Pursuing Passion

We often talk about passion, but we tend to use it very loosely.  We usually refer to passion in passing – it is rarely the primary focus of discussion or analysis.

I am just as guilty of this.  A couple of months ago, I posted a manifesto for passionate creatives and never explicitly defined what I meant by passion.  In talking with people about this manifesto, I discovered that passion has an infinite variety of meanings. It set me on a quest to find a systematic treatment of passion, especially in a business context, but I have yet to find anything that is very satisfying.  Even outside the business context, surprisingly little explores in any deep way what passion is and the role it plays in our lives. (If I am missing anything out there, by all means reach out and let me know.)

So, this is an early attempt to offer my own perspective on passion and why it occupies a more and more central role in my research and work with clients. I am posting this in the hope that I can spur a discussion that will help all of us to sharpen our understanding of passion and its growing importance.

One view of passion

So, what is meant by passion? For many, it simply means strong emotions of any kind. In this context, it is often suspect because we perceive it to mean that clear and rational thinking becomes overwhelmed by intense emotions. In fact, for many it is viewed as a sign of shiftlessness – passions coming and going with the blink of an eye. For others, passion simply means happiness – pursuing activities that make us happy in the moment.  In other contexts, it is used to mean loss of control – we surrender to passion.

I want to use the term more narrowly, to refer to strong emotions that motivate us to move beyond our comfort zone and to achieve the potential that resides within us.  Passion comes from within each of us; it cannot be imposed or mandated from outside. At the same time, it compels us to move outside, to engage with the world around us.

Passion, in the sense I am using it, orients us; it provides us with focus and direction.  From this perspective, passion is long-lived.  It may be ignited quickly but, once ignited, it endures and even grows as we discover how much potential there really is.  Passionate people are rarely distracted for long; their passion keeps them on track and calls them inexorably back to the quest ahead. Passion is about perseverance.

Passion is also about pursuit. It is not passive. People with passion are driven to pursue and create. They may read books and observe others, but they are not content being bystanders.  They feel an overwhelming urge to engage, to experience for themselves and to test their own capabilities. Passion compels us to act.

In this context, there are two kinds of passion – the passion of the true believer and the passion of the explorer.  Here in Silicon Valley we have many examples of the passion of the true believer – great entrepreneurs are truly passionate about a very specific path and many of them are notoriously not open to alternative views or approaches. Their passion is enduring and it does focus, but it can also blind – leading the entrepreneur to reject critical input that does not match their preconceived views.

I am focused on the other kind of passion – the passion of explorers.  These are people who see a domain, but not the path.  The fact that the paths are not clearly defined is what excites them and motivates them to move into the domain.  It also makes them alert to a variety of inputs that can help them to better understand the domain and discover more promising paths through the unexplored terrain.  They are constantly balancing the need to move forward with the need to be present in the moment and reflect on the experiences and inputs they are encountering.

Passion is certainly not the same as happiness, unless we move beyond the transitory happiness of the moment and seek out a much deeper happiness that ultimately comes from achieving our potential.  Passion comes from the Latin word “pati”,  meaning suffering or enduring.  We forego a lot when we pursue our passions; significant sacrifice is often required.  We are often deeply frustrated – we have an intense desire to move faster and deeper but we encounter obstacles on all sides (including within ourselves) that seem to inhibit our movement.  The unhappiness does not discourage us – it is a natural consequence of desiring something so deeply that we are motivated to confront any obstacle, no matter how challenging, and persist until we find away over, around or under it. Passion is about discipline – self-imposed discipline that drives passionate people to persist and not get discouraged in the face of enormous obstacles. 

Passion is about performance.  People pursuing their passion have a clear sense of performance metrics. These are not externally defined and imposed metrics, but individually adopted metrics that help passionate people to keep track of their own performance on a continuing basis and identify performance gaps.  While many passionate people are amateurs  in the sense of not yet integrating their passion with their profession, passion is professional in the sense that people pursuing their passion are deeply committed to the domain that has engaged them, they have a deep sense of integrity about their quest and they have demanding expectations about themselves in terms of performance.  Passion is ultimately driven by intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic rewards.  External rewards like recognition and cash compensation are certainly welcome, but they do not drive passionate people.

Passion is about progression – passionate people constantly seek new challenges and opportunities to drive their performance to new levels.  For passionate people, achieving their full potential has little meaning. They see that their potential is constantly being expanded by new possibilities.  Explorers are very adept at discovering new ways to test themselves and discovering new possibilities along the journey. In fact, passion brings with it a willingness to fail repeatedly in the quest for performance improvement, compellingly illustrated by any extreme sports participant. Passionate people see that progression demands failure – if we are not failing, we are not taking enough risk and learning fast enough.

Passion is about connecting.  We all know stories about lone inventors who are deeply passionate about their quest and spend much of their lives locked away in their basement workshops tinkering and experimenting with new approaches to driving performance.  These stories are the exception rather than the rule.  More generally, passion leads us to seek out and connect with others sharing our passion.  We intuitively understand that the best way for us to advance is to connect with and learn from others. Passionate people often seek to connect with others in related domains in a quest for insight that they can bring back into their own domains – witness the big wave surfers who also wind surf or skate board in an effort to understand techniques and technology that can improve their performance on big waves.

Passion pulls.  Passionate people are deeply creative in seeking out and pulling in resources that will help them to pursue their passion.  But passion also pulls in another dimension as well.  People who pursue their passions inevitably create beacons that attract others who share their passion.  Few of these beacons are consciously created; they are by-products of pursuing one’s passion.  Passionate people share their passions and creations widely, leaving trackers for others to find them.

Passion is not predictable.  Because it comes from within and drives people to embrace unexpected opportunities and explore uncharted territories, it does not deal well with prescribed routines and scripts.  It is pursued in the moment and engages with unexpected encounters in ways that may lead to unforeseen twists and turns.  Passion is also about urgency – passionate people have limited patience. They are driven to move forward, regardless of the obstacles put in their way. 

Passion is about risk-taking.  Passion diminishes perceptions of risk and amplifies perceptions of reward.  In a curious way, risk becomes reward for passionate people.  They see that risk is the only way to discover new things and explore new territories. For this reason, passionate people thrive in times of high uncertainty and disruption.  It is also why passionate people tend to come together on various edges of our society and business environment – peripheries that are rich in unmet needs and unexploited opportunities. Passionate people embrace the edge in order to get an edge on their performance.

Passion is about authenticity.  Passionate people have little patience with pretense.  They present themselves as they really are because they intuitively understand that is the only way to explore and discover.  Passionate people discover and develop a uniquely personal voice that provides a deep sense of meaning and personal identity, shaped by what they contribute to the world and how others build on and learn from their contributions . Their identity is not about consumption; it is about shared creation.

Why it matters at a personal level

Passion is becoming increasingly important for our professional success. If we have not found a way to make our passion our profession or to discover passion in our profession, we will very quickly succumb to the growing economic and competitive pressures that are shaping our global business landscape.  The pressures will inexorably mount. Without passion, we will increasingly experience stress, our energy will be steadily drained and we will ultimately burn out under the mounting pressure. At best, we will be marginalized as we find ways to achieve “balance” and safety valves for the mounting pressure at work.

On the other hand, if passion and profession can be integrated, stress turns into stimulus. All of those unexpected challenges suddenly become ways to develop our capabilities more rapidly – we begin to seek out these challenges, hungry for the opportunity to test ourselves and get to the next level of performance more rapidly, like the big wave surfer constantly searching for a bigger, more challenging wave.

Corporate ambivalence on passion

Most executives have considerable ambivalence about passion.  Their speeches often call for passion. Passion can be great if it is harnessed to serve the purposes of a business – it motivates people to work longer and harder than those who lack passion. 

On the other hand, passion resists harnessing –it is about extremes and unpredictability, something that most companies have a very hard time dealing with. Passionate people are loyal to their passion but they are often deeply dissatisfied with the institutions that employ them.  They can see all the possibilities and are greatly frustrated at all the institutional obstacles that prevent them from achieving these possibilities. 

Unless one’s passion aligns completely with one’s role and the institution’s mission - a very rare situation - considerable friction is often the result as passionate workers struggle to achieve the potential that their passion demands.  A strong argument can be made that our 20th century institutions – especially schools and firms – were explicitly designed to suppress passion because it undermined predictability and created friction where scalable efficiency was the imperative. As a result, the day to day practices and processes of the firm seek to contain and mute the very passion that executives so eloquently celebrate.

As a result, it is not surprising that passionate people often flee the confines of larger firms. Indeed, our 2009 Shift Index discovered that the presence of passion diminishes among the workforce as the size of the firm increases.  Scalable efficiency is very effective in containing and diluting passion. As a result, it is perhaps not surprising that the most passionate people are those who are self-employed.

This flight of passion from our institutions is deeply troubling because we are in the midst of a Big Shift where passion is becoming increasingly important for institutional success.  As I have written elsewhere, the rationale for our institutions is changing from scalable efficiency to scalable peer to peer learning as a natural consequence of the Big Shift.  In this context, passionate individuals are essential to driving the quest for scalable peer to peer learning.

As discussed above, passionate people are risk-taking explorers driven by a desire to learn and drive performance to the next level.  They naturally seek out others who share their passion and collaborate to address challenges and obstacles to performance improvement.  They have a sense of urgency and a long-term commitment to their passion. How will institutions harness scalable peer to peer learning without passionate people?  In fact, in the Big Shift, a strong case can be made that the institutions that create a welcome home for passionate individuals will be the ones that thrive in this challenging new world.

Some open questions

As I have thought about passion at the level of individuals, a number of questions remain to be explored and I would welcome input and ideas.

• Clearly, many people do not display passion in the specific form that I have described above – they are consumed with the day to day challenges of life and have not discovered a passion that can focus and drive them.  Does this mean that not everyone is capable of this kind of passion or even wants to have it?

Or does everyone have this kind of passion latent within them waiting to be developed or discovered? My instinct is that the latter is the case.

If the latter is the case, what does it take to discover or develop passion of this type?  Too many writers (including myself at times) have been guilty of advising people to find their passion without offering any particular perspective on exactly how one does this.

On a related note, I am convinced that we all need to make our passions our professions. Many of us have not yet discovered a passion.  For those people, are there ways to discover and nurture a passion within the context of their current profession?

Can one have multiple passions? If so, how many? My suspicion is that most of us have the capacity for multiple passions. On the other hand, given the kind of intense engagement and pursuit described earlier, I am skeptical that one can have a lot of passions, at least in the sense described here.

When does passion become obsession? Passion as I have described it is very healthy and helps us to achieve our potential.  On the other hand, we all know that passion can become obsession and have a very dysfunctional impact on our lives.  How do we avoid this outcome and pursue passions in the most productive way possible.

More generally, I encourage all of you to comment on what I have offered above.  My perspective is all very preliminary and somewhat tentative, but I have a sense it will become increasingly central to all of us.  This is just the beginning of a much longer journey.  I think I am becoming passionate about passion.

Comments

[Shrutarshi Basu]

I think that the idea that passion is "discovered" is very damaging. It leads people to believe that someday an apple will fall on their heads and tell them what their passion is. Until that day there are doomed to boring, every-day lives. But that's not true at all. You can only be passionate about something until you know enough about it and are relatively good at it. You have to consciously choose to find out about something and then go explore it before you'll know if you're passionate about it. Of course you may not be passionate about the first few things you get interested about, which is why you have to keep exploring. I wasn't passionate about music, painting, chemistry, electrical engineering or physics (even though I continue to be interested in them). I am however passionate about computer technology and its applications and I don't think that would have happened if I hadn't gone through all those other things first.

[Karen Matthews]

I loved your post! This is exactly what The Passion Test for Business is all about. Impacting productivity, creative innovation, and profitability through transformational employee engagement. Creating efficiency and effectiveness; synergizing people at all levels of the organization through an alignment with corporate and individual passions. Supporting connection, and nurturing relationships in an environment of open communication, cooperation, mutual support and teamwork.
Generating E-Motion…Energy, Effectiveness, Efficiency through Employee Engagement . Karen

[George Swan]

Bravo! Passion is now out of the box (the 'box-of-our-own-making'). I believe passion, like happiness, is a correlated benefit of loosening the grip of our own ego-centric fears. The box closes in when 'it's all about me', resulting in downward spiraling performance. Getting out of myself, looking outward, like getting our heads above water, is courageous and liberating. Jump in, the water's fine. Go for it.
I recommend the stage-thinking explained in 'Tribal Leadership' by Dave Logan et al, at www.culturesync.net.
Bravo, everyone!

[Helenwei_cool]

I love this. Thank you for this.

[Sravan Ankaraju]

I am in the same boat as Robin Chase. It describes my own personal motivations and feelings as I go about my work. My work consumes & energizes me. As you said, Passion is long and enduring. I ignite passion in others as a by-product of pusuing my own and helping the organization achieve its objectives.

For me understanding the big picture is always important and essential to moving forward. The picture is as clear as the next step in the path because there is still so much to explore. Along the way, I clear the obstacles, share my learning with others, and take the next vehicle (bus, tuk-tuk, plane) to next stop in the journey.

You are absolutely correct that from the institution standpoint, passion has to be predictable.The reason firms push for predictability is for balancing forever quest for knowledge and timely action/decisions. This is very important for any individual to learn in pursuit of passion.

Great post!

[israel Gat]

I believe part of the problem is a matter of confusing passion with lack of objectivity. Bobby Fischer - one the greatest world champions ever - was insanely passionate about chess. However, he was very objective about evaluating his position while playing. As a matter of fact, objectivity was one of his greatest virtues as a chess player.

Various execs fail to appreciate this distinction when they encounter strong passion. They don't quite get that one can be very passionate about a profession without affecting his/her objectivity with respect to the task to be carried out. Programming is a domain where this kind of failure takes place fairly frequently.

Israel

[Rmchase]

I think you nailed this passion piece well. It describes my own personal motivations and feelings as I go about my work.

My work consumes AND energizes me. I feel pretty relentless in my pursuit of it. It makes me happy (almost all of the time) so it is easy to keep doing. And as you noted, collaboration or reaching out to people in adjacent disciplines does seem part of my modus operandi because it forwards the work and expands its potential.

I heard you at Supernova a week ago, where I too was a speaker. If you want to take this off-line, I'm happy to help and engage.

I wasn't always passionate but I was ready to be; it has taken a while to find this particular groove and now that I'm here, it is absolutely right.

Robin Chase
Co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar

[Abecrystal]

Excellent post!

Much of your analysis suggested an overlap between your concept of 'passion' and the psychological concept of 'flow'. I'm sure you're familiar with flow, but it might be valuable to revisit the classic book and consider how flow and passion interrelate [http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Optimal-Experience-P-S/dp/0061339202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260485615&sr=1-1] .

To continue your exploration of passion, I'd recommend these two books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fGrreIwMPaEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=dave+pollard&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

and

http://books.google.com/books?id=O4bRW1VjD4gC&dq=the+power+of+purpose&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=b_h9rElRdA&sig=z6fslcPDLkCkVNg0gR86ApBuhbw&hl=en&ei=v3shS5HgIo6vtge4xYTWBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false

[Rebecca]

My belief is that everyone has passion about SOMETHING - there are degrees of passion, or perhaps degrees of repression. As you noted, everything about the school system and corporate life aims to suppress passion, individuality, and differentiation.

Few people can successfully spurn this suppression and nurture their passion. Once people learn that passion is unacceptable, I've observed that it is very difficult to ever embrace it - fear of failure or judgment perhaps. It saddens me to see talented people come so close to achieving success in their passion, only to give up or shy away in favor of the "safe" or "reasonable" choice, which is what society rewards.

[israel Gat]

Great post! Cuts straight through to the heart of a major problem that affects many companies.

I was criticized in various points along the way of having too much professional passion. The repeated advice "medicated" to me from above was "Israel, you need to take dispassionate view of things." No doubt I have my faults, but this advice never made any sense to me. I understood it and rejected it - why would I want to be anyone else but the me myself?

About a year ago I was on a consulting gig. One of the engineers with whom I was discussing the assimilation of Agile techniques told me about his executives: "They are judging executives." What he meant was that they were not getting involved. Instead, they were playing "little God."

I believe the interplay between an individual and his/her corporation has two stages:

1. "I found my voice/passion"
2. "I found my tribe"

My sense of corporate America is that very many folks are stuck at level "1.5", namely:

1. They found their voice/passion.
2. Various other folks agree with them and constitute kind of a "private tribe."
3. However, the folks that agree with them are afraid to come out of the closet.

This "1.5" phenomenon is at the root of a vicious cycle that kills companies, particularly these days:

1. A round of layoffs is implemented.
2. Just about everyone takes notice and tries to exhibit the "proper behavior/values."
3. Folks in the "private tribes" don't dare come out of the closet.
4. The passionate person who found his/her voice is like a fish out out of the water. Sooner or later he/she looks for a tribe elsewhere.
5.The company becomes even poorer on innovation and the drive to make it happen.
6. Goto step 1.

The only antidote I know to this vicious cycle is the construction of an effective social contract. See A Social Contract for Agile http://tinyurl.com/aplcr5 for details how this antidote was successfully implemented at BMC Software.

Israel

[janet attwood]

Hi John; Great article. I really enjoy your honest and deliberate style of writing and truly agree with you on all fronts about all that you have communicated on. Thank You! On another note, I am the NY Times bestselling author of the book, "The Passion Test - the effortless path to discovering your life purpose" and would be thrilled if you would accept my offer to walk you through this incredible process/tool at your earliest convenience. Here is what Jack Canfield co/author of the Chicken Soup Series wrote after taking The Passion Test:
When I did the work on discovering your passion with Janet and Chris Attwood in a workshop, I wasn't expecting that much to happen because I am already living my passion -- teaching others about how to become more successful. However, their powerful process took me to an even deeper place, where I realized I was not spending enough time with my true number one passion -- my family! That realization, and the other work they did with me, has changed the way I have lived the past year.

Jack Canfield
Co-author of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series
Co-author of "The Power of Focus" and "The Success Principles"

If you would like to take me up on my offer, you can reach me at
[email protected]

All the best-Janet

[Arnold Beekes]

I am also passionate about passion. But it is not easy to find in yourself or to help others find their passion. The reason for this is that in our families and schools and companies we are totally not encourage d to find our passion. Rather we are stimulated to behave in accordance with the expectations of others.Whether those others are your parents, teachers, bosses or even your relationship. They 'know' what is right for you to do.
In other words we are not encouraged to think what we want. When I ask this question to my clients they most of the time don't know the answer. They know very well what they don't want. That list is easy to make for them.

So, finding your passion is often a process which takes time. And it needs the change of limiting beliefs and patterns. The name already says it, 'limiting' habits prevent you from knowing who you are and what you want. A good source is The Element from Ken Robinson.

People of all ages would benefit if they discover their passion and through that the society at large will benefit as well. To get started an awareness campaing is necessary as to give tools and help in finding your passion.

Also it is my experience that as you grow in and with your passion you will also stretch your potential. I do believe that you protential is dynamic and unlimited, but you have to learn to cross and stretch your boundaries, i.e. your beliefs.

You can also have multiple passion. Check out The Rennaissance Soul from M. Lobenstine.

[Account Deleted]

John, this is a wonderful post. I've considered much of what you've described, but with a different lens.

I've often thought about the way in which human beings deal with uncertainty. Given my lifelong interest in information (by definition, the countervailing force to uncertainty), I came to the conclusion that some set of us deal with uncertainty (aka doubt, fear of unknown, ...) in at least two ways:

(1) delegation of responsibility to someone (or something) else which claims to be or have The Answer. To varying degrees, the proponents of an 'answer' will lay claim to the truth, and provide the reduction of uncertainty thereby. People who take this path to the reduction of uncertainty can often be passionate advocates for this answer, its formulae. We all have found methods, processes, rules of action in which we believe, and have good reason to believe. Within a particular universe of discourse, they seem to work!! In the extreme, people who resolve uncertainty by this means are often called zealots or fanatics, and can exhibit the obsessive behavior of reducing ALL uncertainty to a problem that can be addressed with their 'answer.'

(2) curiosity and exploration in response to a recognition of uncertainty. The people who take this path are often the people to whom you refer, in this post, as passionate. They're often seen as insatiable consumers of new information. They can be the eternal student, transported and delighted by the discovery process, and yet never satisfied. The lack of satisfaction stems from the fact that even if one aspect of their desire for certainty is addressed by their exploration, the process inevitably uncovers more questions, more issues to resolve through continued investigation. Like the first type, this kind of approach has the potential for pathology... crippling uncertainty or obsession to the point of inaction.

You've done us a great service by laying out so many of the qualities of the passionate, and asking some exquisite questions at the end of your post. I'm particularly fascinated to see how this can be applied to organizations ranging from small groups to large enterprise. Please keep this line of thinking going. I'll gladly contribute more from my perspective should you see it as valuable.

[Rachel]

Thanks for this post John. I often think about these issues-- as you know, I'm a supremely passionate person, but don't always know where to "put" it. You're an inspiration to me! Check out my tumblr (current passion project)-- I posted about this.

[Kathy]

I remember my therapist some years ago asking me what I had a passion for and I noticed I didn't even know what passion was, much less feel it. Getting in touch with my heart and shedding the expectations of others was the pathway for me to live a life of passion, which I now do. I like what you have written here and will share it with colleagues. Thanks for "spelling it out."

You ask some important questions.

Another question might be is passion a privilege? (or for the privileged) (not a yes/no, but for conversation)

I agree that it is a key factor in the Great Turning (as some people call it)