ASA 74 | Overrated Passion

 

Passion is often what sets people up on the path that they take both in life and business. In this episode, Alex Mandossian explains why passion is overrated and why it’s important to be committed and not just passionate. He discusses the three things you will need to maintain a high level of commitment and passion throughout your journey. Learn and understand how your habits affect your commitment and, in turn, your success in whatever it is you’re pursuing.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Is Passion Over-Rated?

In this episode, you’ll learn three key insights which I believe are critical to making you a highly skilled ethical influencer. When you have ethical influence, you have it all. It is a learnable skill. In this episode, you’ll discover, number one, why passion doesn’t produce commitment. It’s a commitment that produces passion. Number two, what you do has a greater impact on your destiny than how you feel about it.

Number three, how your motion each day, that’s commitment, ultimately causes emotion which is passion and not the other way around. What are those three things that have to do with selling? I believe they have everything to do with selling, especially the inner game. Once you get your inner game dialed in, the outer game that shows up will be a lot easier and it’ll come to you as natural as breathing.

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Gabriel Alex Mandossian

This is the story of Gabriel Alex Mandossian. He is my beloved son. He was born in the year 2000 on October 25th. I can honestly say he’s been a best friend of mine as he’s grown up throughout the years. I have another best friend. It’s a two-way tie for first place and that’s my daughter, Breanna Marie Mandossian and she’s two years younger. She was born on November 6th, 2002.

Why do I bring both my kids up? I have to mention Breanna when I talk about Gabriel, but this story is about Gabe. Gabe is a passionate boy and he will become a passionate man. He has won three Leadership Awards at his four-year high school called Redwood High School here in Marin County. He is what’s called an oarsman. He’s a rower and he belongs to Marin Rowing Club, which is a prestigious club, especially on the West Coast.

We’re fortunate here when it comes to rowing because our weather is good and that means they can row all year round, which means the kids here are recruited by Ivy League schools on the East Coast because the Eastern schools don’t get to row all year round. Even some of the Midwest schools cannot row because the water is frozen over. Instead, they get into the gym and they lift weights or they do what’s called the erg machine, which I’m sure you’ve seen.

[bctt tweet=”Passion does not produce commitment. Commitment produces passion.” username=”AlexMandossian”]

It’s a rowing machine and there are a chain and the handle and it’s about 6 to 7 minutes of pain depending on how fast you go. The East Coast kids are usually good erg people because they’re erging three months out of the year exclusively because they can’t get on the water.

The West Coast kids, like my son who’s extremely fast on the water, they’re on the water so much their technique is often superior so it doesn’t matter how good you’re on the erg. What matters is how fast you’re on the water. Gabe is fast on the water. He’s gone to the National Championships all four years and it’s not even a high school rowing team. It’s a general rowing team, which means the kids are in high school, but they come from multiple different high schools throughout the Northern California area.

We’re fortunate that he rows right past my apartment, I’m on the water on the San Francisco Bay and I never embarrass him by calling his name out, but the rowing what’s called the boathouse where all the boats are. It’s close and we’ve been fortunate, whereas many people have to drive through traffic or are going 45 minutes one way, 45 minutes the other way. It’s tough for homework. That’s the setting. There’s the context.

ASA 74 | Overrated Passion

Overrated Passion: When you’re making a lifelong and long-term relationship, if you want that to work, the original passion is going to fade.

 

Commitment And Passion

What’s the story? Gabe was passionate about going to an Ivy League school on the East Coast, which is prestigious. He had the speed as an oarsman to get there and he needed the grades, which can’t be good. They got to be great in order to get there. In his sophomore year, he knew that he had 2.5 years to get his grades together and to improve them when it counted so he could be considered, get a scholarship and get into the school.

That was the mission so he shared this with me during his sophomore year. I told him, “I know you’re passionate and I know that you’re emotional about this,” because many of his friends who were seniors were all going to Ivy League schools. They’re super smart kids and good oarsmen so he wanted to follow suit.

I said, “Your passion is not going to produce the commitment. The commitment is going to be your study habits, which is what I teach. Your dad teaches this. I’m a teacher, a trainer. I do it onstage and virtually.” Such as this episode of All Selling Aside. You have that resource, but I can’t create the habit inside you. I can’t create the discipline that turns into the habit. Passion does not produce commitment. I told him, “Commitment produces passion.”

To both my kids, if I say, “This passion produce commitment,” they go, “No.” I go, “What is it?” They say, “Commitment produces passion,” and they know what that means. You see what you do. Your physical action has a greater impact on your destiny than how you feel about it, which is about passion. Doing is a commitment. The feeling is passion. Passion is the inner game and doing or commitment is the outer game.

People don’t realize when they don’t get sales for their business, they’re passionate. They want to do it. They think they’re committed, but they’re not. Not if they’re not making a list of people to talk to. If they’re not reaching out to candidates, not if they’re not following up, they’re not committed.

Gabriel would come home and he would stay with me half the week. He would stay at his mother’s, Amy, half the week with his sister. His sister and Gabriel would come over, they both drove which was nice because I had some more free time to prepare dinner. They would eat dinner first. I would make sure that I’d have dinner ready for them as they came in. Gabe’s job was to get cleaned up, shower and start his homework.

There was only one problem and I know what this is like because I was an athlete in high school. His sister wasn’t participating in a sport so she would come home earlier. She didn’t go through three hours of training per evening. On the weekend, they went in the mornings, though his only day off was Sunday. This kid is dedicated. He’s committed to rowing but was he committed to the school? He was passionate. He had a goal, Ivy League school, but was he committed?

Here’s what he did. He would eat dinner, waste about 15 to 30 minutes, which is a long time when I want him to get to bed early because he needs that sleep. He would take a shower for 30 minutes, some more creative avoidance. That’s called procrastination. I know what that’s like. A warm shower on a cold day, that’s fun. I would open the door to his room in my apartment and I’d find him asleep, snoring sideways on the bed with the towel around his waist because he was exhausted.

I gently wake him up. I go, “Gabe?” He goes, “Hmm.” I felt horrible waking him up, but he had to study. I’d wake him up and he would try to study. He would dim the lights. I turn the lights up because dim lights aren’t good for studying as you can imagine. I’m trying to hold back. I’m doing my best to hold back because this is what I do for a living and my son is not following suit. I know it’s going to be devastating if that ongoing commitment doesn’t show up in his life.

He’s not going to make an Ivy League school. This would happen the next day and the next day. He’d stay at his mom’s and he’d come back the next week. It keeps happening. I’d wake him up. I’d be in his room so we would study together and I turn on the lights. I didn’t make him coffee because I didn’t want him to stay up all night. He would have this habit of setting the alarm early in the morning and keep hitting the snooze button. I’d hear it go off. He would go off at 4:00 AM so he could do homework.

He already had the athletic, now he had to get this scholastic. He wasn’t doing the scholastic. Good student, not a great one and you need to be great to complete this mission because he chose to accept it. Ivy League school, senior year. He would snooze and would torture himself. I tell him, “Gabe, set your alarm at 5:00 AM. Hit snooze once and let’s study together. I’ll get up with you.” I work out in the morning.

I was willing to sacrifice that to be with him so he knows it’s fun to study together. He didn’t have it so he didn’t have a good year in sophomore year. It was a decent year, but it wasn’t a great year that is needed for Ivy League. We start the junior year, it’s the same exact thing. Habits die hard. He started strong and he started to peter off once again.

When you’re making a lifelong and long-term relationship, if you want that to work, the original passion is going to fade. That spark that got it there, let’s say a relationship, it fades but it’s the commitment to the lifelong relationship or friendship that amplifies the passion. In other words, the motion of doing commitment ultimately causes emotion or passion.

[bctt tweet=”Emotion doesn’t cause motion. Motion causes emotion.” username=”AlexMandossian”]

If you’re scared to call someone because you’re prospecting and they’re an ideal candidate, you’re afraid to follow-up, to ask a potential joint venture partner if they’d support in whatever it is that you do, the emotion of making the call and dialing and at least getting voicemail is more powerful than the emotion and passion of wanting to do it. In fact, you will want to do it more after you’ve done it a few times because you get into the habit. Emotion doesn’t cause motion. Motion causes emotion.

Tony Robbins has said that and to me, motion is the commitment. What you do has a greater impact on your destiny than how you feel about it, you will have regret at the end of your life of what you didn’t do if you decide not to commit. I believe what you do determines how you feel and certainly, that was the truth for Gabe.

Fast forward to senior year, going and taking a shower at my place for 30 minutes after eating dinner, falling asleep with the towel wrapped around his waist and waking up at 9:30 PM being too tired to study properly to ace the exams. To be there and have this relaxed intensity of knowing you know the answer.

Gabe didn’t get into an Ivy League school and was he disappointed? Yes, he was. Did I tell him I told you so? No, I didn’t. I recounted and had him recollect the times when he was not committed. His determination was there, but that’s about passion but that determination must be fed with commitment or it will fade. Commitment is this settled, secure and measurable way by what we do instead of what we feel.

Take America’s high divorce rate. It testifies to this error that passion is everything. It’s not. It’s the commitment when the passion fades. Consider bacon and eggs breakfast. I don’t know if you’re a vegetarian or not but with bacon and eggs, the chicken is involved because there’s an egg being used. The pig is committed because the pig was alive. Involvement is passion. Commitment is the doing part.

It’s like writing is the doing part of thinking. If you’re a writer, you’ve got to sit down and write at least 250 words if you’re going to write a book. If you do that every day for about 30 to 45 minutes a day, in six months, you’ll have a 40,000-word book. That’s exactly what I’m doing. There are these little micro-commitments that you can make that make a big difference. It did make a huge difference in Gabe’s life. Gabe is going to junior college.

It happens to be a junior college that has the best rowing team in the country. I’m proud of him because he was disappointed but that junior college is going to feed into other prestigious colleges and I’m hoping that he will stay committed and I’m going to get on him. He and his mother, Amy, my former wife are in agreement of commitment being the thing, especially when it comes to studying. You get the point. Passion doesn’t produce commitment, commitment produces passion.

ASA 74 | Overrated Passion

Overrated Passion: What you do has a greater impact on your destiny than how you feel about it.

 

Recidivism

What you do has a greater impact on your destiny than how you feel about your future and your motion that you take each day. These little micro-commitments ultimately cause the emotion and ignites that passion. It’s the other way than when we typically think about it. I want to talk about a term that’s called recidivism. It’s about having a high passion and low commitment, where you recidivate, that’s a verb, but you backslide.

Generally, if someone is a drug addict and they have a high passion for stopping drugging and drinking, but their commitment is low, they do it but they’re going to go back. They’re going to go into those bad habits that they were going through before. It’s the same if someone goes to jail and they’re finally out on parole. Their passion is high not to go back to jail, but high passion and low commitment mean you’re going back to jail.

That’s why over 70% of the people do go back to jail because they don’t have three things that lock in their commitment. This is valuable in any business because you can apply it as I do in my own training and courses. You need three things in order to maintain a high commitment and high passion. Number one, you need a new language that you speak. Probably in whatever area of expertise that you’re in, there’s a language.

That language is spoken by other people in your industry and many people aren’t familiar with the language. Create a glossary of terms. Every course I have always had a glossary of terms. The candidates that come through for me, they’re called students and members. Once they learn that language, the second part that prevents recidivism or backsliding is to create a new community.

Whether it’s on a Facebook group or it’s a weekly meeting like they have at Business Network International that my good friend founded, Ivan Misner, speaking a new language is a way to have high commitment and high passion for what you’re learning and what you’re transcending to this transformation. You still need a third thing, and that’s new leadership.

You need a new mentor, a new leader. You need someone who’s already taken the path before you. A mentor it’s called in Greek. It’s called guru for the Indians. Shifu for the Chinese. Sensei for the Japanese. Maestro for the Italians. Lama for people who come from Tibet. You can call it a coach in the US. They call it a tutor in France, a guide in England. No matter what you call it, it’s about being a leader.

[bctt tweet=”Determination is about passion, but that determination must be fed with commitment or it will fade.” username=”AlexMandossian”]

A new language, community, and leadership are how to get high commitment and high passion so you don’t backslide and fall prey to recidivism, which means people lose interest. Whether that’s a client or a student, a friend, a partner, you need those three things. Partners have new languages. They belong to new communities. It could be a church or a synagogue or a mosque. They have new leadership. They can go to couples’ therapy or they have a mentor that they follow.

Alexism: Passion Is Overrated

New language, community, and leadership are so important and I want to make sure that although I’ve spoken about it before, I want you to avoid recidivism at all cost. Recidivism is not about low passion. It’s about high passion. You want to do this thing, but your commitment is low so you go back and you backslide. Is passion overrated? You know the answer. The answer is yes. It is overrated in my opinion.

The Alexism is this, “The most important attitude of a wildly successful entrepreneur is their ability to commit with relaxed intensity.” There’s an oxymoron there. You don’t have to be crazy all the time and run your willpower crazy and go into adrenal fatigue like I’ve had several times in my life. You can go in with relaxed intensity, which is what I wanted to teach Gabe. He’s learning it but the experience is not the best teacher.

It’s the only teacher and he didn’t experience it enough. I’m hoping in college that he will. I’m going to stay with him. If you can send some energy to Gabe’s way, he’s on his way to college, and I know he’s going to roll well.

I want him to get great grades. He brings up more possibilities for a college after the JC that he is going to go to which is Orange Coast College in the Orange County area in Southern California. I went to the University of California, Irvine which literally is five miles away and it’s a great part of the world. He’s going to paradise, but I want to make sure they’ve committed to studies and to his athletics.

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Here’s a quick review of the insights that you and I both rediscovered in the 74th episode of All Selling They’re not going to work unless you’re committed to them. You know what they are. Number one, passion doesn’t produce commitment, commitment produces passion. The tip of the hat goes to Roy H. Williams and to Pennie Williams who taught me that many years ago at Wizard Academy. They’re both mentors of mine.

Number two, what you do has a greater impact on your destiny than how you feel commitment has a greater impact than passion. Number three, how your motion which is the commitment ultimately causes emotion which is passion, not the other way around.

Remember, these insights only work if you work them. Please make sure you execute or apply what you’ve learned because this All Selling Aside episode is dedicated to a future for you that’s bigger, that looks brighter, and that you can create it on your own terms, which is the most important of the three.

ASA 74 | Overrated Passion

Overrated Passion: The most important attitude of a wildly successful entrepreneur is their ability to commit with relaxed intensity.

 

Speaking of reviews, if you have already given me a review on iTunes or on Stitcher, take an index card and write your biggest takeaway or a-ha moment from this episode. Put it somewhere so you can go back and it’s a little anchor to hook your mind and remember what you learned. If you have not given me a review on iTunes, go to AllSellingAside.com/iTunes and write your biggest a-ha moment or takeaway from this episode in the review section.

Don’t review my podcast as a whole. It’s like water off a duck’s back. It’s not exciting. Give me you’re a-ha moment for this episode in the review section. It will mean much to me and once you do that, iTunes will ask if you will rate it. I hope I’ve earned five stars from you. I can’t force it, but I hope I’ve earned that rating. Will you review it and rate it? The next step is subscribing.

Subscribing is easy with one click and you’ll get an episode after episode that’s many years of sales and marketing know-how from a recovering serial entrepreneur, that’s me, in 25-minute chunks every single week. I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Your review will take three minutes out of your day, but what you declare could provide you and others reading it, a valuable lesson.

I have one final gift for you in honor of this 74th episode of All Selling Aside and that’s a physical copy of my Amazon bestselling book, Alexisms. I mentioned it at the beginning of the podcast. You’ll get the book for free. You pay a small amount for shipping and handling. You’re also going to get the video tutorial of the most reliable marketing funnel I learned from one of my past students, Mr. Russell Brunson who runs ClickFunnels which the whole system is on.

[bctt tweet=”Experience is not the best teacher. It’s the only teacher.” username=”AlexMandossian”]

That magic funnel has a video tutorial so you see how to up-level any physical offer you have online to triple, quadruple, I’ve even quintupled what you show on the page. If you show $8 using this funnel, you can get back $32. You have a self-liquidating program you spend more money on advertising and get more variable qualified leads, prospects or candidates as I call them. Go to MarketingOnline.com/book.

That does it for this episode. I hope our paths cross again on the next episode of All Selling Aside. This is the show dedicated to making you an ethical influence so you can finally bring more certainty into your professional and personal life. Please do whatever it takes to join me in the next episode because our topic is The Truth About Discipline. Is discipline overrated? Join me in the next episode and find out.

I encourage you to invite a friend, a colleague. Bring a study buddy. It’s so much easier and fun to study All Selling Aside with someone else. I can’t wait to connect with on the next. In fact, invite them before the next episode because The Truth About Discipline is one you’ll love to learn about

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