Dave Evans: Three Dysfunctional Beliefs

The problem is what we call dysfunctional beliefs. Ideas that are untrue or ungenerative and not helping. They're getting in the way. Examples. Okay, we're at Stanford. We're talking about students. There's a big student. Dysfunctional belief. You're sitting on the quad, you're having a conversation about what? Of course. What you're studying. So what's your major? Well, I'm majoring in creative writing. The next question is, what are you going to do with that? Everybody knows that's the question. And if in fact you're majoring in creative writing, what are you going to do? Be unemployed. That's right. You know what you're going to be? No. That turns out to be a massively dysfunctional belief. It turns out within 10 years of graduation, 80% of people with a college baccalaureate are working outside their field of major. Study. The correlation between what you study and what you do is extremely low. How many of you over the age of 35 are still doing the thing you studied as an undergrad? Are you willing to say, I'm over 35? Okay, it's not zero. Here's the deal. So it just doesn't work. It's just stupid. Now, dysfunctional belief. Number two, our personal favorite. What's your passion? What's your passion? Are you an entrepreneur? You're passionately entrepreneurial, aren't you? You are, aren't you? You have found you know your passion, right? How many of you have been asked the question what's your passion? In the last week? Keep your hand up if you ask somebody else that question. Okay, cut it out. The research demonstrates that 8 out of 10 people answer the question either I don't know or which one did you want me to start with? Now, in either case, zero or many, what's your passion Is lousy guidance. It may be wonderful. We're kind of getting a rep as the anti passion guys. That's not fair. We're not anti passion. We're anti presuppositional. Singular passion as an organizing principle preceding all other behaviors. That is, you knew up front and it was going to work out fine. If you happen to know that passion clearly and you are competent to do it and the world is interested in it at the same time commercially. Great. You're called lucky. That's what we call that. But that's not a good place to start for most people. Passion is the outcome, not the input. It's the end of the game, not the beginning of the game. Number three, you should know by now, in fact, if you haven't got yourself most of the way down the yellow brick road toward the city of Oz, that you're pretty sure is where the cool stuff is happening, you. You're probably late, and you're supposed to be a smart Stanford person if you're one of our students. How many of you have ever felt late for what? There is no such thing. You're just here. I got a call by a guy named Tim who's a sales guy at Oracle many years ago, and he calls me and he goes, hi, Dave. Well, hello, Tim. How are you? He goes, well, I'm late. I go, oh, well, why'd you call? Call me later. No, no, no, I'm three years late. He was 33, and he said he was three years late. I said, I don't think so. He goes, no, I really am. Trust me, I'm really three years behind. And we argued for a year about whether or not he was behind or here, at the end of which he finally concluded he was here, thank God, because then he's four years late. But we're just. You know, that is not necessarily true. Everybody's figuring it out on their own merit, so. So it's time to think a little bit differently.