Matthew Hussey argues that intense initial passion is often a sign of a dabbler, not commitment. Real passion means suffering through the work over time, not just feeling excited at first. He warns women not to mistake a man's overwhelming attraction for genuine interest, since it usually fades fast.
Let me tell you why I think passion is hugely overrated. Now, I'm going to clarify this. I think initial passion is hugely overrated. I found this out in my professional life because of course I would be interviewing someone for a job and I would find that that person would come to me and most of the time, not some of the time, most of the time they would be incredibly passionate. And the most passionate ones would say, Matt, I've always wanted to work for something like this and be part of a cause like this and I'll give my life over to it and I'll work day and night. People would be so passionate. And in the beginning, I used to go, wow, this person really wants it. I'm gonna bring this person on board. The problem was it was almost an unearned level of passion. I hadn't necessarily earned that level of passion from that person. That person didn't even necessarily know what job they'd be doing yet. They didn't necessarily know what it would entail day to day. So when I saw that level of passion, what I would see is that same person a month later. suddenly come up to me and say, Matt, there's this other thing that I'm really passionate about and I really have to pursue this thing and I love working for you, but there's this thing I really want to go for. And I would quickly realize that that person got passionate about the next thing in an unearned way as well. Passion when it's unearned tends to be the number one quality of the dabbler. Now in that person, passion is the thing you see most of all. You see it everywhere. You see them get crazy excited about something and you go, Wow, they're really into this. And of course, five minutes later, what happens? They're onto the next shiny thing before they realize that it's not perfect and it does get hard and it can be annoying at times and it's not something that they're gonna enjoy every minute of the day. So I learned to be skeptical with initial passion. I learned that it's much easier to find someone who can start something than it is to find someone who can finish something. People who can finish things are a lot more rare. And let me tell you, it takes real passion to finish something. It takes a novelty to start something. The people who are really passionate about something have a relationship with that thing. If they're really passionate about a career path, they have a relationship with that career. If they're passionate about a sport or an instrument, they have a relationship with that sport or instrument. If they're really passionate about a person, they have a relationship with that person. That's very different from showing interest in something. A relationship is ups and downs. It's every minute of the day. It's something that you don't just love and benefit from. from is something that you suffer for. I want you to look up the word passion. Passion comes from the verb in Latin, party. Now that means to suffer or to endure. That to me is what passion really is. It's suffering for something. It's enduring something, not for the sake of it, not because someone else tells you to, but because deep inside you have a relationship with that thing and you have to endure for it. You have to suffer for it because you know the fulfillment you get from that thing, the benefit that you get from that thing term is worth it. By the way, in Get the Guy, the number one way the women I'd coach get hurt is because they overvalue initial passion instead of valuing investment in something. Ladies, look, you know what it's like. When a guy comes up to you out of nowhere and he thinks you're the most incredible thing on earth and you're so beautiful and elegant and he must spend time with you. When you feel that, you know that it's too much passion, it's unearned passion. How is he so excited about you already? What more could it be than he saw you and thought that you were cute or you were beautiful? When a guy comes up to you like that, you're skeptical. That's why you wonder what's his agenda. Or worse, you have the insecurity that if he got so excited about me in five minutes and I start a relationship with this man, what if two months from now he feels the exact same thing for another woman in five minutes? Don't overvalue initial passion value enduring investment. By the way, real passion is one of the reasons that we're still here doing these videos, putting out this content is because it's something we both benefit from but also endure. It's real passion. It's something that we invest in every single week. And that's also why we get a level of trust from our audience is because they know we're here every week. It's not something that we do as a fad, it's something that we keep coming back to. So my friends, I want you to value investment Stay skeptical of initial passion and start looking out for those rare moments in life where you find people that really give over the long term and for yourself when you find something you want to do, invest in it over the long term. Take care, my friends. I'll see you soon. I'm going to be in my retreat and try and get a video in while we're there. Um, and we'll try and show you what it looks like where we run our retreats. If you want to find out more about those, by the way, we'll put a link under the video and you can go and check it out for yourself. so take care, my friends. I will see you soon.
