calendar the greatest minds were saying the same things

00:30:40.300 so i think it's interesting like you mentioned bill walsh or wooden or more recently greg popovich or bill

00:30:46.820 bill a check like the more that you see these patterns the more that we're i have confidence

00:30:53.140 in saying these things are probably true so yeah like a process over outcome and even in parenting

00:30:57.960 like i've got an 11 month old now and it's so tempting to be like is he walking is he talking

00:31:03.500 is he meeting these milestones but that's kind of dumb because development's non-linear so it's

00:31:08.620 the better thing is much more like is he playing you know are we reading to him is he smiling

00:31:13.520 and i think that this process over outcome thing again it's tricky because in the current ethos it

00:31:19.200 requires swimming upstream because everything seems so outcome-based today but yeah that's not a recipe

00:31:25.420 for long-term success nor for for health and well-being so this is other idea that you hear when

00:31:31.640 people write about passion on blogs what and books that you can be passionate about something your work

00:31:38.100 your hobby or whatever it is but also have a balanced life is that paul is it possible you

00:31:43.260 both passionate and balanced at the same time you know like most things we've talked about there's a

00:31:48.600 nuanced answer but you know in our opinion it's not you can't right so balance and passion are almost

00:31:55.620 antithetical right so think about any time you've been in the throes of doing something passionate

00:32:01.880 whether that's in you know in the zone in writing or like in the zone during a basketball game or

00:32:08.940 whatever it is you're doing like or even during love right when you're first falling in love like

00:32:14.460 you are literally completely consumed by that activity that is the only thing that you're thinking about

00:32:21.820 you're not thinking about you know what you're going to make for dinner or your kids at home or

00:32:26.980 anything like that like passion is being fully consumed so i i think you know what we found is

00:32:34.300 that trying to be balanced and devoting equal proportions of time and energy to other areas of our lives

00:32:40.400 like that detracts from the experience of being passionate so instead again what we found is that

00:32:49.040 everything has this kind of consequence right one of the persons we profiled in the book warren buffett

00:32:54.980 has this immense passion for uh investing right but his father or his son said he had to work really

00:33:05.140 hard to be good at living right because he was really passionate about investing but this other side

00:33:11.340 wasn't that good at it so we had to almost there was this trade-off to do it and if you look at other

00:33:17.300 figures in history for instance gandhi was incredibly amazing at what he did and for india and

00:33:23.660 bringing peace and all that stuff but he was also kind of a poor father that doesn't mean that gandhi

00:33:29.200 is a bad person or anything like that it's just that when you're passionate about something you're going

00:33:34.560 to be inherently unbalanced so it's almost accepting that and understanding that but how do you how do you

00:33:42.640 balance that with you like other people right so talking about you you mentioned family life

00:33:46.060 that's sort of suffering because of individuals being passionate about something so

00:33:50.160 like what do you what do you tell your family like do you have this conversation like look

00:33:55.020 i love you guys but this thing this thing's more i mean do you have to say like it's more important

00:34:00.180 like what do you what do you do yeah you know i think the big thing and what we we kind of profess

00:34:05.880 is that you need to have self-awareness to understand what your trade-off is right so is it something

00:34:12.880 that you're going to neglect right is it hey i'm gonna neglect my family for a little bit right and that sounds

00:34:20.200 horrible to do but the other part of that is is having the ability to step back and zoom in and out of your

00:34:27.060 passion right so it's this thing of hey maybe during this time frame like i'm going to be all consumed by

00:34:35.340 this entrepreneurial job that i'm doing but when i get home at six o'clock like it's all family and i'm

00:34:44.580 gonna try to forget about this a little bit and it's it's really about creating that self-awareness to

00:34:51.140 to be able to ensure that you're in charge of making those choices and evaluating the trade-offs and

00:34:58.140 knowing what you might be missing out on the other hand and if if you can do that you're okay you know i

00:35:04.780 think back to actually a formative experience in uh in high school for me which is when my coach in

00:35:12.440 high school i ran track and cross country we were on the brink of being really good i ended up being

00:35:18.380 the fastest miler in the in the country for high school that year but before that season i remember

00:35:23.800 our coach gerald stewart pulling us aside and saying hey guys if you're on this team and you're you're in

00:35:30.140 this journey like you can only be good or great at a couple things at a time i think he said like

00:35:36.680 two or three things at a time if you're gonna be on this team you're making this one thing

00:35:41.400 okay if you're going to school you should probably consider that but there's not much else left in

00:35:48.540 there and you might have to sacrifice and not go to the high school parties and do all these other

00:35:53.720 things like that and he was spot on like we were giving something up i was not balanced in doing

00:35:59.460 that but it was like you're aware of that choice and i think that's the big thing as long as you're

00:36:05.300 aware of it and you're understanding the choices that you're making then it's not bad to be unbalanced

00:36:10.920 at times i like that idea of being balanced some unbalanced sometimes it doesn't have to be all the

00:36:15.760 time because that would be like right going to pass you negative passion but it's okay to like

00:36:20.160 have periods where like you're completely unbalanced exactly i i mean i think of it look at brad and i

00:36:26.160 as we're writing this book there's times like for instance we're in the the deep throes of kind of

00:36:31.940 finalizing it where we are all consumed by hey we got to get this done when we go to launch this book

00:36:39.380 right those couple days surrounding launch time like we've set it aside and said hey we're all in on

00:36:45.520 this right you know i remember for for our first book peak performance the day it launched we were

00:36:50.680 like okay we're gonna do all this for launch stuff but then we're gonna step aside and we're gonna go

00:36:55.560 down to the gym and exercise and we're gonna leave our phones and all this other stuff alone and we

00:37:00.840 went to try and do that and it was impossible right we were on there checking to see how how the book

00:37:06.080 was selling and getting our little dopamine hits because at that time right we we almost made the

00:37:11.780 choices what's most important and and right now it's like promoting selling this book etc so it's

00:37:18.840 at different times points in your your life you kind of have to make that choice of hey what do i want

00:37:24.740 to be all consumed by and the biggest thing to keep make sure it doesn't turn negative is just have the

00:37:30.800 ability to step back right where it goes wrong is when someone gets all consumed and then they don't

00:37:37.080 have that ability to kind of zoom back out and be like hey wait a minute like i'm neglecting a b and

00:37:43.080 c over here do i really want to neglect that for any longer or do i have to start shifting my attention

00:37:49.220 to that brad were you gonna say something yeah i was i was just gonna add in to that you know the

00:37:54.400 the examples that steve gave like gandhi i mean yeah if you're gonna totally change the course of the

00:38:00.240 world odds are that's all that you're gonna do but the the well the same theme applies on smaller

00:38:07.000 scales you know you can start a company and still be a really good family person and you might not

00:38:12.940 have too many hobbies you might not be a great friend you might not be a great family member beyond

00:38:18.420 your your nuclear family and these are things that people don't like talking about but i think that

00:38:23.060 what frustrates a lot of people is the way that they that the culture talks about balance it's you

00:38:29.740 should be super passionate about your job you should take your kids to school you should have

00:38:33.460 four hobbies you should get beers with the guys once a week you should call your parents twice you

00:38:38.600 know like all of these stuff at once you just cannot do it and what ends up happening is it's a false

00:38:43.580 bar you don't reach it so you're really disappointed so as steve was saying like i i do think it's important

00:38:49.560 to to call out like yep like there are trade-offs if i really care about something inherently i'm

00:38:56.160 going to be less interested in and spend less time on other things and if you're forthright about that

00:39:00.880 and you bring those trade-offs to light then you can evaluate them be very deliberate in doing so

00:39:07.400 and then create boundaries and stick to those boundaries so in my case it really is right now

00:39:13.460 it's my work my family in a physical practice and even a physical practice i could say as a part of my

00:39:18.920 job because i'm most creative when i'm like when my body's in motion but besides the point

00:39:23.420 i'm not as good of a friend as i could be and there are times of the year when it's really bad

00:39:28.600 like when a book's coming out and then after that period i kind of double down on friendship

00:39:32.200 uh and i think that i know i sound like a broken record but this this this point hits me hard because

00:39:37.700 i see it in so many people trying to be everything to everyone at the same time and just disappointing

00:39:44.560 themselves and disappointing other people versus calling a spade a spade and saying you know what like

00:39:48.780 i'm this is a period of my life where i'm going all in on x and y and as a result w and z just

00:39:54.580 aren't going to get my attention and that's okay you can have it all but not all at once

00:39:59.700 yeah that you could you could edit me out for the last 30 seconds thank you

00:40:04.080 so here's another thing that you talk about when people think when they find their passion

00:40:09.760 like they'll always be passionate like it's they're done they found their like life's work

00:40:14.300 their life's mission but you guys talk about it's possible to get burnout even on your passion

00:40:20.280 so steve what's going on how how is it possible to get burnt out on a passion

00:40:23.680 i i mean i think it's possible to get burnout on anything is number one but it's it's like anything

00:40:31.260 right if you're investing all this time energy etc burnout can occur because burnout occurs generally

00:40:37.840 when you mess up what we called in our first book this this uh stress plus rest equals growth

00:40:44.840 equation is when you mess up this how hard are you stressing versus how much are you recovering

00:40:51.340 this balance cycle right it's no different than getting burnt out or fatigued from lifting weights

00:41:00.040 or running too much or whatever have you like i love running but i've been burnt out on running

00:41:06.920 because i messed up that balance and it's the same in passion if i go heavily invested and let's say

00:41:13.900 my job or writing whatever whatever have you and i don't give myself the time or space to recover

00:41:21.560 and step away from it then i'm gonna feel burnt out so you know it's it's again comes back to being

00:41:28.320 intentional about it and also setting your your life up so you understand that so that you understand

00:41:35.540 after a period where you're going you know let's say quote unquote all in on something that you have

00:41:41.580 some time to uh to recover and balance that out i think it was uh stephen king who who kind of said

00:41:49.100 for him that that not working is the real work right so he had to make it very obvious that hey

00:41:55.860 i need to step away from things and rest and recover and recharge so that i can do the work

00:42:03.120 at the level that i need to so you think of like so a good way to think of it is like rest is work

00:42:08.380 that probably help the overachievers that you want to go all the time it's like well actually

00:42:12.120 when you're resting you're actually working sort of a mind trick yeah yeah exactly it's a mindset

00:42:17.820 thing right because you know it's just like in the physical standpoint if we go lift weights we don't

00:42:25.120 get stronger when we're lifting weights we get stronger when our body is resting and recovering and

00:42:30.620 repairing things the same thing happens from a mental standpoint of you know if i'm going to learn

00:42:36.580 stuff i don't actually really learn it when i'm reading over material i learn it when my my brain is

00:42:42.880 kind of digesting and like cementing those as memories the same thing happens with pursuing whatever

00:42:48.880 passion it is is we need that period of rest recovery to make sure that we don't burn out well

00:42:55.720 another thing people don't talk about when it comes to passion is say you you discover something

00:43:00.380 you have success it's been going on for the long term but like it can't last sometimes it doesn't

00:43:05.800 last forever like sometimes maybe the thing you're passionate about you can just no longer do this

00:43:10.080 probably happens with athletes right because age they'll age out they can no longer pursue that

00:43:15.060 passion of theirs or it could just happen like you just aren't passionate about anymore i mean i'm not

00:43:20.760 talking like you're just temporarily burnt out like i'm talking about you really just lost your

00:43:25.080 passion for something altogether right but no one tells you like what do you do when that happens

00:43:30.380 so like what do you do when you can no longer do the thing you're passionate about i guess those are

00:43:34.380 two different situations the approach might be different it's like what happens when you can no

00:43:37.920 longer do the thing you're passionate about because of age because of changing business uh you know

00:43:43.280 market factors so what happens there then also what do you do when you're no longer passionate

00:43:47.980 about the thing you used to be passionate about so the i'll take the first one first which is what

00:43:53.700 do you do if if there's a change in the situation where you can no longer do the thing that you're

00:43:58.740 passionate about that is really really hard there is a reason that elite athletes suffer from anxiety

00:44:07.340 and depressive disorders at a greater rate than the normal population upon their retirement and there's

00:44:12.720 a reason that entrepreneurs who are forced to sell their companies or stop working also really

00:44:19.500 struggle with mood disorders and that is because if you are devoting so much of yourself to this thing

00:44:26.960 as steve mentioned if a portion of your identity is tied to this thing and suddenly you can't do the

00:44:31.920 thing well there is like a huge hole that was filled that is now open so how do you prevent this from

00:44:40.640 happening i think first and foremost is to know when you're going into a passion that it might not be

00:44:46.500 forever and that's a really good motivating force to make sure that you're diversifying yourself

00:44:52.300 at least enough where if you had to stop doing what you're doing in an extreme life still feels good

00:44:59.180 and at the very least worth living i think the second thing is is you're reaching a transition period

00:45:05.820 just because you have to leave the thing that you're passionate about doesn't mean that you leave

00:45:10.020 all of the skills capabilities and relationships that you developed behind so particularly when

00:45:16.340 working with athletes something that we like to ask are well in order to be a world-class athlete

00:45:21.000 you have to have discipline drive perhaps some kind of competitive nature well what are other fields

00:45:27.980 where those same core functions can work really well and can give you as we go back to where we started

00:45:34.180 can give you that sense of mastery or competence and where you can blossom somewhere else so how can

00:45:39.020 you apply some of the things that that made you passionate and that worked in your passion elsewhere

00:45:43.180 all of that said perhaps most important is some kind of community around you because again it's

00:45:49.040 kind of like the balance thing like no one likes talking about it but like it sucks like when you

00:45:53.360 have to stop doing something that you love it is really really hard and nothing softens that blow

00:46:00.000 more than supportive community and supportive community isn't necessarily people that don't get it

00:46:04.780 telling you to like cheer up if anything supportive community is the opposite it's people that have been

00:46:09.000 there that can sit with you be present for you and be like you know this is a really tough transition

00:46:13.280 time it sucks i'm gonna be here to support you and like you're gonna work through it well you're

00:46:18.180 speaking to some of the examples of athletes something i've seen them do is oftentimes they'll

00:46:22.700 transition to coaching after they've their their career as an athlete as i did or like in the nfl or

00:46:27.980 basketball you'll see these guys while they're still athletes in the off season they'll go to like

00:46:33.100 broadcast school so they can learn maybe hopefully transition to becoming a sportscaster yeah that's

00:46:38.340 awesome jj raddick is a great example of that right now on the philadelphia 76ers he's got a

00:46:43.020 podcast on bill simmons uh the ringer channel and i mean he's a he's a hell of a shooter but he's also

00:46:48.920 a great great podcast host so i think like that's a beautiful example of this this diversification

00:46:54.580 let's say that you're not an elite athlete because most people aren't even if you're just really

00:46:59.300 passionate about your job like retirement is a really hard thing for a lot of people so the analogous

00:47:05.260 thing there would be that while you're in your work cultivate some kind of side hustle and again

00:47:10.740 like we're talking about the extremes because i think you you learn from the extremes but my great

00:47:15.220 uncle was a financial advisor loved his job and when the time to retire was coming he took up all these

00:47:22.840 hobbies it's kind of like the the youthful exploring your interest and he got really into jewelry making

00:47:28.480 i mean and this is like a straight edge black black suit red tie you know corporate dude and he started

00:47:35.420 making jewelry and selling it in nursing homes and now he's got like a jewelry studio in his basement

00:47:40.340 so it that same theme whether you're jj raddick on a podcast or my uncle making jewelry i think it's

00:47:46.540 real important to make sure that you're cultivating something else that you can be passionate about when

00:47:51.740 you move on so let's talk about the instance of let's say you just you lose the passion for the thing

00:47:56.780 that you were once passionate about what what happens there steve i'll let you take this one

00:48:00.000 sure yeah i think there is what you need to almost uh delineate is and discover is this something that

00:48:08.900 i can rekindle or is this something that i should move on from and i think the first thing you try and

00:48:14.520 do is is see if you still have that love for the passion that you're doing and the best way to do that

00:48:20.200 is actually to kind of reflect and and re-engage on why you do that activity like why did you get

00:48:28.700 involved in it in in the first part uh in the first part like what is your purpose for that if you can

00:48:35.320 rediscover that and then a lot of times you can rekindle your passion because what happens is as we've

00:48:41.580 been doing something for years and years and years like our motivation and drive uh gets slowly

00:48:47.500 shifted from maybe that original um feeling to something more you know i don't know more just

00:48:55.620 kind of going through the motions on things and and not that initial joy so reflecting on your purpose

00:49:03.080 like really re-engaging with why you started that and also another thing that helps is is also get a get

00:49:10.760 a new perspective for uh what it is you're doing so a lot of times what i've seen is athletes who have

00:49:17.140 been doing the same sport for maybe 15 20 years is if if they start to give back and say hey i'm

00:49:25.140 going to start helping you know the rookie players or the younger athletes or you know volunteer coach

00:49:30.800 at a a youth league what happens is they see you know young athletes or young people engaging with

00:49:38.000 their sport and it reminds them why they did it in the first place and they kind of re-engage and

00:49:43.780 you know reformulate that passion so whether that's on the athletic field or in the business world kind

00:49:49.840 of taking some mentorship under your under your wings and rekindling that fire can be a great way to do

00:49:56.380 so and then if you can't rekindle it just be okay with moving on yeah there i think it goes to what

00:50:02.580 brad said is it's like coming to terms with moving on and i think one of the things that we found was

00:50:08.040 really powerful is that whenever you stop a passion or a career it almost feels like a death right it's

00:50:15.460 like part of me is dying so that's a really traumatic thing and what happens is people feel like they

00:50:23.040 almost lose control of their sense of self or lose control of their story so what we encourage people

00:50:29.120 to do is always make sure that you're you're in control of your story and you're writing it right

00:50:34.500 so it's not that you know steve the the athlete is dying it's that hey how do i want this story

00:50:41.660 written how do i want to to see this and in a lot of ways it's no different than how you get over a

00:50:48.340 bad breakup right if you get over a bad breakup one of the tactics is to sit there and think back and

00:50:56.020 almost reformulate how you saw the entire relationship you sit there and are like oh no

00:51:01.200 she or he wasn't good for me because they did this this and this and this right we we have that same

00:51:07.920 power and that ability when we're moving on from a career or passion so take advantage of it be in

00:51:13.640 control of like how you're writing your story well steve brad this has been a great conversation where

00:51:18.820 can people go to learn more about the book and the rest of your work yeah so the the book has a

00:51:24.580 website which is www.passionparadoxbook.net and i am on twitter at b stolberg and steve is on twitter

00:51:34.520 and instagram at steve magnus and yeah the that's it fantastic well brad steve thanks for your time

00:51:41.960 it's been a pleasure thank you great conversation yeah thanks a lot my guests they were brad stolberg

00:51:47.180 and steve magnus they are the authors of the book the passion paradox is available on amazon.com

00:51:52.240 bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about their work and their book

00:51:55.580 at passionparadoxbook.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash passion paradox where you can

00:52:02.060 find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic

00:52:04.740 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website artofmanliness.com

00:52:21.580 where you can find all of the podcasts in our archives there's over 490 there also thousands

00:52:25.720 of articles written about money and career personal finance fitness just how to be a better dad better

00:52:31.140 husband better father check it out artofmanliness.com while you're there sign up for our newsletter if

00:52:35.020 you haven't done so already i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on itunes or

00:52:38.820 stitcher it helps out a lot and if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the

00:52:42.720 show with a friend or family member you think we get something out of it send them a text bring it up in

00:52:46.480 conversation things like that as always thank you for your continued support and until next time

00:52:50.440 this is brett mckay reminding not only listen to the aom podcast but put what you've heard into action

00:52:55.100 you

00:53:02.000 you

00:53:03.060 you

00:53:04.420 You

The Art of Manliness - March 18, 2019

#491： Everything You Know About Passion is Wrong

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript