"It is written that the priest Shungaku said, 'In just refusing to retreat from something, one gains the strength of two men.' This is interesting. Something that is not done at that time at that place will remain unfinished for a lifetime. At a time when it is difficult to complete matters with the strength of a single man, one will bring it to a conclusion with the strength of two. If one thinks to do it later, he will be negligent all his life."
—Hagakure
"By thinking that you must complete the job you will run out of time. By considering things like how many men the enemy has, time piles up; in the end you will give up."
—Hagakure
"Real artists ship."
—Steve Jobs
"Help! I've found that I have no passion!"
How do you stay focused and committed enough to follow your passions? How do you keep from flipping from idea to idea, losing focus on one only to follow another?
First off, no one is coming to save you.
I heard that line from Nathaniel Branden when I was at a talk of his … it's true. The fact of the matter is, nobody cares about your success as much as you do. Maybe your Mom. Maybe.
But really now, nobody cares about your success as much as you. To work with talented and driven people, you gotta show you belong in that crowd, which means self-starting to some extent. You're unlikely to luck into a random mentor until you start doing interesting and engaging things. Once you do start doing lots of interesting and engaging things, then it becomes a lot easier to meet and connect with people.
I know, what a bitch of a thing, eh? A real chicken and egg problem there. You can't meet interesting people until you're doing interesting things, and it's hard to do interesting things without knowing anyone interesting … .
Wait! Well, thankfully, we live in an era with more resources than ever possible for the doing of things without the explicit help of others. I wrote my blog for my little audience of 10 to 40 people for a few months before anyone tuned in and started reading. Those 10 to 40 people were just friends I told, and putting up my blog in my profile of every site I go to online.
I remember, a day when 11 people read the blog was a pretty good day when I first started.
And I reckon a lot of success is like that … you move forwards without an external blessing or reward for quite a long time, you work hard for nothing in return, and then you break through and become more successful. As soon as you're starting to succeed and take off, then people reach out to you and want to help you, work with you, collaborate with you, etc.
So the first thing I have to say is—no one's coming to save you. You'll have mentors, colleagues, collaborators, people who want to hire you after you produce some good stuff, not before. That's the bad news—there's no magical solution or someone coming to save you. You're going to have to pick up the torch and scratch and claw forwards with it for a while before someone else takes it from you and helps you run the relay.
Second, neurosis here doesn't help, so let go of the neurosis.
If you panic about it, it becomes a problem. Panic and general neurosis and bad feelings make you tense up, cramp up, and block you creatively.
Oftentimes there are advantages to bad feelings, but not here. Clear the decks a little. Spend time in nature, exercise, do some breathing, listen to good classical music or rock music, eat healthy, get enough sleep, take vitamins, maybe do some martial arts or yoga or something. This is not an area where being in a panic is going to help, so get out of a panic or any bad feelings. Do the stuff that we know helps with calmness and breaking neurosis—nature, breathing, exercise, eating right, etc., etc., etc. That'll help.
Third, a lot of effortless passion you see is a bullshit illusion.
Or rather, it's sprezzatura. A lot of it's bullshit. Really. Maybe most of it's bullshit.
"Sprezzatura" is an Italian word that means "to hide conscious effort and appear to accomplish difficult actions with casual nonchalance."
As Derek Sivers wrote:
"But when you find out they're amazing only because of unglamorous persistent sweaty hard work, you can be double-inspired, thinking, "Wow! I could do that!"
Producing isn't always enjoyable, especially while it's happening.
Afterwards, it's a tremendous joy, but oftentimes it sucks, especially when you're having a hard time connecting the dots. For instance, I like reading history, but writing up and analyzing history can often be stressful … my recent Sengoku Japanese history article wasn't actually enjoyable to work on while I was doing it. Normally I can write fast, but that one took me four to five sessions over the course of a week to do.
There are lots of details, little nitty-gritty type stuff … what to leave in? What to cut? What level of abstraction to write on?
Reading history is pleasurable … after writing that article I was really proud of it (even though it's not one of my best pieces) and felt really good … but while I was in the middle of working at it, it wasn't fun.
You probably don't see that with the passionate programmer or chef. You don't see the time that sucks. You don't see the pizza crust that you mixed wrong and it turned into disgusting pizza soup. You don't see the frustrating debugging.
When you hear someone speak at a conference, or tell you about their favorite project, or serve a beautiful dish in front of you, you're seeing them at their peak. A lot of success sucks. You see the sprezzatura. You see the concert, not the setting up of the stage. Not the practicing until your hands hurt. Not the cleanup of the filthy area afterwards. Not the time touring in little nightclubs where nobody is actually watching you play, and nobody cares, and you're kind of low and tired and strung out but gotta go play to a crowd of nine people anyways and make it good.
It's hard to feel passionate about it when it's like that, and it's often like that. To be successful, you kinda sorta have to claim that you loved it the whole time, but y'know what? It's bullshit, man. I know lots of creative people doing interesting stuff. They like their line of work as a whole, but there are times it sucks, everything sucks sometimes. I'm working on some (paid) writing stuff right now, and I just couldn't get anything to work for like three days in a row. Sitting in a cafe, staring at the word processor. Dude, that sucks. I'd start writing, and it wouldn't be good. I'd move to a different cafe. Starbucks. An Arabic restaurant. A cool dark lounge type place playing 80′s music. Back to Starbucks. McDonalds at 1 in the morning when nothing else is open. Nothing's coming. Fucking writing.
And then … the heavens part, and inspiration returns, and I'm writing well. Whoa, that's cool. Okay, well, I want to be successful, eh? I better pretend it was always easy and a pleasure, because that's how the game is played. Whee, yaaay, I'm so passssssionatteeeeeeee … .
No, it's true, I am. But don't be fooled. The light easy breezy passion is kind of an illusion. When you tour a horse ranch, you don't see the years the rancher was working as a lowly ranch hand shoveling shit. You don't see the time a big storm hit he wasn't prepared for, and then he's riding around in the rain fixing stuff even though he's got a cold. You don't see that. But it's true. Practically nobody feels passionate during those times, but you just suck it up and keep going anyways.
Fourth—bouncing around from different things is normal and fine.
At the same time, I'd recommend you look to build things you're certain are going to be useful, kind of universally valuable skills.
I've suggested these before, but here are some general things you can start doing, no matter what you are passionate about:
… and so on.
Okay, you don't know what you're passionate about. That's normal. Nobody's coming to save you. Neurosis doesn't help, so break the neurosis by doing neurosis-breaking stuff, like nature, exercise, breathing, sleep enough, but not too much, etc.
Now realize, a lot of effortless passion is bullshit. You don't see the ranch-hand shoveling shit, but he does. He also saves all his money when his buddies are out eating a steak or drinking, because he's got his eyes on buying his own ranch later. He suffers, suffers, suffers … and then breaks through.
But what are you suffering for? You don't know yet. Well, I do recommend you read this post from Miguel Hernandez: http://grumomedia.com/5-steps-that-will-help-you-discover-your-true-passion/. In the meantime, I'd start building skills that are going to be useful when you do discover what juices you up.
It's totally normal and not a bad thing to not know what you're doing. Just, start building anyways, with the expectation that you'll figure it out. You will figure it out. And once you figure it out, you'll be happy you built the skills and resources and connected with good people and did good things.
Finally, an exercise that might be worthwhile: I would go to a cafe a lot with a blank paper notebook, a pen, and I'd order a black coffee. I'd get my coffee and I'd write at the top of the page, "What do I want?" I'd underline that, and then sit and drink coffee, stare at the page, and write everything I want, no holds barred, not examining, not judging, just writing.
Most of the time it would be similar type stuff, but occasionally I'd have a breakthrough realizing what I'd want. Sometimes nothing would come of it. But it was a good exercise overall … . I'd say for every 10 times I did this, I'd make one breakthrough. I mean, that's 10+ hours though! I'm not claiming it's easy, just that it was worthwhile for me. Paper notebook, pen, coffee. Nice atmosphere conducive to thinking. Nothing else for distraction—no computer, no phone, no internet. Maybe a book, but usually not. "What do I want?" Underline it. Start scribbling notes on the page.
That worked for me. Would it work for you? Dunno. But I got a lot of mileage out of it. Might be worth trying.
Recap:
1.) No one's coming to save you. You've got to scratch and claw forwards the first part of the journey.
2.) Bad feelings and tension aren't going to help solve this, so do the stuff that you know clears those out. Nature, exercise, breathing, etc.
3.) A lot of "effortless passion" you see is kind of an illusion. There's a component of working-through-suck in being successful at almost anything, but most successful people kind of mask that.
4.) Bouncing around is normal. In the process of bouncing around, try to pick up skills, assets, resources, connections, habits, experiences that you think are likely to make you successful later.
5.) I got quite a bit of mileage of going to a cafe, ordering a coffee, and writing at the top of the page, "What do I want?" Frequently nothing interesting would happen, but whenever I'd do it 10-20 times, I'd get 1-2 epiphanies out of it.
What Separates a Generalist and a Dabbler?
What's the difference between a generalist and a dabbler?
Rather, what separates a generalist from a dabbler?
They're very similar. Both dive into a wide variety of things and affairs. Both pick up new skills regularly, sometimes at the expense of the highest level of mastery in a specialized field.
But we all know people who dabble in this, do a little of that, and never make any contributions. And then, on the other hand, you've got people like Thomas Jefferson and Leonardo da Vinci, who did excellent work in a variety of fields.
Or take Steve Jobs—it's not clear that he's the best person at Apple at anything in particular, aside from maybe his presenting ability. There's probably more talented people at hiring, managing, design, marketing, operations, cash flow/numbers, negotiation, etc, etc. But one that seems remarkable about Jobs is that he's really, really good at a great majority of important things. He might not be the best at any one skill he has, but he's among the best in a huge variety of skills.
… I think I've got it.
I love thinking on paper. In this case, I'm not going to go back and edit this essay so it looks like I had it all along. No, I'd rather show you my thought process.
I started thinking about the difference between a generalist and a dabbler. I'm something of a generalist—I'm studied and trained and I've worked and played in a lot of different fields.
I think anyone aspiring to a generalist role (in my case, as a strategist) really ought to be concerned that they're not just dabbling away. I figure, a good generalist type is incredibly valuable to have around, naturally filling many blanks on any team and doing lots of interesting work.
But I think a would-be generalist has to be concerned that they're not just dabbling. So, what separates a skilled generalist from a mere dabbler, who screws around in this and that but never accomplishes anything? That wouldn't be a good place to wind up.
My first guess is that the difference would be some overarching purpose. In Jobs' case, it's clear he really likes making beautiful things. Everywhere he's gone, he's made incredibly beautiful things. Beauty runs throughout his career—both Apple stints, Next Computer, and Pixar. Beautiful products, beautiful advertising, beautiful packaging, beautiful everything.
But I started thinking more about da Vinci and Jefferson. While da Vinci was clearly a preeminent artist and inventor, he also made a host of pragmatic scientific discoveries, and even worked in warfare. I can't find a unifying theme throughout his life without forcing it.
Jefferson even less so. Jefferson worked on such a wide range of unrelated things. It's clear he believed in knowledge, learning, life, liberty, and philosophy, but again, no overarching theme.
No, I don't think it's an overarching theme. That was my first guess—my first guess was that the difference between a generalist and a dabbler was that the generalist had some overarching theme or purpose, while the dabbler did not.
I don't think that's the answer.
So I asked, then, what do Jobs and Jefferson and da Vinci have in common?
And then one of my favorite quotes hits me.
"Real artists ship."—Steve Jobs
Could it be that the difference between a generalist and a dabbler is just saying "this is as done as it's going to be" and shipping the work?
I think maybe yes. If you look at a Jefferson, da Vinci, Jobs—they shipped. A lot. I think the dabbler moves on when he's 95% complete, so he never gets the completion, satisfaction, and feedback from completing a work.
Also, by completing a work in a field, you gain some renown and prestige, which makes it easier to get in touch with other successful people, which speeds your learning curve.
The dabbler moves on when things get tough. The generalist keeps going until he puts enough work out that he feels complete in a particular field, and then, and only then, is he on to the next thing.
And that's perhaps the difference. I'm still regularly surprised by which of my projects are winners and which are not. It's never the ones I guess or anticipate. By shipping, you have a chance to win. If you don't ship, you don't win. You don't even lose. You don't get the lessons, the feedback, or connect with other people in the field. You don't get the satisfaction and boost that comes from shipping.
Is the difference between a generalist and dabbler that the generalist buckles down and ships? I think … I think maybe that's the difference, yeah. In order to avoid dabbling, ship work in the fields you care about before moving on.
Passion Emerges From Action, Not Contemplation
Miguel Hernandez of Grumo Media and I have swapped some really good communications recently. Super sharp guy, he sent this observation and question to me:
Here is a suggestion for a future essay for you. Today I met with a friend who has been friends with the [recently very successful movie director] for many years. He noticed I got some attention from Ashton Kutcher and is convinced that my career is going to skyrocket too (he is dreaming of course) and I am going to become yet another of his friends that "makes it" and he doesn't.
He is a hilarious dude and very talented movie editor and wants to succeed and make a difference on this world, like all of us really. Today he took me out for lunch to pick my brain a little and get some advice. He had a great point which I totally agree with. Here it is:
So I keep saying that to succeed you have to welcome failure and keep trying continuously. But that really works if you actually have an idea of what your passions are. The problem, the big problem most of the world have is that most people don't have a clue of what is that passion for them.
I have had that problem myself, well, my problem is that I always had too many passions and wanted to do everything which is fun but also dilutes your chances to be very good at something specifically.
So the question is, how can people find their passion? What steps should they take to discover what they want to do in life? That is the first and most crucial step, I think millions of people waste their great talents because they just don't know what to do.
"I keep saying that to succeed you have to welcome failure and keep trying continuously. But that really works if you actually have an idea of what your passions are. The problem, the big problem most of the world has is that most people don't have a clue of what is that passion for them."
But here's what I think is the big problem—people expect their passion to hit them in the head someday, then they'll "get it", and then they're driven and motivated and ready to go.
I don't think so. I don't think you can sit and think about what you might want to do, and then wake up inspired one day.
This is what I see with people who are uninspired—they think they're going to fix that problem by doing a careful search of what might inspire them. Then, once they find it, they'll take lots of action.
Nope. That's backwards.
At one point, I thought I wanted to be a painter as a hobby. I was in Dubai in 2007, and MTV launched MTV Arabia. There was a launch party that had all kinds of music and crafts and stuff, and they had easels and oil paints.
So I splashed some paint around on a canvas, kind of trying to get something like perspective going on. Having no skill at all in painting, I kept it kind of abstract, and painted two lines going from the bottom left upwards to the right towards a horizon, a hill in the foreground, and kind of a blue/black night sky with some stars above.
One woman there running the painting area said, "Hey, that's really good!" I said, "Nah, come on, I just splashed some paint around." She insists it's good, and asks how long I've been painting. "Well, this is the first one I ever made."
She literally didn't believe me. Well, in fairness, I spent a lot of hours at museums studying the hell out of paintings, and imaging how I'd try to do it, so I had probably a little idea of some of what I should try to do with painting.
That was a cool experience, and painting was something I was thinking about doing when I had more free time.
Flash forwards a couple years, I decide to try a really good crack at painting … and … well, it wasn't for me.
What?
Well, I learned that to be a decent painter, you need to know how to draw, and I just don't like drawing very much.
Ah, don't get me wrong, I like and respect people who can draw a lot. I just don't really get any pleasure or inspiration out of working with pencils, and the fine level of detail of it.
But both of these outcomes only emerged from action—I had this vague thought that maybe I wanted to be a painter, but I was never really excited about it until I did it, and then I saw a couple sparks of inspiration and passion starting to grow. But when I investigated what the training would be like and started learning how to draw, it didn't really resonate with me. There's lots of things I enjoy and think are worth pursuing, but the time I'd have to put in to learn how to draw and paint, I didn't think would be worth putting in.
And I think that's how you discover passions. Take a crack at it once and see if you like it at all. Then start studying and improving your craft, and see if you like that too.
Writing did resonate with me with me when I started, but more importantly, I also enjoyed the process of improving my craft and skill at writing.
In business and life-in-general, I love taking a really complex problem, defining it, figuring out what the real objectives are, brainstorming through a number of paths that could get there, spec'ing out a campaign, implementing the campaign, and reviewing the results. I like taking the hazy and undefined, and turning it into the experimental, and turning the experimental into the concrete.
Well, that's pretty much the definition of a strategist … .
But what little kid says, "When I grow up, I want to take hazy problems, define the problem and desired outcomes, experiment to see if a proposed solution gets the desired outcome, and implement it"—well, nobody thinks like that. I only discovered it by applying myself, working on different stuff. I love when I read a book on something like knightly orders in the 1100′s, and it gives me an idea for something a business can do in 2011 to grow.
But who would've guessed they'd be passionate about that sort of thing without diving in? Nobody.
So that's the first thing, I think, about passion—it doesn't come from sitting and thinking about it, it comes from diving in and getting dirty.
But what if you have too many interests? Miguel writes, "I have had that problem myself, well, my problem is that I always had too many passions and wanted to do everything which is fun but also dilutes your chances to be very good at something specifically."
As I previously noted, do you know what I think the difference is between a generalist and a dabbler?
Shipping.
Completing and delivering things.
I could've read all the techniques and watched all the videos about painting in the world, and I wouldn't know if it suited me. Instead, I made a painting and enjoyed it. Then I investigated what it would take to learn more, started trying to do some drawing, and didn't enjoy making drawings.
But in both cases, I was actually creating stuff. Not thinking about creating, not preparing to create, but actually creating.
I started a newsletter, "Get Some Victory" maybe three months ago. What was it going to be about? Well, I wasn't entirely sure. I just thought it'd be nice to create a more personal way to work through some stuff with people once a week, and have them able to hit "reply" right away and give me thoughts and feedback from it if they want to.
But honestly, I wasn't sure if I'd actually enjoy it, or be able to do anything interesting with it. In that case, I would've sent out a final newsletter and said hey guys, we gave it a try, but nothing good is coming out of it, I'll see you on the blog and thanks for tuning in for a while.
And that would've been the end of it. But instead, the newsletter has been growing steadily. The first weeks the formatting ranged from bare bones to ugly to broken, but I just a few compliments two weeks ago on the template I customized—it's funny, my second-to-last design got a couple people telling me it hurt their eyes (it was white text on a black background, I thought it looked good but that shows my lack of design talent I suppose), but then the latest design is looking really, really sharp.
How'd I know I'd enjoy writing a newsletter?
I didn't. I just started. I created an account on MailChimp, played around with it enough to get comfortable, announced the newsletter, and then I had my feet to the fire. There was only 40-some subscribers the first edition that went out, but it's grown steadily since then up to 219 now. Also, only two unsubscribes total across the whole time—I think that's pretty phenomenal, less than 1% of the people who signed up canceled … so that's going well.
In this case, I built something out and promised to deliver it (a newsletter every Sunday). That's how I set out to discover whether newsletter-writing suited me or not.
A friend of mine wanted to work in the music business, so he got into a music video production company and started working there. Turns out, he didn't like making music videos at all. He likes listening to music, but the days of working on set at a music video he didn't enjoy at all. Nowadays he primarily does negotiation, commercial real estate, and runs a high-end valet parking company.
His passion was for music, so he thought he'd go into the music business.
Now, here's where he does right that other people don't—he actually went into the music business and created some music videos. He didn't like it. But he knows because he took action and shipped some stuff. I think if you've got 10 interests, 20 interests … if you try to actually create a significant work in each one of those fields, and also try to put in some training in those fields—well, you'll probably find you don't actually like the majority of those interests, and you'll be left with three to five you do really enjoy.
Final thought—I think people sometimes people look too much at the "what" and not enough at the "how" when looking for passion.
There's something to be said for enjoying the process you're doing. I like taking anything poorly defined, and turning it into something concrete. Whether that's sourcing or procurement or logistics or management or people or art or going through military history or law or governance … all of it's interesting to me. While I'm not really passionate about the stock market at all, I do find the various strategies people use when investing fascinating. The most interesting to me is how the best investors try to make the decisions unemotional and formulaic.
I don't have any passion for the stock market, but I do really enjoy striving to make decisions based on evidence and probabilities and not emotion. The "what" there isn't interesting to me—stock market—but the "how" is really fascinating to me and something I'm really passionate about, so I could talk stocks and investing for hours with someone if they're doing it an interesting way.
The "how" passions are probably even harder to guess from just reading a book to know that you enjoy it—you do need to jump in, try some stuff, ship some stuff, and see what happens. But I reckon that's the formula for all passion-discovering—take some action, deliver some concrete things, and then evaluate how well it suited you. Passion rarely strikes when you're sitting sitting and contemplating. Jump in, build, create, experiment, ship … then evaluate to see how it suited you.
Your Interests Flit Around? Ship Stuff
The key thing that ties everything all together is to produce and ship things while you have a current interest.
I have a friend who made rap music about five years ago. Now he's a buttoned-down business guy. He doesn't even really listen to rap any more, so that phase of his life is dead. But it's sad—some of his tracks were pretty cool. He made like five or six of them with his own beats, but he never shipped them ... now it's something he'll never do, y'know? It'd be much cooler if he'd put out an EP. If nothing happened, no problem, it'd still be something he did. Or maybe it would've blown up a little bit and had some success? Either way it'd have been cool.
So yeah, even on fleeting interests, try to ship something or produce somehow. That's what I'm thinking these days.
More and more, I'm thinking produce and ship stuff. Even tiny tiny things. If you get into a new kind of music, write up your thoughts and first impressions on it—either on a blog, or even just Amazon reviews. The mindset shift from being a consumer to being a producer is huge, even if what you produce doesn't see all that much use at first.
Your interests flit around to different stuff? Yeah, me too. But more and more, I'm looking to build/produce/ship things when I have a passing interest. Obviously you can't do that for everything, sometimes you can just be a consumer and be happy with that. But if you have a sincere interest, then why not try to write an analysis or critique or user guide or quick-start manual or observations or … something? Producing, shipping … it's cool. I think it's basically the way for people whose interests jump around to achieve lots of good stuff in the world.