February 10th, 2017

February 10th, 2017


Affirmation: I trust the wisdom inside me.


Word of the Day:

Water and the Moon

There is a path from me to you
that I am constantly looking for,

so I try to keep clear and still
as water does with the moon.

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Passion

In one of my MBA courses, we had a threaded discussion about passion. Specifically, we were asked to argue whether passion is innate or whether it is something that is cultivated and developed over time. I chose to defend the latter position even though I believe that both sides are true to different degrees. It is sort of like the nature vs. nurture debate. I believe that both our genes and our environment come into play, but if I were forced to take one side I would choose the impact of the environment - or nurture - because I believe that it plays a slightly larger role, though I couldn't tell you remotely by how much (and I think the extent to which it plays a larger role varies among individuals, too). In any case, I've copied my initial post response to this week's passion discussion (see below). I wrote several responses to my classmates' replies, but I have not included those here in other to respect the privacy of their reflections.
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There are several arguments in favor of and against the idea that passion is a trait. In favor of this stance, arguments include:

1. Author Jim Collins cites passion as one of the three key circles of the Hedgehog Concept in his book, Good to Great. According to Collins, “you can’t manufacture passion or motivate people to feel passionate” (page 109). Furthermore, Collins asserts, “you should only do those things that [you] can get passionate about” (page 109). Finally, Collins warns, “you’ll never remain on top if you don’t have intrinsic passion for what you are doing” (page 97). In these statements, Collins is suggesting that passion is innate and intrinsic, not something that can be built.

2. Researcher Tony Tjan and co-authors Richard Harrington and Tsun-Yan Hsieh contend that 65% of company founders identify themselves as being “driven by heart.” While not directly stating it, one might assume that these company founders see themselves as able to innately care and be passionate about things to the exclusion of others.

3. According to Forbes magazine, passion is one of the “five common personality traits that entrepreneurs possess” that “define their character.” This observation clearly states that passion is a trait some people have that others do not.

4. Author Richard St. John claims that passion is at the top of the list of “the eight traits successful people have in common,” suggesting that only certain people have the trait of passion.

5. In Success Built to Last, the authors caution ‘it’s dangerous not to do what you love” (page 35) and “only by loving what you do will you actually do more and do it better than the person sitting next to you” (page 36). The implication here is that you either innately love something or you don’t.

On the other hand, arguments against passion being a trait include:

1. In his TED Talk, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discusses how flow (which can be thought of as passion, in a sense) is intimately connected to a life worth living. Csikszentmihalyi suggests that flow is not a fixed or predetermined states, but rather something that can be developed. He acknowledges that, particularly in creative fields, it can take a “long” time, work, and practice for one to get to a place where flow comes more naturally.

2. According to author and financial expert Stefanie O’Connell, “passion isn’t something you have, it’s something you develop.” To illustrate this point, O’Connell writes, “Think of it like falling in love. You don’t just sit at home and decide you’re going to fall in love with a certain person, you go out and share different experiences with different people until you do.” She goes on to write, “passion is a feeling and feelings change. If we’d all stuck with our first dream the world would be overrun by cowboys and princesses.” This is not to undermine passion’s lasting power, but rather to point out that passions can and should evolve as we do.

3. Author and editor John Brandon writes, “Saying passion "comes from within" is an easy cop out. We're not milk jugs, and we don't contain milk. You don't just tip us over and we pour out passion… The only way to develop passion is to act. That's why so much of entrepreneurship involves experimentation… One of the reasons people are passionless is because they are sitting around pondering instead of acting. Passion finds you through action… Passion found me because I moved toward passion. I didn't just sit and stare out the window.” In other words, you can create passion by doing – it isn’t just a matter of expecting to find it within yourself.

4.  In her book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” 2013 MacArthur Fellow and professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Angela Duckworth writes, “A passion is developed more than it is discovered.” She goes on to write that developing passion, “requires sustained commitment plus dedication to incremental improvement and the capacity to weather failure and setbacks… More succinctly, [passion] requires grit.” Like Brandon, Duckworth believes that passion is something that can be cultivated through one’s efforts.

5. Cal Newport, Georgetown University professor and author of So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Search For Work You Love cautions, “Telling someone to follow their passion--from an entrepreneur's point of view--is disastrous… That advice has probably resulted in more failed businesses than all the recessions combined... because that's not how the vast majority of people end up owning successful businesses.” He continues, “Passion is not something you follow. Passion is something that will follow you as you put in the hard work.” Studies also suggest that the strongest predictor of a person seeing her work as a calling is the number of years spent on the job. That’s because, “The more experience you have the better your skills and the greater your satisfaction in having those skills. The more experience you have the more you can see how your work has benefited others. And you've had more time to develop strong professional and even personal relationships with some of your employees, vendors, and customers… Where business success is concerned, passion is almost always the result of time and effort. It's not a prerequisite.”

As far as passion is concerned, I side with the latter position – that passion is something anybody can cultivate and develop. In my experience, I have cultivated and developed passion – and have conversely lost passion – based upon my actions and life experiences.

For example, I used to despise weight training. I found the process to be tedious and boring and the aftereffects of soreness and muscular fatigue felt less than desirable. Then, I developed osteoporosis and was mandated by my doctor to – among other things – start lifting weights. At first, the gym intimidated me, as I imagined that I would stick out like a sore thumb in a room full of body builders who would judge me for my poor form and weakness. Still, I forced myself to go and discovered that people of all shapes, sizes, ages, physical abilities, and experience levels attended the gym and the trainers there were very willing to help me and answer any questions I had. Over time, my resistance slowly melted, giving way to an appreciation for the muscle I was building and the increased energy I experienced. I even came to view any post-workout soreness as a message that I was getting stronger. The best part is that about 6 years since beginning to lift weights, I no longer have osteoporosis! Even if this meant that I could stop my weight training routine, I wouldn’t. I value the health benefits, vitality, and sense of accomplishment I get from lifting weights too much and I have recently started diversifying my routine by trying out strength-based group fitness classes such as body pump.

On the other hand, I have also experienced a loss of passion. I have always been passionate about foreign languages and cultures. As a freshman in high school, I enrolled in a Spanish class to deepen my study and knowledge of that language. Unfortunately, my experience was not what I had hoped that it would be. My professor regularly alternated between screaming at students and ignoring them outright. Even more upsetting, was the way he berated and publically humiliated people, to the point of making people cry. For example, he publically mocked the fact that I “looked like a short pencil” that “nobody would find attractive” while telling one of my ailurophilic classmates that cats were pointless animals that should be used as a source of meat. Though I learned more Spanish in that class, my passion for it was extinguished because I connected it with that professor. I focused instead on my studies in French for the rest of my high school career and haven’t taken another Spanish class since.

In summary, I believe that we are all born with the ability to be passionate – whether we find that passion in something during the course of our lives or whether we build it ourselves through our actions. I have experienced both, and for that, I am grateful.

Thank you,

Sources:

Benna, S. (2015). 8 traits the world’s most successful people share. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/8-traits-the-worlds-most-successful-people-share-2015-7/#successful-people-are-passionate-about-what-they-do-1

Brandon, J. (2015). The Biggest Question of Your Life: How Do You Develop Passion? Inc. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/the-biggest-question-of-your-life-how-do-you-develop-passion.html

Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t. Harper Business: New York, NY.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Flow, the secret to happiness. TED. Retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=en#t-250334

O’Connell, S. (2015). 4 Important Truths Behind Pursuing Your Passion. Retrieved from https://stefanieoconnell.com/truths-pursuing-your-passion/

Porras, J. (2007). Success Built to Last: Creating a Life That Matters. Wharton School Publishing: Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Rampton, J. (2014). 5 Personality Traits of an Entrepreneur. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2014/04/14/5-personality-traits-of-an-entrepreneur/#7082708422f6

Schawbel, D. (2017). Angela Duckworth: A passion is more developed than it is discovered. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2017/01/09/angela-duckworth-a-passion-is-developed-more-than-it-is-discovered/#599c11821693

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What are your thoughts about this question of passion - do you believe that it is a trait and something that is born inborn or is it something that is built over time and something that is a result of life and experiences? Are some people simply more passionate than others? Can virtually anyone become passionate about something?

And I would love to know: what are you passionate about?