The School of Greatness - 372 Why Purpose Is Better Than Passion

Episode Date: August 26, 2016

“You want to compare yourself against the progress you’ve made.” - Ryan Holiday If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/372

This is 5- historically, passion has meant extreme emotions. Yes. And so I tend to gravitate towards that definition. But I think purpose is better than passion, right? Because passion is like, I like this. It feels good. I want to do this. Purpose is, here's what I'm trying to accomplish.

Here's why it's important. And I'm not going to stop until it's done. Like, who would you rather have work for you? The guy that just really loves writing or the person who's like trying to write for a reason, you know? And so that passion can be blinding and it can get you like it's not enough just to love something or else everyone would do what they love you also have to be good at it and you also have to know how how to make smart decisions and how to plan is it possible for us to always have a purpose what do you mean i mean a lot of people i think don't know what their purpose is sure they don't know how to discover it they don't even know what they're passionate about. So how do you find a purpose, period?

How do you even go about saying, oh, this is my purpose at this point in my life? Yeah, well, I think one of the reasons that people like to say find your passion is that it sounds really smart and you don't, like no one's like, okay, then what, right? Like it's just like, it's like do what you love, you know, it, okay, then what? Right? Like it's just like, it's like, do what you love.

You know, it's okay. Then how? You know, so when I'm saying purpose, I think it's about defining your goals, defining what the life you're trying to build is, and having a real model for what you're doing. model for what you're doing. And for me, I've tried to be very clear about what I'm trying to accomplish to myself so that I'm not getting distracted by all these. I like to do lots of things, but you got to pick one to really get good at it. And it's also, it's like, if you're doing this thing because it means something to you and you know exactly what success looks like for you, it's nice because then you're not as distracted by the fact that so-and-so is posting photos of them surrounded by $100 bills on Instagram or on a yacht and a visa or whatever.

You want to make sure that you're not comparing yourself to other people. You want to compare yourself against the progress you've made for whatever your purpose is after. Most people never do that. Of course not. That's the best way to compare yourself is to how far you've come or what you've created as opposed to what everyone else has created around you. Well, you probably learned that in sports, right, where it's like it's not about what other players are doing.

It's about whatever you're capable of. The progress from the previous game or the previous week or what we've done. Right. Getting closer to our goal or to our vision. Yeah, because, like, look, some people are freaks. You know what I mean? Like some people are just way better than you. And they're always going to be better than you and they're not going to have to work as hard as you.

So it's like if you're comparing yourself to them or just mimicking them, you're not – that's not the right approach. Thank you.