Is Obsession a Superpower or a Death Knell?

Wake-Up Call #20

I keep tripping over these bro-ey posts about the power of obsession.

You must be obsessed, we’re told, if you want to be extremely successful, if you aspire to become the best or anywhere close at nearly anything.

Want to be a legendary writer? Obsess!

World-class singer? Obsess!

Iconic teacher? Obsess!

Jaw-dropping performer? Obsess!

Stunningly-good painter? Obsess!

Category-leading founder or leader? Obsess!

Obsession seems to be the hammer to every mastery-seeking nail.

It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Whiplash. A young jazz drummer, Andrew, is driven to the point of near collapse by his maniacal teacher and band leader, Fletcher. Along the way, Andrew adopts as his guiding philosophy all-consuming obsession, elimination of everything and everyone but the quest, and an acceptance of the need for profound suffering.

Challenged, over dinner, about his relentlessness of pursuit, he responds:

I'd rather die drunk, broke at 34 and have people at a dinner table talk about me than live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody remembered who I was.

So, where’s the truth?

That was the beauty of the movie. We’d love to say he’s wrong, there’s more to life than that. But, a little voice inside us wonders if he’s right, while hoping he’s not.

Are some wildly-obsessive people stunningly-successful, the best in the world even, at the narrowly focused object of their pursuit?

Sure.

But, what of the cost?

Even if you make it, and likely 1% of those who try will, the sacrifice is often the total erasure or annihilation of every other area of your life. Even those you claim to hold dear.

To what end?

• Every other interest, passion, curiosity, and genuine source of glee? Done.

• Sustaining depth, love, and connection with a partner? Buh-hye.

• Some modicum of mental and physical health? See ya.

• Kindness, perspective and spaciousness? Nope.

• Knowing your children (cat or dog)? Gone.

• Genuinely flourishing? Over.

And, what about that other 99%? The equally-obsessed, life jettisoning strivers who don’t ever make it? Never touching, tasting, or holding the golden ring. Yet still equally burned-out, destroyed, estranged, isolated, physically and mentally ill, rejected or even reviled, or, frankly, dead. If not literally, than figuratively.

Obsession is a tricky bedfellow. It can both create and destroy.

So obsession is bad then, right?

Kinda.

This brings us back to the Whiplash problem…

Without that level of all-consuming passion/obsession, would the greatest works of art, writing, or music, the biggest breakthroughs in science, medicine, and tech, the most transformational performances and moments exist?

What would our world look like without the exponential impact of a small number of obsessive humans who were willing to give it all to do the impossible?

Isn’t that what it really takes, even if we don’t want it to be true?

Let’s talk about the science.

We can look at obsession as one expression of passion.

A dear friend and colleague, Dan Lerner, has taught the science of happiness at NYU for over a decade. He is deep into the science of flourishing and passion. And, by necessary association, obsession.

He often references the groundbreaking research of Robert J. Vallerand, Professor of Psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Passion, according to Vallerand, comes in two flavors:

• Harmonious, and

• Obsessive

Harmonious passion is the drive to pursue something in a way that is intense, but also integrates who you are and, more broadly, all the different aspects, complementary passions, curiosities, relationships and activities that make life good. You work hard at it, but you also have and celebrate and give time to life outside of it.

Obsessive passion is more single-minded. You pursue one thing with intensity and, most often, to the exclusion of almost everything and everyone else in life. The obsession often becomes so consuming you have a high risk of losing self-control, disconnecting from all but the pursuit, and finding it difficult, if not impossible, to stop. Even when it’s clear it’s destroying you.

Okay, now back to the Whiplash question, in a more refined way.

Do you need to be obsessively passionate to do and make astonishing things in the world?

Lure says yes, science not so much.

I posed the question to Dan in a recent Good Life Project podcast on passion featuring him and Liz Gilbert. You may want to listen.

He referenced something called deliberate practice. It’s a term Malcolm Gladwell popularized in the book Outliers as the 10,000 hour rule (which we now know to have been pretty misconstrued).

It was originally coined by the researcher Anders Ericsson to describe the somewhat brutal, incremental, dogged kind of practice that leads, over thousands of hours, to greatness or excellence in nearly any domain. The kind of practice that is not fun…and generally unfolds on average 4-5 hours a day, over years, if not decades.

So here’s my question…

If deliberate practice is a necessary ingredient of world-changing excellence and contribution, who do you think would be more likely to engage in it long enough make stunningly big things happen? Someone driven by harmonious or obsessive passion?

Most people would say, “of course, that’s gotta be the person who is driven by obsessive passion, right? The Andrews and Fletchers in Whiplash. I mean, 4-5 hours a day of somewhat awful practice for years on end, that’s gotta take obsession.”

In fact, that’s how I answered the question when Dan posed it to me.

I was wrong.

Not only are those driven by obsessive passion less likely to engage in the deliberate practice that leads to greatness, they’re also way more likely to burn out long before they reach the point of “wowowowowowowow!!!”

As Dan shares:

It turns out there is no correlation with obsessive passion and deliberate practice. A very, very, very low. There’s a much higher correlation between harmonious passion and deliberate practice for a number of different reasons.

Excessively passionate people, they don’t necessarily want the feedback. So a lot of fixed mindset that I don’t need the feedback….

[Also,] think about the support system. We need to be able to push that hard. It is really hard to do those things if you have no one to turn to…both in good times and bad times. So obsessively passionate people tend not to have same kind of bonds, friendships, relationships. Why? Because they haven’t made time for them. They don’t value them. So if you do lose that competition, or you do have a bad day at work, or you do whatever that obsessive thing you’re obsessive about goes wrong that day, you haven’t cultivated the relationships to turn to someone. And whether it’s as simple as going, I had a rough day or going, I’m really concerned about my day. Where are they? It’s hard to do that.

It comes down to this.

People driven by passion in a harmonious and not obsessive way are more likely to make space for people, play, wellbeing, and life that gives them the fuel, perspective and renewal needed to sustain those 4-5 hours a day of the deliberate practice needed to make them the world-class at what they do. Those driven by obsessive passion are way more likely to flame out long before they reach the end.

So, where does that leave us?

Is hard work necessary and good to become amazing at nearly anything?

Probably so.

Is doing it in an obsessive way, to the exclusion of all else, the only, let alone the best or most likely path to success?

Doubtful. Plus, with the obsessive approach, you may just destroy not only your dreams, but your life along the way.

Be curious.

Be interested.

Follow those threads into passions.

Work hard.

But do it in harmony with the full spectrum of interests, relationships, experiences, and adventures that not only make life worth living, but also serve as the wind beneath your sails as you pursue amazing things.

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Wake-Up Call #20

What are some interests or curiosities that are starting to rise to the level of passions in your life?

Are any of them becoming solid enough for you to be building dreams or aspirations around?

If so, how might you pursue them in ways that support not only your ability to become awesome at then, but also awesome at the life you’re building around them?

Noodle on that, go for a walk, then journal a bit.

And, as always, if you’re inclined, share in the comments…