The Passion Paradox.
Real passion often does not feel like passion. In the hardest stretches it looks like quiet persistence.
From Understanding Entrepreneurial Passion
People expect passion to be loud. In the hardest stretches it is not. It does not feel like excitement or energy or inspiration. It feels like quiet persistence. It feels like getting up and doing the next right thing when the emotional tank is empty. It feels like showing up to a meeting you dread because the people in it are counting on you. I call this the Passion Paradox.
I learned it in 2000. In 1999, passion felt like energy. It was the thrill of a rising market and the sense that anything was possible. That feeling was real, but it was not passion. It was weather. When the weather changed, the feeling vanished overnight. What remained was quieter: the conviction that technology could give people access to information and opportunity they never had before. That conviction did not care what the NASDAQ did.
The excitement that gets you started is not the force that keeps you going.
Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.
Why the quiet stretch fools people
If you believe passion is a feeling, the quiet stretch will convince you that you have lost it. You wonder whether you chose wrong. You look at founders who seem to be having more fun and assume they have something you do not.
Research now supports a different view. In 2018, psychologists Paul O’Keefe, Carol Dweck and Gregory Walton published a study in Psychological Science on how people think about interest. People who believed that a passion is found, fully formed, lost interest faster when the material got hard. People who saw interest as something developed kept going. Angela Duckworth’s work on grit points the same way: passion for the long haul looks more like consistency than intensity.
The founders I watched survive 2000 were not the most excited ones. They were still working on the problem when nobody was watching and nobody was applauding. Excitement was the starter motor. Purpose was the engine. The engine keeps running after the starter has gone quiet.
Notice the quiet days
- Change the questionIn a hard season, stop asking whether you feel excited. Ask whether you still care about the problem.
- Keep a one-line logFor two weeks, end each day with one line: did I keep going today for reasons other than how I felt?
- Name who is counting on youWrite down the people your work serves. Read the list on the mornings you would rather not show up.
- Expect the dropTell your team that enthusiasm fades and commitment carries. Then nobody mistakes a quiet stretch for a lost calling.
Quick answers
What is the Passion Paradox?
Rob Frasca’s name, in The Creator’s Journey, for the fact that real passion often does not feel like passion. In the hardest stretches it shows up as quiet persistence, not excitement.
Does losing excitement mean you chose the wrong work?
Not necessarily. Rob Frasca argues that excitement fades for everyone and that the better test is whether you still care about the problem. A 2018 study by O’Keefe, Dweck and Walton found that people who expect passion to be found lose interest faster when the work gets hard.
Sources
- Rob Frasca, The Creator’s Journey (forthcoming), Chapter I, The Creator’s Calling, and Chapter III, The Inner Arena.
- Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (Scribner, 2016). Wording checked against the Goodreads quotation page for the book. Source
- Paul A. O’Keefe, Carol S. Dweck and Gregory M. Walton, “Implicit Theories of Interest: Finding Your Passion or Developing It?” Psychological Science, 2018. Source