Discovering the Passion of the Explorer ft. Writer & Strategist John Hagel
By: Olivia R
Tags: Passion, Impact, Strategy, Explore, Silicon Valley

Key Points From This Episode

How to tune into the ‘passion of the explorer’

Passion is what continually drives motivation and helps people take risks that profoundly impact our world. In order to find your passion, you should be open to new experiences and constantly reflect on what experiences give you energy. If nothing you do excites you, keep exploring until you find something. This passion should lead to a long-term commitment to a domain — it’s not something that excites you for just a week. It is something that will motivate you to have an increasing impact in a particular field.

How to work better under pressure with passion and teamwork

John has researched various fields with extreme sustained performance pressure. Some examples include online gaming environments and extreme sports, where you can die (figuratively or literally) with just one mistake. He found that a common trait many of these people have is a true passion for their work, which helps them under pressure. This passion also comes from a non-selfish place. Big wave surfers, for example, all work together with their teams and other surfers to learn from each other. The goal for most is not to win over another, but to learn how they can all surf bigger waves.

Why we need to reframe the idea of challenges

Big problems are often presented from a fear-based perspective. This is seen especially in the news and amongst politicians today. Fear polarizes people and drives them apart, preventing work from being done to address the challenge. Shifting the presentation of a challenge from fear to opportunity can motivate otherwise scared or apathetic people to work together to address the issue. Rather than “look at all these children living in poverty cycles because they don’t have access to education,” we can say “imagine what would be possible if we can get these children quality education.”

What the ‘power of pull’ means

A push-based economy is based on an industry seeing a demand and pushing people and resources into it to meet a demand. A pull-based economy, which John believes we are shifting to, looks to draw the right people and resources to meet a need. There are 3 levels to this:

1. Access — where can you find the people/resources for this demand?

2. Attract — how can you draw people/resources that you didn’t know existed towards this problem? (Gives you the insight you may not have had before)

3. Pulling internal potential from within ourselves over time, helping us learn faster, and increase impact.

How to increase your chances for serendipitous encounters

Serendipity isn’t just luck. We can increase our chances for serendipitous encounters (see level 2 of the power of pull above). If you are an executive with full days of meetings with people you already know, you’re not leaving space to speak with people who may seek you out and give you the information you never would have had before. Leave a block of time during your day to go out and explore, speak with new people, and find new insights. During the pandemic, this is a bit harder. John’s advice? Write. Any idea you have. Post it online (see John’s blog here) and see what people have to say about it.